Native plants are a passion for my staff and I, particularly western native plants. And yet many of our great Western natives are virtually unknown among amateur and professional gardeners and landscapers. Such is the case with these two species native to the Great Basin of UT and NV and eastern CA.
Western Redbud (Cercis occidentalis)
Growing as a small tree or large shrub in its arid habitat, this relative of the popular Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Western Redbud has been used historically by native American peoples as a source of flexible branches for weaving baskets. Blooming in mid-spring with pale pink to dark rose pink flowers before the leaves appear, it is a showstopper. Deep green, almost glossy leaves follow and change to yellow in the fall before they drop. Western Redbud becomes more cold hardy with age. Do this by providing young transplants with supplemental cold protection for the first two winters in the ground. This is easily done by wrapping the plant in burlap and filling the fabric with fallen leaves to insulate the branches. My 5 year old plant has now withstood occasional winter lows of -15° F ! Zones (6 with initial cold protection) 7-10.
Desert Peach (Prunus andersonii)
Native in the foothills and lower elevation mountains of eastern CA and 
western NV, this species is a relative of the eatable Peach. In late spring the shrub is covered by a cloud of fragrant, pale to medium pink flowers. The shrub is both heat and cold tolerant and grows to medium size with dense, angular, thorny branching and small light green leaves. By mid-summer, tiny, non-eatable peaches are abundant. As a habitat plant, Prunus andersonii is a fabulous shrub for feeding bees and to provide nesting habitat for songbirds. Desert Peach can also be used as a barrier or hedging and is a great choice for poor soils. Very xeric once established. Zones 5-9.
My Favorite Herb
Over the many years that I have gardened in Santa Fe, at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains, I have become infatuated by lavender , intoxicated by its beauty, its fragrance and entranced by its toughness and adaptability in the landscape.
OK, I know my prose is a little over the top, but I really am very fond of the genus Lavandula. Like the other plants discussed in Michael Polan’s book The Botany of Desire, this ancient Mediterranean herb (the region that includes the birthplace of Roman and Greek cultures) has become inextricably linked with mankind for thousands of years. We propagate it and ensure its survival on the planet and it repays us with its essentials oils that sooth and heal. For me, part of its allure is to continue to enjoy this historic alliance in our gardens and landscapes into the future.
Three new HCG lavender varieties for 2012
Lavandula Purple Ribbons
Lavandula stoechas (Spanish lavender)
For gardeners in zones 7-10, the Spanish lavenders are superb in ground plants for the herb garden or waterwise landscape. In colder regions (zones 5&6) they are long lived container plants for the summer patio. The showy, winged flower spikes of this Spanish species are distinctly different from the English and French hybrid varieties. It also blooms earlier in the spring.
‘Purple Ribbon’ – a graceful plant breed in Holland, ‘Purple Ribbon’ is a long blooming selection with wonderfully showy flowers and bracts. It’s is also very fragrant and a sturdy garden performer in heat and poor soils.
Lavandula Madrid Blue
‘Madrid Blue’ PP#12,573 – this cutting propagated cultivar is a super showy bloomer with eyecatching dark blue flowers and white bracts. Absolutely a “must have” ornamental herb for the mild-winter waterwise garden.
Lavandula x intermedia (French hybrid Lavender)
This hybrid group of lavender have been breed to perfection in France, where thousands of acres are grown commercially for lavender oil and other lavender products. These French hybrids bloom in mid-summer and should be combined with earlier blooming English and Spanish lavenders for an incredibly long season of fragrant flowers.
Lavandula Gros Bleu
‘Gros Bleu’ – my favorite variety of this group. More compact that either ‘Grosso’ and ‘Provenance’ , it is a heavy bloomer with intensely fragrant foliage and flowers. The scent is sweet like English lavender with very little camphor in its scent. Here in the high desert, It re-blooms lightly in the fall if summer rains occur In August. The evergreen foliage turns lavender-blue in winter. An outstanding French introduction!
Kintzley’s Ghost ® Vining Honeysuckle (Lonicera reticulate ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’)
Vines are so useful in our landscapes. They provide coverage for fences (especially unsightly ones) and make a wonderful trellis plant to cover walls and narrow upright spaces with attractive foliage and colorful flowers. Kintzley’s Ghost is a very unusual native vine that gives us an unusually long season of interest. With showy late spring yellow flowers followed by a summer long display of large, bright silver-dollar like bracts, ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’ is a little known but highly ornamental Lonicera species.
