Try Singing to a Cactus
Summer’s here when the daylilies start to bloom. The temperatures are headed into the mid-90s today and the buds on the daylilies are opening. This flat, open-wide, yellow variety was named either ironically or optimistically ‘Lights of Detroit.’ Lights got its name in 1982 -- a year when Detroit steel plants were being padlocked, auto assembly lines were being shut down, and homes were being sold at auction.
This botanical garden has not had a place to display its collection of desert plants since its Desert House was torn down over twenty years ago. Most of its collection remains but it’s kept in storage out of from public view. We talked with one of the caretakers of the desert collection this morning as she was helping to setup a month-long exhibit of some of the garden’s collection. She told us the plants really needed a permanent home because the big desert specimens don’t like being potted and they are always at risk whenever they have to be moved.
This cactus – a 10-foot tall Organ Pipe Cactus (Pachycerus marginatus) was somehow dislodged from its protective wrap when it was moved to the exhibit area. The large pipe leaning against wall swayed backwards and never managed to right itself again. The caretaker told us that the pipe will have to be pruned. But where the cut will be made she couldn’t say. “That’s up to the experts. Visit the cactus next week to find out what they decided to do.”
A thicket of knee-high shrubs at the side of the Temperate House is filled with blooms. A nearby sign says the shrubs are Chinese Quinine (Dichroa febrifuga). The Gardner’s Encyclopedia says that Dichroa is short for two (di) colors (chroma). Like the Chinese Quinine growing here, all of the plants in this genius in the hydrangea family have two-toned flowers. Without the climate control the Dichroas enjoy in this glasshouse, they would die over the winter. Places like Florida, California, and along the Gulf Coast are more to their liking. Even there though they flower just once a year, but unlike our Midwest hydrangeas, the Dichroas keep their deep green leaves all year long.
Any plant with a name like Chinese Quinine is sure to have some medical properties. In China where it’s a native, parts of the shrub have been used to treat malaria for thousands of years. Recent medical studies have used a substance isolated from Dichroa to treat malaria in mice. Results show that the drug has powerful antimalarial properties even against drug resistance parasites and may have a future in malaria treatment in people.
Across the glasshouse from the Chinese Quinine, there’s another plant with an intriguing name – the Telegraph Plant (Codariocalyx motorius). It’s a new addition to the house. So why name a plant after the Telegraph? There was no explanation here, but the internet is filled with colorful tales and even videos about the plant’s antics. The aptly named Telegraph Plant moves in response to light, sounds and even certain radio frequencies variations. Unlike the sensitive plant whose leaves close up when touched, the Telegraph Plant moves without being touched. The Lonely Planet guidebook to Thailand says that “If you sing or talk to the plant in a high, gentle voice (saxophone or violin works even better), the smaller leaves will begin making subtle back-and-forth motions sometimes quick, sometimes slow." Next week I plan to give it a try by calling out to it with “Here, Kitty, Kitty.”
Hellebores are months past blooming and even seeding. But they’re not like so many other seasonal bulbs and plants that flower and then fade away leaving no trace. Politely, most plants wither away to make room for whatever comes after. Hellebores don’t step aside. They may fade a bit. Their petals may get a little stiff with age, and their seed pods a bit enlarged and bloated, but they are still here and still in fine flower.
Thrivers and Survivors
Some plants fare better in the rain than others. Hostas are at the top of my rainy day list. Rain drops form shiny balls on their leaves. Overcast skies give them a uniform sheen without the hot spots or fade outs caused by sunlight and shadows. Hostas have tough leaves too. They can stand up to rain without drooping or curling.
The botanical garden’s extensive hosta collection is at its prime this week. The hostas have unfurled their leaves and many have already grown to maturity. None of them have been scarred by the sun, eaten by hungry things, or damaged by high winds. Even the veneer on blue-leafed hostas is intact.
