Sunday, January 5, 2025

What are hybrid Aloinopsis, really, and what is a landrace?

 

Santa Fe Botanic emailed me recently and asked how to define and categorize some plants into their database, which I grew, and which Lauren Springer used in the memorial garden for David Salman. These are the "Aloinopsis hybrids" gleaned from friends and then re-grown and bred myself for some years. 

Answering the question leads to a brain-twisting philosophical discussion I wanted to share with you that I've been mulling on for the last year.

What are the "Aloinopsis hybrid" plants? 

" Well, it's a complicated answer:

Those plants are truly unknown in exact species, and even genera, because they are a "landrace" of complex mesembs hybrids, open pollinated, from many generations in gardens. We've been calling them "ASx" in shorthand because most of them are in part, by a little or a lot, Aloinopsis spathulata. (But I suspect just a few individuals don't have that species in their parentage!)  But they include genes from several other species and at least two other genera, and science hasn't given such intergeneric crosses actual genus names!  (Genera: Aloinopsis, Titanopsis, Nananthus, and sometimes others like Stomatium, Hereroa.  If you are not familiar with the concept of "landracing," here's a little wiki description. That sort of helps describe the situation, which is quite messy against traditional notions of cleanly defining organisms. The ASx plants are like if you could have a herd of things that are varying mixes of horse, zebra, donkey, and giraffe... which isn't possible for those animals and why I think the plants are so intriguing! What on earth with the latin name be for such a beast!?

Two answers: 
1. A truly scientific name for them would be Aizoaceae: Titanopsis-group genera hybrid landrace.  
2. An easier but colloquial name is "Aloinopsis kin & hybrids." (But like I wrote above, technically a small minority of the plants probably don't have any Aloinopsis in them!) 

Further notes, which nod to history and people's legacy, in the spirit of the garden: these plants are a mixed "herd" if you will, descending from plants grown and bred by David Salman, John Stireman (UT), Kelly Grummons (CO), Floyd Jacketta (UT), Bill Adams (CO), and perhaps Jeff Ottersberg. Much but not all of the seed was probably collected in Africa by Steven Brack. I collated plants from everyone and re-selected progeny. 

Once, when I asked David Salman what he felt was the most missing vacancy/representation of style or plants in public gardens in Santa Fe, and without hesitating, he said "African mesembs."  I think it is beautiful that it should come full circle like this. 

My last tangent on this.  The idea of landracing such plants, to me, harkens back to the relationship native Americans had/have with plants- they created and spread landrace plants and blurred the lines between species and domesticity/wildness. (Like the wild potatoes, devil's horns for eating/weaving, and heirloom/feral agaves...not to mention amaranth, tomatoes, corn, peppers...) They didn't see a hard line between nature and humanity and I think that is beautiful..."

Indeed, there are tons of plants in the Americas whose distribution suggests (or screams) that humans were a key "dispersal agent" in moved them around, and they naturalized. I've recently been on a reading bender learning that there are wild/domestic potatoes to the southwestern US, even in Colorado! 

There are agaves that grow around ruins in Arizona which are not related to the nearby wild ones, and one awesome researcher, Wendy Hodgson, put in the massive effort for years to sort out their genetics to find that the plants were essentially "heirloom" veggies carried up by early Americans from modern day Mexico and went feral when they quit being cultivated in Arizona. For natural-history geeks like me who love to have living specimens in our gardens with such stories, unfortunately those agave are probably not quite hardy up here in Colorado... 

But back to the Aloinopsis/Mesembs:


John Stireman wrote an authoritative article for International Rock Gardener on it, here. (His garden of them, above. )The annual NARGS seed exchange, which I think is still going at the moment for a few weeks, would be the best source of hybrid seed, coming from John and his brother. 

My own project has been planting them in number in cold enough places to kill m any of them ("cull the herd") in an effort to push them as far as possible for winter hardiness. 




