The OTHER ice plants....

Bergeranthus katbergensis

Bazeball may very well have bin bery bery good to Chico Escuela, but Delosperma bin berry berry good to me too. So much so that I fear Mr. Delosperma may be carved on to my tombstone. But there is more to hardy ice plants than merely that wonderful and seemingly bottomless genus of delight and confusion. We have had several dozen genera of Mesembryanthemaceae (or Aizoaceae or whatever they're being lumped into nowadays) make it through our very harsh steppe winters. One genus that gives me no end of delight is Bergeranthus--concentrated heavily in the Southeastern quadrant of South Africa, mostly in the East Cape, this genus seems to be enormously cold hardy considering that much of their range is warm temperate at best. We've had a half dozen or more survive--but the two toughest seem to be B. jamesii below and that stunning gem above. Did I mention that these bloom for months on end? and they are dead easy to propagate from cuttings or seed? Why are they virtually unknown in commerce? Beats me.

Bergeranthus jamesii

I actually found Bergeranthus jamesii growing on harsh pavements in the Tarkastad mountains where some very hospitable South Africans put Jim Archibald and myself up for two nights and showed us all around their property. The huge mounds of Haworthia marumiana growing near this had no seed--and plants could not be legally exported...we still need that one! We looked vainly for Delosperma dyeri that day in 1997 but had to wait another four years till that came into our ken...but the Bergeranthus was worth it! Did I mention that I was just sent a very husky specimen of a pure white flowered form of this plant? From Germany no less. Facebook has produced quite a few goodies for me: the naysayers are missin' out!



 s"Aloinanthus" hybrids

 My good buddy Bill Adams of Sunscapes Nursery pretty much invented x "Aloinanthus" group: although I believe Steve Brack at Mesa Gardens had grown a hybrid between A. spathulata and Nananthus sp. for years beforehand. Bill was the one who started hybridizing and producing some stunning intermediates you can find in his catalog. Do check it out...

 x "Aloinanthus" hybrid

Here is that initial Brack hybrid (above) which you can see is very close to the Aloinopsis spathulata parent (below)

Aloinopsis spathulata

The poor genus Aloinopsis has been tormented a bit--some of the rounder leaved, yellow flowered ones diverted into Deilanthe...there are a dozen or more taxa in this group, one more adorable than the next--they deserve their own Blog...heck, they deserve their own temple! But we must sample a few more delights...

Stomatium sp.
 

I am remiss not to mention that the first genus of ice plants I actually grew outside was not Delosperma, but Stomatium: a Danish born nurseryman named Alf Jensen, who supplied Denver Botanic Gardens with rock garden plants way back in the 1960's and 1970's propagated a Stomatium which he grew outside in Golden and sold it long before anyone in America had a clue what delospermas were...one of the stalwart volunteers way back then (whose name I forgot--a rather innocent middle aged lady who was not much of a gardener had planted it in her gardens, and assured me that it was hardy: I probably said something like "Listen, ice plants are not hardy outdoors--believe me")...there is a rich irony in this....sic transit gloria mundi...We have probably grown fifteen or more different stomatiums outdoors successfully in Denver. Some are humdingers.

Rabiea albipuncta

There are a bevy of Rabiea that look suspiciously similar to one another you can get from Mesa Gardens. They are all worth it: they probably have the largest flowers of any hardy ice plant. This one bloomed for me last March--although I saw one blooming on January 1, 2012 at Timberline Gardens (don't ask what I was doing sneaking around there on New Year's Day)...

Rhinephyllum ex Cyphe, Richmond

 This is my current nomination for gem of the year: I planted it two years ago this spring--it came through last winter in flying colors, and bloomed pretty much nonstop from April to autumn frost. It is a tiny morsel--perfect for a rock garden. Alas--it does not have a species name. Maybe it's new to science? Time will tell..

 

Ebracteola wilmaniae

 I have featured this once before on this blog, and tell the whole story: look it up if you care to--it's worth revisiting. My plant back then was much more modest--it has turned into quite the lush thing--and what flowers! It blooms for a long time. Bill Adams found a white sport which he is propagating and will probably sell soon: what wondrous times we live in!

