Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Flowers and Foliage Now => Topic started by: Diane Whitehead on March 12, 2010, 10:22:18 PM
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I've just returned from the Western Winter Study Weekend in Medford,
Oregon, the home of Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery and a lot of exciting
gardens.
The first lot of pictures are from Kathy Allen's garden. She is a dedicated
seed sower and has three plant sales a year. A lot of her plants came
home with me, mostly penstemons, gentians and Turkish campanulas.
I was disappointed that she did not have any of her spiny sentinels for
sale, and she has not been able to find out its name.
The first set of pictures are mostly shapes, except for one with a name:
Iris attica.
Kathy has identified some of her plants.
"The plant that someone thought might be Dianthus erinicus(msp) and scorched on one side is acantholimon confertiflorum(I think it is winter burn). The flattish light green mat is Arenaria alfracarense.
Yes, one of the large cactus types was from okla and one was from a start given to me
by a stranger that wandered in one day and thought it would be at home in my garden."
The small cactus is Escobaria orcuttii v. koenigii
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Now for some with names.
Three Saxes: Saxifraga X apiculata,( a hybrid of S. marginata and S. sancta)
Saxifraga marginata var rocheliana, and Saxifraga grisebachii.
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Corydalis malkensis was happily putting itself into the path,
or maybe I was stepping off the path?
Note from Kathy: the corydalis is bulbosa alba.
At least that is the name it had when it was given to me about
35 years ago. It was given to me by Lawrence Crocker. (of
Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery)
Parrya kokandica from Tadzhikistan maybe was new, as there was
just one plant. Or perhaps Kathy collects all its seeds.
Synthyris stellata is much more luxuriant than my winter-flowering
reniformis. I wondered if I was starving mine, but I've just looked
it up, and in the wild, stellata is twice the height of reniformis. I
seldom see anything written about these "kittentails" and wonder
why they are not more widely grown.
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A pulsatilla, and a section of the nursery.
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Oh, Diane, I was so hoping we'd get a report from the NARGS Study weekend.... good for you!
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I was disappointed that she did not have any of her spiny sentinels for
sale, and she has not been able to find out its name.
Looks like a lovely place to visit!
Assuming the "spiny sentinel" is North American, and not something more exotic, is it not a cholla, Cylindropuntia ssp., possibly C. versicolor, staghorn cholla?
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I think she said she got it from Oklahoma, but I don't know
whether she meant it was native there, or just from a nursery
or collector.
From Kathy: I think the close up of the large cactus
(I call them all cactus) is the one from Oklahoma and the other two
pictures are of the one the fellow fished out of the back of his pickup
to give to me.
I took a close-up photo which I'll resize and post. It'll be great
if you can identify it.
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A few more from Kathy's garden.
I'm amazed at how she can grow cactus and a couple of metres
away, hepaticas are thriving.
Purshia tridentata, Antelope Bush, is native from Oregon to
New Mexico. not right - the leaves should be small
with three tips, and it should have five petals, not four. I'll have
to ask Kathy. "I'm sorry that I don't know the
name of the plant with the yellow flowers. I have had it for so many
years that I have lost touch with it. I do know that I bought it from
Forest Farms Nursery in Williams, Oregon. "
The iron rooster is standing beside a zigzag bush, but I don't
know its name. "The spiny 'zig zag' plant is Poncirus
trifoliate(hardy orange)."
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I took a close-up photo which I'll resize and post. It'll be great
if you can identify it.
I'm no expert, but it still looks like a Cylindropuntia... maybe C. acanthocarpa (buckhorn cholla) or C. versicolor (staghorn cholla).
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The iron rooster is standing beside a zigzag bush, but I don't
know its name.
Charlie? ;D
The bush could be what we call the wire netting bush Corokia cotoneaster
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The white Corydalis looks like Corydalis malkensis.
Susan
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The Cylindropuntia is probably C. imbricata if it is from Oklahoma. It has a large native range and bright pink to fuschia flowers.
Aaron
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Thanks Susan, I'll change the Corydalis name. There was a label that
I couldn't quite make out, and it must have been malkensis.
There was also C. bulbosa alba in another part of the garden.
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The next sets of pictures are of wild plants in the Illinois Valley,
along Highway 199, west of Grants Pass.
Every time we go, we go along our favourite roads, but always
add a new one, as each road has different plants.
The new one this time was Waters Creek Road, which has an
interpretive trail along the creek. It was mossy and moist near
the creek.
Hillsides were covered with the little yellow daisies of Gold Fields,
Crocidium multicaule. Saxifraga rufidula grew on rocky slopes,
and was tucked under rock overhangs. Cardamine nuttallii grew
here and there.
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There are about eight yellow viola species in this area of
Oregon, but I think this one near Waters Creek might be
Viola sheltonii.
The gorgeous rosette of leaves is a complete mystery, I'll
have to go back in a few months to see what it is.
Aaron identified it for me: Hydrophyllum spp.
Likely H. fendleri or occidentale
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Further up Waters Creek Road, on a dry hillside, Arctostaphylos
(patula, I think) was blooming, and Lomatium howellii.
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A bit further down Highway 199, and along the Illinois River Road.
As we drove by a hillside covered in the bare branches of shrubs
a flash of gentian blue caught my eye. It was the same intense
colour that I had seen in South Africa on Anchusa capensis, but I had
never seen it here before. It was Cynoglossum grande, a very
handsome plant with good red-tinged leaves. Too big for the rock
garden, but I've got to grow it, maybe under my apple trees.
Then some white - I think a Thlaspi, and Sedum obtusatum on a
rockface.
