Tadjikistani Cliff Cabbages, Andean Volcano Violets, Aoteroean Forget-Me-Nots and summer shipping update.
Nothing will make a person feel their Oregonian roots more than connecting hard with Ken Kesey’s magnum opus ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’, that and appreciating a weekend where an inch and a half of rain comes beating down on the June blooming Peonies. After someone on social media saw my post about the fragrance of Darlingtonia flowers and mentioned they get a talk about in the novel I decided to revisit it. It’s a fantastic novel, while Kesey is his own genera for sure, I like that it’s a little bit Steinbeck and Hemmingway, with a helping of L’amore and Grey thrown in to make the places come alive, and dust a bit of Kerouac and some acid jazz in to make it kind of weird.
Having grown up fishing the coastal rivers and bays, I went to school with kids whose dads and grandpas were those choker setters and riggers bringing in logs to the little mill town of Turner where we lived on the outskirts, having a dog almost die of salmon poisoning, had a grandpa who was a gyppo sawmill owner at one point and having walked through the Devils club and Darlingtonia bogs, from Astoria to Gold beach, a lot of that novel resonates deep. It’s kinda about hard, desperate people, in tough times and I definitely can appreciate that, both then and now. It also kinda makes me miss the Oregon of my youth, everything had more of a sense of wonder and adventure before the social media influences and transplants. Thinking back on the summer vacations spent on the estuary of the Yachats river, I think the character I most connect with is Indian Jenny on the clam flats.
Anyway, I just popped on here to really say that I did recently update the online availability and I will continue to ship until the weather gets really bad. I have added a summer surcharge for shipping, as I will have to pack cooling packs and additional insulation to the boxes to help them make it through the early summer season. Good news is Priority USPS is getting everywhere really fast. Please read the terms and conditions on shipping and use your best judgement on your end for purchasing plants via mailorder if you live in a very hot climate.
Check out that little forget me not flower!!!! 2 year old Myosotis pulvinaris blooming.
It was a stormy weekend, with the aforementioned copious amounts of rainfall coming down. I took some time to take some macro shots of these amazing little alpine plants that are growing here at illahe. I kinda went down a rabbit hole with trying to connect the horticultural dots between evolutionary leave adaptations and difficulty of culture. The Myosotis above has hairy foliage in tight congested rosettes and doesn’t love to be watered from above as it will rot right off and that perfect little cushion will pop right of the pot, disconnected from it’s roots like an extension cord unplugged from the electrical outlet.
So check out this little gallery of some super cool alpine plants and the interesting leaf structures. I’ll be honest I just don’t get the raised veins, what could the adaptation for survival in the high alpine environments be?
I’m working hard to try to propagate all these wonderful plants in the gallery, some of these are pretty rare in the trade, especially in North America.
Wondering about the Arnica pictured? So am I, you’ll have to go the catalog to check out the story. That picture was taken up on Polychrome pass before the road to Denali slid out.
From drenching rains, to sundrenching heat, is the story this week. Supposed to be 87 on Friday.
cheers,
Mark
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”
Ken Kesey-
”Sometimes a Great Notion”