Hereroa calycina

It only blooms at night. but the flowers are quite large--and it makes a wonderful large tuft of rubbery foliage that seems indestructible: This has become one of my very favorite ice plants. Many the moonlit evening I look out over my rock garden and see clumps of it here and there (I've spread it about) with those refulgent shaving brushes wide open to the midsummer moon--glowing glowing in subdued but reverent radiance to Luna....the goddess of lovers, madmen and gardeners. If you made it through that sentence you get a big shiny star!

Ice plants have indeed "bin beeeeerrrry berry good to Panayoti". Plant more and they'll be good to you too!

Petite in size, pleasure aplenty! (and..oh yes, a little Clematis clamoring...)

Oxlip (Primula elatior)

I'm not sure why...but I have never blogged about Plant Select--one of the most wonderful things I've had the privilege to participating in over the last quarter century (it's probably nearer 30 years old as a program actually--but who's counting?). If you are not familiar with that wonderful research/marketing/educational phenomenon, do click on my highlighted hyperlink and browse the website: it's well worth your time. They have launched a new initiative called Plant Select Petites that is near and dear to my heart: I have spent much of my life growing small plants in containers, rock gardens, xeriscapes and have always felt these needed to be promoted better...others in the program thought so too, so much to my amazement and delight a whole new facet to this program has been born. It is being launched with three of the greatest plants imaginable: if you do not grow oxlips, well now is the time: Plant Select has dozens of wholesale nurseries participating and I suspect there will be as many oxlips out there this spring as in some English meadows! The one above was photographed in my garden where it is duking it out with Nectaroscordon siculum (another great plant). There's something about that pale yellow that melts the heart (it is a tad like melted butter, come to think of it--something close to my chubby little heart). I rate this the toughest primrose in our harsh steppe climate.

Heuchera elegans--very similar to H. pulchella

 I have probably 50 pictures of Heuchera pulchella--all of them transparencies and I confess I don't scan. I take to Walgreens and have THEM scan. No time for that. There are several dozen adorable heucheras that festoon cliffs all over the American West (and East for that matter). I know Dan Heims has cranked out no end of gorgeous foliaged hybrids, but I am pure at heart and like my wildlings unadorned (most of the time anyway). By the way, that is Primula capitata below the Heuchera in the picture--NOT a good primrose for our steppe climate (it died minutes after I took the picture).  Heuchera elegans is Californian, but looks remarkably like the wonderful miniature championed by Plant Select that I first collected seed of nearly 30 years ago on Sandia crest. I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of the germplasm out there may trace to that collection...(not that I'm proud of it or anything). You'd think I'd have a friggin' picture of it if that were the case, though.

Scott's clematis (Clematis scottii)



I could write a gospel about Clematis scottii--one of America's greatest native plants. I've been horribly infected with the Clematis virus (a fatal condition I'm told--everyone who has it eventually dies). But you die very happy. There are a dozen or so Clematis in the Viorna section found across America--most of them excruciatingly rare, and all of them horribly wonderful and disgustingly desirable. Scott's clematis has been lumped with C. hirsutissima by myopic botanists, who probably have astigmatism and possibly cataracts. It is its own wonderful thing, and incredibly variable. Do check out the positively lascivious pictures of it on the Plant Select galleries--my nasty shot of a particularly dark and sleek specimen was taken at Laporte Avenue Nursery--the holy grail of great Western wildflowers and the best alpines imaginable. That nursery is responsible for not just this clematis, but a cluster of the best native clematis getting into cultivation--and a heck of a lot more. I have blogged about them before, and am likely to do so again--they are the premier specialty nursery in this quadrant of the Universe, and you have not lived if you have not placed a gigantic order from them. If you don't do so pronto, they'll be forced to quit business and run for Congress instead (and raise your taxes substantially). It's cheaper in the long run to order plants.