There are several mailorder sources for this group of plants, hybrids or not : Ethical Desert and Cold Hardy Cactus, and of course, David's legacy, High Country Gardens

I had only heard the word "landrace" in the context of heirloom/heritage domestic animal breeds, so I was mindblown to learn There is a book on the powerful, practical and under-documented subject of Landrace Veggies. Landracing has supplied all of humanity's food until recently "for centuries by illiterate farmers..." (paraphrasing the book). Thanks to the author, who gave me some seeds, I'm one small link in a chain that is creating a landrace of hardy pistachios. In a few years, I'll be looking for a client who is interested in such things to carry the torch and plant a small orchard of the seedlings I am growing.  

For me, I found it easy to extrapolate from this lovely, fun, quirky little book to apply the idea to flowers, natives, et cetera. For years now I have been using landracing, as a rule, in my wildflower meadow seed projects.  For some plants, it's been the secret to success. After all, what is today, and this new year, but just a fine line between the past and the future?

Friday, May 10, 2024

Finally! A concise, perfect how-to video for bare-root planting!

Thanks to Grace at DBG and PlantSelect.

If you know anyone new to this, which is basically essential in rock gardening and dry/native plantings, please pass this on to them. 

If you aren't a believe, try it. I dare you.




Pink flip-flops optional.


Sunday, January 14, 2024

Plants so good it makes ya angry

 

This is a competition.


Plants will be judged for ten years on three traits:
-Longevity
-Rebloom
-Sex appeal 
(to everyday people 
and not botanists or nerds like me.)


This means these three winning plants will be ideal for 
No-water Landscapes; 
places where they can't hide in an ugly season. 



1. Gaillardia 'Amber Wheels'

The problem with allllll the other gaillardia is that they are barely perennial, living 1-4 years at best, but often just a couple. This one, selected from the wild in Colorado by DBG's Larry Vickerman, is FULLY PERENNIAL, and what's more: rhizomatous. Yes, folks, it can spread. Not wildly; nice and slow. It's available online from a few mailorders. Why isn't it in your local nursery?  Because you need to tell them about it and buy more of it. I'm so sick of not being able to buy it easily that I'm growing my own. 

- - - - - 


2. Amsonia jonesii , Desert Bluestar.

A once-bloomer for a few weeks in spring, but he's blue, which is not common in available xeric plants. He varies- the above plant is pale; and white happens. What he really scored for is being indefatigable, wiltless, nice dark green leaf all summer, which is much needed when it's 100F (38C) outside. The other high score is longevity; I was pretty impressed seeing plants in friends' Denver Gardens that are exactly as old as I am until I found a massive wild plant last summer that is about a century old.
 
He is in PlantSelect but I never see him in any nursery except Chelsea's. That's messed up. We need to pester High Country Gardens and get the word out. It's slow from seed, so the few nurseries that do it usually go with cuttings. Here he is growing in nature in this weird red crap that even the cactus don't seem to like:

- - - - - 


3. Melampodium leucanthum. Blackfoot Daisy.

So, real talk here. I wondered if folks would give it a new common name in the way Sorghastrum isn't "indian grass" anymore- but I was making an assumption. This guy's name is because the seeds look like little black horse's feet. Checks out. Small lots of seed is also available online. 

He scores middleville for longevity, but my rubric is merciless. He gets points back because he reseeds gently, and then he takes his win because he reblooms and reblooms, stays short and unthreatening, and does it all without irrigation.  But this jerk has a problem- he's not commonly available. Time to knock on some doors.

He's short-  there he is at the heels of... anything else. 


Just look at him shamelessly dancing around this unwatered front yard off Littlepark Rd in Grand Junction. When I planted him in 2016 I put a dripper on him because he comes from the front range. Well that drip wasn't ever turned on and he reminded me that he is also from the desert, baby, and he gracefully replaced anything that died out over the last seven years.

- - - - - 
Honorable Mentions go to:

Prarie Zinnia,  because she's got marketing and recognition before and heavens know I've sung her praises for too long. 