I know this is how an old-timer would start his sentence but . . . I remember back in May 2004, a wind and hail storm made many of the hosta leaves look like Swiss cheese. Back then I wrote “the hostas took the brunt of the hail damage. In some areas, the hostas looked as though they had been leveled with a weed whacker. Other hosta leaves had holes the size of the hailstone that ripped through them.” I hope there is no repeat performance especially this year because members of the American Hosta Society will be in town in June to have a close look at the Garden’s collection.
Here are two of this morning’s hosta sightings: the almost white one at the top is ‘Zebra Stripes’ and the one below with the randomly sized and shaped creamy yellow borders is ‘First Frost.’
Someone surely knows. I don’t though. Why do some columbine flowers look like they’re nodding while others look you right in the eye? This morning I looked at dozens varieties of columbine. They’re at their peak this week so there’s a lot to see. From my casual observation, it’s all about the length of the spurs on the back of the flowers. Varieties with long spurs face upwards. Perhaps because the spurs act as a kind of a ballast forcing their heads upward. Here’s a long-spurred variety named ‘Yellow Queen’ that’s in your face.
This botanical garden has been experimenting with winter-hardy camellias for a decade. It’s been a rocky decade. Even shrubs expressly designed to survive and thrive in this Zone 6 garden have faltered. I’ve watched camellias with hopeful, alluring names like ‘Spring’s Promise,’ ‘Winter’s Joy,’ and ‘April Dawn’ bloom and expand for a year or two only to be taken by a brutal winter or a sudden cold snap when it’s least expected. Of the entire parade of camellias, I’ve watched come and go, the only one able to take whatever the Midwestern winters dish out is a Camellia japonica named ‘Korean Fire.’
There are two shrubs of ‘Korean Fire’ in the Woodland Garden. Neither is large. Neither is in bloom just now. Even when it flowers, its blood red blooms are small and mostly hidden by leaves. But even if Korean Fire' dance card would be empty at a cotillion of flashy, well-developed Southern camellias, it has one thing going for it. It’s a survivor. It holds on to its coat of glossy, deep green leaves all year long and blooms whenever it's able. Plant collectors from the Morris Arboretum brought seeds from this Camellia japonica back to Philadelphia in the mid-80s. They planted the shrubs that grew from those seeds outdoors and watched what happened. Their research concluded that “after more than 20 years of evaluation, the Korean Camellia japonica plants represent some of the most cold-hardy collections ever made of common camellia. These collections may extend the hardiness of Camellia japonica into more northern areas and bring the spring pleasure of camellias to eager gardening audiences.” I’m thinking that a space along my house’s south facing wall might be the perfect place to begin my own experiments with ‘Korean Fire.’
An aside: I noticed that a nearby Home Depot store has started to sell three-foot tall shrubs of Camellia japonicas. The labels forgo giving the colors of the blooms or the names of the varieties. For simplicity, they’re just labeled ‘Assorted.’
Do you ever read the safety warnings that come many products? The warning insert with the battery-operated smoke alarm that I bought cautioned that the alarm wouldn’t sound if I didn’t install batteries. It must be hard for the makers of things to image how those things will be used by the people who buy them. Here at the botanical garden the entrance to Boxwood Garden is marked by this curved brick wall ornamented with an open circle and lattice brickwork. Nearby is a sign that says “Please Do Not Climb”. Would the designers have ever imaged that the holes in brickwork would fit the hands and feet of small children to a T?
It’s a bit mud-splatted this morning, nonetheless this jewel of wildflowers, the ‘Lady’s Slipper Orchid’ (Cypripedium parviflorum), made it through another winter here in the Woodland Garden. Earlier in the spring I noticed another group of Lady Slippers nearby. This morning the sign where they were was still there, but the orchids were gone. For someone the urge to possess beauty was stronger than the need to appreciate it. I wonder if the trowel wielder knew that Lady's Slipper's roots have to be attached to fungal treads under the ground. Break the treads by digging it up and you kill the beauty forever.
Seeing for the First Time
Egg hunts and live rabbits are the main events at the botanical garden this morning. It’s the day of the Garden’s annual “Eggstravaganza.” Between ten and noon the cordons outlining patches of lawn are peppered with hundreds of plastic eggs filled with treats. On cue, children holding oversized baskets and pails rush in to claim their share of the goodies while parents aim cameras from the sidelines.