Clematis mandshurica (Plant Select wannabe)

That's it for petites...now for the petty part (were you aware that petty comes from petite?--your etymological lesson for the day). Since I know certain people whose names I dare not mention, but who have a great deal of influence with future choices in Plant Select (notice how crafty I'm being, changing font color to distract you)...actually read my blog pretty regularly I figure this would be a GREAT opportunity to promote yet ANOTHER Clematis...(by the way, notice that sign in the lower left corner of the picture above--isn't that stick figure falling under the "Caution" a kick?)....

Clematis mandshurica was introduced to our regional scene at least (maybe nationally) by Harlan Hamernik from one of his jaunts to inner Mongolia...he was the co-founder of Bluebird Nursery and also Wild Plums...This Clematis ROCKS! You ought to know about Clematis paniculata (a.k.a. Clematis ternifolia) which is widely grown in commerce, and which also blooms quite late in the year (late August onward) and spreads rambunctiously...well, mandshurica has been synonymized by some of those same eye-challenged botanists...and I confess it does look somewhat similar--only imagine that THIS clematis starts blooming in late spring and lasts all summer! Imagine, moreover, that it doesn't swallow up your garden: my ten year old plant only grows about 9 feet tall each year (dies to the ground in winter)...Now are those winning traits or what? Only problem is, of course, that no one grows the rascal (Bluebird dropped it: "no interest"). Can you think of a better candidate for a research/marketing/educational program to adopt? Well...as it happens, I can think of one other one:

Clematis fruticosa, the only truly shrubby Clematis, also introduced by Harlan

Oh yes...there was ONE other one too....

Clematis hexapetala, yet another Hamernik gem from Inner Mongolia

And come to think of it...there was just one more...

Clematis fremontii--another Bluebird introduction

Clematis fremontii--in glorious golden seed much of the summer...

I'm sure if you have made it to this last sentence, you too may be terribly infected by that Clematis virus...the only cure is to acquire another score or more of those most glorious of vines, and perhaps acquaint yourself with the Roger Brewster Clematis collection where they grow over SEVEN HUNDRED Clematis and realize that by contrast, your's-truly is not just petty--but finally PETITE!

Out phloxed...Ending the year on a sad note...




Phlox 'Mary Maslin'

Let's make next year better! I have known for some time I would have to eventually write this post, and I suppose the last day of the year is appropriate. 30 years ago the Mexican phlox that my friend Paul Maslin (and I) brought into cultivation were reaching their apogee. There were a dozen or more clones making the rounds...some propagated in prodigious numbers for a while. Everyone had them. And eventually just about everyone lost them. Above is 'Mary Maslin', which Paul named for his wonderful wife who passed away in her mid nineties a decade or more ago. Paul died in 1984--he would be sad indeed to know that most of his phloxes would one day be nearly extinct. Or possibly extinct.


Phlox lutea 30 years ago at Denver Botanic Gardens
 



The yellow one still persists in the wild, at least. And on the fringes of cultivation...Above you can see how well it once grew for us. I thought it would be a keeper!

Phlox 'Tangelo' 30 years ago at DBG

I know a few people who still have 'Tangelo'--maybe we can bring it back from the brink...

Phlox 'Vanilla' last year in my garden

'Vanilla' which ages a pale yellow is quite vigorous still--the one that has lasted the longest..

Phlox 'Arroyito' 25 years ago or so: grown by Homer Hill (R.I.P.)

Home Hill loved this miniature that showed up at his place. It bloomed all summer. I have a real sense of loss when I view these...I remember Homer once had flats and flats of this.

There is the man: my buddy. Paul Maslin. Look five or so feet in front of him and to the left--you can see some of the scarlet and orange phloxes that filled that patch of prairie five or ten miles west of Cuahtemoc: notice the outlines of the hills behind...and compare them to the shot below.

We believe this picture was taken from roughly the very same spot as the one before. It's worth looking back and forth between them a few times. That is the story of the modern era: the wholesale pavement of all that is charming and picturesque under asphalt and cement.The curlicue and fastigiate cypresses (or are they junipers?) are small compensation indeed.

