Don't Be Cheap: Misplaced Values

Folks have said that they don't order from Plant Delights because they're expensive.  Quart pots range from $12-18 for most things, higher for the exotic stuff whose entire American population of that species is on a table in their nursery.  And $35 for such a plant is still not reasonable? How else will you grow you collection of outdoor palms in Colorado?  Be happy you can even buy it and it's not locked behind the beaurocratic bars of the plant zoos of a botanic garden- so many public garden are not allowed to share or sell plant material.

I am also sad to see LaPorte Avenue Nursery closing, which sold alpines for years at ridiculously low prices.  Someone who has the guts to complain about their prices in front of me had better have good health insurance to cover a broken nose.  Plant propagators, our friends, slave over mist tables and potting benches, at the most uncomfortable times of year, every year, have to climb ladders to re-skin their greenhouses and fix leaky boilers without your decent health insurance and we have the audacity to complain about a 2" pot being more than $4?  That's a latte you didn't blink at. How quickly do we forgive technology we buy that lasts less than a year and what, oh what hundreds of dollars, we were willing to pay for it at the time?

Insane. Shameful. 

I often think Far Reaches Farm is similar to Plant Delights. Both hunt plants and  have botanical conservancies as beneficiaries of their profits.  They are also exceptionally good at finding, growing, and shipping amazing plants to your very freaking doorstep. That's amazing. Stop complaining and just hit the "buy" button.  Then, learn to water new plants and not let them die on your back porch, be less lazy about planting them as soon as they harden off in a week, and reap a lifetime of pleasure. 

I want to take this moment to highlight some goodies offered by good people, and maybe publicly announce what I've recently bought.


This Eryngium kick is not ending; I'm insatiable. 
Far Reaches offers a hilarious read on E. caucasicum, which has done well here with fantastic leaves.

PDN sent me this sexy dominatrix, E. venustum, which I'm curious to see respond to our climate.

I also got Hesperaloe funifera ssp. chiangii from them.  H. parviflora keeps showing up more zones north that it ought to, and funifera has secretly been in Denver for ages; it's yawned at the occasional bad winter here: I haven't seen it's edge of hardiness yet. 

Now that I've ordered it and the danger of creating competition is over for this coveted jewel, I can openly say that they offer Allium kiiense again, a fall-blooming east asian species, making pink puffs when yellow leaves hit the ground. They give you the pink autumn thrill of Colchicum without the bigass leaf-mess in spring.

My first A. koreanum/thunbergii/who-cares-its-beautiful.

They grow in Colorado in part shade or with good water. Far Reaches actually offers several varieties of far- east fall-blooming Allium. And no, Far Reaches isn't all moisture-lovers because they are outside Seattle. Check out their Kniphofia.

The hardy, (clears throat) the HARDY Begonia grandis blooms today. Thanks Far Reaches.




Furthermore, you know High Country Gardens.  It's fall and the Asters are covered in tiny pollinators none of us can identify that are probably essential for our survival as a species and we don't even know it. I'm on an aster kick, too, finally learning about them after a lifetime of ignorance.  Aster ericoides grows absolutely great without irrigation, has a structure and cleanness that most scrappy, wild sisters don't. HCG is having a fall sale and it's a great time to plant, in my opinion, better than spring, in general, in our climate.  (Except for warm season grasses and agastaches, and maybe Zauschneria.) Hey pollinator heads!  I just said "no water" and "pollinator" at once.  Let's get to work. There is a future of some kickass meadows you should buckle up for, or get left at home.

Since I'm in the mood for shameless (shameful?) plugging, I want to highlight a gem in Denver.  A handmade craft and houseplant shop called All Its Own, currently on West Colfax. Owner William hand-makes some super creative concrete pots, knows the pasts and people behind the individual plants and art pieces he sells at a modest price. This contrasts nicely with the trustfund-backed instagram-sham boutiques which are cloning themselves around earth (including Denver) whose people, God love them, are often afraid of scientific names and certainly have little concept of varied plant needs, meanwhile upcharging by 400%. (Not an invented number. I know where those plants came from!)  Long live All-Its-Own!

William's shop warms my heart, and the love and attention cultivates a nostalgic eternal pleasure of giving houseplants as gifts to friends.  And that's exactly what I like to do while patronizing his shop. He's friends with folks in the cactus club, and they planted up a bed in the parking lot as a cactus garden- a real member of the community.  His shop is the type of fun, local, spot with personality and truly unique charm that used to make Denver fun before the big Tech/Pot boom painted the whole town in modern squares selling modern squares and visited by modern squares. Anyone else remember the African Violet Shop that also sold canaries? Remember when people had their own genuine interests rather than being fed them by cell phone while they sit on the toilet? #instagramculture. We lost something when we gained something. Call me a crotchety old man already (#getoffmylawn) but I don't want to live to be an old man if complexity, nuance, and essence, are devalued and lost.