In the entry hall to the botanical garden members of the local chapter of the House Rabbit Society have set up tables and chairs where kids (and adults too) can see, pet, and even hold a well-fed and well-cared for rabbit. The Society shelters and cares for indoor rabbits that they have rescued and then they try to find new homes for them. Part of what the Society does is to teach people about rabbit care by bringing shelter rabbits to places like this. Some of the children I saw around the rabbit display looked as though they had never seen a live rabbit up close. They seem fascinated and curious. None of them seem fearful or hesitant about getting close to the rabbits. When they reach out to pet one, they stroke gently and slowly without having to be reminded.
I saw this from a distance. From ten feet away I had no idea that what looked like a divining rod in bloom was a forsythia. Rightly enough, it was named ‘Show Off’ (Forsythia x intermedia 'Mindor'). Its well-coiffed large flowers clung closely to its stems. As I looked at it I thought of that tv commercial that shows a group of people looking skeptically at a neatly sculpted car and saying, “That’s not a Buick.” Sure enough, there’s nothing common or ordinary about this sophisticated forsythia. Proven Winners, the company that developed this French import, says that ‘Show Off’ is better mannered than old-fashioned varieties that can get “out of control and often become victims of bad pruning.”
“This little beauty,” they say, “will stay small so there is no need to prune. Now you can have a nice tight, compact forsythia hedge without doing any work!” Perfect! (Although straight-laced gardeners will probably take a pass on ‘Show Off’ until it comes in something more serious than a chirpy yellow.)
The Princess Tree (Paulonia tormentosa) near the iris garden was cut down last year. The roots that are left look relaxed and at rest.
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At a presentation that we went to this week the curator of the botanical garden’s orchid collection said that among the 6300 orchids she cares for, the oldest was an Oncidium sphacelatum. The original roots of this orchid were given to the botanical garden’s founder Henry Shaw in 1898. It has sprays of frilly yellow and maroon-colored blossoms that were used in Victorian floral arrangements, she explained. She also said that the orchid was in full bloom right now and was included in the botanical garden’s orchid show. So as soon as her presentation ended we and several others headed to the show to try to find Oncidium sphacelatum. None of us did.
This morning I revisited the orchid show and looked again. I found it. The Oncidium sphacelatum was in a clay pot hanging from a tree. Its many arching flower sprays were splaying into the walkway.
Sometimes I see a plant or a shrub that I instantly taking a liking to and wonder why I had never noticed it. The Clove Currant (Ribes odoratum) is one of those. Two good-sized thickets of them are blooming in the shade garden of native plants. The scent of its yellow star-burst flowers instantly attracts. Its fragrance has been likened to carnations, vanilla, honey spice tea, and of course cloves. This morning it perfumed the whole garden. I read that the shrubs produce sweet-spicy tasting black berries that can be made into jellies or jams.
All good. But then there’s this – shrubs in the currant and gooseberry genus can play host to a deadly fungus that can kill white pine trees. Spores produced on the undersides of the Ribes leaves are blown to the needles of white pine trees. From there the fungus spreads to the branches where it develops into a swollen canker that chokes off the tree’s water and nutrients. This botanical garden says that the fungus is “not considered to be a problem” in this area, but I think I’ll just continue to admire the plants here at the garden instead of looking for a nursery that sells them.
On the Outskirts of Spring
Not quite. But spring’s near. I know the season’s not here yet because I’m still not blasé about daffodils. Every patch gets a closer look. So too do the colonies of early toothy-flowered specie hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) and the many blue, purple, and white ground hugging “minor bulbs,” each with a name that I’m too lazy to learn or remember.
