Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society VOL. 47 WINTER 1989 NO. 1 Foreword This issue of the Bulletin has a number of changes which are worth mentioning. The size is slightly different, which comes from being printed on a small web press. The efficiencies gained by this process have allowed us to add 16 pages to the Bulletin. In addition, we have re- introduced color to the inside providing an additional 4 pages. We hope you like this expansion. Editorially, you will find three pieces on the Pine Barrens which will be an important part of the schedule for this summer's annual meeting in Wilmington, DE. The spring issue will include articles on native plants at Mt. Cuba Center and the Rock Garden at Winterthur, both scheduled for tours during the annual meeting. We hope these whet your appetite for this well-planned event. We have gone farther afield, too. In addition to articles from both coasts and points between, you will find a discussion of seed germina• tion by a seedsman from Germany and an introduction to the terrestrial Calanthe Orchids of Japan. And one man's personal viewpoint of rock gardening through the year begins with this issue — as Geoffrey Char- lesworth looks at the Rock Garden in Winter. Ted Marston, Editor The cover illustration is a woodcut of Gentiana cuciata from Raviorum plantarum historia, a famous herbal by Carolus Clusius. It was published in 1601, Published quarterly by the AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCIETY, a tax-exempt, non-profit organization incorpo• rated under the laws of the state of New Jersey. You are invited to join. Annual dues (Bulletin included), to be submitted in U.S. funds and International Money Order, are: General Membership, $20.00 (includes domestic or foreign, single or joint —two at same address to receiveone Bulletin, one Seed List); Patron, $50.00; Life Member (individual only), over 55, $300; under 55, $350. Membership inquiries and dues should be sent to Buffy Parker, 15 Fairmead Rd., Darien, CT. 06820. Address editorial matters pertaining to the Bulletin to the Editor, Ted Marston, 13036 Holmes Point Drive, Kirkland, WA 98034. Address advertising matters to Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, PA 19380. Second Class Postage paid in Darien, CT., and additional offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society (ISSN 0003 0864) 15 Fairmead Rd., Darien, CT. 06820. 2 Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society Contents Vol. 47 No. 1 Winter 1989 The Rock Garden in Winter, Geoffrey Charlesworth 4 Found: Fritillaria ojaiensis, Laura Jezik 8 Phabulous Phloxes, Panayoti Kelaidis 13 Verna Propinqua, Kathie Lippitt 17 The New Jersey Pine Barrens, Rick Darke 21 What You Will See, Tarn Hartell 27 Book Review: The Pine Barrens 29 Mysteries & Mertensias, Ann Lovejoy 31 Seed Germination, Klaus Jelitto 33 Hybrid Lewisias, Roy Davidson 42 To The Mountain, J. L. Faust 44 Irises with Alpines, Leo Blanchette 47 Ethical Scrounging, Morris West 50 Calanthe Orchids of Japan, Yoshitaka Iwata 51 Bottled Sunlight, Milton S. Mulloy 58 The Exchange 61 Calendar of Coming Events Eastern Winter Study Weekend (Allegheny Chapter) Pittsburgh Hilton January 27-29,1989 Western Winter Study Weekend - Vancouver, B.C. (Alpine Garden Club of British Columbia) Richmond Inn February 24-26,1989 Annual Meeting (Delaware Valley Chapter) Radisson Wilmington Hotel June 16-19,1989 3 The Rock Garden in Winter Geoffrey Charlesworth Winter! A word to put rock shrubs and conifers. There isn't gardeners on hold.We spend much you can do except dream three months of the year prepar• and plan and promise, threaten ing for it starting with the first and boast about what you will chilly night in September. An do once the ground thaws. It is alarm goes off inside the brain the best time to cut down the and muscles: we start thinking trees that you carefully banded 'cleanup', 'plant out', 'edge', 'turn in the summer. When Spring compost' and the muscles react arrives you will be delighted with to this sense of urgency. When the new light and the extra winter arrives — let's say around space; you never want a tree back Thanksgiving — there is a sense that you decided to remove. of fulfillment alternating with a After the first serious snow• sense of resignation, a feeling storm — probably in early Janu• that what wasn't done doesn't ary — even tidying up stops, and matter, that snow will soon be anything loose has already been here to hide the sins of omission. blown away and buried. A The garden itself is at rest coldframe, its lid