casa coniglio

Boulder, Colorado is at about the same altitude as where I live, but in a vastly different climate. We went to Boulder this weekend for Zimfest, an annual Zimbabwean music festival, where my partner's marimba band had a performance. I had a chance to visit a schoolmate and his family as well. I haven't seen Alex in 12 years.

Boulder has had a wet year, and the creeks were even overflowing the walkways. If you look carefully, you can see someone on the flooded path. But take a look at the trees. Real trees... tall trees... Despite the similarity in altitude, this ain't Albuquerque.

In case you don't know what a marimba is, here it is in action.

He also plays the mbira, here it is wired for sound.

Apparently someone built a cairn next to the stream at some point. Now it's in the middle of the stream.


This is probably an invasive weed in Boulder, but since it is blue, a photo had to be taken.

And speaking of orchids, as opposed to the Epipactis in my previous post, most of the indoor orchids are in a growth phase except this one.

I blogged about another Neofinetia falcata a couple of weeks ago. This week, this Neo decided it would not be upstaged and is putting on an incredible show. I call this plant my "new Neo" since I acquired it a year or two after my other one. It's about 14 years old now. Most of the Neo's that I've seen (including mine) put out a stem or two, though they are lovely, graceful, and scented. Each individual flower is appreciated for its grace and beauty. This year, this Neo decided that it would go for quantity as well. There are 13 stems and I've counted 103 flowers, although I suspect I missed a stem or two. I'm overwhelmed. I think that the abundance is at the sacrifice of delicacy, but I'm not complaining. The flowers of this plant are also less fragrant than my other plant, smelling more like baby powder than the vanilla-orange of my other plant. I'm grateful for the qualities of each plant, each flower. Despite my cold.

On my last hike three weeks ago, it was way early to photograph the native stream orchid Epipactis gigantea, and today it was a little late. On this drizzly morning, the orchids in the shadier areas were still at their peak however, and I was still thrilled to see them. There are a bunch of other native orchids in New Mexico, but I haven't been lucky enough to find them. This one I can find consistently, since it isn't far off the beaten path...in fact, many of the fragile plants get crushed by the many hikers through the area. Sigh.

I was admiring Mr_Subjunctive's post on transmitted light today, and decided to do a version of my own. As I was photographing some leaves, it became immediately apparent that the size of the leaf is critical. Then I began noticing that all the interesting surface characteristics vanished, even though interesting other characteristics became apparent.

It reminded me of the work of a photographer that I saw in 1988 or so, a project titled Nude/Not Nude. In this project, people were photographed, as you might imagine, each person photographed both clothed and nude. It was fascinating how people behaved differently for the camera. Some became very shy of course, but others appeared shy when clothed, and very not-shy when nude.

In doing my photos today, the same things seemed to occur with the leaves as I photographed them back-lit as opposed to front-lit. Some leaves became vibrant, others less interesting. You judge. Left images nude, right images not-nude.

Click to embiggen (much better view).


Stachys

Purple plum
Cercis canadensis

Heuchera 'Amethyst Mist'

The idea that oregano could be anything other than the herb in the spice rack came as a pleasant surprise when I visited the rock garden in the Denver Botanic garden. I don't remember which oregano it was (perhaps O. rotundifolium), but it was a plant about eight inches high, and absolutely covered with purple-tinged green bracts, with matching purple tubular flowers peeking out between the bracts. The thin wiry stems held these paper-lantern heads in a graceful pendant manner, and of course Panayoti had positioned this plant to hang down over a rock, showing off the plant in the best way possible. I was entranced. I had to lightly rub a leaf and smell it (never pick anything at a botanic garden, even a leaf) in order to reassure myself that it was indeed an oregano.

Since then, I've discovered that there are many oreganoes. I think of the oreganoes as split into two main groups: those whose flowers are predominant, and those whose bracts are most noticeable. Those more knowledgable might split them into the rotundifolium group and the laevigatum group. Of course both groups have both bracts and flowers. Those that come from the rotundifolium group tend to have a short pendant habit. Those from the laevigatum group are upright and can be two feet tall. Culinary oregano (Italian oregano, Greek oregano) come from the laevigatum group.


