hardy Californians….I hope

Posted on June 11, 2012 by paridevita

At the Mother’s Day plant sale at DBG, there were an awful lot of unusual plants calling to me in their plant-like ways. After I got a cart because my cardboard flats wouldn’t hold everything I wanted (the cart wouldn’t either, but that’s another story), I went back to pick up a couple of Californians that looked like they wanted some attention.

I told them they were gorgeous and I liked them a lot and knew just what to do with them, had a nice special bed for them, and took them home with me.

For one thing, check out these leaves.

Malacothamnus fasciculatus ‘Casita’

Malacothamnus fremontii

Now, you may be thinking, since when are malacothamnuses hardy in Denver? (You probably don’t even want to say anything like that. Try this instead: since when are bush mallows hardy in Denver?)

Well, they aren’t hardy in the sense that they look the same the next spring as they did the autumn before that; they come back from the roots. I don’t have room for anything 20 feet tall in the front yard, even with those leaves. The flowers aren’t showy but that’s no big deal. And anyway, Denver is not in New England. It never rains in the winter here, the sun is almost always shining; when it gets cold, it’s only cold for a few days, etc. That makes a difference, believe me.

I’ve grown these bush mallows before, and, yes, they died, but lots of things die here that everyone else can grow, so that doesn’t mean anything to me.

For some odd reason, Lester Rowntree didn’t mention bush mallows in either of her books, or if she did, they were under another name and I’ve spaced it out.

Anyway, here’s hoping. I bought all the plants that DBG had put out, so if they make it through this winter, and there are more for sale next year ….well, I’ll buy all those, too.

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from the prairies

Posted on June 11, 2012 by paridevita

This is Penstemon cobaea, the largest flowered of all the penstemons. According to Pennell in Scrophulariaceae of Eastern Temperate North America (which everyone not paid by the word refers to as SETNA), Nuttall, in his journey to “the Arkansas Territory”, found this species growing along the Red River in present-day Choctaw County in Oklahoma in late May and early June of 1819. So, 193 years ago, maybe on this day, Nuttall collected his first specimen of this species.

Discovery of this species led to hybridization with the monsoonal species from the highlands of Mexico being brought back to Europe about the same time; the large-flowered or “bedding” penstemons were the result. (These are semi-hardy here if I water the daylights out of them after mid-July…my own private monsoon….so that the plants produce basal leaves that allow them to overwinter; it’s hardly worth the trouble.)

Pennell described the habitat as “black or red loam, usually calcareous, Nebraska to Texas. Prairies from the Platte River of eastern Nebraska to the Colorado River in central Texas; in post-oak woods of the Coastal Plain of Texas from the Red and Sabine Rivers to the Nueces River.”

Not having post-oak woods in my garden, I fake it by growing this close to the small pool I put in years ago, where water can wick up to the plants’ roots. (This is a fancy way of saying the pool is probably leaking.)

Penstemon cobaea is a short-lived plant here but reseeds a little, mostly finding prairie-style happiness right by the edge of the flagstone path, where the flowering stalks can be knocked over by dog tails. This is a really dumb place for a plant to grow, but they don’t listen to me. (If you think people don’t listen to you, try talking to plants and see what happens.)

There’s a spectacular white form, too.

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