Orange Crush Part 4 of 4: Desert (and some mountain) Perennials

This is it. The final installment. File under Plants of the Week #10: Perennials of the Desert Southwest (and San Juan mountains of CO).

Clematis, can you believe it? Have you ever seen nicer clematis? NO YOU HAVE NOT. At least I think that's what it is but I have to come clean. I don't remember. Rick and Lynne will tell us! San Juan National Forest, CO.

This one's easy. Mule's ears. Wyethia amplexicaulis Not to be confused with Balsamroot, the shorter, gray-leaved, more drought tolerant version of this. Ute Indian Reservation, San Juan Mountains, CO.

Lewisia nevadaensis. Nevada bitterroot. I'm actually excited typing this because it's such a rare find, and lewisia's in general are such interesting, delicate little plants. To be treasured. San Juan National Forest, CO.

Holy paintbrush, batman. This burst of color looks like a cartoon explosion. Castilleja chromosa. Chimney Rock, CO.

Prince's plume, Stanlea pinnata. The presence of this species indicates selenium-bearing soils. Fascinating. I actually do find it fascinating. Above Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, AZ.

Penstemon sp. I'm not sure which one, maybe Dusty penstemon? It was growing in a dusty place (Chaco Canyon, AZ) but I bet dusty refers to the dusty green leaves.

Penstemon eatonii, Eaton's penstemon. Near Indian Creek, Canyonlands, UT.

Ahh, my favorite - and I mean favorite - desert wildflower. Sphaeralcea coccinia, Common globemallow. It's common out there, not common up here; it will grow in my desert garden some day. Right next to the 3-tip sagebrush we liberated from the cabin in Montana and under the 10 madrones we have in pots on our patio - just waiting to be planted. They'll need to wait a little longer, they have about 20 projects ahead of them, including rebuilding the wall that will prop them up and keep them warm. Desert plants in Seattle? In my yard, hell yes.

Growing among the ruins of Penasco Blanco, Chaco Canyon

Asclepias sp, milkweed. I don't know the species. Pretty fantabulously interesting flower though. Chaco Canyon, AZ.

Delphinium sp. Larkspur. San Juan National Forest, CO.

Gilia aggregata, Scarlet Gilia. This stuff is just a brilliant flash of color in the desert. Canyon de Chelly, AZ.

Calochortus nuttallii, Sego Lily. The state flower of Utah. DO NOT PICK, you will be arrested. That's what my dad used to tell me, anyway. Canyonlands, UT.

Physaria newberryi, Newberry's twinpod. I sat down in the dirt and keyed this baby out. Look at those pods! Yellow 4-petal flowers in spring, but we missed that part. Canyonlands.

Platyschkuhria integrifolia, Nakedstem bahia. I'm not making up any of those names. Another plant I was determined to figure out with the books. Canyonlands.

Not too shabby this little flower. Reminds me of Coreopsis.

A delicate little mountain gem whose name I forget. Ginger's parents will need to rescue me again. San Juan National Forest.

I know like WTH is this? I couldn't figure it out. Anybody know?

And finally, a bunch of grass? This is a desert wetland! No kidding. It's got the three characteristics: The right color soil (gotta dig, it's mottled) , wetland indicating plant species, and hydrology. It's protected by a little outcropping of rocks, just enough to allow the soil to remain moist via a seep. This grass grows literally no where else but right here. I almost walked right past it, but luckily I had my plant nerd radar on full blast.

Well, that's it for this trip. We'll see the desert again in 2011! I already can't wait.

Since I met Ginger in 1998, we've been to the desert southwest 6 times:

1999: Zion, Red Canyon, Bryce, Escalante and we got engaged on this trip!

2001: Escalante area & Lake Powell w/ Ginger's parents. We rented Jeep Grand Cherokee and violated the rental agreement by taking it WAY off road and out of state.

