Seas of absent "C's"

Calceolaria arachnoidea

I continue my saga of plants that have vanquished me: this is one I kill repeatedly---but it goes from strength to strength in the Steppe Garden at DBG. I am a little distressed they haven't propagated a few hundred of them and covered the whole damn slope with them between the massive cushions of Petunia and Azorella: that would drive me even crazier than I already am.

This picture was taken a few years ago: this year is was much bigger. Harrumph! It's galling to know it would probably LOVE my new crevice garden--and of course they won't have any propagated for this spring's plant sale--that's the way the world works.

I gave grown no end of Calceolaria biflora, Calceolaria polyrhiza--you name it-- looking pretty much the same as this. And then there's old 'John Innes': they look splendid one--maybe two years--and then you you have to start all over again...which I do. 

And then there's THIS patch at Betty Ford Alpine Garden: a yard or more across. They've grown for decades (looks like what I keyed out as C. lanceolata click on the link and you'll see a picture I took of it in the wild over 20 years ago!): they have a greenhouse now--maybe I can beg some from THEM? 

Callirhoe althaeoides

Taken in my garden maybe twenty years ago: it looked so GOOD, so LONG LIVED. It wasn't.  I have dismal luck with the whole genus except C. bushii which loves my garden but is in the middle of a hideous patch of Johnson grass...I have two good friends who give me no end of husky, gallon sized C. involucrata which my rabbits promptly devour: I cage the damn plants, and they still peter away. There is NO justice in the world. NONE!

And here's the same plant growing in the wilds of Kansas. I hope you noticed my plant is much bigger...

This was my champion patch of C. involucrata var. tenuisecta at Denver Botanic Gardens: I have a sneaking suspicion SOMEone of my successors [not naming names here] rounded it up--it was taking over the Universe...I wish it would take over mine at home.

One of my colleagues planted Calycanthus x 'Hartladge Wine' at the Botanic Gardens' house--where it's happy as a clam. And I bet they don't even KNOW who Hartladge is: I not only know, Richard and I are PALS! Practically blood brothers! But is his avatar willing to grow for me? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....(best spoken as Belushi would---- with a bit of a whine and terrific modulations)

Just look at that flower...UGGH.

And now begins the saga of Campanula--near the top of my favorite genera. They bloom mostly in summer, and I love those blues (however tinged with lavender)...but why is it they seem to be either ineradicable weeds or will-o-the-wisps?

Campanula alpestris (allionii)

This stunner from the alps ramped through yards of a scree and threatened to take over Denver before departing suddenly. 

Campanula cashmeriana

This persisted for a number of years.                                                      Until it didn't.

I've grown Campanula choruhensis for ages--and had it last quite a while: but this pink one came and went. Sniff.

Wbat can be easier to grow than Campanula cochlearifolia, that also spreads like wildfire.  It too got extinguished--here in a crevice garden at DBG.

It's big and gangly and persisted for a long time--but Campanula sibirica decided to go home finally.

Its close cousin, Campanula incurva, never goes away: it self sows gratifyingly. But C. formanekiana does not. Enough said.

Campanula fragilis var. cavolinii is near the top of my topmost list. Unfortunately it too departed.

I once had Campanula raineri fill a trough. That trough is now empty.

Few plants LOOK so long lived and tough as Carduncellus pinnatus and its sibling (below). Appearances are deceiving!

Carduncellus rhaponticoides

Another dear departed. I love this plant.

This Castilleja scabrida was NOT photographed in Utah or canyonlands elsewhere--it grew contentedly in one of my troughs for nearly a decade. It is not there now.

I apologize: the LAST picture before the one above was taken in Utah. This far happier plant was in my trough!

You know you are a Bona Fide plant nerd when you miss the likes of Caulanthus crassicaulis. The flowers are pinched, and black--as they are for most species in the genus. What fun it would be to grow all 18 homely and homologous species! (And there are those who watch football on television).

Scanned from a photo from decades ago: Centaurea drabifolia is still offered by certain Czech collectors...which reminds me, gotta finish my order to Mojmir.

Centaurea gymnocarpa isn't hardy for us, I'm sure. But what a delightful butterfly magnet in a pot!