We have relinquished too much as we've overpopulated our planet. We must re-engineer our economic system--a pyramid scheme at best. We must somehow come to grips before we destroy and lose and compromise the things on planet earth that really matter: the magnificent fields of wildflowers.

We only found the bright orange, scarlet and crimson phloxes in one spot--and that spot is paved wall to wall to perdition.

New Year Resolutions:

        1) Join Zero Population Growth
        2) Send a check to Planned Parenthood
        3) Re-join the Sierra Club
        4) Propagate rare plants I grow that may be lost to cultivation
        5) Try to raise my own integrity a tad so I can be self-righteous without squirming too much

I would like to be positive and cheerful: those who know me know I tend to be. But I believe we cannot be naive, or dishonest or spend all our time whistling in the wind. Nature shall persist long after humans have bungled and blasted ourselves to oblivion. But I would like both Nature and Humanity to not just persist, but thrive. And for humanity to quit overpopulating, and even shrink our numbers a bit, and figure out how we can have our cake and eat it, dammit!

How have a Happy New Year! (Drink one for me and maybe a couple for the lovely Maslin phloxes--who knows? perhaps there's even time to salvage a few?)

P.S. I've done an album on this blog showing a variety of phloxes--these as well as lots of Western phloxes that are still wonderfully abundant in nature. (Just don't tell the engineers).

California dreamin'



Ted Kipping on right, myself on the left. Last March.

For the last few years I've spent Christmas in California (Jan, my partner, has never not spent Christmas here) and I've been basking among the Bougainvilleas for nearly two weeks. Most years we wend our way northward for a week or so at the Bay area, but this year exigencies made us cut the trip short. I did go Bayward three times in the last year, so I haven't exactly neglected the area. Christmas here is a kick: everyone complains about how cold the weather is (days steadily in the 60's with lots of sun) and it seems to rain mostly at night...bone chilling lows in the fifties mostly. and there are masses of bloom everywhere. I am featuring one of my favorite California places--the garden of Ted and Diane Kipping, in the south part of San Francisco. This garden seems to encapsulate so many of the contradictions and delights of this amazing State for us gardeners...



Geranium maderense at Kippings'

Ted and Diane's sidewalk view is an uncharacteristic monoculture of Geranium maderense from the Canary Islands (which I first stupidly published as Geranium palmatum). Ted (who corrected me) points out that this is the largest of true Geranium. The pictures were taken in March, but this could have been taken most any month of the year...the danged plant never quits! Ted also emailed me a much nicer picture of the same which I shall post at the end of this post (post-haste!). Fortunately, not by parcel post...Ted also added this note in his email:  Some of mine have reached six feet in height along that front fence. They are so deliciously OUT of proportion there and in violation of most tenets of genteel gardening. Was it not Mae West who said "too much of a good thing is just wonderful!" ??

Ted and I regard one another as "Brothers by Choice" ("BBC's") since our friendship stretches back over three decades. I must scan the pictures of this handsome devil I've taken over that interval--he really hasn't changed much. He is the impresario of gardening throughout his region--like Shelley's poets who are "unacknowledged legistlators of the world", plantsmen of Ted's magnitude maintain the bonds of humankind with the Natural world, which he knows better than anyone: from tiny alpines he has pursued around the world, to tropical cloud forest woodlands, there are not many habitats Ted has not photographed and brought back in spirit to his home. As the premier tree shaper not only of the Bay area, but of America, Ted has a special bond with woody plants as well...and his raptor like gaze belies the gentlest of vegetarian hearts. He's near the top of my favorite people...and that garden reflects his uber-Catholicism (in plants that is...)



Senecio stellata

Most of us would be content with a mere Cinerea, but Ted must have an electric violet blue African gem positively glowing on his porch!



 

Ranunculus cortusifolius

And of course, he has to have the gigantic Azores endemic buttercup (a sort of book end to the Geranium earlier on.) A stroll through this garden is a bit of a whirlwind tour of the whole world.

Dierama sp.