2003: Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon

2005: Capitol Reef, Escalante, Zion, St. George

2007: Pagosa Springs, Hovenweep, Comb Wash, Lake Powell, Natural Bridges, San Rafael Swell

2009: Pagosa, Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Chimney Rock, Canyonlands

Orange Crush Part 3 of 4, Plants that freakin’ rock, desert southwest

Before we begin with the plants, a gratuitous collared lizard shot (Chaco Canyon, AZ)

Now then, on to the desert plants!

(file under: Plants of the Week #9: Trees and Shrubs of the Desert Southwest)

I won’t list everything that we saw, just the cool stuff or plants for which we got great photos. And, sorry this took so long to roll out. Seeing all of these plants again takes us right back though!

The Cactus:

Cane Cholla, Cylindrapuntia spinosior (Chaco)

Brown spined prickly pear, Opuntia phaeacantha (Everywhere)

Claret cup, Echinocerus triglochidiatus (Everywhere, this specimen Chaco)

And cactus-like Narrowleaf Yucca, Yucca angstissima (mostly AZ)

The Trees: Everyone has seen the first two, but they have special significance since I spent a good chunk of my childhood exploring beneath their scarce shade. Just the smell of a pygmy forest brings back a flood of memories. Oh, and you make Gin from Juniper berries, yo.

Utah Juniper, Juniperus osteosperma (Everywhere, this specimen Canyon de Chelly)

Pinon Pine, Pinus edulis (Everywhere)

And very occasionally, usually on north facing canyon slopes, good ol’ Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii (with a juvenile pinon pine in the background) (Canyonlands)

Fremont Cottonwood, Populus fremontii (We forded this stream in the 2WD Element. Ginger was like "WHA?" and I was like "Chillax". Canyonlands)

Other trees we enjoyed: Single leaved ash, Fraxinus anomala; Box elder, Acer negundo

The shrubs: There are about ten shrubs that all look like sagebrush from the road, but get to know them and you’ll see they are each specially adapted to certain ecological conditions and have their own merit. And only sagebrush smells like sagebrush, so this is an easy way to tell what something isn’t. Just to keep us all confused, there are many varieties of sagebrush out there, but only Three Tip gets over 4’ tall.

Three tip sagebrush, Artemesia tridentata (either side of Ginger; everywhere, but this is in Canyon de Chelly)

Fendlerbush, Fenderla rupicola (pretty amazing in bloom actually, Chimney Rock, CO)

Utah serviceberry, Amelanchier utahensis (San Juan National Forest, CO)

Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana (San Juan National Forest, CO)

Cliff rose, Purshia tridentata (Canyon de Chelly)

Fremont’s Mahonia, Berberis fremontii (Canyon de Chelly)

Mormon tea (caffeine free!), Ephedra viridis (Grows everywhere)

There were more but I'll spare you. I took note of these, but didn't get good pictures:

• Greasewood, Sarcobatus vermiculatus
• Shadescale, Atriplex confertifolia
• Four winged saltbrush, Atriplex canescens
• Mountain mahogany, Cerocarpus intricatus
• Desert sumac, Rhus aromatica
• Golden Currant, Ribes aureum (also grows in eastern WA, but looks completely different)
• Longflowered snowberry, Symphorocarpus longiflorus (coolest of the snowberry clan)

Next week:
Perennials. Try to stay in your seats.

Salvia elegans, Pineapple Sage

Plant of the Week #8
Salvia elegans, Pineapple Sage


Here's another winter bloomer - as of December 7th it was blooming and had been for about 3 weeks. This is a pretty tender plant in this climate, and with the first hard frost the leaves will brown and that will be that until late spring. It seems to lag most perennials by 3 months. When others are blooming profusely in June, this salvia is just starting to bud. I made the mistake of cutting it back too much last winter and that probably slowed the growth even more, but it fully recovered and doubled in size from the previous year by August.

Like other plants in our drought tolerant parking strips (the only part of our yard we've planted so far because of the endless exterior renovations...), the sage received no water over the summer. Crush the leaves and you do get a pineapple scent, it's pretty cool. The books say 3-5' tall, and "Pineapple sage is a semiwoody subshrub in USDA zones 9-11, and an herbaceous perennial, dying to the ground in winter but resprouting in spring, in zones 8-9. Gardeners in colder areas grow pineapple sage as an annual, or bring it indoors in the winter. Pineapple sage grows naturally in oak and pine scrub forests at elevations from 8,000-10,000 feet elevation in Mexico and Guatemala." It's growing under an oak now, one of our six baby Quercus phellos, the willow oak.