I’ve never done a survey or even a careful observation, but nonetheless I have my opinions. Plant ten Lily-of-the-Valley shrubs (Pieris japonica) and five of them will die. Four will live but have sickly-looking yellow leaves, leggy growth and few if any flowers. Just one will ever look like this. This Pieris japonica named ‘Shojo’ is growing in deep shade in the English Woodland Garden. It has intensely green glossy leaves and so many strands of lush fragrant flowers draping over its leaves that I’m reminded of a Wisteria in full bloom. Why was this the chosen one in ten? Will there be a repeat performance next year? Don’t know, but see it now just in case the luck of the Pieris gives out.
There’s even more fragrance from two other early spring shrubs – the Fragrant Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) and the Paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Snow Cream’). The Fragrant Honeysuckle shrubs aren’t much to look at. They’re a tangled mess of stringy willowy branches that if left unchecked form a thicket. All that’s enough to get this Lonicera with the benign name “Sweet Breath of Spring” tagged as an invasive exotic in several states. Still, it has one saving grace – its flowers have a fragrance that hints of a garden at a tropical resort.
When I saw this Paperbush shrub (Edgeworthia chrysantha) in early December I wondered if such a zone 7+ lover would make it through our zone 6 winter. It did. Today its pin cushion flower clusters have just started to bloom. Try standing slightly downwind of it to catch its heady fragrance.
The Koi are back. Many of them are huddling around the bridge in the Japanese Garden jockeying for position to get the fish food pellets visitors thrown at them. This is the first time I’ve seen the Koi at the surface this year. All winter they’ve been sluggishly treading water at the bottom of the lake where the water’s a little warmer. With these warmer days and nights the fish have become more active, hungrier too.
Which Witch Hazel Will I Be?
Here we go. The Red Maples (Acer t) are flowering. With no leaves to block my view and a background of intense blue, the small scarlet flower clusters blooming high in the tree even look bigger and closer than they really are.
Just one more note on witch hazels then I’ll leave them alone for another year. On our garden walk last week, Sara, the keeper of the witch hazel collection, stopped to show us an unusual specimen. Unlike others we saw, this one wasn’t in bloom. The label near the tree said it was an ordinary fall-blooming Eastern Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). But unlike most Virginianas, this one had been pruned and shaped. It’s wild, unruly, woodsy look had been tamed to make it look formal, symmetrical, and even a bit stogy. Sara said the tree had started life as a Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis mollis). It had been shaped this way so it would fit in better with the more formal plantings in the Chinese scholar’s garden where it had been planted originally. After it was clear that the tree was becoming less and less Chinese Witch Hazel and more and more Eastern Witch Hazel, it was moved from the Chinese Garden and replanted with the rest of regular witch hazel collection.
So how does a witch hazel that starts life as one specie end up living out its life as another? Sara explained that this Chinese Witch Hazel had been grafted to the root stock of an Eastern Witch Hazel. Then for reasons unknown, the graft didn’t take. The result: the Chinese Witch Hazel gradually withered and died while the Eastern Witch Hazel thrived and eventually took over.
This morning we saw an even stranger looking witch hazel. This one, growing on the south side of the Lehmann Building is labeled ‘Fire Blaze’. It’s a three-way cross between a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Vernal Witch Hazel. Like most other crosses, it has been grafted to the root stock of the fall-blooming Eastern Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). What’s odd here is that this tree is a blend of the hybrid ‘Fire Blaze’ and the root stock Virginiana with neither dominating. In late winter the front half of the tree that’s ‘Fire Blaze’ blooms with its spidery, fragrant coppery-orange flowers. Then in the fall when the front half of the tree dims, the back half takes over filling the shrub with the stringy yellow flowers of the Eastern Witch Hazel. Imagine the commercial possibilities for a nursery that offered a full lineup of two-season witch hazels. I know I’d couldn’t stop at buying just one shrub. Who doesn’t like combos and 2-fers?
A few crocuses have started to bloom. This buttery colored one is named ‘Cream Beauty’ (Crocus chrysanthus). It’s growing in a tight little clump in the well-drained full sun of the rock garden.
All About Witch Hazels
It's a great morning for a walk among the witch hazels. We took a class with Sara, the curator and caretaker of the botanical garden’s witch hazel collection. Here’s some of what we saw and learned.
