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| Pedicularis densiflora |
I remember that red was my favorite color until I decided it was blue. I have a sneaking suspicion that red is a lot of people's favorite flower (judging by this Christmas season anyway)--and it's obviously the hummingbird's favorite. One of the many high points of a schizophrenic year (there were plenty of low points as well, believe me)....was a field trip I took north of the Bay area last spring with staff of the Regional Parks botanic garden (better known to almost everyone as "Tilden"): a magical day where I hobnobbed with two of the best reds in our native flora, the first being this one...
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I'd seen "Indian Warrior" (a charming name, though doubtless now verging on being unacceptable to the excessively lexically fastidious!) in the past, but never so much in prime form. A remarkable gardener in Washington state is finding out that many of these Hemiparasitic formerly Scrophularious plants (now split up into lots of other genera--I still think of them as schrophs!) are surprisingly easily grown if you just try.
But this OTHER red plant is the one that captivated me. I've grown the brilliant red Southern Californian
Delphinium cardinale (which I stupidly blogged about
under the wrong name a few years ago and wasn't corrected by any of the 190 people who saw that blog post.*)
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| Delphinium nudicaule |
I have grown this more notherly red larkspur at Denver Botanic Gardens: it is pretty widely available from Seed companies (in named strains to less!) and even rarely shows up at local garden centers. I never dreamed I'd see thousands of them growing for miles!
This was this past March 21--a little past noon, actually if you care to know! I looked at these and thought: "why aren't they in MY garden?"...
You're only seeing a smattering of the pictures I took that day: notice the larkspur here dalliancing with a paintbrush...
Just look what strange soil they're growing in! Surely they should adapt to somewhere in my garden?
I've tried putting movies in my blog before--let's see if this one works!
Aha! barely two months later, guess what was blooming gloriously in my home crevice garden? My marvellous colleague, Brooke Palmer, grew lots of this red larkspur for Denver Botanic Gardens' spring plant sale--and I scarfed up a lot of them the first day of the sale!
I don't know about you, but I think this is about as cute as you can get in a rock garden plant! Yes..I do like red...
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| Adonis amurensis |
Three days after the Delphinium escapade, I came home to Denver to find Adonis in prime form: this was photographed by my son (Jesse Kelaidis) incidentally. This is the latest I've ever had the Adonis looking so good (some years it blooms in January!)...OK...I guess I like yellow too.
*Henceforward consider that any mistakes in my blog posts are intentional, to see if any of you are really reading them!
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I tried growing Pedicularis densiflora this past spring. I had about six seeds germinate. I put some in various spots in my garden and tried to grow some in plugs. I put some seeds, marked with a toothpick, directly in my garden hoping to get them hosting on sedges. None of the seedlings lasted beyond the germination stage. If more seeds germinate this spring, I will try growing them in coarse sand with a small part compost or even just coarse sand with little coir. A more sterile medium of sand with a little coir given synthetic fertilizer might be needed to stop pathogens from impacting the seedlings. What is necessary to grow Pedicularis densiflora is still a mystery to me. Although people have successfully grown Pedicularis canadensis for restoration.
ReplyDeletehttps://grasslandrestorationnetwork.org/2022/09/15/propagation-of-wood-betony-pedicularis-canadensis/
I have also tried Delphinium nudicaule in the past with no success. However, that was when I was much less experienced. I will try this species again sometime if I have the opportunity.
This delphinium has a very un-delphinium looking leaf. More like a hepatica. It is a lovely colour though so will look for some seed. Happy holidays.
ReplyDeleteJames! I haven't heard from you for ages it seems--I was getting worried! If you bloom Indian Warrior I will be so jealous! I'm pretty impressed with the results shown in the link you did on Pedicularis canadensis propagation: that species grows pretty abundantly south of Denver in the Black Forest (although BONAP apparently doesn't realize it grows west of the Great Plains!). It's very similar in impact to its red cousin: maybe we can cross them!
ReplyDeleteYes, I am still around. Although, I probably won’t get many Christmas cards this year. I think a lot of people have me on their naughty list. I ask hard questions and tell people what I think. People don’t like it.
DeleteYou don’t have to cross P. canadensis with anything to get it in red. It already comes in that color. Although the flowers are still hook shaped like a Scutellaria instead of the straight petals adapted for hummingbirds, as P. densiflora possesses.
Wishing you a merry Christmas Panayoti.
Nice pictures--red flowers are my favorites. I grew up in Northern California and used to live in the Berkeley Hills close to Tilden, so this brings back fond memories. I am now in Minnesota and a few years ago managed to germinate some Delphinium nudicaule seed from Alplains and have even had some individuals survive the zone 4 winters here, a delightful surprise.
ReplyDelete