into the blue

Posted on April 24, 2012 by paridevita

Amsonia jonesii.

Once I got this into the garden, which wasn’t easy (though I think now a few nurseries offer it), I wanted more of these western dryland versions of an otherwise not-very-exciting bunch of plants.

There are a couple of other species of equal desirability, A. eastwoodiana and A. tomentosa, the former from northern Arizona and southern Utah, the latter ranging as far west as southern California (or is it the other way around?) Nothing ever happened when I sowed the funny-looking seed. You would think that, being seed, its primary objective would be to germinate, but apparently not; it just lay in the ground, doing nothing.

I finally lucked out (or so it seemed) when I found that a mail-order nursery sold plants of A. tomentosa. I only bought one, and that was the one I pulled up by mistake thinking it was a weed. Much self-recrimination followed, accompanied by some colorful tomentose language, but it had no effect, because the plant lay there dead.

Now it turns out that a botanist has decided that both of these species are really just one; the later-described (by Rydberg, who had his own way of looking at things) A. eastwoodiana becoming just a memory. Like the seeds I sowed.

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laborare est ludere

Posted on April 23, 2012 by paridevita

You know you’re in a completely different world when a picture of a small patch of cow poop gets you excited. This is exciting. To me, anyway.

This is a small patch, say three feet by five feet, of a new sowing of blue grama seed, covered with some cow and compost I picked up at the local garden center (by the bag), with a little binder mixed in.


Both the blue grama seed and the binder came from Plants of the Southwest. The bag of grass seed says “origin Colorado” so this is what they call “native” blue grama, as distinguished from fancy cultivars like ‘Hachita’ (that’s it directly above the patch of poop, with some other grasses), ‘Alma’, ‘Lovington’, and ‘Bad River’. I’m sure it makes a huge difference to some people, but not to me.
The binder is made, I think, from plantain; when mixed with the cow and compost and then watered, it kind of glues everything in place. The grass seed is glued to the ground. (Did I mention that I live in a really windy place?)
I scraped off the existing turf, tossed it in back of one of the rock gardens where I could really use some better soil, sowed the seed, watered it with a watering can, then sprinkled the poop on top.Took about twenty minutes.
Ran the sprinkler for about eight minutes, partly so the dog could have some fun, and now I’ll just wait. It takes blue grama about five days to germinate if the soil is warm and it’s kept moist.
By the way. “Grama” is Spanish for grass, and that’s the way it’s spelled. Only one M. “Blue grama grass” is as redundant as the “Rio Grande River”. If it’s called blue grama, you already know it’s grass.
The State Grass of Colorado, no less. Such an honor. (But it’s the state grass of New Mexico, too…..)

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