The Collection: This botanical garden collection has about 120 different varieties of witch hazels. Until about ten years ago, the garden had no real collection – just a few shrubs scattered here and there throughout the garden. Now there is a concentrated planting of witch hazels all around the edges of the daylily garden. By packing more witch hazels into a smaller space, the whole area is lit up. That's especially welcome at this time of year when little else is in bloom.
The Expert: Witch Hazels, a Royal Horticulture Society book, is the Bible on everything witch hazel. The book was written by Chris Lane who has the UK’s Plants Heritage National Collection of over 250 different types of witch hazels at his nursery. (Lane’s book, published in 2005, is out of print. Used copies are now fetching $160 and up. Are witch hazels becoming the new trendy late winter darling destined to overtake snowdrops?)
The Species: Until about ten years ago there were four species of witch hazel (Hamamelis). Two species were native to North American: the late winter blooming Missouri native Vernal Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) and the late fall blooming American or Eastern Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Two were Asian natives: The Japanese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis japonica) and the Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis mollis).
Then about twenty years ago another specie was discovered growing in Southern Mississippi. The species was named Hamamelis ovalis for its oval-shaped leaves that are 2 -3 times larger than other species. Called Big Leaf Witch Hazel, the new witch hazel flowers in shades of red. Big Leaf is rarely offered for sale and seldom ever seen. Sara told us that so far she has not been able to get a Big Leaf witch hazel for this botanical garden's collection.
Sara’s Favorites: Of course she says she likes then all, but when pressed it’s ‘Rochester’ for its amazing long-lasting penetrating fragrance. Then ‘Vesna’ with its long bugleg-like petals that change from rust to orange to yellow.
And then there's ‘Strawberries and Cream,’ a newer variety with petals that start as a rusty pink and shift to a yellow so pale that some might be tempted to call it white.
About Leaf Retention: A witch hazel that blooms with its leaves still on is not what visitors want to see. Dry leaves that hang on shield the blossoms. The Full Monty is what we all want when it comes to witch hazels. Which varieties are best at taking them all off is unpredictable. So are environmental conditions such as early freezes, fluctuating temperatures, and unusually wet or dry weather. Sara said she'd been trying to pin down why witch hazels sometime hold on and sometime not, but has no answer yet. In the meantime she and her staff of volunteers give the witch hazels a little help by “de-leafing” them by hand just before they’re ready to bloom.
Their Seeds: Witch hazel seeds are like spring-loaded projectiles. When the seeds are ripe they are shot from their seed capsules with such force that they can land up to 30 feet away. The seeds are edible, says Sara, and have a “pistachio-like taste”. Witch hazels can be grown from seeds, but Sara said she hasn’t tried doing it yet.
Growing Them: Except for the native species most of the commercially available varieties are hybrids of Japanese and Chinese species grafted to the root stock of Hamamelis virginiana. Witch hazels don’t tend to have any serious insect or disease problems. However, Sara says she's not surprised to find some mildew or to see spiny spikes made by gall aphids on a few of the leaves. “I live with those kinds of things,” she shrugged when asked what she does about them.
Their Uses: Dickenson’s claims that it made the first commercial product that used witch hazel as an ingredient. “For 150 years, Dickenson’s Original Witch has been American born, hand harvested and responsibly made” says a press release announcing the firm’s 150th anniversary of making witch hazel products to clean and tone the skin.
Now You See It, Then You Won't
Usually something I see just once a year – frost tracings. This early morning the windows in the historic Linnean glasshouse are covered with ice frozen into elegant feather and fern patterns. In an hour or two as the sun gets higher in sky these tracings will vanish, transformed into drops of water.
Nothing outdoors seems interested in blooming or even showing color this morning. Cold temperatures encourages the petals of the witch hazels to curl up. The stems holding the snowdrops have collapsed. The winter aconites are closed, huddled together so close to the ground that I couldn’t even find them. Here though are the hellebores (Hellebores niger) in the bulb garden. This one – Christmas Rose ‘Altifolius’ – has been stripped with its dead leaves exposing its buds. The blooms are closed, but they’re still being supported by stems impervious to the cold. When the weather warms just a bit, the cream colored roses will open.
