General Forum

This information about the passing of Joyce Carruthers comes from John Sheridan.

Joyce (Schofield) Carruthers

I just read "Scientific American" (Oct. 2010) and they stated that most US citizens have slow Internett access. Is that correct? Can I ask what speed you have when up- or downloading pages?
(My speed is 15Mbits/s)

At a NARGS Chapter seedling sale I bought a plant of Mirabilis oblongifolia. It overwintered just fine. Taking a while to get started, this is a late summer bloomer that's just getting going at the end of August and beginning of September. I'm not sure what to make of this plant just yet, the verdict is still open.

Descriptions of sand beds seem to indicate pure coarse sand maybe 12 inches over native soil. An old formula for cold climate cactus suggested 1 part soil to 9 parts sand. Sand beds in our area often seem to allow roots to reach our clay topsoil--which feels inconsistent somehow.

I've heard recently about using mostly crushed trap rock in a bed. I'm wondering now about crushed limestone.

What is a weed? What's weedy in my garden is not necessarily in yours. That depends on climate and soil and other factors.

Here are some examples of problematic weedy garden plants in my garden.

1) Campanula and Impatiens
2) Campanula lactiflora
3) Impatiens glandulifera

The taller growing campanulas like C. lactiflora are vigorously growing and prolific self seeders everywhere.

It's probably a sign of rock garden dotage, or some sort of disease but I'm getting into graminoids. When you mention rock gardens and grasses most of us groan at the invasion of some section of the rock garden by bluegrass or some other noxious pest. But alpine nature is full of grasses. My old Czech buddy, long gone now, Vaclav Plestil shared me love of grasses. I have been cautiously introducing quite a few grasses and graminoids into more and more of my rock garden and even troughs and the results have always been fun.

Found an old Bulletin. Stonecrop Nursery was advertising, and Linc Foster was discussing Rupert Barneby.

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this forum, and will post an introduction later, but not new to alpines or rock gardening. This Sunday I have one day for a day hike in the Rockies after doing a bike ride in RMNP on Saturday. My question is of the two hikes that I'm considering which one would you suggest - Mt. Ida in RMNP or the DBG Mt. Goliath site? I know - do both, but I can't.
Looking forward to your suggestions.

It is my sad task to tell you of the death, this afternoon in the UK, of the great plantsman Jim Archibald.
His wife and fellow plant hunter, Jenny has their family with her at this very sad time and I know you will all join with us in sending our condolences to them.

Jim had been ill for some time and in spite of early signs that treatment was succesful, latterly his health had been failing.

One of the most effective methods of getting more people to use this forum is for those of us who post, particularly those who post photographs of their trips or have garden photographs, is to write something for a Chapter newsletter about your post. For example, if someone posts a a bunch of pictures of their recent trip to the Andes, and then wrote an article for their newsletter with some 'teaser' pics, while directing the readers to the Forum for a more comprehensive look at the photographic record of the trip, we'd get a lot more members visiting.