Raced to the plant sale at Denver Botanic Gardens, where it turns out I’m not working until tomorrow (those instructions again…..), but of course I had to go today because all the cool stuff had to be mine, and now it is.

When I got home, it started to rain, so I planted like a crazy person. Well, no, I planted like a gardener trying to get as many plants in the ground as possible before the rain really got serious, and that’s hardly a thing to call crazy. Gardeners are mostly the sanest of people.

The rain stopped, so I took some pictures.

Here is Paracaryum racemosum, a borage from Turkey. It’s new at the zoo. In fact, pretty much new to rock gardening.

And another member of the borage family, Echium amoenum. It has the very attractive habit of seeding all over the rock gardens.

And an iris. I believe this is Iris pallida U58B, or something equally romantically named. I know, it sounds like a German submarine. In 27 years of marriage, my wife and I only had two fights. One was over bearded iris. I know a lot of gardeners, and even more non-gardeners, who find the modern iris, with falls sticking straight out, and ruffles and horns and dimples and stuff, to be attractive, if not gorgeous, but I’m not one of those people. There were too many such things in the garden and I dug them all up and gave them away. I. pallida got to stay because it looks (and smells) like a real iris, and the foliage looks good all summer.

(The other fight we had was when she insisted you could smoke a salmon and a turkey in the same smoker at the same time. You can, but only the salmon is edible afterwards.)

Finally, Erysimum capitatum. I think this comes in other colors besides orange, but this one is orange. I’m not sure what I was focusing on when I took the picture, but it was something.