https://nargs.org/book-of-the-month/apr-2021

Rock garden quarterly

v79 #1

Panayoti Kelaidis

AS A WHOLE year of COVID-19 comes to a close, with several waves of this insidious disease cresting around the world, we gardeners are fortunate to have our flowery havens to nurture and support us. But the wonderful hubbub of monthly meetings has transmogrified into Zoom webinars where we catch...

Durango: Where the Four Corners of America’s Flora Meet

Panayoti Kelaidis

OF COURSE, EVERY spot on Planet Earth is special, but one could argue that Durango and its setting is the biological ground zero of the United States, if not North America. Elements from far points of the compass seem to meet here.

A Siren Song or a Vortex? Durango and the River of Lost Souls Beckon You

Mike Smedley

YEARS AGO, a bumper sticker appeared: “Durango. Because Every Other Place Just Sucks.” It was undoubtedly the harshest, rudest, and most sanctimonious explanation for one’s choice of hometown.

Journey of a Plantsman

Jeff Wagner

OUR 2021 CONFERENCE will bring us to Durango, Colorado, my hometown near the very southwestern corner of the state at the edge of the mighty San Juan Range of the Rockies and the high desert plateaus of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. My own route here was a circuitous one from the U.S. South to...

In the Land of the Balsam Fir, Cacti Thrive

Mike Heim

THERE IS NOT much that can compare to the thrill of a good challenge, whether it be bungee jumping or lion-taming. In my case, I get my thrills from the challenge of successfully growing plants in far northern Wisconsin, just about an hour’s drive from Lake Superior, where winters can be seriously...

Tiny Prairie Remnants Yield Yet Tinier Cacti

Mike Heim

SOMETIMES IT IS the little things, embedded within and contrasting with much larger things, which grab one’s attention. Thus it was for me with the tiny brittle prickly-pear cacti, Opuntia fragilis, which grace rocky places within relict prairies in the vast open landscapes of central and western...