Stefan's thumbnail description: "nice 3-ft. shrub, small glaucous leaves, very nice pink papery seeds." And there they are. Actually these appear to be part of the flower, perianth segments of some sort. The plants in China Valley aren't flowering; I think this is the only taxa where the container plants are outperforming the "planted" plants.
Because I had never heard of Atraphaxis, being charged with siting it in the collection motivated me to do research. It has a wide distribution, ranging from Eastern Europe to the Gobi Desert, and does, in fact, turn out to be a desert plant. I put it on a hot, sunny, fairly steep slope but the soil may be a bit moisture retentive for this particular plant. They're living and seem to be taking off now but likely won't flower this year, but hopefully in the future because it is pretty. Growing new plants is exciting!
The Washington Youth Garden is both an actual garden, and an institution that provides both education and a "Green experience" to the children of Washington DC and their families. There is a large vegetable garden where many many children have been introduced for the first time to the experience of planting, cultivating, and harvesting vegetables. Much of that garden was fenced this year to exclude deer, who like vegetables too. Running along one side and the front of the fenced garden is a huge 'Butterfly Garden". I had not been to the garden for a month or so and there weren't any butterflies, or not very many anyway then. Friday was a different story. Butterflies and goldfinches everywhere!
