Alan Bradshaw: Flora of the North American West

Date: 7:30pm, Oct 9, 2013

ALPLAINS was started in 1989 by Alan D. Bradshaw partly out of his frustration in trying to find certain rare plant seeds. Originally employed as a software engineer, he found himself devoting more and more time to the collection of seeds, first grown in his gardens on the eastern Plains of Colorado and then from wild flora of the western United States. Small seed lists in the early 1990s were followed by his first color catalog in 1994. Growth has been steady ever since and his 2013 catalog offers seed of over 1500 different rare and unusual plant species, including a large selection of cactus and yucca seed from the collection of Jeff Thompson. Alan also traveled to the Chilean Andes in 2001 and brought back seeds of several rosulate violet species and many other Andean gems.

Alan is an avid photographer and has published hundreds of photos on his website, www.alplains.com. He has contributed photos to numerous publications, most recently “Alpine Plants of the Northwest”, published by Lone Pine. During April, 2011, Alan was the featured speaker of the Speakers Tour hosted by the North American Rock Garden Society, giving talks to several chapters on wild North American flora and seed germination techniques. In June, 2011, Alan received the Marcel Le Piniec award from the North American Rock Garden Society for "enriching and extending the range of plant material available to American rock gardeners." Today, Alan still remains “Dedicated to the Preservation of Wild Flora and Dissemination of the Harvest.” 

Alan Bradshaw with a cushion of Kelseya uniflora