casa coniglio

When the weather heats up for the summer, the only time to go out for a hike is in the early morning, when it is still cool. Even so, it is better to head out before the sun is fully up since the intensity of the radiation at this altitude is intense even if the air temperatures are reasonable. I had a bit of a late start today, which was fortunate in that the morning sun made for some interesting back lighting. I don't know which brassica this is (above), but the siliques caught the light magically.


Normally, the tram cables are barely visible, but at this angle, the sun glints off the metal, and you can see the spider web effect . From this angle, the tram seems to go straight up to towers 1 and 2 (above).


Looks a bit more reasonable at this angle (above), but still steep.


I do enjoy how the plumes on the Apache plume catch the morning sun.



The flowers on the yucca only last a little more than a week, but what a glorious week.


I can't remember if this squirrel tail grass is an invasive weed or not, but it is not welcome in my yard. The plumes are a spiny brittle mess, but they do catch the light.

Another one. 5 petals and a scorpioid cyme are characteristic of the Boraginaceae, but I'm not sure which one this is. Perhaps Cryptantha paysonii?

I've been asked (berated, really) to show photos of the garden itself rather than just macro photos of individual plants. Not a good idea, I said, because my garden is a mess. It is a collection rather than a garden, with plants jammed every which way. (Above, from left to right, Salvia chamaedryoides, Yucca thompsoniana, Penstemon heterophyllus, Penstemon linaroides, Penstemon clutei, Rosmarinus officinalis 'Gorizia', Cistus x aguilarii, and a bunch of other things in there)


As such, the garden is designed for macro (or micro as you would have it) photography rather than wide angle landscape photography. The garden is also so small that I could photograph the whole thing in 4 or 5 photos. They wouldn't be very interesting photos, though. (Above, left to right and mostly hidden, Agastache descendant of 'Desert Sunrise', Achillea x kelleri, Eremurus doing pathetically, Cercocarpus breviflorus, Ceanothus caeruleus, Artemesia versicolor, Calamogrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Eriogonum ericifolia, Dianthus hispanicus, Quercus turbinella, pink Dianthus 'Queen of Sheba')


 By the way, since I have accepted a new job in California, anyone in the market for a house (with a  garden)? (Above, left to right, Calamogrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Artemesia versicolor, Agastache 'Firebird, Stachys 'Helen von Stein', Juniperus scopulorum 'Wichita Blue', Chilopsis linearis, Fallugia paradoxa, Lavandula 'Royal Velvet')

I expect that my garden in California might be more like this part of my current garden. (Trachycarpus fortunei, Lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso', Artemesia versicolor, spuria Iris 'Belize', Origanum dictamnus, Rosmarinus officinalis 'Salem', Cistus 'Ann Baker', Cupressus sempervirens, Cistus x aguilarii)

The Cistus x aguilarii is going gangbusters right now. Although the flowers only last a day, the petals falling dramatically in the late afternoon, like a daylily it still makes quite a show. The flowers are not fragrant, but the leaves are wonderfully so. Too bad they get winter damaged in this climate, but I'm happy that it survives at all.

This delphinium was spotted on my evening walk. Using Ivey's book, it looks like it might be Delphinium wootonii, but I'm not positive.

This Scutellaria resinosa gets bigger each year, but has still got to be one of the cutest plants in my garden. Here it is in 2009. And here in 2008.

My neighbor's claret cup cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus)  is probably the nicest I've ever seen. It has a great plant form, and the flowers are the juiciest most luscious red.

Although the flowers are far from perfect, this is the most floriferous this plant has ever been in my yard. Maybe it is trying to redeem itself. Last winter, there was pretty serious dieback, and the plant never had much energy the following summer. This past winter there was such severe dieback, that I had planned to remove the whole thing. I never got around to it, and in the Spring, from the base, many new shoots grew. Strangely, the flowers are almost scentless this year.  They are also about half the size they have been previously.

Needle-and-thread grass has got to be my favorite grass native to New Mexico.


Right now it is a shimmering, glorious wonder, made all the more so, by this season's wind.
I'm sure you can guess why it is called needle-and-thread grass. The seed is very hard and very sharp, for drilling into the hard soil.


I became acutely aware of this while using my fingers to push the seeds into the soil, and by the way, fingers are a lot softer than soil. Ouch.


The seeds also have unidirectional hairs, which keep the seeds penetrating deeper. This makes it a misery for pets who can get the seed lodged in fur, skin, and ears.


The long awn is, of course, the "thread," and it can be 8-12 inches long, catching the wind and helping the seeds disperse. Before the seeds are ripe however, the silky awns ripple in waves in the wind, in ways that photographs can not capture.


Hazards to pets aside, it is a beautiful grass.

How I love Dianthus hispanicus. Takes almost no water, year-round nice foliage, the flowers are a crisp white and last a good amount of time. (I always prefer the single flowered dianthus in the garden. The doubles are so ungainly.) It's a tough plant not only through drought but winter cold and snow. Best of all, the fragrance! Ah, crisp clove yet floral. With my 4 plants, the entire garden is filled with the scent. Rapture!

Pussy toes (Antennaria)  are such unassuming plants that they are easy to overlook. They easily lend themselves to being underfoot, thrive in the cracks between flagstones, have unspectacular flowers, subdued foliage, don't need a lot of water and are not fragrant.


In high-traffic areas, the plants do not produce flowering stems, but those that are away from footfalls produce the charming flower heads that give the plants their name. I think that the plants have a certain grace that would be terrific in pots or in elevated planting beds so that they could be appreciated up close.

  Just in case you were wondering how my P. heterophyllus 'Margarita BOP' is doing. They are pretty happy this year.


Although I do find the variation in color between flowers to be disconcerting.