Although the upright oreganoes have some wonderfully colored varieties (try a google search on Origanum laevigatum 'Herrenhausen'), it is the rotundifolium group that gets me most excited. The bracts seem to be always variations of green with purple tinting. O. 'Kent Beauty' is starting its bloom (above), the heads reminding me of cowbells. The plant I purchased was a scraggly thing with wiry roots, but engaging bracts. In the last few years, it has proven itself a member of the mint family, spreading through underground roots to several feet across. It has even sent shoots up through the drylaid brick path, which is part charming and part annoying. Stepping on these errant plants releases the well-known oregano scent. The plant has not developed into a dense bushy plant, but there are enough stems to make a show. These stems die to the ground in the winter so there is nothing above ground in the winter.


Oregano libanoticum (above, and below) was highly promoted by the High Country Gardens when I bought it. There are certainly things to recommend it, such as the charming pendant earring bracts in a soft color that makes me think of sherbet. It tolerates dry soil, but in dry conditions, the bracts quickly dry to brown, even if flowers continue to appear between them. I noticed that in the display gardens, plants are kept rather moist, and with this the plants become an almost unruly mess, but the bracts remain green. It spreads more slowly than 'Kent Beauty' and although stems also die back for the winter, basal leaves remain and develop a burgundy tone.


These are the first two oreganoes to start their show. In the past I have posted O. dictamnus, the famous Dittany of Crete, which has the advantage of retaining all of its wonderfully fuzzy leaves through the winter, and a particularly long season of bloom. It has self-seeded this year into my dry-creek walk, but I'm thrilled. I'm also trialling O. 'Amethyst Falls' but it burned badly in the late spring snow. I'm also re-trying O. sipleum, whose bracts at Agua Fria nursery were a solid dusky purple, but when planted in my garden, the bracts were mainly green. I'll keep you posted.

When gardening today, my mind wandered as it always does, and for some reason, the song “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” (Willie Nelson, 1980) came to mind. This phrase was the literal truth for my father. He grew up worshipping the like of John Wayne and probably a bunch of other Hollywood cowboys that I have no memory of. He dreamed of having a ranch, riding horseback, and playing the guitar and harmonica in the evenings. I’m not sure if it was the life he desired, or the image of the free-wheeling tough-guy cowboy that he dreamed of. In real life, in his younger days, he was indeed a charmer, with a number of women at his heels, at least that is what I hear of from my father’s friends. He settled down with my mother at what was considered then to be the late age of 35, a good 10-15 years later than other people in his era. We eventually did move from the city to the country, to a place he called our little ranch. We had a pony (he rarely rode), and cattle (which died), sheep (which any true cowboy would be horrified by - they call them cowboys after all, not sheepboys), goats (even worse - goatboys?), chickens (they had chickens on ranches didn’t they?), ducks (mean SOBs), geese, and an aggressive pig (named Maggie after his obese secretary...and whom we ate...the pig, not the secretary), rabbits, and a big garden. In the evenings he sometimes tried to play the guitar or the harmonica. Between his business and the ranch, I’m sure he was tired a lot, but he was living his dream.

Which had me thinking: who are my heroes? Is there anyone that I grew up so admiring that I would model my life upon them? And what is the difference between a hero and a role model? I think back upon my life. My parents? I couldn’t claim that to be the truth. Not that I didn’t love them, but they didn’t have much time for me, an understandable situation given our poverty. I would say that I respected them, but to be honest, they were not my heroes. Teachers? I can’t remember the names of all of my teachers, and can barely remember the names of many of them except one impressive teacher in college. He could have been a hero. Or it might have been lust. My friends? The friends I grew up with betrayed me in a cruel incident in my teenage years, so no, not friends. Even had this not happened, I would not say they were my heroes. The church? As a child I saw that the church officials in the church where we went were power-hungry, manipulative weasels (the pastor was eventually accused of sexual abuse, and then “disappeared”). They certainly weren’t people to be admired.

I grew up in an inner city neighborhood, and there was no one around to admire. Police officers? They were in positions of intimidation, not that of admiration. Firemen? I was not that impressed with someone standing around pouring water on a building (which was my impression of a fireman as a child), so no. Doctors? What did doctors do except poke and prod and, in general, invade my personal space in embarrassing ways? This does not even include the horrors of shots and blood draws. I saw no evidence of impressive life-saving. So no. Not doctors.

