NORTH AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

SHASTA CHAPTER
Spring 2006

This issue is dedicated in memory of Jeanette Axton

Our biggest annual event is just around the corner. This year it will be held at the home of Sue Neuman at 3013 N. Hwy 3, Etna from 9:00 - 1:00.

Each member is asked to donate a dozen (or more) labeled plants to be offered for sale and to sign up if at all possible for set up (the night prior to the sale), sales, refreshments or clean-up.

All proceeds from the sale go to the club to fund speakers, add to our library or support our community activities. These are: the entrance to Etna, the rock garden at the library and the entrance to Johnson Park.

If you have nothing extra in your garden perhaps you could start some seeds now so that you'll have some great flowers or vegetables to contribute.

Rather than offering members' garden tours, a separate event will be held for our members and the general public in June or July. If you are interested in having your garden on the tour, please contact Narda Krum at narda@sisqtel.net or call at 467-5215

As in the past, we are looking for exciting items for our sale raffle. Please call Dorothy Leinen at 468-4404 or Margaret Hoagland at 467-3104 if you have an item or even an idea for an item. Remember they need items for our monthly raffles as well.

Atlas Mountains (Morocco) Trips Update

Trip One: Depart From Marrakech May 21, Return June 2
Trip Two: Depart From Marrakech July 23, Return By August 5

Please join us for either an alpine plant locating trip in May or a seed-collecting trip in July. The purpose of these two trips is to locate and bring back to Denver seed of plants both worthy of and suitable for cultivation in arid, high altitude gardens. Both trips will range from Midelt in the northeast of the Atlas Mountains back to Marrakech near the heart of the high Atlas, allowing us to circumnavigate and penetrate those portions of the Atlas Mountains above 7,000'.

Travel will be by 4WD vehicles supplemented by extensive hiking. Participants should be comfortable hiking for several hours a day at altitudes between 6,000 and12,000 feet and should expect to spend half the nights in sleeping bags and the other half in hotels. Fellow travelers will make their own arrangements to arrive in Marrakech by either May 21, 2006 or July 23; I will make guarantees for camping and hotels in advance. Temperatures in the Atlas Mountains in May will be cold at night, down in the low 40's. Daytime temperatures will be in the 70's and 80's. July temperatures will be above 50F at night and in the 80's and 90's during the day.

The total cost of the trip will be approximately $3000 per traveler, depending on airfare costs and use of available frequent flyer miles. (Note you will need to make your own plane reservations.) Hotels will range from $50-$100 per night double occupancy and SUV rental & gasoline will probably be around $50 per day per person.

Indispensable references include Marrakech & the High Atlas Handbook by Justin McGuiness, available from http://www.footprintbooks.com and from http://www.amazon.com; and "Trekking in the Atlas Mountains" by Karl Smith, 2004 edition, published by Cicerone, http://www.ciceroneguides.com/acatalog/index.htm. Michelin publishes the best Morocco map, #742, available at any bookstore with a decent travel section. The best botanical reference is Jim Archibald's "Among Moroccan Mountains", a lengthy article published in The Alpine Garden Society Bulletin in the early 1960's, available at the Denver Botanic Gardens library or from me. French botanical references include "Catalogue des Plants du Maroc" by E. Jahandiez and R. Negre and "Nouvelles observations sur la flore du Maroc" by Alain Dobignard, published in Candollea 52, 1997 and available from me. A good website to start with is http://www.israbat.ac.ma/botanique/BEV.htm from the Institut Scientifique in Rabat Morocco, which can be translated into English by Google.

We need your commitment to make either of the two trips by March 12, 2006 at the latest. A NARGS stipend allowance, as well as one for RMC members, has been approved and applications will be available on www.rmcnargs.org. Please contact Randy Tatroe or me for further information. I will send updates to all interested if you will send me your email addresses. Please join us for what promises to be an adventure and a chance to add many worthwhile new plants to rock garden horticulture.

Rod Haenni may be reached at 303.795.3676 or rhaenni@comcast.net.

Randy Tatroe may be reached at 303.699.8958 or rltaurora@aol.com.

This trip is offered by a members, but is not an officially-sponsored program of RMC-NARGS.