There are 700 species of salvia. Like most mints, Salvia elegans has square stems, opposite leaves and is edible. We have yet to try it, but apparently it is tasty in a salad and makes a great garnish in a cocktail. Actually, that's not a bad idea - gotta go...

Next week: Quercus phellos? Revisit the Black Lace Elderberry? Arbutus menziesii?

Mahonia X media 'Winter Sun'

Plant of the Week is back! (POTW #7)
Mahonia X media 'Winter Sun'

(Sorry POTW's have been on hiatus since June, I'll try and get this going again on a more regular basis. I got distracted with a little project I like to call The Porch Nightmare.)



Here's another plant in our drought-tolerant parking strips. I actually ordered Mahonia lomarifolia, Burmese mahonia. The Burmese Mahonia is even more rare, stays very narrow and can get 15' tall. Burmese is so striking in the garden, it's almost gothic with its narrow stalks shooting skyward and spiky foliage. But the nursery dropped off these 'Winter Sun' instead and it took me a year before I realized I had the wrong ones. Oh well.

The 'Winter Sun' are working out great though. Because I didn't know what I had, they're planted too close together, but for now the massing looks pretty good. They'll get much taller however, possibly 10', and at that point they'll be much wider than the Burmese I planned for, so we'll have to move some plants around.

These photos were shot December 7, 2008. The shrubs have been blooming for two weeks and I've got at least 3 more to go. We've got hummingbirds that visit our house just to drink the nectar out of our ten specimens. Other than the Salvia elegans (next week's POTW) these are the only flowers in the garden right now.

Mahonia X media 'Winter Sun' will grow in USDA zones 7-9. It's a blast of color on the shortest days of the year. New growth in the spring is bronze or coppery, by summer the fruits have turned purple and other birds are feasting on those. The books say these need afternoon shade, but mine get full, hot sun (reflected heat from the street and sidewalk too) all day. They've been in the ground for 2 years. The first summer I watered them, last summer they got nothing and I think we can agree that they're thriving.


These brighten up the typical December day in Seattle. It's cold and gray, with a slight drizzle, so the 'Winter Sun' seem aptly named.

Next week Salvia elegans, Pineapple Sage.

Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'

Plant Of The Week #6
Black Lace Elderberry

This oh-so-trendy shrub is currently blocking the sight-line triangle in one of my parking strips. We "forgot" to get a permit for planting in the City's Right-of-Way and surely this large shrub that can be trained into a small tree would not have been allowed. Oh well! It's grown fast since we planted it in October 2006, the same year it was named "Best New Plant" at the ANLA garden show, (yup, plants get awards, too). I love this: "BLACK LACE^™ is a stunning development in Elderberry breeding." Indeed!


Here it's quite nicely set off by the yellow Sedum, red Uncinia, green Chasmanthus, greenish pink Ceanothus and grayish Oleria. Don't worry, all of these plants are future POTWs.

The reason everybody is so excited about this new variety of elderberry is likely that the finely dissected dark purple leaf is always interesting for one, but then it blooms with huge pink panicles that provide a big contrast against the foliage for a month. And they smell great too. It's pretty cool. It will provide a great accent surrounded by smaller plants, or as a backdrop for plants with brighter foliage. It's hardy, too. USDA zones 4-9. It grows VERY fast, but like all elderberries you can cut it back to the ground in late winter and it will happily come back quickly. Ours is already 6' tall and getting taller fast after only 1.75 years in the ground.

Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace' should be fairly drought tolerant although it will wilt in the afternoon as ours does when it is really hot and dry. So far it's been pest free.

"I couldn't see you behind that stunning development in Elderberry breeding! Here's my insurance card. Sorry about your Prius."

