Author Archive
Updated – Germination Rate Report
In January 2009 15 members completed a rating form designed to measure the relative ease of germinating 203 species of penstemons. At that time I wrote a preliminary report and requested additional raters, hoping to raise the number of respondents to at least 20. A few days ago the 20th rating form was returned and I have completed the new data analysis and rewritten the report. I have included addional material, numerous tables, charts and graphs and three appendices. Several photos are also included.I hope this report will be of interest and look forward to receiving comments.
Barbara Lewis
A Long Story about a Short Plant
A Long Story about a Short Plant
by Bob Pennington
Last spring, April of ’08, I think, at a local chapter meeting of the New Mexico Native Plant Society, the speaker, Bob Sivinski, one of New Mexico’s preeminent taxonomists, presented a talk about “The Importance of Vouchering New Mexico Plant Specimens”. The gist of the talk was that there were still plants out there to be discovered, as well as new locations to be found for older discoveries, and that not only was it important for many reasons to document these discoveries, but that each of us could help in this adventure. With this message still embedded in our minds, in September of ’08, we sent Dr. Noel Holmgren photos and pressed specimens of a Penstemon we had “discovered” in Lincoln County, Nevada. The plant is one that I had first (mis)identified, collected seeds from, and subsequently grown for as much as 10 or 12 years. Upon our first discovery, I had decided that the plants in question were Penstemon dolius, because it seemed to best fit the descriptions and drawings at hand. Beware careless and lazy taxonomy!
Digging Deeper – October, November, December 2008 Focus; Penstemon heterophyllus
Name of penstemon species: heterophyllus
Person reporting: Barbara Lewis
Garden location: near Denver, CO, 1 miles from the south Platte River
Garden conditions: Zone 5; soil is alluvial and fairly porous; annual rainfall about 14”
History
After germinating heterophyllus at 70 degrees indoors in early 2007, the seedlings were transplanted (lined out) outside in late March to a somewhat protected outdoor environment. Heterophyllus thrived and bloomed that first year. The plants were beautiful in bloom, with lovely brilliant lavender flowers distributed generously on a graceful, airy, semi-shrub plants which were about 18” tall and in a vase shape.
During that first summer, P. heterophyllus promised to be a prime garden subject; however there was a question about its ability to winter-over because it is native to a warmer climate — the coastal foothills in California from Humboldt County to San Diego. However, because Lindgren and Wilde reported it tolerated temperatures as low as -15° I had a measure of hope.
Heterophyllus seedlings also would need to survive the spring transplanting in 08 (fall transplanting had proven challenging in my garden) . Spring of 2008 arrived in March, cool and damp well into April. Happily, despite winter temperatures as low as -20°F, and only intermittent snow cover, heterophyllus not only survived but looked wonderful in March. Five plants were transplanted in late March, two to imported soil of top soil mixed with squeege (various sized small pebbles) and coarse sand, two also into imported soil, but in shade for a half day and the fifth placed in native soil at the base of a low rock wall serving as a raised bed. The last three plants were watered using soaker hoses; the other two, located on an artificial berm, were hand watered almost daily all spring and through an extremely dry and hot summer. It was not unusual for the plant at the base of the low rock wall to receive almost twice what the others got. Despite these differences, all the plants grew well, thrived and bloomed generously. The two planted in full sun, placed atop an artificial berm, grew taller than the other three.
Garden display: I believe the plants show best when planted in groups of at least two. The plants will show well almost anywhere, including in a border, large rock garden, or wild garden.
Current status
It is now late September, 2008 and heterophyllus has been blooming continuously for well over two months. What better garden plant could a gardener want? And, if the truth be told, I secretly call her “princess.” 
New; Artwork on APSDEV.ORG
Please enjoy the artwork graciously donated by Cindy Nelson Nold at http://apsdev.org/library/artwork/Cindy_Nelson_Nold/index.html
Discussion; Penstemon frutescens
(This is an interesting discussion between Ginny Maffitt and a Japanese member of NARGS who has provided Penstemon frutescens seed to the NARGS seedex. We thought it interesting enough to be included in this blog area.)
Please notice the Pages
Hello all – More information about this blog can be found on the ‘About This Blog’ page. Please take a look!! 
Some Notes on the derivation of the word Penstemon
Bob Nold placed this question on the Penstemon-L discussion forum. …. looked like a good blog subject, so the webmaster asked Bob if it would be alright to post on our blog. He said that was okay…
I am curious regarding what other “Penstemaniacs” think about how Mitchell
derived the name Penstemon. I also wonder why Taxonomists still fail to
give Mitchell credit for creating the name. Why can’t some clever
taxonomist suggest something like “Penstemon Schmidel ex Mitchell” as the
genus name? Read the rest of this entry »
