A few rocky highlights of a banner year....

Jan climbing up onto the Tilden Regional Parks botanic gardens' fantastic crevice garden to examine the plant in the next picture...

Penstemon davidsonii (from wild seed) at Tilden--just about my favorite botanical garden in America...after DBG of course! This is a surprisingly adaptable alpine plant that grows well for us in Colorado as well--PROVIDED you have a rock garden!

A glimpse of a fantastic crevice garden in Berkeley that I have featured before on Prairiebreak before--worth revisiting I think!

I have featured Anne Smith's incredible garden in Boulder before--but I now notice she's expanded the palette of xeric plants considerably...Agave toumeyana var. bella near the center, and lots of ball cacti, Sempervivum arachnoideum and Acantholimon:  all the best stuff!

I have never grown Penstemon rupicola this well--but Anne excels in anything she does. Glad she's on MY team!

A glimpse of one of innumerable treasures at Mike Bone's private garden. I have featured Mike repeatedly in posts, but never done justice to his garden: it would take too long to do it justice! Oh yes, this is a perfectly grown Eriogonum pauciflorum var. nebraskense--one of the best native plants that grows not too far from Denver: this is the only garden (aside from my OLD house where it no longer lngers) where I seen this incidentally--obviously loving crevice garden treatment...

Delosperma 'Red Mountan FLAME'

The best of all Delospermas--bred by David Salman, an inexplicably missing from several billion gardens on this planet--what's WRONG with people. It's not missing from Bone's rock garden however--photographed in late summer.

I have grown this too, for many decades: but never this well. Kenton planted Euphorbia spinosa at Kendrick (which I have featured an awful lot). Capturing it in full bloom was a red letter day for me: my rock garden where I have this growing is way too shady for it to do this well. I shall get some rooted cuttings and put it in my new, not sunny rock garden where it will one day rival this: wait and see!

Eriogonum ovalifolium var. depressum

I'm guessing on the varietal name on this--but it sure looks like that subspecies as I've seen it on the White Cloud peaks and on Idaho's Malpais (pronounced "Malapi" if you wish to show how clever you are at mispronouncing Spanish). My talented colleague Brooke rooted lots of this and I have three or four on my crevice garden--thank you Brooke!

One of innumerable enviable and fantastic plants in the gardens of Cathy and Bill King in Salt Lake City--a buckwheat to die for.  I have NEVER seen an E. ovalifolium this big. It's verging on being wrong.

And check out the King's Eriogonum kennedyi...I'll bet they never get this big in nature. If you want to try this in your garden, I'd suggest growing it on an even rockier substrate, however: they can get away with murder in SLC.

If you've been properly following Prairiebreak, you'll recognize these shots from Mike Kintgen's high mountain rock gardens: I don't know why anyone who lives above 7000 grows anything but rock plants!

A sole Zauschneria poking out of a crevice in Robin Magowans' Santa Fe extravaganza: here he seems to have re-created a Mycenean citadel--what a garden! And a single eloquent flower says it all...

Here's what is sold in California as Teucrium ackermannii looking simply splendid in Robin's garden--even out of bloom. A similar plant is sold in England--only there it has green leaves. Something's amiss...

Rock gardens don't have to be sunny and hot, of course. Ray Radebaugh's garden (which I have featured repeatedly) proves it!

Ray doesn't stick to woodlanders--he grows alpines in suitably sunny spots, like this perfect Edraianthus pumilio..

Dwarf iris are one of my man obsessions: I must find a spot to grow Iris setosa var. canadensis once again! Here it is in Ray's garden.

Another of my favorite gardens, Sam Hitt's in Santa Fe. This year I hit it spot on for peak bloom on his Penstemon ambiguus. Hooray for me!

This is a trough at Sam's I will surely copy this coming year--talk about great colors...and just LOOK how Sedum nevii (endangered in nature) grew for him!

I've not shared this on Social media or elsewhere: me on the left--John Stireman center and Tony on the right. I think those two are the greatest gardeners in the world. And that's an understatement! What a treat to see them again.

What a treat to see Agave utahensis var. kaibabensis in bloom at John's: I think this was even taller than I've seen it at the Grand Canyon, where I've been lucky to see it many times....I have featured the Stiremans in this blog--but following them on Facebook is the best way to get a taste of their garden. In fact, it's just about the BEST reason to be on Facebook!

Opuntia debreczyi 'Potato'

I have featured the garden where this was taken (Summerhome) before. I visited it this fall--and it exceeded all my memories of it--if you come anywhere NEAR Colorado, go see it--it's sublime. And of course it features a rock garden...

If you haven't figured out yet, this post is designed to achieve several ends:

1) Show you a very few of the highlights of my garden visits this past year: to do the year justice I'd have to show a hundred times more pictures...but the ones I showed reveal that rock gardens are where my heart is--and where yours' should be too! They are so incredibly varied and possess such enormous power as landscape features and jewel cases to show off the world's saxatile gems....

2) If you do not already belong to the North American Rock Garden Society, I'd do so pronto: you can still get in on the Seed Exchange if you do. Just click on the highlighted link in the last sentence and a form will pop up for you to give yourself a Christmas Present! Merry Christmas!

3) This post is also a TEST: I'm curious if I'll have more blog visits by having a person (namely Jan Fahs--my mate) on the cover page. Ideally, she should have had a red sweater...I've always been curious as to why some posts have more hits than others...let's see if my hypothesis works! I keep track of these things, I want you to know!