{"id":137,"date":"2004-03-07T20:21:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-07T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=137"},"modified":"2011-08-17T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T20:07:08","slug":"137","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Hear It for Flax"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest snow is melting, and two early perennials are showing new growth: wormwood, which is bulletproof, and blue flax (Linum perenne lewisii<\/em> according to the Plants of the Southwest<\/a> catalog).<\/p>\n

Blue flax is a winner for gardeners in the Southern Rockies. It handles all weather: snow, severe cold, and hot, windy, blowtorch summer days, with a minimum of water. I planted some two years ago in a southwest-facing bed behind a rock retaining wall, where it is just scorched by the afternoon sun. Last year, the second year, it bloomed bounteously all summer, contrasting with the wormword and other Artemisias<\/em> in the same bed–blue and silver together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest snow is melting, and two early perennials are showing new growth: wormwood, which is bulletproof, and blue flax (Linum perenne lewisii according to the Plants of the Southwest catalog). Blue flax is a winner for gardeners in the Southern Rockies. It handles all weather: snow, severe cold, and hot, windy, blowtorch summer days, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,25],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-herbalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-137","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13347","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":0},"title":"Beltane and the Birds","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Beltane snuck((OK, \"sneaked,\" if you don't like vernacular irregular conjugations.)) up on me this year. While much of Colorado had more snow than usual, here on the creek we did not. It was cold, dry, and windy week after week. Finally, a combination of rain and wet snow brought two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Beltane\"","block_context":{"text":"Beltane","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=beltane"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=18","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":1},"title":"Summer Solstice Nothing this year\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 18, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Summer Solstice Nothing this year in the way of formal outdoor ritual: At the moment of the solstice, I should be streaking across the prairie en route to Chicago aboard Amtrak's Southwest Chief. But I still check my favorite archaeoastronomy site to know just when it will happen.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":788,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=788","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":2},"title":"Goatheads are good for something?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Every gardening writer likes to write about reading seed catalogs as the midwinter snow falls. So I won't do that. I will just mention that I was perusing the new Richter's catalog as ten inches of fresh powder--well, OK, it is more than a cliche. It happens.\"What the hell,\" I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"herbalism\"","block_context":{"text":"herbalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=herbalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13249,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13249","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":3},"title":"The Snow Geese of Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I am all for seasonal rituals, but there is also a place for celebrating the Turning of the Wheel with your larger community, your polis, taking a local event and giving it a Pagan spin. The solstices are easy: there is always something going on. Samhain \u2014 too many choices!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12111,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12111","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":4},"title":"Happy Ostara, and It’s Going to Snow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Ostara to those of you who experience something called \"spring.\" I will be taking advantage of the last of three warm days \u2014 which have melted most of the snow that was on the ground \u2014 to split some firewood in advance of the snow expected Sunday night, Monday,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"equinox\"","block_context":{"text":"equinox","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=equinox"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ostara-blossoms.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ostara-blossoms.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ostara-blossoms.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Ostara-blossoms.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1875,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1875","url_meta":{"origin":137,"position":5},"title":"Get Right with Tlaloc","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On a recent trip to look at some Anasazi \/ Ancestral Puebloan ruins in northeast Arizona, I took Craig Childs' book House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest as my guide book. Driving and backpacking from southwest Colorado down into Sonora, Mexico, over a period of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}