These are shots of a single plant (below and above), which was a cutting from the top plant.

I'm not typically a red-flower person, but I do have a few red penstemon in my yard. Of course there are something like a gazillion red penstemon, ranging from the short (6 inches or so) and bushy P. pinifolius to the tall (up to 6 foot) and rangy P. barbatus which are native to New Mexico. P. palmeri grows wildly around my neighborhood, but is quite a big plant in my yard, easily to 6 feet, then after bloom, the basal stems are about a foot and a half tall. I decided to plant a couple other penstemon also from the section Peltanthera, but a couple which are more compact plants. Unfortunately, they are not fragrant, like P. palmeri is. They look almost identical. They both also have nicely red leaves in the winter, which P. palmeri does not. Like all penstemon it seems, they both are very susceptible to soil fungi, which will suddenly kill a plant.


Penstemon clutei (which I call P. cutey-i because, of course, it is so cute), has fatter, shorter flowers, and a more refined appearance. It is also said to bloom repeatedly, but so far in my garden has not. My big plant collapsed this spring from soil fungus, but the other plant whose roots were intertwined, has done fine. The warm weather green leaves are rather bluish, like P. palmeri.

Penstemon pseudospectabilis, I call Penstemon "sort of cute" (although the name really means that it looks a lot like Penstemon spectabilis), because it looks very similar to P. clutei. The name is apt, however, because it is not as cute. It is incredibly drought tolerant, needing almost no water, even in the first year of planting. Flowers are longer, the plants are less refined looking, partially because of the plants' vigor. They grow like gangbusters. The flower stems are not as uniform in length, the stems can be floppy, and the summer leaves are more yellow-green than P. clutei. The winter leaves are a more vibrant red than P. clutei as well. Although it is deemed "pseudospectabilis" is is, in fact pretty spectacular.

So of course, the images of the ram had me eager to take photos of Penstemon linarioides. In case you are wondering about the difference (isn't it obvious?)*,  the leaves of P. ramaleyi are much longer and thinner, the flowers of P. ram are smaller, and the plants of P. ram are bushier.


P. linarioides has much more open flowers, and the plants are mat-forming rather than upright, and the leaves tend to be more grey (depending upon the plant). The plants also grow spikes for the flowers, the main plant remaining a mat, whereas in P. ram, the flowers form among the leaves.


Both species are quite variable in flower color, as you can see from the selection of just my various P. linarioides.This plant has quite upright flower stems (below).


You can also see that the flower and plant form varies a bit as well. This self-sown seedling is quite a dark blue and a sprawling plant (below). You can see it above as well, behind what is probably the parent.


This one (below) doesn't open a lot of flowers at once, but they are quite a vibrant blue with purple, and it blooms for a longer time.They are all very charming.


*this is what I say to the hubby when he says "they all look alike, to me." Grr. 

The petals on my Phragmipedium Grande are 13 inches long, although some people have cultivars whose petals are 20 inches or more. P. Grande is a hybrid between the long petaled P. caudatum and the short-petaled (but more vigorous) P. longifolium. The petals of P. caudatum can get even longer. I've read that the reason for this is that the petals keep growing longer until they reach the ground.  These petals attract ants, which climb the spiral staircase and pollinate the flowers. Neat, huh?

At a San Diego orchid show, I saw a number of plants that were grown in what looked like 5-gallon buckets, and these plants had dozens of flowers open at the same time. That was a serious jaw-dropper.

I was totally excited last year to discover Penstemon ramaleyi at Agua Fria nursery in Santa Fe last year. Intensely blue flowers and lots of them. Yep, that goes right up my alley (it's good to know that some things are predictable, eh?). After planting out, the plants grew quite vigorously, and bloomed again. This is an amazing feat for a penstemon, especially for a species penstemon in my blazingly hot yard. So later in the year I planted another, although a pretty pathetic looking specimen having grown in a 2-1/4 inch pot for most of the spring and summer.


This past winter, the plants looked a bit shabby, and although they originate in Colorado, I was concerned whether they would live. Then, while doing a bit of garden maintenance I accidentally knocked off quite a large branch from the largest of the plants. This was surprising, since I was actually being quite careful. Testing the broken branch, I found it to be quite brittle. The smallest plant that was planted late, had never grown much, and was clearly dead to the ground. Compared to Penstemon linarioides, which, as you know I love so much that it is my banner photo, the winter appearance was disappointing.


With the first of the warm weather however, shoots burst out of the stems, and the first blooms opened several weeks ago. The plant I thought was dead has sent out a few vigorous stems, although they are not blooming. Although the flowers are small (1/2" wide by 1" long), the plants are quite charming, and they have enough flowers to make a nice show.


Definitely worth having. If you do plant them, keep in mind to plant in the spring (not summer), and be aware that the branches are quite brittle  - don't plant where there are dogs or where there might be an inadvertent footfall or you will be very sad.

Silly me. On closer inspection, D. leucophaeus certainly does have serrated petals. And a notched petal is characteristic of the Caryophyllaceae. I'm surprised no one corrected me!

You may already know that pinks are not called pinks because of their color, but because most of the cultivated varieties have serrated edges that look as if they might have been cut by pinking shears. But pinks are frequently pink. 'Firewitch' above, is a brilliant pink, and a nice plant form. 'Bath's Pink' (below) is pale pink on a very vigorous plant whose vigor can make the plant a bit unkempt looking. 

This un-named pink (below) was purchased as 'Firewitch' but clearly is not. I still find it charming.


Dianthus leucophaeus (below) opens at  night, closes in the morning, and to my nose the flowers smell like beer (the better to attract moths, I suppose).
 
Addendum:  The photo quality of the first set of photos was driving me nuts, so I reshot this afternoon (4/13/2010). Ah. Much better.