There are those who love the raggedy flowers of thistles and their cousins. And there are those who have no taste whatsoever. Thistles and centaureas jostle near the top of my favorites list with Campanula (and a few dozen other genera as well, I grant you!)

Centaurea ruthenica has incredibly thick, leathery leaves that are gorgeous in their own right and these cool yellow flowers. It DID last for a very long time at DBG. But is no more...to think I've only grown a dozen or maybe two Centaurea in my life--and there are still a thousand or so to go!

Chaenorhinum villosum

I believe this was growing on the Childrens' garden green roof section at Denver Botanic Gardens. I can tell you it is not growing for me.

Chamaerhodos mongolicus

I only had one of these, but it DID persist for a very long time. I would like to have a lot more of them (and the bright pink forms a certain Russian keeps posting on Facebook). It has a tiny biennial congeneric cousin in South Park [the real place, not the TV show] that's quite common and utterly ignorable.

Chorispora macropoda

This has the misfortune of being in the same genus as a pernicious weed in the West (and also cousin to a stunningly gorgeous and ungrowable alpine treasure from the Tian Shan). And it too is gone.

This chrysanthemum was collected in the Atlas Mountains--likely by my colleague Mike Kintgen--here thriving in our Childrens garden. It throve for me too...once.

 I posted this image (or one like it) on a blog I once wrote about my sad obsession with this genus. I have not given up on Chrysosplenium quite yet...but they have given up on me. I have none at present in my garden.

We're only half way through the C's: with our winter stretching out interminably [with no trips to Mexico or the southern Hemisphere to leaven it] who knows? I may just get through the whole dang alphabet at this rate!

A nifty summer blue to lift the winter blahs!

Thymbra capitata

As I look past the last decade or so, there are some horticultural mysteries that have perplexed me. Thymbra capitata was the star of my midsummer visit to Greece in 2015. It had some pretty stiff competition with the likes of Jankaea heldreichii and Viola delphinantha, I warrant you: but these and a wealth of other treasures were blooming only at high elevations. In the lowlands, this stunning shrublet glowed lavender blue on cliffs all over Western Turkey, Mainland Greece and of course Crete, where most of these were photographed.

The mystery? Why isn't this in MY garden..or in gardens generally. Why are not strident efforts being made to locate high elevations forms (it grew everywhere it seemed) and bring this to our Western rock gardens in particular, where a glowing lavender blue mound of aromatic glory would be so welcome!

It will remain forever a mystery to me how Humanity is so terribly obsessed with sports, celebrities (Jennifer Lopez butt is big, but cute I grant you), with snazzy cars and umpteen thousand Netflicks series that put me into a coma of boredom. Okay, that's a lie: I've never watched them long enough to be truly comatose! Why would anyone pursue any of these frivolities when there are luminous mints like this yearning for our gardens. For my garden anyway!

This (above) and the one below were taken at over 2000m above the Omalos plateau in Crete: they have to be tough as nails--the moundy thing next to them (Astragalus angustifolius) is easy peasy to grow...surely a frickin' thyme (for that's what Thymbra basically is) can't be any harder!

Forgive me as I hurl one after another of these pictures at you. I am a sucker for blue--and I grant you this isn't true gentian blue. It's not a sky blue or cobalt or some other purish shade of blue blue. It's lavender blue, which is FINE by me. I love lavender. Most campanulas, wild irises and a goodly number of other mints come in this shade of blue-lavender. And I love it. It's the blue of distant mountains silhouetted, the blue of smoke from a campfire--the blue of memory and nostalgia. I'm pretty sure this was the blue that A.E. Houseman imagined in "A Shropshire Lad, XL"

Into my heart an air that kills  
  From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
  What spires, what farms are those?  

I couldn't resist photographing this every time I saw it: and I saw it a lot! These are by no means the only pictures I took!

 

Another shade of blue: the thymbra was growing with Cichorium spinosum on many occasions. Although I've never grown the thymbra, I have grown the spiny chickory in the past but not for many years. I know both of these would THRIVE in my new crevice garden...

But they are missing in action. Just plain WRONG!

Red

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...

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.*)

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...

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!