broken and even when howling winds sweep crumpled, is embalmed in ice and down from the northwest to set shrouded with a white winding the stems of Calamagrostis sheet. I try to forget which plants epigeios shivering and genuflect• are buried under the debris, ing to the tyrant from the arctic. there is no point in anticipating If there has been a silent pow• a special calamity, there will be dery snow the remains of Sedum plenty of losses to bemoan in spectabile sit crowned with a April. powder puff. Some plants are as But of course all this is Win• beautiful in death as they are in ter in a rather high exposed life. I don't choose any specifi• patch of New England. It may be cally for this reason though, I happening in Minnesota too. But just accept the serendipitous many gardeners have very dif• when and where it happens. ferent winters. One of the pleas• There are very few days of win• ures of Study Weekends is to visit ter when you look at the details other people's gardens and expe• of garden. Winter is the time to rience vicariously what it would look at the overall effect, the be like to garden in a different paths, the rocks, the placing of part of the country. Even if a 4 garden is under snow you can ress'. The oldest part is a scree enjoy this activity. We saw An• of large gauge stone with larger ita Kistler's romantic, rocky slope rocks for interest and scale. The in Pennsylvania with a white closest I have seen to a facsimile veneer hiding plants but not of high Colorado tundra. Noth• obscuring the contours. The high ing much in bloom in mid-De• spot though was escaping into cember but the mats and buns the shelter of a cross between a are contented and a healthy size. coldframe and an alpine house Nearby coldframes are open to where a multitude of plants were the sun. They only need cover on wintering over, protected from a few days of the year. Ev sows a the worst of the weather but lot of seed and a tour of the seed without heat. It gave a feeling pots is enthralling. Living in that gardening was still possible North Carolina means Ev can even in late January. Further sow seed as soon as she gets it south in Virginia, Pam Harper's and leave it outside to germinate. shoreside garden at the begin• Well, so can I, but there is no ning of January, was quiet but added value to sowing seed in not completely dormant. Narcis• November over February for me sus bulbocodium was already in except not to fall behind. Ev gets bloom and the first crocuses had the added pleasure of getting already opened. Later that win• germination throughout Winter. ter there were bad storms but at Inspecting and transplanting the time we saw it, the garden never stop. I looked at her setup was a patchwork of Fall matur• with a little envy but remem• ity — this is essentially a shrub bered too that I wouldn't have garden with berries and some left my own garden if I had had lingering foliage — Winter hia• so much activity and it was only tus and Spring promise. because my garden was im• In North Carolina at the mobilized that I was there at all. southern end of the Blue Ridge In February in San Diego you mountains Ev Whittemore has can eat oranges from your own made a garden at the top of a tree. We saw gardens there like steep, adventurous road — al• a greenhouse without walls. Gar• most paved over what was once deners all over North America a mine field of bumps and ruts. seem to push plants to their limit Here there is almost no winter of hardiness and even in San of the Massachusetts kind. Ev Diego use protected places and gardens nearly every day of the glass to grow the ungrowable. year. It is still a garden without But there are probably no rock bounds, parts almost mature, gardens this far south. In San parts roughed in and 'in prog• Francisco, on the other hand 5 there are rock gardens of many Almost an anomaly is Har- styles. Ted Kipping's steep arena land Hand's beautiful and origi• manages to combine scree, bog, nal garden. His summer weather sand garden and rocky slope in is so friendly — enough fog — an enclosing curtain of shrubs and his winters are so mild that and climbers. Nell and Bill Folk- his rock plants are orchids and man have a small garden that his ground cover Echeveria. With seems to flow out of the house, more typical local climate is or is the garden invading the Wayne Roderick's steep wood• living quarters? The trellises and land with Calochortus and other structures and the intensive use impossible bulbs. California gar• of every inch of ground creates a dens force you to reassess your box-like bower.