Farewell 2011! A fond look back....

[kelaidis]

Everyone has a few triumphs and bright spots to look back on. Working at a public garden with tens of thousands of accessions, and with thousands more at my home garden (and at my friends' nearby) it's sometimes hard to pick. But I pulled out a few that struck me as I bask in the glow of this past year. Since not many of you make it to the Southern Rockies, perhaps you will enjoy a brief visit now.

1) Androsace minor is a new one for me, but quickly becoming one of my favorites.
2) A corner of the large Convolvulus assyricus at Denver Botanic Gardens that must be 20 years old. My three year old tufts only had a few blossoms each at home...oh well.
3) Corydalis malkensis cavorting with Draba hispanica at Denver Botanic Gardens. I grow these at home, but they don't cavort there (they segregate themselves sullenly)
4) Two of my dozens of favorite daphnes (aren't we all daft for them? Hence the name...) D. hendersonii 'Ernst Hauser' foreground, D. x 'Anton Fahndrich' background.
5) Erodium absinthum v. amanicum (background) and Salvia caespitosa in Mike Kintgen's fabulous private garden. (Mike is in charge of the rock garden at Denver Botanic Gardens and a force to be reckoned with!)
6) Erythronium albidum at DBG
7) Erythronium grandiflorum: I photographed this in the West Elk Mts. of Colorado this past summer. We had a year of years with unbelievable flower power...wish you could have all been there!
9) Helichrysum praeteritium: a wonderful pulvinate species common in Lesotho at the highest elevations.
10) The bright orange form of Anagallis monellii collected by Mike Kintgen in Morocco several years ago. This has proved hardy and perennial for me in my rock garden. Great way to end a year! Happy New Year to all of you.

[Maggi Young]

What a great adieu to the year, PK  

Enjoyed the array of "fat" plants, too.  

[Hoy]

Very nice, Kelaidis! I too wish I could I have been there!

I'll follow up with some pictures from where I was at that time: Venezuela.

1) The first picture is from Gran Sabana, the great grassland in the interior of Venezuela. It is held open by deliberate fire.
Plant and beetle unknown, but the shrub was very common along the rivers we had to cross (wading).

All the other plants are from the Roraima tepuy (2800m). The "soil" consist of weathered sandstone but it is enough water as it rains about every day or the fog comes in. Some plants grow in bogs but most grow in crevices, smaller or larger. I hope the names are right but please tell me if they are not! Especially the orchids were hard to name as there were several different but similar species.

2) Bejaria imturnii

3) Brocchinia hectioides, a carnivorous plant.

4) Celianthe imturniania

5) Epidendrum dendrobioides, one of several lookalikes!

6) Heliamphora nutans, this too is carnivorous.

7) Ledothamnus guyanensis

Maguireothamnus speciosus

9) Monochaetm bonplandii

10) Utricularia campbelliana. The genus Utricularia was represented by several species, this is one of the showier. Many were rather small.


A prosperous new year for all of you and your plants!

[arillady]

Superb photos to end the year from both - but Hoy the Venezuelan plant colour combinations are strange - let alone the plants ... most of which I have not seen before.
I do hope that the New Year is kind to everyone in their families, gardens and friendships.

[Tim Ingram]

What incredibly inspiring pictures! If just some hint of this came across on television gardening/Natural History programmes there would be a whole new outlook on the way people see plants. Good wishes for the New Year to the SRGC Forum.

[ranunculus]

What a superb array of plants and habitats from Panayoti and Trond ... truly inspirational (oh that the decision makers of the alpine societies would get their heads together to make a series of feature length programmes for television that would inspire, educate and attract new members by the thousands).   A dream perhaps for 2012?

... And for all members of the SRGC and the worldwide rock gardening fraternity - a gentler scene from the north of England.

Happy New Year

[kindredspiritkevin]

From me, a newbie, THANK YOU very much for those pics.

Kindred Spirit. (Just plodding along.)

[David Nicholson]

.... and I've just got used to writing 2011 0n cheques

[angie]

David by the sounds of things we won't be signing cheques for much longer   

Angie