Rocky Mountain Native Plants

With all the talk about using native plants I thought I would bring one to the table (so to speak). I was at a picnic at the Airforce Academy today, and wandered off into the adjacent woodland to take pictures of wildflowers (actually I wanted to get another sighting of the family of wild turkeys we saw driving in, but flowers will do as an excuse). I found this very lovely and delicate allium, that I would tentatively ID as Prairie Onion (Allium drummondii). My first thought was "that would look really really neat in a dry shade area underneath MY pine trees... " but I have no idea if anyone sells seeds or bulbs or if it can be propagated. Any thoughts?

This message was edited Aug 6, 2006 9:20 PM

Here is a shot of the whole plant

This is the context

I have hundreds of the allium and seed propagation is how they reproduce. I have over 85 varieties of wild flower and am waiting for snow, to sit down and Id them all. One of my favorites. some kind of Orchid. many of these also.

This message was edited Aug 6, 2006 10:25 PM

Love your Calochortus, mariposa. I have tried to get them to grow here. There were quaite a few of the fairly tall large flowered lavender ones here when I first moved here, but when I started irrigating the soil got too wet for them, even when I planted on the bank. Donna

Is that what this is? Thank you Now I have a name for it. They grow well here amongst the tall native grasses on a dry exposed (sunny) meadow. Thank you Donna. hey you never answered me on your Alaska Cedars. They make it through you hot dry summers? Or do you have to soak all day long?

Donna what is this one? Some kind of rudbeckia?

Steve, I'm not positive but I think that is one of the Gaillardias.

Concerning the Chamaecyparis , Alaska Cedar, the heat doesn't see, to bother them, I don't supply extra water. I just like the effect the tall sentinel evergreens.

Boy the smoke is darker than ever tonight. Th is was supposedly a one day heat wave, got up to 95 here at the house, was 100 down town, very little wind. Sure wish I could figure out how to make the correct setting on one of my cameras to capture the red, red sun through the smoke.

I planted a Sumac, I believe Rhus, out at the far west edge of my garden. Now I call it my Sumac jungle . Someway the label got lost so I don;t know which one it is. Here is a photo of the jungle and I will post a closeup. Do you, or anybody recognise it.

Donna

Don't know where the individual sumac leaf photo went. will try to locate it.

that kind of agressive behavior is indicitive of Staghorn Rhus typhina. I can only tell mine from the type of fruit at the top. I have torn out all of mine like that and kept the tiger eyes, and Smooth Sumac Rhus glabra. My garden is not that big. My glabra keep me busy with runners though. Not as much as the Stags. this is glabra my favorite. OOps too blurry.

This message was edited Aug 7, 2006 9:06 PM

this one is better, taken today. I use the red sunsets (from the fire) to filter and enhance the photos of the garden which benefit from red light.

I don't think it is Staghorn, leaves not lacy enough. It is funny tho, the stalks earlier had nice large what I will call bloom buds, but everything just dropped off and just 8 to 10 sticks left at the top of the stalks.

Then look at the smoothe sumac site. This is probably it. Smooth Sumac
Rhus glabra

greenjay,
I apologize for not reading your first post on this thread more carefully. I do recognize that allium. It grows in the vacant lot behind my house in the same conditions -- Pondorosa pine, not much rain, a scattering of pine needles. It is a very dainty little plant that I like quite a lot. I have seen it here and there all around Los Alamos. I was told it was called "wild garlic" but I bet there are 100 other plants called that.
I grow a lot of alliums but they are all the edible kind, but my next door neighbor grows a lot of the ornamental kind. They do well here.
I am going to try an experiment this spring and try what I believe to be a new kind of allium for the Rocky Mountain Area. See:

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1932/index.html

A friend of mine in Heidelberg, Germany learned about them from the Turkish people who live there. They grow wild there and people go in the woods to pick them. My friend made a pesto out of them that was just wonderful. I got some seeds from J. L. Hudson and will try to sprout them and grow them in a damp shady place somewhere around my house -- if such a place can be found.
As for my "Prarie Onion" it is still there but last weekend a man I had here installing my drip irrigation system decided to help me out, without checking first, by mowing my weeds with a weed whacker. The little onion is now only 2 inches tall. But it is alive and will come back, but maybe not this year. Sigh.




http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1932/index.html