It’s also a plant that comes to 21st century gardeners with a very interesting story attached to it. Originally propagated by William “Ped” Kintzley at the Iowa State University greenhouses in the 1880’s, he passed it along to family members, where it grew in a few family gardens unknown to the rest of the world. Then in the late 1990’s nurseryman Scott Skogerboe of Ft. Collins Wholesale Nursery spotted the plant growing in old town Ft. Collins, CO. A man with a passion for plant history, Scott stopped to examine this startling discovery and talked with the homeowner. This is how he learned of its origins and realized that he had re-discovered a superb heirloom plant. Scott began to propagate the vine and in 2006, Colorado’s Plant Select™ program awarded it recognition as a Plant Select winner.
I had had forgotten about the plant until this past June when I visited Denver Botanic Garden for a conference. These photos that I took that day reminded me why Kintzley’s Ghost truly is an award winner. Easily grown in most any soil in a part to full sun location, it is a moderately fast grower that matures to a very manageable size. (8-12′ tall x 3-5′ wide). It is very cold hardyand grows in USDA Zones 4-8. To add even more color to its space plant some so companion plants like Salvia nemerosa ‘May Night’ at the base of the vine to dress-up it up a bit.
A large patch of Pterocephalus in my garden.
Carpeting Pincushion Flower (Pterocephalus depressus)
Groundcovers are so important in the garden. They create the garden’s carpet and weave the various plants together into a more harmonious
whole. They grow as a beautiful edge to flower beds, walkways and patios. They often provide both ornamental flowers and foliage to give them a very long s
A close-up of the captivating flowers.
eason of interest. So when I come across a new, truly remarkable groundcover that has been unknown to me, it’s very exciting.
Pterocephalus (te – RO – cefalous) depressus is currently at the top of my plant list. I got my original plants from a remarkable rock garden nursery in Ft. Collins, CO, Laporte
Avenue Nursery. After growing strongly in my rock garden for the past two growing seasons, (in a sort-of dry year followed by a severe drought year) I’ve seen the many
Evergreen foliage tolerates light foot traffic.
virtues of this carpeting beauty. Closely related to a very popular genus of cottage garden
perennials, Scabiosa(Pincushion Flower), this alpine species is from the high mountains of Morocco, on the northeastern corner of Africa. Blooming in early to mid-summer, the plant has huge mauve-pink flowers that sit right on the foliage. The flowers are followed by
fuzzy pink seed heads that decorate the plant for many weeks after blooming has finished.
But I have to say that as wonderfully ornamental as the flowers and seed heads are, the tight mat of evergreen foliage is equally interesting and useful. The stems root as they grow and cover themselves with nicely textured, tightly congested foliage that tolerates foot traffic and is as weed-proof as any groundcover I’ve ever seen. Recommended for USDA zones 5-8, Pterocephalus is ready to move from list of specialty rock garden plants into the mainstream of gardening and will prove itself to be a superior garden carpet.
Pink Flamingo' and 'Blonde Ambition' at the Placitas, NM community library.
Ornamental grasses should be the highlight of any fall landscape. Few plants can provide so much beauty for so little effort. There are two types of
ornamental grasses; warm season and cool season. Cool season grasses grow most actively in the fall and spring with flower spikes coming in late spring-early summer. Warm season grasses wake up in the late spring, grow most actively through the summer and bloom in the late summer and fall.
I always recommend that gardeners remember to include both groups in their designs. A couple of my favorite ornamental grasses are two native warm season growers, ‘Blonde Ambition’ Blue Grama grass and ‘Pink Flamingo’ Muhly grass.
‘Pink Flamingo’ is a garden discovered hybrid between Muhlenbergia lindheimeri and
'Blonde Ambition' sunbathing in Phoenix
Muhlenbergia capillaris. Here in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, it comes into flower in early September. The tall 5 to 6 ft. showy pink flower spikes wave in the breeze over the tops of its thin green foliage. It is cold hardy to at least -10°F (USDA zone 6a) and loves a long, hot
summer.
‘Blonde Ambition’ Blue Grama is a High Country Gardensintroduction. A distinctive form of our native Blue Grama, this giant blonde is unique among the ornamental grasses with its flag-like chartreuse flowers that age to golden yellow seed heads by fall. Cold hardy to -30°F (USDA zone 4a), ‘Blonde Ambition’ is also very heat tolerant. It blooms in mid-July and holds its seed heads until
spring.
Pink Flamingo' makes a cloud of pink.
The photo of the two together shows this pairing in October, in full glory after a brutally hot, dry summer here in NM. Where possible, plant ornamental grasses so the afternoon sun
shines through the flower spikes. It adds great drama to the garden at day’s end.
Here is a photo of #1 (“gallon”) ‘Blonde Ambition’ plants growing in a Phoenix, AZ wholesale nursery where the plants were grown in full sun at day temperatures over 100°F. You can really see its uniformity and showy flowers.
For hot summer, mild winter areas of TX , the Southwest and interior CA, fall is a great time to plant these and any other ornamental grasses so you can enjoy the magnificent display of grassy colors and textures next fall.
