High Country Gardens

Two Outstanding Native Shrubs for the Western US

Native plants are a passion for my staff and I, particularly western native plants. And yet many of our great Western natives are virtually unknown among amateur and professional gardeners and landscapers. Such is the case with these two species native to the Great Basin of UT and NV and eastern CA.

Western Redbud (Cercis occidentalis)



Growing as a small tree or large shrub in its arid habitat, this relative of the popular Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Western Redbud has been used historically by native American peoples as a source of flexible branches for weaving baskets. Blooming in mid-spring with pale pink to dark rose pink flowers before the leaves appear, it is a showstopper. Deep green, almost glossy leaves follow and change to yellow in the fall before they drop. Western Redbud becomes more cold hardy with age. Do this by providing young transplants with supplemental cold protection for the first two winters in the ground. This is easily done by wrapping the plant in burlap and filling the fabric with fallen leaves to insulate the branches. My 5 year old plant has now withstood occasional winter lows of -15° F ! Zones (6 with initial cold protection) 7-10.

Desert Peach (Prunus andersonii)

 

Native in the foothills and lower elevation mountains of eastern CA and western NV, this species is a relative of the eatable Peach. In late spring the shrub is covered by a cloud of fragrant, pale to medium pink flowers. The shrub is both heat and cold tolerant and grows to medium size with dense, angular, thorny branching and small light green leaves. By mid-summer, tiny, non-eatable peaches are abundant.  As a habitat plant, Prunus andersonii is a fabulous shrub for feeding bees and to provide nesting habitat for songbirds. Desert Peach can also be used as a barrier or hedging and is a great choice for poor soils. Very xeric once established. Zones 5-9.

 

 

My Favorite Herb

Over the many years that I have gardened in Santa Fe, at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains, I have become infatuated by lavender , intoxicated by its beauty, its fragrance and entranced by its toughness and adaptability in the landscape.

 

OK, I know my prose is a little over the top, but I really am very fond of the genus Lavandula.  Like the other plants discussed in Michael Polan’s book  The Botany of Desire, this ancient Mediterranean herb (the region that includes the birthplace of Roman and Greek cultures) has become inextricably linked with mankind for thousands of years. We propagate it and ensure its survival on the planet and it repays us with its essentials oils that sooth and heal. For me, part of its allure is to continue to enjoy this historic alliance in our gardens and landscapes into the future.

 

Three new HCG lavender varieties for 2012

 



Lavandula stoechas (Spanish lavender)

For gardeners in zones 7-10, the Spanish lavenders are superb in ground plants for the herb garden or waterwise landscape.  In colder regions (zones 5&6) they are long lived container plants for the summer patio. The showy, winged flower spikes of this Spanish species are distinctly different from the English and French hybrid varieties. It also blooms earlier in the spring.

 

‘Purple Ribbon’ – a graceful plant breed in Holland, ‘Purple Ribbon’ is a long blooming selection with wonderfully showy flowers and bracts.  It’s is also very fragrant and a sturdy garden performer in heat and poor soils.

 

 



‘Madrid Blue’  PP#12,573 – this cutting propagated cultivar is a super showy bloomer with eyecatching dark blue flowers and white bracts.  Absolutely a “must have” ornamental herb for the mild-winter waterwise garden.

 

Lavandula x intermedia (French hybrid Lavender)

This hybrid group of lavender have been breed to perfection in France, where thousands of acres are grown commercially for lavender oil and other lavender products. These French hybrids bloom in mid-summer and should be combined with earlier blooming English and Spanish lavenders for an incredibly long season of fragrant flowers.

 



‘Gros Bleu’ – my favorite variety of this group. More compact that either ‘Grosso’ and ‘Provenance’ , it is a heavy bloomer with intensely fragrant foliage and flowers. The scent is sweet like English lavender with very little camphor in its scent. Here in the high desert, It re-blooms lightly in the fall if summer rains occur In August. The evergreen foliage turns lavender-blue in winter.  An outstanding French introduction!

 

Kintzley’s Ghost ® Vining Honeysuckle (Lonicera reticulate ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’)

Vines are so useful in our landscapes. They provide coverage for fences (especially unsightly ones) and make a wonderful trellis plant to cover walls and narrow upright spaces with attractive foliage and colorful flowers. Kintzley’s Ghost is a very unusual native vine that gives us an unusually long season of interest. With showy late spring yellow flowers followed by a summer long display of large, bright silver-dollar like bracts, ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’ is a little known but highly ornamental Lonicera species.

It’s also a plant that comes to 21^st century gardeners with a very interesting story attached to it. Originally propagated by William “Ped” Kintzley at the Iowa State University greenhouses in the 1880’s, he passed it along to family members, where it grew in a few family gardens unknown to the rest of the world. Then in the late 1990’s nurseryman Scott Skogerboe of Ft. Collins Wholesale Nursery spotted the plant growing in old town Ft. Collins, CO.  A man with a passion for plant history, Scott stopped to examine this startling discovery and talked with the homeowner. This is how he learned of its origins and realized that he had re-discovered a superb heirloom plant. Scott began to propagate the vine and in 2006, Colorado’s Plant Select™ program awarded it recognition as a Plant Select winner.

 

I had had forgotten about the plant until this past June when I visited Denver Botanic Garden for a conference. These photos that I took that day reminded me why Kintzley’s Ghost truly is an award winner. Easily grown in most any soil in a part to full sun location, it is a moderately fast grower that matures to a very manageable size.  (8-12'  tall x 3-5' wide). It is very cold hardyand grows in USDA Zones 4-8. To add even more color to its space plant some so companion plants like Salvia nemerosa ‘May Night’ at the base of the vine to dress-up it up a bit.

Carpeting Pincushion Flower (Pterocephalus depressus)

 

Groundcovers are so important in the garden. They create the garden’s carpet and weave the various plants together into a more harmonious

whole. They grow as a beautiful edge to flower beds, walkways and patios. They often provide both ornamental flowers and foliage to give them a very long s



eason of interest. So when I come across a new, truly remarkable groundcover that has been unknown to me, it’s very exciting.

 

Pterocephalus (te – RO – cefalous) depressus is currently at the top of my plant list. I got my original plants from a remarkable rock garden nursery in Ft. Collins, CO, Laporte

Avenue Nursery. After growing strongly in my rock garden for the past two growing seasons, (in a sort-of dry year followed by a severe drought year) I’ve seen the many



virtues of this carpeting beauty.  Closely related to a very popular genus of cottage garden

perennials, Scabiosa(Pincushion Flower), this alpine species is from the high mountains of Morocco, on the northeastern corner of Africa.  Blooming in early to mid-summer, the plant has huge mauve-pink flowers that sit right on the foliage. The flowers are followed by

fuzzy pink seed heads that decorate the plant for many weeks after blooming has finished.

 

 

But I have to say that as wonderfully ornamental as the flowers and seed heads are, the tight mat of evergreen foliage is equally interesting and useful. The stems root as they grow and cover themselves with nicely textured, tightly congested foliage that tolerates foot traffic and is as weed-proof as any groundcover I’ve ever seen.  Recommended for USDA zones 5-8, Pterocephalus is ready to move from list of specialty rock garden plants into the mainstream of gardening and will prove itself to be a superior garden carpet.