Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: Susan Band on October 11, 2009, 10:16:52 AM
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Is this the worlds largest crevice garden?
On the top of the Bighorn mountains at 9000ft is a large limestone outcrop leading up to the ancient Indian 'Medicine Wheel' Unfortunately we were there in September when everything had finished flowering. Identified the following: Boykinia jamesii, Polemonium viscosum? Eriogonums, Erigerons, Campanula and lots of other rock plants. It must be great in July.
Susan
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Fabulous stone, Susan.
Paddy
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It must be great in July.
Susan
It is! At least it was when I saw it in 1997! A highlight of a wonderful NARGS Rocky Mountain Chapter Bus Trip - worth the scrounging of "holiday hours" to have a few days off work and a few flying hours up from Louisiana where I was at the time! Unfortunately before the days of digital, so I only have slides and prints!
cheers
fermi
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Susan, wonderful rocky photos of 'Medicine Wheel' - was it called this by the Indians because of herbs and medicinal plants found here at 9000ft?
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Robin,'
The Medicine wheel is a sacreed site still used by the Indians. They tie tokens onto the fence surrounding it. The 'wheel ' bit is obvious but I don't know where its medicinal purpose came from. The limestone ridge is certainly very different from the surrounding areas, which are high altitude meadows (9000ft). It is a very good vantage point, seeing for miles around.
Susan
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Susan, thanks for your reply and the photo showing the Medicine wheel and the wonderful meadows with the moose!
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the term 'medicine' when used in reference to native american cultures has mystical/magical/spiritual connotations, beyond the standard meaning of the word in english, referring to the power (for healing, for example, or connection to the spiritual world) inherent in an object, a place, a plant, a ritual..
medicine wheels (now apparently the term sacred hoops is more popular) -commonly an arrangement of stones-in particular alignment, for astronomical purposes, ritual, healing etc (of course those categories wouldnt be so distinct as they seem in modern western culture)--the spokes of the wheel aligning with the cardinal directions (each of which has important symbolic/ritual attributes), with astronomical points, etc..
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My medicine is definitely my garden Cohan, a physical and spiritual necessity for me and others on the Forum I think :D
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My medicine is definitely my garden Cohan, a physical and spiritual necessity for me and others on the Forum I think :D
i'm sure many would agree with that :)
here's a link to a book review i came across (i havent seen the book, myself) on making medicine wheel gardens.. in another review they quoted a physician who said 'many of his happiest and healthiest patients were green thumbs'
http://www.enotalone.com/article/5126.html
below is a discussion of traditional sites, including the big horn site..
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Oooooh , thanks Cohan, interesting reading for a dull cold day in the moutains - hope it livens the spirits ;D
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Thanks Cohan, for the explaination.
I did feel it was very different from the landscape around. Thousands of feet below is the Bighorn canyon and desert scrub, then to the east of it is the rich grassy meadows that in the autumn are full of wild animals which the native Americans would hunt and fill their larders for the winter before heading down to the desert floor again. I can see why it is there.
I liked the area so much we are planning a week there on a ranch nearby. Unfortunatly it will have to be in September again, maybe I will get some seed ;)
Anyone got a link to specific flora of the Bighorns or the limestone ridge?
Susan
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Another great prospect Susan !
Do bring some seed of the REAL Polemonium viscosum !
I saw it flowering in the Bighorns 12 years ago and was hooked ever since. I ordered seed from the different seed exchanges over the years but never got the real thing ... :( :'( always ended up with P. caerulea... >:(
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Friends, we have received ( thanks to Rudi) some comments from the "father of the man-made Cerevice Garden", Zdeněk Zvolánek about this natural phenomenon, also some photos from him from the construction of what he considers to be the largest man-made crevice garden........
Here is ZZ's reply to Rudi about the place Susan has shown us and the man-made version...... :)
"Rudi, my comment is that I know this place personally and I am sorry that I was not able to explore the stony part of this mountain better.