A crown of lavender-pink flowers.
This intriguing native plant has won me over. I’ve been growing this wildflower in my front courtyard for the past three years and in my greenhouse stock beds for even longer. I have watched it transform from gawky youngsters to mature beauties. This year, in spite of our grueling summer heat and drought, my three plants have been a standout in the xeriscape.
While Vernonia lindheimeri with its green foliage is widespread across Texas and northeast into Arkansas, the subspecies v. leucophylla that I’m growing is from the cold, arid Davis
Growing with Yucca and Opuntia.
Mountains of west TX (at the northern edge of the vast Chihuahuan desert)*. I’m quite fond of silver leaved plants, but this stunner is at the head of the line with its long, thin, tomentose,
silver-white leaves. In the late summer v. leucophylla comes into bloom and the stems are tipped with crowns of fuzzy, lavender-pink flowers.
Admittedly, the flowers could be bigger and more plentiful, but this perennial’s beauty is more subtle than most non-desert plants. It is a fabulous companion plant for other desert succulents like Agave, Yucca, Opuntia. Vernonia’s graceful stems and finely textured leaves contrast so nicely with their stout
Planting with Agastache, Lavender and Echinacea.
green and blue foliage. I also combine it with Agastache, native southwestern Salvia, Lavandula, Rosmarinus and other perennial xerophytes, native and Old World.
Growing this herbaceous wildflower is not difficult. A spot with fast draining, nutrient poor (“lean”) soil where the plant can enjoy a hot, full sun exposure is best. Being very xeric, deep, infrequent watering is needed only when rain is scarce. Vernonia has a tap root to China, and it takes a couple of years to get established and bulk up its crown. It’s also surprisingly cold hardy and good to at least -10° F (USDA zone 6a). In colder climates spring planting is best. In hot, mild winter climates of TX and the Southwest, fall is the optimum planting time.
*I’m grateful to my friends Scott and Lauren Springer Ogden for giving me the seed.
Sometimes I think New Mexico Privet is the Rodney Dangerfield of native shrubs; it doesn’t get any respect. Well that’s not entirely true as it is often specified in commercial landscaping jobs. But many homeowners and gardeners hear “privet” in the name and think “boring” and walk right past it in the nursery yard.
I have found it to be a remarkably useful native shrub/small tree for its durability and resilience. Growing in shade to full sun, sandy or clay soils and wet or dry conditions, New Mexico Privet can be planted just about anywhere. It’s also a landscape designers dream with its outstanding fall color, graceful, white barked multi-stemmed trunks and its usefulness in creating habitat; this shrub is an excellent food source and nesting site for song birds.
This species has separate male and female plants. The female plants have the beautiful black-purple berries that ripen in the fall. As a small plant it’s not possible to determine the sex of the plant. That’s why I always suggest buying at least three. Odds are you’ll get at least one female. This lady Privet plan
t is growing right outside my kitchen window where we watch a wide variety of songbirds enjoying the berries for breakfast.
In arid climates, give it regular irrigation for the first three or four years and this shrub grows quickly. I recommend it as a xeric substitute for aspen and birch trees. Granted it doesn’t get as tall as these two other white barked trees. But it can be easily pruned into a multi-stemmed tree that gets to 12-15 ft. in height. And it works in hotter, drier sites that birch and aspen dislike. It can also be used as a xeric hedge as the common name of “privet” would suggest.
Yes, this is a remarkably versatile native plant that deserves our respect (and a place in our landscapes).
Konza Prairie and Creek Bottoms
I finished up my keynote talk before the Kansas State Advanced Master Gardener Training this morning in Manhattan, KS. As always, Master Gardeners are a great group of very interested, committed gardeners. And here I am in the middle of the Great Plains, with some time on my hands. As it so happens, I love prairies, am passionate about their conservation and visit them whenever I get a chance. Here in the Flint
A Creek Running through the Prairie
Hills of east central Kansas, is a fabulous 8,600 acre tract of undisturbed prairie, The Kanzo, owned and managed by a partnership of the Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University.
Walking through my rain revived gardens these past couple of weeks, it finally hit me what makes the fall in the garden ,its most beautiful time of year. For one, many of the plants are much larger than those that bloom in the spring. Instead of sheets of blooming bulbs, phlox, cold hardy Delosperma and smaller flowering trees and shrubs, many other medium sized plants, the fall garden is all about big grasses, towering perennials and brilliant fall foliage. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s the first day of fall with the arrival of the fall equinox (equal night and equal day length as summer officially changes to fall) Without question, the spring and summer of 2011 were the most traumatic I’ve ever had to deal with. I’ve been remiss in posting my blogs. But, as someone who lives and breathes plants, gardening and my business, I was in the dumps, mired in depression about all the climatic and economic bad news. Read the rest of this entry »
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