 The pond margins seem to always have a Dierama blooming every time I visit no matter what the season...

Agave, Euphorbia cf. chacaricias, Trough with raoulia and miniature plants

A fairly typical vignette with a xeric American Agave next to a xeric Mediterranean Euphorbia, and a bevy of miniatures (knit together with a New Zealand scab plant) in one of his innumerable troughs...

Bromeliad tree

 How's this for a living Christmas tree? Growing bromeliads outdoors almost any time of year in Colorado is iffy, but here they delight year around in the cloud forest atmosphere...

Schizostylis coccinea

 For me, Schizostylis (I know they are now trying to lump it into Hesperantha!) blooms in September and October--for Ted it  blooms sporadically year around...tree ferns here and there around the yard...

Pond with mixed treasures...

I know that looks suspiciously like a Colorado blue spruce on the upper left...orchids and ferns everywhere again...

Warty trunk

I can't swear it's not a Ceiba--it could be anything in Ted's garden. And every winter as we drive around L.A. or San Diego you aren't sure if the paper birch will be growing alongside a Bismark Palm tree or a native Redwood.

Stumbling around California horticulturally for me I am reminded of snippets here and there of Andrew Marvel's great poem:

"...what wondrous life in this I lead?
Ripe apples fall about my head
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine.
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnar'd with flow'rs I fall on grass..."

(from "The Garden" by Andrew Marvel)

P.S. Ted sent me a list of plants blooming in his garden on January 1, 2012: check below his picture...

Ted Kipping's MUCH nicer picture of Geranium maderense in front of his home...Mae West would approve!

Budding Body Count At 257 Joost Avenue, S.F., CA  1/1/2013  - in yore Honor – taxa observed with 1-scores of blossoms – some hanging on to the remnants of the last season and some precociously pushing ahead adumbrating well ahead of the flashflood of blooms to come:

1 Centranthus

1 Zantedeschia

1 Xanthorea

2 Melastomes

1 Brugmannsia

6 Cupheas

5 Begonias

1 Thunbergia

2 Potentillas

1 Cyclamen

2 Ranunculus

6 Fuchsias

1 Stachys

1 Prunella

2 Gunneras

4 Campanulas

5 Orchids

1Penstemon

1 Galvezia

1 Heteroheca

1 White Mtn Daisy

3 Cestrums

1 Iochroma

17 Abutilons

2 Senecios

1 Schizostilis

1 Catananche

5 Oxalis

10 Geraniums

2 Myosotis

1 Parthenium

4 Helleborus

1 Heuchera

1 Tiarella

16 Bromelliads

3 Euphorbias

1 Hieracium

2 Cestrums

1 Clivia

2 Verbascums

1 Oenothera

1 Lithodora

1 Crassula

1 Kalanchoe

5 Echevarrias

1 Verbena

1 Iris

3 Aloes

5 Salvias

1 Lepechinia

1 Achillea

1 Dicentra

1 Armeria

2 Primulas

1 Cotula

2 Fragarias

1 Lobelia

1 Allium

1 Franchoa

1 Heather

1 Plectranthus

1 Impatiens

1 Calceolaria

1 Hydrangea

1 Erysimum

1 Nemophila

1 Leucodendron

1 Ginger

1 Polygonum

2 Vireya

    Rhododendrons

 

I want a blue...blue.. blue ....blue Clematis!

Clematis integrifolia ex Baikal in my home garden

Baikal clematis on Sandy Snyder's rock garden

 Now that I have Elvis' annoying Christmas song ringing in your head, I should clarify: even the BLUEST clematis has more than a hint of lavender. I've tried expunging that with Adobe, and a touch of pink still lingers. Oh well...lavender is a wonderful color too...if you are reading this, you have probably grown lots of Clematis integrifolia--that massive Eurasian clump forming perennial that annoys nurserymen who can't figure out what department it belongs in (shouldn't it be in with the vines?)

As you can see, it's habit is not really vining: here on Sandy's rock garden it makes a wonderful columnar statement, rather like this column of text.