Yet another visit to the Orchid Show. Two attention grabbers: this one hanging from a tree and being back-lit by the morning sun. Its name doesn’t matter. Its look does – sun-traced white lines make it look like a cutout.
Then there’s this. An orchid grown and displayed either because of its oddity or its rarity. It’s named Aciathera circumplexa. The tight clusters of flowers sprouting from orchid’s middle vein are easy to overlook. If you ever raise one of these and get it to bloom, you should have a party and invite all your Goth friends to celebrate.
The gift shop has always has a large display of wind chimes. I’ve ignored the area for years. Discordant, tinkly sounds never held much attraction for me. This morning though while I watching people fill their shopping baskets with pots of blooming orchids, I heard a deep sound that resonated like music would in an acoustically lively hall. It came from a wind chime.
The tubular chime I heard was suspended from the edges of a circular ring. The chimes differed slightly in length, but they were all about three or four feet long. They were made by a company in Virginia that named the set “Gentle Spirits”. It’s a very new-age sounding name, but then the resonant sounds did remind me of Tibetan singing bowls. The company’s website said the black tubes were made of aluminum. They sound as the wind blows a triangular sail at the bottom of the set that's attached to a wooden striker. Interestingly the bells are tuned to the key of G so with a steady easy breeze, these chimes might play a Mozart sonata -- probably about the same time the proverbial monkey might type a Shakespeare sonnet.
Resistance is Futile.
We along with countless others had a sneak preview of the Orchid Show on Friday night. A glass of wine, new age music, and dim lights – very romantic, but not so good for seeing the orchids. Except for the ones under one of the overhead lights, all that we could see were their shadowy outlines tucked into the foliage of the tropical forest motif. Still everywhere I looked I saw phones being thrust into face of some flower. Orchids have a way of doing that people. Maybe some undiscovered pheromone they give off.
I didn’t take any pictures inside the show, but I couldn't resist getting my fill in the sales rooms and at the specimen tables where orchids grown by orchid society members were being exhibited. I was drawn to two kinds of orchids: those that were so flashy that they dared me to pass by without taking their picture and those that were smaller, easier to overlook, and didn’t fit my conception of what orchids are supposed to look like. Here are two of each type. Clockwise starting from left they are Miltoniopsis (looks like a pansy and smells like a rose): Rhynchostylis (rink-oh-STYE-liss) gigantean ‘Red Spots’ (When I showed some interest in ‘Red Spots’ I was cautioned by an orchid society member, “Don’t bring one of these home unless you’re fond of trying to please a two-year.”); Trichosalpinx ciliaris (looks like a tiny a wall sconce; orchid people find it interesting because the flower stems are wrapped in a funnel-shaped sheath that looks like a trumpet); and Bulbophyllum cumingii (imagine it in a coneflower purple instead of a dull brown)
Go to the Linnean House. A quarter of the way in on the right is an ornamental Calamondin orange tree. The small tree, growing in a large container, was studded with hundreds of bright orange-colored fruit, each the size of a matzo ball. Each week the tree has fewer oranges, but only on the side that faces the walkway. The back of the tree is still heavily laden. On the walkway side of the tree there are shards of peel where an orange has been plucked off. Curious visitors want to know. What does this tiny orange taste like? I’d like to find out for myself, but Lord let me not be tempted. Instead, I checked the web. Those who have tried Calamondins advise against trying to peal the pint-sized fruit. Eat it whole to experience the sweet taste of the rind followed by the sour acidic tang of the flesh.
On Tuesday Punxsutawney Phil proclaimed that winter was waning and we had an early spring in store. Of course, Phil is the official source in the Animal Kingdom. But I thought I’d double check to see what the Kingdom of Plants had to say. Here my authority is the pussy willow. If the pussy willows break though their sepals and show us a bit of their furry insides, it will be an early spring. Otherwise, it’s six more weeks of winter. Phil and the official pussy willow trees at the far side of the Japanese Garden agree. For 2016, it will be an early spring.
