Altai by camel caravan

Camel Caravan in Mongolian Altai

The Altai and Tien Shan Mountains of Central Asia each comprise dozens of mountain ranges that straddle Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. For three enchanted weeks in late June and early July, Mike Bone (propagator here at the Gardens) and I had the privilege of exploring four of these ranges and the steppes and deserts between them on behalf of Plant Select. Thousands of photographs later,
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Living in Nature’s Landscape

I’ve been watching the quiet declaration of drought conditions with an eye more curious than fearful.  The US drought monitor classifies the current conditions as moderate drought, or D1, which is pretty low on the scale. The gardeners around me, however, range from “not on my weather radar” indifference to head-shaking, ground-staring, “I knew this day would come” pessimism.  It would make a fascinating study of human personality, I think, but also, I wonder if it reflects their gardening interest.

For me, transplanted easterner that I am, I don’t yet know what to make of it.  Do I water obsessively or give up on anything the wet side of Opuntia?   The gardeners whose gardens I admire most do neither–or at least, neither is their priority.  Instead, they live within the landscape, the nature that underlies the urban landscape of Metro Denver.  They pay attention to structures, winds, hollows, moist pockets and a sense of the biota that surrounds them.  The ecology of the space does not escape them, even when they attempt to bend or defy it.
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