We are not exactly tip-toeing through the tulips, but spring is definitely on the horizon. Now is the best time to get out those rubber boots, pull on gardening gloves and get out the tools. Those wonderful warm afternoons we have been having have started the internal clocks of the perennials, bushes and trees and they have started to grow. It is time to make them welcome.

My first job was to pull out the remaining skeletons of last year's annuals and cut back the perennials to their new growth (those that didn't get cleaned up last fall). Lots of cuttings go into my compost pit but there is a tremendous amount that is too coarse, too slow to decompose or full of potential unwanted roots. I never fail to have sympathy for the poor gardeners who are not allowed to burn as I gaze at my huge pile of garden debris.

The best part of cleaning up for spring is discovering the flowers I do not notice from my warm, comfy chair in front of the fire. The Hellebores and Cyclamen have started to bloom!

Helebore or Christmas Rose

Cyclamen coum

It is so satisfying to look at nice clean beds, but even better is finding the new growth already starting. It is at these times I am thrilled by the early bloomers like my hardy Cyclamen (C. coum). (If you want to see these early charmers, go by Barbara Coatney's house on Main in Etna. I even saw a crocus blooming there.) I can not keep from smiling as I discover candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) blooming under some sheltering Nandina and sycamore leaves, and primroses (Primula acaulis) bursting out (they have been gallantly carrying on through the snow as well). Here and there I see creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) putting out blossoms; the lavender violets (Viola odorata) have diligently been blooming all through the winter but are now rapidly increasing in number. It was a special thrill to see the Siberian Iris (I. Sibirica ) blooming at the bottom of its foliage.

Not only am I preparing for spring, but the bulbs are pushing up all over the yard. Some blue Crocuses have pushed out some buds; some Daffodils that live in a very sheltered spot on the south side of the house are already showing their sunshine yellow color. Despite the temperature or (horrors) even snow, I know that spring is definitely here when the Daffodils bloom.

Some gardeners enjoy cleaning out their beds, but I do it out of guilt. I just can not let those gorgeous bulbs start to bloom in the midst of plant skeletons, semi-decomposed leaves or (worst of all) weeds. A couple more days of warm afternoons and hard labor and I can rest easily and just enjoy the spring.

International Interim Rock Garden Plant Conference

The conference will be held Friday, July 21st through Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at Snowbird Resort in Utah. It will be sponsored by the North American Rock Garden Society and hosted by theWasatch Chapter.

The first half of the conference entails many wonderful speakers:

Field trips to the Ruby Mountains in eastern Nevada, Cliff Breaks & Tushar Mountains in southern Utah, Teton Mountains in southern Wyoming, Snowy Mountains in southern Wyoming and Wasatch Mountains in northern Utah are planned for the second half of the conference.

Post-Conference Tour:
Immediately after the conclusion of the conference, there will be a trip to the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming departing Snowbird on the morning of Thursday, July 27th and returning to Salt Lake City on Tuesday, August 1 (5 nights, 6 days). There will be overnight stays in Riverton, Burgess Junction and Cody, Wyoming, and daytime stops or extended hikes in and around the Wind River Range, the Bighorn Mountains and the Absarokas.

For details on the conference and the post conference tour see the NARG web site.

Every gardener knows what a snowdrop looks like however most gardeners do not realize that there are between ten and twenty species of snowdrops, depending on who is doing the counting. Some kinds even bloom in the fall. Snowdrops are probably the best loved of all spring bulbs blooming through the bleak, late winter into early spring.

There is nothing finer than a woodland site carpeted with snowdrops and winter aconites early in the year. Probably ninety percent of snowdrops grown in American gardens are Galanthus nivalis, and is the first flower to bloom in most gardens. Galanthus elwesii an even earlier species that is sometimes offered by bulb dealers is not only earlier but larger than the common species, making it especially desirable. It usually multiplies at a much slower rate than the common type but is not difficult. Also worth trying are some named selections including the double form of nivalis "Flore Pleno," which has tight double flowers with many extra petals. If you like bulbs that naturalize well, Crocus tommasinianus, is also very early and can look good at this time of the year with snowdrops and hellebores and winter aconites. Late winter is an interesting time of the year with snow still in the forecast but the first snowdrops have a way of assuring you that spring in now not far away.

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