I usually only drop in on Bob Nold a couple times of year: every time I do so I am annoyed with myself that I don't drop by more often. For those of you who know him only through his wonderful books, I can assure you that he is even more charming and interesting in person. I am appending a few pictures of Bob and his new "world's ugliest rock garden", which he assures me is prettier now that he has finished it. And one of the many plants that Bob has naturalizing in his yard (which was a fleeting visitor to mine): namely Asphodeline damascena. This is a monocarpic morsel that produces graceful rosettes that erupt into those amazing turrets. Bob has lots of these in his garden, and he is always sharing them at chapter events and with friends: I have two promising rosettes I remind each time I go by that they too must regenerate once they seed so I can have my own thriving colony one day. He had a trough full of Delphinium alpestre: he has troughs full of all sorts of goodies that thrive for him and merely deign to grow a year or two for the rest of us like all the sky pilots and Physoplexis comosa....Can you hear the envy seeping between my words there?...And there is the amazing cactus that he's cornerned the market on. I better go back next week and check his garden out again...