Santa Fe Plox was very close in the running because it reblooms, it's not available enough, and seems to live a very long time. He gets a little crispy without water on the hotter side of the rockies, but he never dies. Note: this plant wasn't voted down because Kenton doesn't generally like pink. This one is definitely garish enough to appeal to him.
Please support Nurseries with the balls to sell good plants which perform in the landscape and feed insects and other great things but don't look snappy in retail containers, which is the driving force behind all the crap sold as "perennials" at big box stores. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for... spring.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Ten years of landscaping and gardening without irrigation: Another book in the works

 Back in 2013 I started working for myself, and started hiring employees, with a nearly religious mission to make landscapes that use natives and need no water. ...And that get better with age and do ecologically good things, et cetera. Over the years, my landscaper era waxed and waned as I felt drawn to address crevice gardens and work away from my semi desert valley. But the mission remained.

(circa 2015, those were honest times...)

More recently, Especially during Covid, I found myself working increasingly as a "coach" for homeowners who were DIY xeriscaping their homes because of a shortage of available landscapers.  There have always been hands-on people who prefer to do their own work, and those with budgets. It is deeply gratifying to equip folks with the knowledge they need to take charge of their yards and make things that make them happy. 

After years of this, I of course find myself answering many of the same questions for people dealing with the same issues. I'd like to think I've gotten better with a decade now of practice in helping folks decide what they're going to do with a patch of earth. With a full ten-year scope, I've also reflected on the vast difference of then and now.

When I started I had little experience and native landscapes were a hard sell, a very hard sell, and I underbid in desperation for work.  I ate a lot of beans and rice. Luckily I had a few great mentors like Bob, and his integral book back then.  Now, I have to turn down work and I can barely keep up with the demand for it and am ever re-balancing what sector needs help the most to spread myself out most effectively. 

Another thing that has changed is that I'm not alone. 


Early on, and I think still to this day, the finest book on no-water gardening is French. FRENCH! Olivier Filippi's books still have not been surpassed, and isn't that embarrassing in some way to us proud Americans? But in recent years I've found friends like Jo Wakelin in New Zealand (her garden above) and John Murgel of CSU's Douglas County Extension Office.  He gave a mic-dropping talk to WildOnes a while ago that isn't available, but this parallel one is still up. Treat yourself to it- a real foundation of ground-breaking principles- over lunch. 

It feels like things are coming to a head. 

Emboldened with the experience of writing The Crevice Garden, I'm writing one on Irrigation-free landscaping and gardening. With the momentum of an even longer experience than my crevice work, and aiming to address the biggest issues dry gardeners face, with the working title of:

"No Water, More Flowers: Gardening and Landscaping with little to no irrigation."

I think there are isn't an elephant in the room about dry gardening, but a whole herd of them: What can you really expect without irrigation? When is it just inappropriate not to water?  Isn't that religiously dogmatic? How the heck can you possibly get what you need when you deprive yourself of such a tool? Where does this fit into ecologcal gardening? Aren't we just gonna desalinate the oceans and solve water shortages? What about fire? What plants can actually go without? Why do all these alleged xeric plants suck so bad at staying alive in drought when they were sold as "drought tolerant?" (I'm looking at you, Redbirds in a tree, Agastache, and Kniphofia!) 

Well, I don't think I will be the last word on it but I want to start a conversation. Now I'm going to put my slippers on and turn into my writing den; see you next year...

Friday, March 17, 2023

a little TV coverage of crevice gardening in New Zealand

 



When in New Zealand in February, it was lovely to see how the Christchurch Botanic's crevice garden was growing in. We made a day of it- a workshop and even Mr. Spurdle from local TV- Star News- showed up. He may have made the most succinct and understandable wee blurb on crevice gardens I've ever seen. 
It's also just really pleasant bathing in that kiwi accent:

Watch the segment here.


A whole family of California Quail totter over the garden: daddy stands watch on top, upper right.

Monday, January 2, 2023

Bruised Musings: A Prototype Passive Solar hoop-frame greenhouse.

There is no better way to ensure you finish designing a new basket than to put all of your eggs in one.