I was never a fan of comic books or their superheroes, and those that I did read were impressive, even titillating (all those tight costumes!), but not my heroes. The president? I grew up with Nixon in the White House, so no, not government officials. Pop stars? I didn’t listen much to the radio until my teenage years, and then rabidly. I admired the singers, even had crushes on some of them (or so I told myself to pretend), but not a hero. Movie stars? The same as pop stars. I also know people whose heroes are those people who are self-made millionaires. They see these people who have "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps," and made their millions. But in my inner city world, those who made the money did so on the backs of others. It was a struggle for my parents to make enough to pay for groceries, and I remember standing in line while my parents literally counted pennies and told the cashier to put things back that we couldn't afford. Unlike my sister, who was inspired by this to defeat the system, I was defeated by the situation. I saw those around us struggling to make the millionaire dream come true, and devoted their lives to making money. They were not people who had time for little boys, and did not seem better off or more happy for their effort. The ones that did make it, similarly, were not personalities that I wished to emulate, despite their luxuries. So no role models. And no heroes.

Or is that entirely true? What did I admire more than anything else when I was growing up? What was it that I admired the most, if someone forced me in some way to choose a hero?

If I look up the word “hero” in my Oxford dictionary, it says: 1. a person noted or admired for nobility, courage, outstanding achievements, etc. 2. the chief male character in a poem, play, story, etc. 3. a man of superhuman qualities, favored by the gods; a demigod. 4. a submarine sandwich.

I’ve already eliminated #1. As far as #2, I myself am the chief male character in my story, and although some people are their own heroes, I was not the hero in my mind (as the first words of David Copperfield say, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”). #3 was already addressed, and no, superhuman superheroes are not my role model hero. And #4, although I appreciate a good sub sandwich as much as the next guy, no, hero sandwiches are not my hero.

Perhaps I could consider my sister my hero. She was born with a birth defect that has made her ridiculed or at least stared at by people throughout her life. She has lived with the threat of seizures (didn’t manifest themselves) and the threat of early death. She has known since an early age that she is at high risk for the rupture of a blood vessel in her brain, that such event could occur at any time and cause instant death. As a person “admired for nobility, courage, outstanding achievements,” I could strive to emulate her grace in accepting these conditions of life (who would want to be Mother Theresa, by the way, I mean, really?). But growing up together, we were young comrades in arms, and could a colleague be a hero when I’ve seen the bad as well as the good, the simple humanity of a person? Maybe. I’ll accept this one.

But what if #1 was not a person? What if it were a thing that is “noted or admired for nobility, courage, outstanding achievements, etc.?” What it is that I admired most as a child, or as an impressionable youth growing up, for nobility, for outstanding achievements, for surviving through adverse lifetime events, through massacre, through the adversity of chance, through the curves that life throws, for the ability to continue on despite damage and scars, and despite difficult conditions? It was not a person at all. It was the trees. Yep, plants. You must have guessed this by now. The survivors I saw were there, year after year, from a time long before my life began, or my parents lives began, or perhaps even my grandparents. Their heroism extended through a non-human time scale, and were beyond the faults or character flaws that people have. I saw trees as being true to themselves, they were simply what they were, and did not pretend to be anything else but that. They were honest to a fault. They suffered from difficulty, but moved on to become something greater despite the difficulty, or even because of the difficulty. They did what they could do to survive, even if sometimes they did not. There are people who lived like this, being true to themselves and their dreams, but they were fictional characters on television or in the movies. Perhaps this is what my father saw in the Hollywood cowboys. No, I must admit that trees were my heroes, even if I could never be one, or even strive to be one.

My heroes have never been cowboys.

Penstemon barbatus is also known as Scarlet Bugler, but I like to call it the shark's head penstemon. When I was first starting to familiarize myself with the native penstemons, one of the books described the flowers P. barbatus as looking like a shark's head in profile. I immediately went out to look at mine, and sure enough, the fully open flowers did indeed look like a sharks head, complete with fins hanging below.

There are many cultivars of this easy-to-grow penstemon, ranging in color and size, but the cultivated varieties reportedly require moist soil. I like the natural form anyway, which in my garden grows to 6 feet or more tall, even in the unirrigated parts. It self-sows with abandon, so this year I have relegated it to the wilder unirrigated areas, where it only grows 2-3 feet tall. The flowers are still extremely charming, and eye-catching even from a distance. The hummingbirds would agree.

Calamogrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' is at its fluffy stage. Although this grass is used everywhere these days, I still love it, and the best part of having it in my garden is that I can see the subtleties up close and watch the changes from day to day. I moaned about my using it in a previous post, and I admit to still feeling guilty about using this non-native grass which requires somewhat more water than some of the natives.

There are a number of reasons why it works so well in my garden, however.

