Wednesday, January 11, 2017

New Colours








The varied life with plants.

6 comments:

Panayoti Kelaidis said...

I love the new colors. Is it a turnip or a beet? And are those "just" gambellii? Inquiring minds want to know!

Kenton J. Seth said...

Hi PK;
Captions just for you, sir:
-Echinocereus dasycanthus/pectinatus/whatever you like to call Texas Rainbow Cactus
-Berlandiera lyranta (Chocolate Daisy) and some kinda "grape" tomato.
-Chioggia beets
-Acer griseum at Lisa Bourey's stunningly artistic garden in Durango
-Quercus (virginiana ssp.) fusiformis. Texas liveoak. One individual at the botanic here has those lovely striped acorns. I can't die until there is a grove of its offspring somewhere around here.

Did the Q. fusiformis transplanted at DBG make it from Wildflower Treasures?

Panayoti Kelaidis said...

Appreciate the captions! Are all your other followers just lurkers? I have a buddy on my blog who's the only one who seems to want to talk: you should have come over the hill to hear Michael Uhler, of Tilden Park, by the way--he was fantastic (and you could have ridden with Mary and Joe Mastin)...

Oh yes, the oaks. Every one of them died--but we still have some others from a different source in Watersmart. Speaking of which, the two tall columnar cypress at the back of watersmart are in fact Cypressus montana (subsumed by some into arizonica--I don't buy it). Turns out, there are only 250 of them left near the summit of San Pedro Martir! It's globally frickin' imperiled (next stage--'presumed extinct'). And they're definitely darker blue greeen and tightly fastigiate and setting cones...just so's you knows,

Small compensation for losing the oaks--at least one of which might have been saved if there were a truly benign deity....

Love those beets--where'd you get em? Have a fabulous time in Canada: I've spoken to those groups and you'll love 'em and vice versa! Take care.

Kenton J. Seth said...

I think the Chioggia beet seeds came from Pinetree seed in Maine.

Sad to hear about the oaks. Glad to hear of the Cupressus montana (Going into this "Hesperocyparis" genus, I bet)". I've got one ("matthewsii) at the radio station garden, ex Timberline from DBG cuttings (undocumented, though, uf) and I'd like to get ahold of other germplasm so there are two gene-distinct plants to swap pollen with one another in future years. Better yet, I'd like a dozen plants of seed-grown plants to use as a grove here in a landscape design. (I get to do that with Joshuatrees this spring, ha ha!)
In fact, I have been dreaming that they would make a great general landscape plant in an un-irrigate future, offering a green to foil against the blue of our beloved arizona cypresses. The latter puts out two feet a year in growth when young and unirrigated here in GJ! (SPeaking of which, I just sent a bag of seed to Scogerboe today from the Greek church plants in the tradition of your brother-in-law.
Hey- there are some odd cypress growing near the work sheds at Spring Creek in Ft. Collins; fancy they could be San Pedros, too?
Pity indeed I had to miss that talk.
Thanks for the good wishes and support; see you at the cactus show, certainly!

Panayoti Kelaidis said...

I'm fully aware of the current "splitting" of N.A. cypress into a new microgenus, and I'm not sure I buy it yet.

You could get the precise location of Cupressus bakeri ssp. mathewsii from Frank Cooper (once Frank Sesock--I think he was still going by the latter nane when we got seed from him way back when). All of our living mathewsii are from him. I don't have current contact info, but could get it (from southern Oregon NARGS contacts). I vaguely remember it's from Modoc Co., not far from Mt. Shasta.

I've never paid attention to the Spring Creek cypress--will look for them my next visit there. Will check out Pinetree! Have a good tour next month..and see you March if not before.

Kenton J. Seth said...

Uf- I was conflating the San Pedro Martir with the Modoc for a second. I wonder if the ones at spring creek are Modoc.