This winter I have been building a 1000 square-foot (100m2) greenhouse to produce hardy native and rock plants and replace my backyard hoop nursery. I was unable to find anyone who has already tried to make a passive solar (self-heating and cooling) greenhouse but using traditional materials that nursery people are familiar with.  (Most passive solar greenhouses are serious things, framed in wood like a house or shed whereas most production greenhouses are metal frames wrapped in plastic film. 


I aimed to create a hybrid: something economical enough for a business- like my own- to reasonably use. This means lighter materials. (versus concrete floors, glass roofs, et al, of a long-term and serious greenhouse). There are also no utilities on site, so being off-grid is not solely to prove a point.


The dark truth and problem with greenhouses is twofold: They consume prodigious amounts of energy to heat and cool  (usually propane of natural gas). In America, the average greenhouse costs four times that of a house to heat/cool. Secondly, a traditional greenhouse is a needy, fussy, fragile bastard teetering on disaster all the time. A brief over/under-heating, usually from a power outage or vent catching or door left open, can result in damage or loss to everything in there. This shit kept me awake at night when I worked in commercial greenhouses. 

So the drive to create something better is both environmental and mental.


So we built it from scratch in the old-school way that the last generation of Colorado nursery-people did: bending fence rail into hoop ribs and building the ends by hand. A hoop-house on steroids kind of deal. It is inside of such things that my mentors have produced all of the cacti, native plants, and trees… where I worked for years and where for years later I have purchased the plants for my gardens.  These humble greenhouses are the workhorses behind all the things we love. 


Anyhow, I found myself inventing a wheel- a prototype and F.O.K: First of a kind. I have not finished and I don’t have the answers. Yet. But I want to share some main lessons so far.



Heating:

For economy and sanity, it’s not dug in. It’s powered only by water. IBC totes. I hadn’t seen anyone use those before so I’d like to take credit for that idea if nothing else and the rest of this folly ends in tears. 20 of them gives me 5500 gallons (21,000L) of water as a north wall, well above (50%) the average used in passives. (per square foot of growing space). 


Insulation:

I was going to make a straw-bale wall as the north side’s insulation but that grew more painfully more complex than useful. Instead, there are 2”-thick rigid styrofoam boards (salvaged) which would have cost $600 new, half that of using straw. Next winter I want to try hanging infrared reflective foil behind the water totes and measure the efficacy. 


One of the most heartening surprises has been how well the size, proportion, and two layers of film are working, getting me off the hook for further insulation. Usually, insulating the ground around the perimeter of a passive greenhouse is important, but the proportions of this one seem to be mitigating that. This is a huge win towards my goal of creating something that is not a complex pain for other growers to do.


The floor is simply black (heat absorbing) groundcloth on top of compacted gravel fines. Wherever possible, I’ve used salvaged, used, or free materials. While it’s an experiment, it needs to pay itself off some day.


Glazing:

For sanity the outside skin is one whole piece, as it will have to be replaced every 4-8 (or 10) years. The proportions are about 50x25, (15x7m) so the ends are theoretically big enough to vent it without side or peak vents. There is no electricity, so no extractor fan per se, but I will try solar-powered circulation fans which can be directed toward aiding the convection cooling. 


The Biggest pain in the Ass and one tentative regret

Two film layers. Traditionally these are laid together and a fan inflates them apart, operating perpetually for the whole life of the greenhouse, creating that critical insulating and structural airspace. Without electricity on site and a learned shyness to risk so much on electronics, I avoided that and had to build an interior wooden intra-structure to hang my second layer. It’s been a pretty flexible, easily adaptable system but a hell of a job to do: lots of hours and lots of exercise climbing ladders with a drill. I think if I were to do it over, it may have actually been easier to engineer a solar-charged battery-powered blower fan, rather than engineer the whole greenhouse.


The Regret?

At the moment, I feel that if I were to do it over, I’d use a kit greenhouse (without the heaters and motors) and retrofit one for ease of framing. But I’d shop around hard to see what brand or design would be sanest to retrofit. After all, more and more growers are not building their own from scratch but using modal kits. So far, materials have cost exactly what a kit greenhouse would cost of that size. ($6700) I’m taking that as a win. Hell, it’s bigger than our house. 