Clematis integrifolia on the foothills of the Kazakh Altai
 

Clematis integrifolia 'Mongolian Bells' selection in blue

 The typical forms of Clematis integrifolia found in nurseries grow several feet tall (I've seen them more than a meter) and of course, they flop and cause no end of annoyance to fastidious gardeners. but those heavenly blue flowers! You can of course stake them, and fuss to no end. Or you can seek out of of several outstanding new selections that are making the rounds. Ellen Hornig sold that wonderful Lake Baikal form, which stays under 18" tall and has been far more reliably upright than most in my experience. I'm not sure if anyone has continued propagating this wonderful dwarf with such rich color (rather like a compact race of what I found in Kazakhstan)...I have several in my garden and that's not quite enough! I also have many 'Mongolian bells'--an incredible selection made by Harlan Hamernik in Inner Mongolia which is more of a groundcover--spreading out from a central crown and blooming profusely for a very long time. We have found if this is cut back it reblooms well in later summer as well. It comes not just in this good blue, but more pinkish forms, and a near violet as well as pure whites--you have to keep buying them to see if you can get all the forms, you see!

Mongolian bells clematis in Plantasia at Denver Botanic Gardens: the first public display of this form

 I had to show the original bed where the first 'Mongolian Bells' were planted at Denver Botanic Gardens--this is near the west end of the gardens, in a wonderful drift of yellow foxtail lilies (Eremurus stenophyllus). I am not sure if the clematis grows with the foxtail in the Hindu Kush, but I did see lots of other species of Foxtail lily growing with this same clematis in the Altai and Tian Shan.
 

Clematis tenuiloba

A number of Viorna section Clematis must be very closely related to C. integrifolia--I find that Clematis fremontii seems especially similar to its Asian cousin. Clematis fremontii deserves (and shall surely one day get) a full blog post of its own, but meanwhile I thought it would be interesting to compare the jaunty sepals of Clematis tenuiloba from the Rockies to the Mongolian Bells--they do seem to be cousins. If you look up C. tenuiloba, you will see that some botanists have lumped this under the vining Clematis columbiana...They may be right, but for us horticulturists they are worlds apart. This dark blue specimen is growing the the Pikes Peak trough of what was once Wild Flower Treasures...

Clematis scottii

And Clematis scottii has likewise been lumped under Clematis hirsutissima by non gardening botanists...they are so different in habitat in nature, and the way they grow, I suspect the botanists will come around. The picture above was also taken in that late, departed garden. I hope we can soon regenerate spectacular specimens like this elsewhere at Denver Botanic Gardens: meanwhile, I'm glad I took lots of pictures (and planted them at home!) This last is one of the special Plant Select petites being premiered this spring: do check it out at their website!

And  may you too have a blue blue blue garden this coming year!

Waiting for the Barbarians

If you have never read C.P. Cavafy's eloquent poem, "Waiting for the Barbarians" do yourself a favor and click on that URL...

The apocalyptic light of sunset (that was a few weeks ago not far from my house) peppers Facebook. Everyone seems to be allured at some point or another with the fascination of "the end". One of my friends is passionate about Horror Movies, and we all know far too much lately about the disgusting American addiction to firearms--another form of frenetic (if sublimated) barbarism and deathwish.

I often imagine the apocalyptic horror that my distant ancestors must have experienced in 1204 and a few centuries later in 1453 when the Barbarians did indeed breach the walls of The City. I shall never forget one of my aunts as we sat gazing from the summit of Roca near Pervolakia, describing how they watched the thousands of Nazi paratroopers descend like confetti a mere fifteen miles away on Maleme in May 21, 1941. The barbarians are out there all right: C.P. is wrong.

The Barbarians are everywhere. They massacre innocent children in schools and theatres (not far from where I live you know). They have killed a dozen or so of my extended family over the last century alone. They cause us to lock doors and fret when we travel (or sometimes when we are at home late at night). Although the Mayan Calendar was apparently wrong this time. I do hope against hope my many Republican buddies (in terminal and truly asinine denial about global warming) are right. I know Pastor Joe, my Facebook buddy I used to work with at the Gardens, is dead wrong about Obama being the "end of the world". The ultimate Barbarism is our blind faith in technology.