Euphorbia griffithii

Plant Of The Week #5, Griffith's Spurge


Martha Stewart and I have only one thing in common, we both like this Euphorbia. Generally called spurge or milkweed spurge, Euphorbia is a widely variable genus of of plants from tiny annuals to tropical trees. Your Christmas poinsettia is actually Euphorbia pulcherrima. (Which instead of being thrown out with the expired eggnog in February could grow into a 10' tall tree if you lived in say, Mexico or Hawaii...). Many euphorbias resemble cacti or succulents. Others release their seeds explosively. And they don't actually have flowers, but tiny fused bracts called cyathium. Cyathia may appear singly or in clusters and often it's the bracts below the cyathia that provide the color, as in the poinsettia. See, this is one cool genus of plants.

There are so many different Euphorbias commercially available in different colors and sizes that I'm still getting the hang of what's out there. So far, Griffith's Spurge tops the cool list.

Photos from Red Butte Gardens, Salt Lake City, UT.

Euphorbia griffithii tends to like sun, but will tolerate partial shade. Like all euphorbias it has milky white sap that can irritate sensitive skin or could possibly be toxic if ingested. Just don't plant it around your daycare center playground and you'll be just fine. I think it's just one of those things people feel they need to warn you about, like "Hey, it's dangerous to climb a ladder." Yeah, we know.

Griffith's Spurge is native to the Himalayas, gets about 36" tall and slowly spreads by creeping roots, but is not particularly aggressive. Long and narrow leaves are reddish orange when new, with green-orange stems. The "flowers" are reddish-orange, but variable. Cultivars include 'Fireglow' with even brighter orange leaves, cyathia, and stems; and 'Dixter', which grows to 24" ht. and has a darker green to pinkish leaf with less brightly colored cyathia. It's a perennial, dies back, and will grow in USDA Zones 5-9.

See, cool as ice.

Embothrium coccineum

Plant Of The Week #4, Chilean Fire Tree

Fits in perfectly with my neighbor's Spanish style house

Embothrium coccineum. I love this tree. Ginger loves this tree. Probably not as much as I do though, because I'm the plant nerd. I first discovered this plant as a college Junior while taking Landscape Plant ID by the famous Professor Matsuo Tsukada. The great professor was an 80 year old Japanese man who at the time was more spry and energetic than most of the slacker UW students taking his classes. This 4 hour long, 3 day a week class consisted of 30 students following Tsukada as he ran from plant to plant in the Washington Park Arboretum or all over campus. He was a living botanical encyclopedia and well-respected by the students, I think mostly because of his enthusiam for teaching us about the idiosyncrasies of plants. He was tough to understand sometimes, you know, in all of the excitement of running up a 45 degree slope and shouting down the hill pointing to some tree while trying to spit out "Youuuuu should knooooow that dis plant veeeerrryyy important. It has three [indecipherable botanical word], surrounded by five [indecipherable botanical word] and uuuuused for [indecipherable word] by maaaaaannnny people." He was a great man.

But the fire tree was not on his list, it was not a plant we had to memorize. Probably due to its rarity in the landscape generally although I see more and more around Seattle as its popularity grows. Back in the Arboretum I saw the fire-orange blooms covering the 30' tree from tip to toe and just had to investigate. Years later I would return to the same tree every spring just to see the blooms. Then years later still, Ginger and I returned again to collect seeds and now we have 5 of our own Chilean fire trees growing out on the back patio in clay pots. They're too young to bloom yet but one of my neighbors has one, so I get to enjoy his every night that we walk past when we "G-o on Lola's w-a-l-k."


Sometimes a large tree to 50', sometimes a multi-trunked shrub to 20'; leaves can be either deciduous or evergreen (ours seem to be evergreen) oblong, somewhat shiny, and sort of a dusty yellow-green. The showy bright orange to red flowers emerge in late May and last a month. Hummingbirds love them. This tree needs good drainage, is drought tolerant, likes acid soil and needs to be protected from freezing wind. USDA Zones 8-11. They seem to like to be left alone, so plant one and don't fuss with it. I'm not sure how old they need to be to bloom. Probably 5 years in the ground would be my guess.

Our "baby" Fire Trees