........... We got there terrible thunder storm .....and..... had to go back to car.
This example of crevice garden with horizontal layers is "classic" there are not good condition for plants to live in it because there are only few crevices available and water cannot go into them. Artificial outcrop with vertical crevices has much better
flora. All this natural huge outcrop is relatively poor in flora - only Petrophytum ceaspitosum and a few others can stand it. I saw better plant community behind this rock area. It was eroded eastern
slope with Aquilegia jonesii and very good dwarf eriogonum which I grow from seed (waiting for first flowers).
Man made largest natural crevice garden was constructed in Bangsbo botanical garden in Denmark close to Gottenburg. It is only 130 tons of limestone slabs from Germany and it
is waiting for planting and topdressing now. I attached a few pictures so you can offer them to your Forum to have an idea about the style and size. Everything is in good sharp sand.
With the Viking´s Ohoy, Zdenek"
Very interesting, I am sure you will agree. Thanks again to Rudi and ZZ.
click on the pix to enlarge them.....
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Friends, we have received ( thanks to Rudi) some comments from the "father of the man-made Cerevice Garden", Zdeněk Zvolánek about this natural phenomenon, also some photos from him from the construction of what he considers to be the largest man-made crevice garden........
Very interesting, I am sure you will agree. Thanks again to Rudi and ZZ.
click on the pix to enlarge them.....
interesting indeed! the comment about horizontal layers not allowing waterflow readily was interesting..as of course is that project! so between the stones is purely sand? will the plants then need continual feeding? or...?
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Friends, we have received ( thanks to Rudi) some comments from the "father of the man-made Cerevice Garden", Zdeněk Zvolánek about this natural phenomenon, also some photos from him from the construction of what he considers to be the largest man-made crevice garden........
Here is ZZ's reply to Rudi about the place Susan has shown us and the man-made version...... :)
"Rudi, my comment is that I know this place personally and I am sorry that I was not able to explore the stony part of this mountain better.
........... We got there terrible thunder storm .....and..... had to go back to car.
This example of crevice garden with horizontal layers is "classic" there are not good condition for plants to live in it because there are only few crevices available and water cannot go into them. Artificial outcrop with vertical crevices has much better
flora. All this natural huge outcrop is relatively poor in flora - only Petrophytum ceaspitosum and a few others can stand it. I saw better plant community behind this rock area. It was eroded eastern
slope with Aquilegia jonesii and very good dwarf eriogonum which I grow from seed (waiting for first flowers).
Man made largest natural crevice garden was constructed in Bangsbo botanical garden in Denmark close to Gottenburg. It is only 130 tons of limestone slabs from Germany and it
is waiting for planting and topdressing now. I attached a few pictures so you can offer them to your Forum to have an idea about the style and size. Everything is in good sharp sand.
With the Viking´s Ohoy, Zdenek"
Very interesting, I am sure you will agree. Thanks again to Rudi and ZZ.
click on the pix to enlarge them.....
See this new thread, friends.... ZZ will join us soon to tell us more!http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4462.0
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Susan:
The best flora I have found for the Bighorn Mountains is "Flowers of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains and Big Horn Basin" by Earl Jensen, published by Chimney Rock Books of Greybull, Wyoming in 1987. I suspect it is out of print, though you might be lucky and find a copy.
The flowers at Medicine Wheel are similar to Hunt Mountain to the south where natural crevice gardens can also be found. A description of a good hike at Hunt Mountain, including photos of some of the spring flowers can be found at:
http://www.mountainflora.ca/Rocky_Mountains_Alpine_Flowers/Hunt_Mountain_Hike.html (http://www.mountainflora.ca/Rocky_Mountains_Alpine_Flowers/Hunt_Mountain_Hike.html)
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Thanks for that David, I will have a hunt around for the book. I think I might even have the NARGS journal that it mentions. I never thought of the journals, prehaps Mike and Polly Stone have written a bit in the SRGC journals.
I think we might have a day or 2 in the southern Bighorns.Susan