All the more reason to support specialists and stay the hell away from the plant racks at big box stores.

Life is short and the varied life with plants is a reason to live.

Drop a dollar before the earth drops you and smell the goddamn roses. Or Eryngiums.

In Memory of Zhirair Basmajyan

The international friends of Zhirair Basmajyan have recently learned of his death on 17 August, 2019.

Zhirair was 45.

I met Zhirair through email, our correspondence starting about 12 years ago. We traded plant material and became close friends. I stayed with him a few weeks one spring in Armenia, which was very patient of him and family. We stayed in contact over skype or the phone. For a while, we kept up a tradition over skype that we had started in person: chats over greek coffee and chocolate. We hadn't talked much in the last year, and I kept thinking I needed to go see him again and I deeply regret not doing so.

Knowing Zhiro encouraged me to be a fearless traveler. He showed me a universal culture of generosity to host and know travelers. He was tolerant of people and their shortcomings in a way that is rare in even the old and wise. Yet he was a worldly man, quite aware of the darkest possibilities in humanity.  His autodidactic qualities made all of us seem quite lazy in comparison. He sparked for me an understanding of the complexity and nuance of nationalities and humanity, to shun oversimplification of history and prejudice.

Zhirair was a massive genius. His life was very much a manifestation of his decision to live life to the highest quality of one’s preferences: he savored his plant collections, which were spread out throughout several family member’s homes and a summer cottage. He knew everyone in his community and had broad connections to people close and afar, quietly listening after striking up conversation with someone new he met. His home satisfied his need for immediate community, and his late night internet time connected him to the world- to many of us, he was an internationally famous flower bulb expert- if unknown  because of this humility.

He committed to a group of plants for years, rather than swinging through genera like plant collectors. He cultivated specific, sophisticated tastes for Tulips, Lilies, Roses, Fritillaria, Crocus, and others. He would gather a breadth of knowledge of that group of plants to its maximum.  He held a collection of plants, and especially tulips, that included otherwise extinct heirloom varieties, dedicated to their preservation.

He cherished the Russian he was taught in school, having been raised in soviet times, for he knew that another language widens one’s access to the world. With his massive intellect, he taught himself english, telling me his initial interest being the lyrics of Madonna. His english was incredibly good in person, having worked on the nuances of pronunciation and depth of vocabulary.  

He enjoyed fashionable but casual clothing. He enlightened me about Armenian culture's value of aesthetics and beauty; and I loved that. He laughed and said that owning lots of clothing means one doesn't have to do laundry as often!

The weekend/country house

In his honor, I want to share the cutting edge horticulture he had to teach us. 

This one is huge: he discovered how to rid a tulip of the breaking virus. This is probably still considered impossible by many experts. It would be revolutionary, like finding the cure for Tulip cancer. This is how I understand it:  When the plant is in active growth, and it has a lot of leaf/flower, the bulb is small: the virus is often mostly pushed up into the vegetative top of the plant, and the bulb, while at its minimum size, can actually be clean.  The top parts are carefully cut off and the tiny, emaciated but clean bulb is taken to grow on to bulk back up to size over the period of several growth seasons to recover its size. This method makes it possible to recover rare varieties whose remaining cultivated stock are diseased. I don't think someone could have figured this out without the intense observation Zhiro had.

Two major themes of Zhiro’s garden prowess: 

1. Tireless Persistence. 

In cutting tulips to enjoy as cut flowers, he used a brand new razor blade for every cut, eliminating the possibility of spreading virus. He even sustained some nerve damage once by finishing digging his tulip bulbs on his last possible weekend to do so when the weather got to be truly nasty and cold.  

He sought contact with hobbyists the world over- that is how we met. If it took patiently waiting for a person to come through with their agreement to help him get something done. He also always followed through with his promises. He would remember the desires of friends abroad, even if it was years later. He tried new ways of growing things and carefully observed the outcome.

It took him a massive amount of work, every year, to dig his bulbs.  Many of them required a dryer dormancy than the place where they grew best. He knew which beds were most apt to be visited by virus-carrying bees and constructed screen-houses to protect them. He had to re-weed his beds each year, because he didn’t weed them during the vegetative phase, as bruising and brushing is apt to spread disease.  New beds he cleaned by hand, sifting the soil and removing every visible root. His bulb collection was spread across several family member's homes, including a garage roof and the weekend house.

2. Care for Detail. 

He visited his tulip bed every day, observing every plant, looking for disease. He noted the size of bulbs between seasons to gauge how much they increased in that period. If there was so much as a bit of pollen that was a different color, he would notice. His attention was fierce.  

These superpowers of his were only matched by the same in his character as a person.

Some favorite quotes from him, often from late night conversations over coffee or long walks:

“I don’t mind crazy people. I love my crazy friends.”

“You shouldn’t fight your complexes. You should make friends with them.”

“Live lightly.”

 Ժիրայր Բասմաջյան