I walked back to the car and suddenly noticed Trillium
rivale under all the bushes on the slope above where we had
parked. How could I have gone chasing a little white flower and
completely missed all the Trillliums? It was interesting to see how
they were sheltered under deciduous shrubs, as it gets very hot and
dry here in the summer.
Perhaps a hundred metres away there was a slope covered in
Dodecatheon hendersonii. (Most of us here are ignoring the change
to Primula).
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We had been enjoying warm weather but a storm was due later
in the day, a cold front from the Aleutian Islands, and a rock slide
further along the highway had cut off the way to the coast, so we
headed north up the I-5 towards home. There were a few snow showers
on the way, and it was interesting to see how sporadic the snow was -
some hills were completely snow-covered, but the ones on either
side would still be dark green.
As we drove north, there were trees in flower - pussy willows, plums -
but these trees are decorated with thick lichens.
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"Nice leaves" might be Hydrophyllum spp., perhaps H. macrophyllum? (From Reply #14 on: March 13, 2010, 06:31:09 PM page1 )
http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/brents/field_botany/Test/hydrophyllum_macro1.jpg
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Thanks Diane for this series. It reminds me of the days when I would just venture down from the Seattle area and drive to northern parts of Oregon, or the several trips I would take to visit my friends at Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery in Medford, OR.
The Arctostaphylos_patula2.jpg show a particularly striking plant, with those rounded nearly blue leaves setting off pink flowers, striking.
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Great to see gardens in this area which I know to be very plant/gardener rich but haven't seen many pictures from (haven't belonged to NARGS for many years). I think the bun in the first set may be Dianthus erinaceus, the true plant. Looks like Kathy suffers from the same problem I do, burning on the sunny side?
I like the mat very much. Wonder what it is?
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The "nice leaves" from Reply #14 on: March 13, 2010, 06:31:09 PM page 1, is a Hydrophyllum spp. Likely H. fendleri or occidentale. The eastern North American H. virginianum is just as beautiful, but can and will take over the garden. Fortunately it is wintergreen and dormant May-September.
Aaron Floden
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On page 1, Reply #7 on: March 13, 2010, is the Purshia really P. tridentata? The leaves look too long and narrow, isn't tridentata more of a club shape with the three indents at the tips?
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Diane, I take it you were nowhere near the stands of my favourite Oregon native.
It has an interesting leaf. ;D
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Funnily enough, in his blog, John Grimshaw, one of the Speakers at the NARGS event, has pictured some of the same plants that Diane spotted!
http://johngrimshawsgardendiary.blogspot.com/2010/03/spring-in-siskiyous.html
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He got a stand of Darlingtonia too ;D
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lots of great plants in the area--i agree about the cyno, but i like everything from the thlaspi to viola--i'm jealous of 8 species of yellow viola!..--although we have a high density of violas here, no yellows in my area..
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Yes, Maggi, those Purshia leaves are anything but tridentate.
P. tridentata covers 340 million acres and varies a lot, besides
hybridizing with P. mexicana which used to be called Cowania.
However, mexicana's leaves are also indented.
I wonder what it is.
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I have no idea, Diane.... but I like it!
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Diane, I take it you were nowhere near the stands of my favourite Oregon native.
It has an interesting leaf. ;D
I'll assume that it's a no then :-\
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Fred I take it this is what you wanted to see. very interesting but definitely difficult to appreciate with the plants growing through an endless mass of dead decaying pitchers.
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Fred,
No, I didn't visit any Darlingtonia this time. Three roads that
go off Highway 199, that DO have Darlingtonia are: Eight
Dollar Mountain Rd (between Selma and Cave Junction), Lone
Mountain Rd (at O'Brien) and French Hill Road (in California,
halfway between Gasquet and a redwood park)).
Here is an old photo from Lone Mountain Rd., mid-March 2007.
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Oh my Diane, red adult pitchers, that's a rarity. ;D
Was that a stand of them?
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P. tridentata covers 340 million acres and varies a lot,
Not "rare and endangered" then. ;D
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I don't know whether conditions cause the different colours
in Darlingtonia.
Here's the red patch, in March. They grow in cold seeps,
sometimes in very dry areas.
The green ones were on French Hill Road in August, from an
area more generally moist - note the Adiantum.
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If the red one is in cultivation it's being kept very quiet.
I've been growing Darlingtonia for 25 years and never had red adult pitchers.
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Fred,
No, I didn't visit any Darlingtonia this time. Three roads that
go off Highway 199, that DO have Darlingtonia are: Eight
Dollar Mountain Rd (between Selma and Cave Junction), Lone
Mountain Rd (at O'Brien) and French Hill Road (in California,
halfway between Gasquet and a redwood park)).
Here is an old photo from Lone Mountain Rd., mid-March 2007.
Diane mine were taken at the reserve on the Eight Dollar Mountain road in May
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Must have been great to see the bog Tony.
Wasn't it a little early to see the pitchers in full force though?
May for me would be flowers.
Looking at my stock of plants now I could do with a bog that size to plant them out :D
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Fred do not get me wrong it was wonderful and seeing them was one of the main aims of our trip but the scale is enormous and I think it must take more than a year for the old pitchers to decay and so there is a huge mass of rotting vegetation with the new growth and flowers rising above it.At the Eight Dollar Mountain site there is raised boardwalk which gives a view from above.
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I think it must take more than a year for the old pitchers to decay and so there is a huge mass of rotting vegetation with the new growth and flowers rising above it.
It certainly does take a long time for the pitchers to completely die down in cultivation Tony, as for decaying
I'd give it several years altogether.
I have to rely on my views of the wild plants with the likes of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebZMWy2SLU
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Kathy Allen has identified some of the plants I didn't know. Check back
to page one.