First of all is the color. When it is at its fluffy stage (when the plants are blooming), the spikes are a rose red color. When the sun is setting, the flower heads glow with almost the same color as the Sandia mountains. It is a marvelous color echo. Maybe I'll have to take an afternoon photo of Karl just to prove my point. Maybe later. You could argue that purple three-awn (Aristida purpurea) would make a similar color echo in a native, precip-only plant, and you would be correct. The difference is that purple three-awn only gets to 6 inches or so tall, and in my tiny garden, getting enough to make that impression would make my back yard mostly one species. You could also argue for the virtues of Eragrostis trichodes, which I have grown in my garden, for similar color (but in the fall) in a taller plant (though not as tall as Karl), but in my garden it also doesn't have the nearly year-round structure in the garden, and is a bushy plant rather than tall (more on that later). The same could be said for purple muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris), which although admittedly a impressive plant for a few weeks in the fall, is scraggly the rest of the year.


Then, when the flower heads fade, they fade to a nice biscuit brown that matches quite well with my interior space ("bronco brown" if you must know). When you are in the house, the color from the walls extends into the outdoor space via the sandstone flooring, which also matches Karl. Although Karl's color fades to light tan by winter, the impression of the color echo still remains. These faded stalks remain all winter, as seen in my post from December 2008.


Karl also greens up quickly in the spring, just when I am most starving for some growth in the early spring, Karl obliges by growing quickly following his annual haircut. It is very satisfying to see the growth after my work in shearing him to the ground. You might argue that the delayed growth of the warm season grass would be a chance for me to exercise patience, and you would be correct. But PAH!

The vertical nature of Karl is also helpful in my tiny (repeated for emphasis) garden. Although you would be correct in saying that Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) would provide similar form and color, Indian grass does not last all winter, and I was surprised to discover that it does not use less water than Karl. It also has a less refined appearance (not necessarily a bad thing, but as you can imagine, my garden is well manicured) in overall plant form and also in its self-sowing (a good thing for a native plant, but less desirable for maintenance). Karl is sterile (or should I say...impotent). Indian grass also leafs out quite late in the spring. This year, mine began to sprout some leaves in mid-May.

The vertical nature of Karl makes him particularly good at showing off the wind - something there is no shortage of here in Albuquerque. The other grasses mentioned such as the bushy Muhlenbergia capillaris and Eragrostis trichodes, or the tufty purple three-awn do not have this quality. This is the quality that is most useful in the winter, when I am most frustrated in living in a cold-winter climate (although some of you would disagree with it being cold-winter here, remember that I define cold-winter as being so cold that things are not actively growing and blooming). Indian grass lacks this.

The only grass that I would consider for replacing Karl is deergrass (Muhlenbergia rigens), and I've thought long and hard about this. Deergrass has nearly all of the qualities of Karl in a native plant, that has a distinctive form of its own, that of a fountain, or porcupine, rather than strictly upright. Deergrass also has the quality of catching late afternoon light in a way that is almost magical. I'm tempted, quite tempted indeed, to replace Karl with the larger-spreading deergrass. Deergrass (shown below in February) doesn't, however, have the rose-purple color that echoes the mountains, at any time during the year.

I suppose that I could design around the various foibles of the other grasses. Maybe for a later project if I get motivated.

Here's the good: it seems like people like my photos. I'm grateful for the positive responses, and it is always great to have my work appreciated. I feel that my photography has improved a lot since I started this blog (partly because I got a better camera).

Here's the (maybe) bad: It has come to my attention that people may be stealing my images for their profit-making schemes. I guess I'm a bit chagrined about that. If it is students using my images in bits and pieces for their MLA presentations, that's not a big deal. If people are taking the photos and just placing them on their own computer as inspiration, that's not such a big deal. But if people are using them to make money, that's another thing. In this day and age, I suppose people are desperate, but come on. At the least they should be giving credit where credit is due.

So here are my options, seeing what other people do with their photos in their blogs:
1. stop posting photos, post only written stuff that I don't mind people stealing or quoting.
2. post photos, but only show the crappy ones that I don't mind people stealing.
3. post the nice photos, but watermark them.
4. post the nice photos, but only show them in small sizes and very small pixel sizes.
5. stop caring about it. If people like them enough to steal them, that's cool, even if no one knows who took the photo.
6. post only the photos I don't care about.