I vastly prefer Cavafy's gently optimistic nihilism to T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": I would have posted a Youtube of Eliot reciting that poem, but it was removed from that site due to "multiple third party notifications of copywrite infringement" (a sort of bureaucratic world-ending whimper if there ever was one). But searching for that pitiful poem of tragic endings I stumbled on something much, much nicer indeed: Groucho Marx's account of the evening he spent with Eliot in 1964. The thought of Julius and Tom stumbling over conversation, and writing notes back and forth is just too rich: no...the world is not ending today, not tomorrow. Not when Groucho is clearly eclipsing Prufrock as an American artistic legacy. He's my kind of barbarian! Vita brevis, Ars longa.

A cup of claret to cheer the season....Christmassy cacti

Echinocereus polyacanthus

I know these aren't Zygocacti, for Heavens sake... discounting those (which deserve their own blog by someone who can actually grow them well) I realize that Christmas isn't exactly cactus season (except maybe in Patagonia)...but there is something terribly Christmassy to my eyes about the flowers of the myriad claret cup cacti (a section of Echinocereus that is distinctive for its badminton birdie flowers that stay open rather than close at night like most echinocerei). A dozen or more species have been named in this section of the genus based on their genetics and distribution: one of the most spectacular, Echinocereus polyacanthus, is found primarily in northern Mexico--but has proved very hardy at Denver Botanic Gardens for twenty or more years. It has especially lovely, immense crimson chalices--a rich claret cup indeed! Cheers!

Echinocereus coccineus ex Taos

David Salman, proprietor of the recently disbanded Santa Fe Greenhouses, once gave me two seedlings of Echinocereus coccineus he grew from seed collected above Taos: this high elevation form is remarkably diminutive--those stems are barely two inches across! E. coccineus tends to form much larger cushions than E. triglochidiatus, is usually a bit more orangy in flower, and blooms a week or two earlier in my observation...

This is one of the many fine cushions of E. coccineus at Denver Botanic Gardens Dryland Mesa.

For contrast, here is a form of Echinocereus gonacanthus (probably best treated as a form of E. triglochidiatus) on Dryland Mesa as well: I have admired large mounds of these on the cliffs at Royal Gorge, not far from Canon City in central Colorado.

And here is the giant of the group: the huge "White Sands Form" of Echinocereus triglochidiatus. This performs quite a ballet in the garden, rising to great heights in summer, and shrinking to half its summer height in winter. I remember seeing this everywhere around White Sands in the 1970's and nary a one on a recent field trip: were they hiding? overcollected? was I just in the wrong spots? I have observed areas with widespread cactus die off periodically (they succumb to prolonged drought or insects as other plants do--and will come back). One of the above no doubt is correct. Fortunately, my buddies (Dan and Socorro) at Rio Grande Cactus grow this by the thousand! (I blogged about their enchanting nursery a few months ago).

 

Back to Echinocereus coccineus--the clumps above are probably 50 or more years old: we transplanted them from Red Rock park where they were the centerpieces of a cactus garden created more than forty years ago by our local cactus club (they were expanding the gift shop and wisely contacted us to rescue these mounded monsters)...I suspect they had to be at least ten years old at that time--hence my estimated age. They are likely even older than that: admiring these is a highlight of every May for me at work.

 

 

And finally, there's my favorite clump in the wild, south of Moab a dozen miles or so in a wonderful canyon. I have brought many dozens of people here on field trips from Denver Botanic Gardens in late April when the canyonlands are at their peak of spring bloom--that's only four months away! An even larger clump growing at the fabulous cactus garden at the old Fairgrounds on Orchard Mesa south of Grand Junction...do click on the blue highlighted link at the start of this sentence to check that one out!

 

Meanwhile, I shall tip a cup of claret this Christmas and toast this past rewarding year and to your health! Clink clink!