What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

[Kelaidis]

Your Zauschneria, Ann, looks like a form of Z. californica. You must obtain Z. garrettii which starts blooming much earlier (June here--and still in bloom!)...Our astragalus are long done blooming--it has been terribly dry, although the rain has been steady today finally after a month and a half of no rain...aaaah!

Your garden, Mark, must be awesome! I really hoped I'd get to Boston in July, but didn't work. Maybe next year?

[Spiegel]

Is there a form of Zauschneria named after Wayne Roderick?  That seems to ring a bell.  Is Z. garrettii hardy?  The nice thing about this one, apart from the color, is that it blooms when most things have finished.

[Tim Ingram]

Anne and Panayoti - I've just written a short piece trying to wake up gardeners again to alpines for 'Gardens Illustrated', stimulated by Peter Korn's sand garden. But I also said I thought that American gardeners were really leading the way, and that there is such a wealth of plants from the States that we just don't know about! I won't hold my breath for a sudden upsurge of alpine gardens in the UK but it would be great if landscape designers sometimes became miniaturists!

[cohan]

Todd- good to hear you escaped damage, hope the BG is okay..
Anne- that natural cliff face is wonderful

Tim- good work- even if you can plant a seed in just a few minds

[Bundraba!]

The fun never sets on the garden. These look like chickens (?). Hmmmph! I did the "buck buck buck-caaaaak" just

enough to herd them away from my rockeries... I guess. I can't complain too much; they left me breakfast!

[cohan]

Funny! No chickens here- just grouse 

[RickR]

That reminds me, I saw my first sharp tail grouse at Schaefer Prairie a few weeks ago.

Most Thursdays, some in our Chapter head out to the Minnesota Arboretum to tend the rock garden there.  Today was no different.  The arboretum staff helps with some of the maintenance, but we do all the planting.  Today we were brought some needed rock mulch to spread.  I guess I wasn't thinking very far ahead: you only see about half of the garden.

      

      

[cohan]

Nice place Rick, good partnership btwn the club and staff..

Our grouse are all Ruffed; there theoretically could be others (Spruce maybe) but I've never seen any.. Ruffed Grouse are one of those species that have done well around human altered landscapes. Ours are quite bold, and besides seeing them often in the semi-natural forest on the acreage and farm, they are often right in the yard- on the apple trees right by the house, around the bird feeders, walking around the mowed areas...

[cohan]

Is there a form of Zauschneria named after Wayne Roderick?  That seems to ring a bell.  Is Z. garrettii hardy?  The nice thing about this one, apart from the color, is that it blooms when most things have finished.

Anne, I was just checking for a discussion on FB, and Alplains lists garrettii as z 4..

[Lori S.]

Zauschneria garrettii is certainly hardy here.  I've been growing the cultivar 'Orange Carpet' since 2002.  I finally started moving pieces of it around this year, as the location of the original plant is starting to get somewhat shaded.

[RickR]

Nice place Rick [the arboretum], good partnership btwn the club and staff..

Funny you should say that, Cohan.  We do work on our relations with the arboretum.  We convinced the higher ups that the Head Gardener should go to the every 10 year alpine conference in England.  Our club contributed to his expenses, too.  It was a very good move on our part, and has reaped good benefits.  But...

We used to have a September picnic and meeting at that arboretum every year until about six years ago.  I was program director then, and set up all the meetings.  Six years ago the arboretum changed their picnic shelters policy and we could no longer reserve it for our meeting use, even though most of us were members of the arboretum along with the club itself, too.  The only thing reservable is a room and we aren't allowed to bring food.  Well, we weren't very happy, but that was the way it was and were forced to go elsewhere.

Now, just a few days ago, the staff was asking why we didn't hold meetings there anymore (!)  

[cohan]

Rick- bureaucracy....lol

Lori- I was pretty sure you were growing it... do you think the cultivar is hardier or substantively different from the species?

[Lori S.]

Lori- I was pretty sure you were growing it... do you think the cultivar is hardier or substantively different from the species?

Sorry, I don't know.  Named varieties may be selections from the wild that have particular properties, or one that's just had a variety name slapped on it to enhance public appeal... no idea if that might be the case here.  (At any rate, I doubt it was selected, if indeed it was, for hardiness in zone 3.    )
I tried Zauschneria californica in a trough once and it did not winter over... I wouldn't take that isolated experience as necessarily meaningful though.

[Tim Ingram]

I'm very impressed by that planting at the Minnesota Arboretum - we have nothing like that round here that alpine gardeners could get involved in, though I wouldn't mind some help in our garden; we would lay on tea and cake! Seriously I wonder at the lack of proper partnership that occurs between professional bodies and highly absorbed 'amateurs' - there should be huge benefits that work both ways, not least in getting more and more people to learn more about plants and consider gardening in more adventurous ways. The RHS in London no longer holds regular Shows in it's Halls throughout the year, though they are obviously used commercially by others, and this in a city of 10 million people or more - somehow new gardeners no longer come to them any longer and much more glitzy Shows elsewhere work better. I still think of gardening as being glitzy on the surface, OK, but holding so very much more underneath, which the Specialist Societies help maintain.

[RickR]

Some miscellany in the garden:

Geranium vlassovianum, a Morningcloak and a nicely colored lily bulblet I found while reloacating Lilium nanum bulbs.
          
               

The aptly named Sedum obtusifolium.  Cuttings responded phenomenally with just a little fertilizer.  The original cutting on the upper right in all pots.  Second pic: a mature plant (mid July), just 4 inches high.  (Echinocereus coccineus in the background.)