The dilemma, of course, is that the reason I post the nice photos is, first of all, that the blog is a way for me to remember and document my garden, and second of all, I hope people get inspired by my trials and tribulations as well as successes in my garden, to work on their own garden and get excited about plants. Showing crappy photos may not accomplish either of those goals. Not showing photos would also not accomplish those goals. Watermarking photos, in my opinion, ruins the photos, and is distracting. Posting small photos also is not very inspirational to me. So that leaves me #5, to stop caring about it.

Or #6, somewhere in between, where I just post the photos I don't care about - even if they are not "crappy," they might not be my favorites. It is a public space after all. And here in Albuquerque, as in other parts of the world (so I hear), people dig out the plants in public spaces and plant them in their gardens. My friend who guerilla gardened the median by his house found that people dug out the plants while they were in full bloom, to sell down the street. Of course, here in the desert, those plants probably wilted and died within hours, since native plants transplant poorly when actively growing. I have heard that in England, people even steal cuttings of plants in public and private gardens, to the point where the plants are "pruned" to mere stubs, or killed. I guess you have to plan for it. So in that case, my rare and special plants I'll keep in my own private garden. I'll show them. Just come on by. And bring cookies (I like lemon bars).

The Valles Caldera was open today to the public with permit, and we had the privilege of touring through the caldera (volcanic crater) with a geologist, in fact, one who has officially mapped the Jemez mountains. This was an all-day trip, and I'm exhausted. What an incredible landscape.

Click to embiggen.

The Iris missouriensis were looking glorious.

River of sedges.

A work on a grand scale...that of gods.

A host of golden...dandelions.

I don't know what this is, but it sure is cute.

Can you find the cars? They give you an idea of how big the caldera is. You may need to click to embiggen.

I'm pretty sure I also saw a UFO. I've never seen one of those before, but there was this weird white box floating stationary in the sky even though there was a very strong wind. It stayed there until we turned a corner, then was gone. Maybe a bird...a square white bird.

It's a wonderful thing when Neofinetia falcata blooms. The Japanese wind orchid is small, this plant being about four inches across though I've had it more than 10 years. I find the flowers to be enchantingly graceful, and add to that an orange vanilla scent. It's ease of growth makes it even better.

There is no question that Salvia pachyphylla is a dramatic plant. Flower bracts are large, with the heads being a good 6-8 inches, and in a vibrant red-purple (not my favorite color, but it does stand out in the garden). The true flowers are violet blue. The leaves are attractive, being spathe shaped, grey-green, and evergreen (evergrey). They are completely rabbitproof, and if you touched them, you'd know why. The leaves are sticky, and so heavily resinous as to leave your hands sticky and fragrant when touching them. Plants are tolerant of dry soil.

Let me rephrase that. Plants need dry gravelly soil, and dry atmosphere. When trying to grow them in pots, especially in a peat-based mix, they inevitably rot. Even in the ground, if irrigated too much (which seems to be, in my garden, any drip irrigation at all) they develop wilt, with large branches suddenly wilting until the whole plant is dead. This happened to my favorite plant, which had huge flower heads of 10-12 inches. Fortunately it had self layered, and fortunately, I had separated out a layer into another unirrigated part of the garden before this happened. The plant shown above is a seedling of that plant.

Once wilt develops, it is said to be in the soil indefinitely, and new plants planted in the same location to replace the dead ones may quickly succumb to the soil-borne disease.

Plants are a bit tricky to get established for this reason. If ignored they can turn crispy-dead in the summer heat. If irrigated in the heat, molds can quickly develop. It is best to irrigate only slightly, and only when the plants show signs of wilting (you have to look closely to determine this, as the plant hardly looks different until it is crispy-dry). After establishment, no irrigation is best unless the plant looks very drought stressed. Then just a bit, to perk up the plants. Interestingly, the plants that I purchased from High Country Gardens look different than those I purchased from Agua Fria Nursery. Those from AFN have wavy leaves and narrower heads.

Allowing self-sown seedlings to grow in desired areas is the best way to establish new plants, although in my climate, the winter may kill off the little ones. With such little irrigation, the plants grow slowly, coming to blooming size in perhaps 3 seasons, rather than the one season with irrigation (if the plants survive). Patience is rewarded with longer lived plants.

By the way, the color of the bracts almost perfectly matches the color of the pads of 'Santa Rita' opuntia.

We took a trip to Agua Fria nursery in Santa Fe, and found these penstemons. P. ramaleyi (above) and P. crandalii glabrescens (below). P. heterophyllus and P. linarioides look like they are going to have competition.