Eriogonum

So worth growing just for the foliage alone.

Hi Aaron

Nice to see!! I'm always glad to see good results, I'm sure you will enjoy watching it grow.
That looks like it's one of the Ovalifolium varieties. By the look of the well defined leaf rosettes. I would venture a guess that it's variety williamsiae. In my limited opinion the best when it comes to tight growth and ease of culture. If you were to see their native habitate you would be amazed at how tough they are. When it is mature it should start to seed around, I can count about twenty seedlings around my garden. There are other varieties that produce showyer flower displays but for all around form it's the winner in my book. In a few years you should have a nice specimen.

[size=8pt]If you feel the need for more Eriogonum seed I sent shipments to The Eriogonum Society and NARGS seed exchanges   

Like crepe paper flowers...

Nature - the original artist.

RickR wrote:

Like crepe paper flowers...

Nature - the original artist.

So true. :)

Weiser wrote:

Hi Aaron

Nice to see!! I'm always glad to see good results, I'm sure you will enjoy watching it grow.
That looks like it's one of the Ovalifolium varieties. By the look of the well defined leaf rosettes. I would venture a guess that it's variety williamsiae. In my limited opinion the best when it comes to tight growth and ease of culture. If you were to see their native habitate you would be amazed at how tough they are. When it is mature it should start to seed around, I can count about twenty seedlings around my garden. There are other varieties that produce showyer flower displays but for all around form it's the winner in my book. In a few years you should have a nice specimen.

[size=8pt]If you feel the need for more Eriogonum seed I sent shipments to The Eriogonum Society and NARGS seed exchanges   

Thanks for the insight.  It looks like a true beauty! :)

Very interesting foliage- I hadn't realised any of the Eriogonums had foliage like this.....

Terrific foliage and especially striking against that dark basalt!

Weiser wrote:

[size=8pt]If you feel the need for more Eriogonum seed I sent shipments to The Eriogonum Society and NARGS seed exchanges   

I will look for it!

Thought you'd like to know what your in for.

Here are a couple of old wild specimens. I can not say for sure how old they are but my feeling is several decades in the making. They are 12 inches across at the bases and domed to about 8 inches tall. When you press down with the palm your hand they are very firm and tight.

Here are a couple of three year old Eriogonum Ovalifolium plants in my garden. The upper most is variety williamsiae just to the lower right of it is variety eximium.

These two photos are of the variety williamsiae plant from the previous photo in full bloom.

Lastly since we have one photo comparing variety willamsiae to variety eximium I thought I should show you the variety eximium in bloom.

Fortunately even the young ones look good, but those old domes are impressive!

Hope I am lucky enoug to grow anything at all. They all do look terrific!

Hoy I think the two keys to remember when growing Eriogonums has to do with summer drainage, and summer warmth.  The high elevation and alpine species can take quite wet conditions in the winter when they are dormant. In the summer give them a well drained sight with exposure to as much sun as possible. In your climate I would place them on the south side of a rock with a southern exposure. Be sure that the soil is lean and drains readily and I think you would have a very good chance of keeping them alive.
If you get a chance try Eriogonum ovalifolium variety eximium, or variety nivale. These are two of the high elevation varieties. Both form respectable flat gray mats. Their flowers are held aloft on shorter scapes which is always nice.  

Thanks John, I'll keep it in mind!
I had a few seedlings last spring but I think most of them were damaged by the sheep at my summerhouse where I planted them. Although I don't think they actually ate them (too small) they trampled all over the place and disturbed the small plants. I have to wait till spring to see wether any has survived :(

Thanks so much for posting such superb pictures, John.  I'm growing 'Williamsae' - better make that trying to keep it alive, it definitely didn't like the rain this fall.  It's in very lean, fast-draning soil on top of the cliff, fully exposed to sun all day and to wind.  It looked great during the summer but no flowers.  Your picture of 'exium' in flower was wonderful. I'm growing 'niveum' but the 'exium' looks like one to try.

I grew caespitosum and several larger species in a sand bed a decade or more ago, with winter cover. I think this would be necessary in most gardens here, unless the sand beds are very large, on the scale of Peter Korn's. I am now trying several forms of ovalifolium and umbellatum but they are still only young plants. It is really great genus and marvellous to see them grown so well.

Super excited by this thread as I just planted out 12+ E. ovalifolium 'Wellington form" I grew from seed in my scree. Looking forward to future glory.

Hello Susan, welcome to NARGS Forum, we do hope you'll show us your Eriogonum plants here one day, and we wouldn't mind seeing your seedling plants too.

By the way, I checked your blog site listed in your signature, quite interesting, and thank you for posting the link to a fantastic resource, the Digital Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Utah.  Folks, you can check it out (and bookmark it) here:  http://earth.gis.usu.edu/plants/

Here is Eriogonum androsaceum from sept 04, this year, by Abraham Lake, Alberta. I never seem to get there at the right time for flowers (one stalk once) or seed.. At this time the plants had just started to show some fall colour, not yet the blazing hot pink they could get later...

What is this one John Weiser?

Lincoln county Idaho (native)

Up date

In bloom.