Snowload:

Most of the greenhouse sheds it fine, but there is one hoop whose curve isn’t right, and it accumulated a heavy snow in part also to an interior purlin acting as a dam. I’ve moved that purlin to solve my problem, but to any future builder I’d recommend going gothic shaped for any film structure wider than say 10’ (3m). 



-Ventilation is yet to be seen. I’m building these now, and their proving time is spring and summer. Stay tuned. 

-Cooling will be a multi-part thing. Wax-opener powered and convective Passive vents, shadecloth (on the outside of the greenhouse- this is critical) over the growing area, a shadow over the water wall, and we’ll see what evaporative cooling happens from plants and floors. 


Good news so far:

All the water and two layers of plastic are doing the trick. Outside temps around 5F (-15) made it freeze inside the unfinished greenhouse, sending a tomato plant, a “canary crop”, to its maker. Even when unfinished and before I sealed air leaks, the greenhouse’s coldest was 22F (-6C), which to its credit is 20F (10C) warmer than a 2F(-16C) outdoor temperature, and no sun for days. It’s sealed up snugly now.



I wonder if it would have frozen had it been fully glazed. The water tanks have never frozen, lingering in the 40-50 (4-10C) range so far. A tray of cilantro is growing like a chia pet even through the solstice. Hardy woodies and semi hardy agaves are all sleeping like beauties so far. The greenhouse refuses to go below 35F(1C) which is pretty ideal for sleeping hardy plants. Without ventilation it peaks at 75/80F (24/27C) on a very sunny 45F (7C) winter day.  


Cherries on top:

The greenhouse project became a village affair to finish in time for snow and deep cold; I had some back trouble that required friends to help out a day or two now and again, which led to having a thank-you solstice party with the aid of my friend Marla, which in turn led to a sort of a decorative Altar/shrine (after all, it is a plant-church!).



The greenhouse’s landlord insisted we re-use an old woodstove which had been sitting around gathering snow. While, for reasons of physics, a woodstove cannot actually heat a greenhouse in earnest, it will be useful to warm a corner of the greenhouse next to the potting bench on winter mornings (which might otherwise be 40F(4C) in there) to something comfortable for me to work sowing seeds and potting plants. It’s also just really nice. 


{Well, I say it’s no way to heat a greenhouse, but what organically came up in conversation and now sits in my mind like an inevitable, potent, explosive seed, is the concept of running a passive water radiator coil from the stove  and through the water tanks, which could hold the BTUs of heat from a single stove firing for weeks... Yet another passive system with high payoff that may be too fun not to try, even though the greenhouse will probably not need additional heat… stay tuned for that madness next winter}


I want to end with thanks: To my endlessly supportive greenhouse landlord. My ex-coworker did lots of tedious prep work on materials throughout her year working for me. I’ve also received generous advice on many occasions from folks including Kelly Grummons, Mikl Brawner, Jeff O, Dare Bohlander, Shane Smith, my neighbor orchid-Steve, John Stireman, the three musketeers of Minneapolis (you know who you are) and especially Tony Urschitz. My bible has been a gift from my other neighbor Steve: the cookbook for making passive greenhouses, Lindsey Schiller’s “The year-round Solar Greenhouse” Thanks to that second Steve, as well as Iain, Trina, JC, Hannah, Eric, and my endlessly patient partner Tori for lending a hand when I really needed it. I owe you all plants now. 


Friday, December 30, 2022

A Gallery of beautiful things


Unwatered trial garden in Fruita. 
Gomphrena surprising everyone.

Four-month-old seeded habitat meadow

Patridge pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata, is new to me- a native annual. 
You should see the flowers.

Nature still looks amazing even when it is wrecked land mostly clothed in invasives.

A newly Built crevice in Grand Junction, 
Mesa Verde Formation Sandstone.

crevice reno in vail


The silver leaves are Zauschneria/Epilobium 'Calistoga' which wove well between clumps and tussocks.

A designed meadow- from plants and not seed, 
with the best instal I've ever done of Dogtuff grass; this is just four months old.