The Siberian iris is a spontaneous pale (slightly grayish lavender), small-flowered form that came up from seed many years ago. So many of the recently developed cultivars with flowers that are too few/too large/too frilly. I prefer the more natural forms of Iris sibirica. I’ll keep dividing this one to propagate it and let it do its thing in the various perennial beds.Penstemon fruticosus, seed-grown from a local populationOn the left, a monkshood that came with a theoretical identification: Aconitum aff. moldavicum. It remains an unknown, one of two species in the garden with that (disprovable?) theoretical identification.“Baby Moon”, our latest-flowering Narcissus.In the “Gift Garden”Patrinia, “Plectritis”, Aethionema, Dracocephalum, Gilia, and buried somewhere in there is Liebnitzia. We’re enjoying the self-sowers, at least those that are easy to control.Leuzea carthamoides. A handsome plant from top to bottom.The “Goat Path Garden” with Salvia austriaca (seeds kindly sent by Mike Kintgen, Denver Botanical Garden)Geranium cinereumRosa spinosissima, etc.Stipa ucrainica, finally flowering after many years of sulking. Seeds from Peter Korn, Klinta Trädgård.The other Aconitum aff. moldavicum.Achillea tomentosa, Antennaria parvifolia, and a hot-pink Saponaria that attracts the ravens, who’ve been picking it apart just for fun.In the “Alder Bed”, with its meditating boulder.Erigeron leiomerus, another one that I didn’t plant or sow. I’ve never purchased or gathered seeds or live plants of any monocephalous Erigeron except E. humilis. I’m guessing this came labeled as something that it isn’t.In the shadowy side of the Gift GardenThe sunnier side of the Gift GardenIn the peat bed of the Sky Garden, Thalictrum alpinum, Salix reticulata, Poa arctica, etc.Anemone cf. canadensis (like A. canadensis, but not rhizomatous, seeds wild-collected from Alberta and sent by Toby Spribille). Geranium erianthum on the right.Gladiolus imbricatus, Arnica mollis, Oreomecon alpina, Agoseris lackschewitzii, etc. The Gladiolus has proven winter-hardy here in Zone 3 (so far).Along the path from the back door, a flock of columbine (Aquilegia grata (?))Penstemon glaber, the seeds of which were supposed to be those of P. whippleanus. I’m happy with either.The green roof of the Hobbit hut still has more growing to do, but it’s coming along nicely despite the droughts of the first two of its three years since establishment.Saponaria lutea surrounded by Salix yezoalpina. The Salix is getting a bit aggressive and overly large for an alpine garden. The nameless little bed between the cabin and the storage shed. This used to be a hardscrabble, weedy patch with poor soil. Something eventually kicked in (though I never enriched the soil or increased its irrigation) and now it grows robustly. Something to do with mycorrhizae? Every plant ecologist would do well to grow a large garden; the ecological dynamics of cultivated ground raise interesting questions.In the light of the sunset after another rain shower. We’re enjoying a good “June monsoon” this year. The drought years will return, and one of those years will bring a fire catastrophe to our surroundings. But for now, we can be thankful for all that the rain gives us.