I came across this nice little Polish folk tale that explains how the pussy willow got its name: In a springtime long time ago a mother cat sat crying on the bank of a big lake. Her kittens had been chasing a butterfly near the water’s edge. But in their excitement, they got too close to the water and fell in. The willows on the bank, sensing that the kittens were trouble, bent their long supple branches over the water toward the kittens. The tiny kittens grabbed on to the branches and the willow tree pulled them safely to shore. From then on willow branches sprout tiny fur-like buds at their tips where those tiny kittens once clung.
Snowdrops in bloom in early February is a given. Nothing out of the ordinary. Patches of them are scattered throughout the garden. The largest colonies are in the bulb garden near the Climatron and beside the Bird Garden in the Kemper Gardens. New through this week though are the early blooms of the curious-looking winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis). It’s early morning so the tightly closed yellow flowers look like a bouquet of yellow peals. When they open later in the day they will look like a buttercup perched atop an Elizabethan collar.
Look to the tops of the trees in the English Woodland Garden. Often you’ll see this. A Red Hawk perched on high branch – watching and waiting.
Turn Out the Lights. Leave the Plants On Though.
The plugs have been pulled. The outdoor holiday lights that brightened the nights at the botanical gardens since late November are coming down. Already the elaborate display of dancing lights in the garden’s ponds is gone. So too is the water that buoyed the floating globes that changed colors in time with the music. All that’s left is some rotting vegetation clinging to the bottoms of the empty ponds.
Except for this one plant in the herb garden of the Kemper gardens, the cardoons planted throughout the botanical garden are gone. I think this one’s been left intentionally. Even in winter, a cardoon keeps a good share of its summer boldness and beauty. The cardoon’s summer architecture has been broken by the weather, but the silver-gray color of its leaves has intensified and its ribs and textures are even more prounounced.
If you exclude the legions of passionate snowdrop collectors -- galanthophiles, they call themselves – most people don’t waste their enthusiasm on flowers or shrubs that bloom in winter. I checked the web this way and that to try to find a national organization or association that cared about witch hazels or hellebores. I couldn’t find any. It’s curious because there are so many new and interesting cultivars of witch hazels and hellebores to like, collect, trade, and boast about. Maybe people who like and seek out the plants of winter just want to relish the solitude of their finds without feeling a need to join a group to talk about their experiences. Here’s a plant of winter to relish this week: an orange-copper colored witch hazel named ‘Rochester’ is in full bloom this week. It’s near the walk along the daylily garden. Visit it on a warm, calm day to catch its sweet fragrance that will go right down to your lungs and stay there.
Ferns add a bit of green and a lot of elegance to the browns that covers the winter ground. Their fronds of etched leaflets extend in all directions as if trying to cover the unsightly mess beneath them. Ferns are plants of the ground, I thought. Then this morning I saw another kind of fern growing under glass in the botanical garden’s Temperate House. The fern is one of just a handful of climbing ferns. This one is a Japanese Climbing Fern (Lygodium japonicum). Along with some other vines it’s climbing up the support post of an arbor. Like the ground-huggers, the leaflets on this climbing fern are airy and graceful. They respond slowly and effortlessly to the air stirred up by the house’s overhead fans. It’s an easy fern to want. Others thought so too I found. It was brought to the United States in the 30s. Back them it was intended to be grown as an ornamental in the South, but the air-borne spores escaped from backyard plantings to the wild where it settled and thrived. Now it’s considered an invasive, noxious plant that threatens to displace native plants nine Southern states.
The biology of the Japanese Climbing Fern is a fascinating story too. When I think of ferns, the first thing that comes to mind is the spiral of a curled fiddle fern getting ready to spread into an expansive frond of symmetrical leaflets held anchored by a sturdy rib down the middle. Climbing ferns aren’t like that. Their fronds will grow indefinitely. A single frond would have no trouble reaching the top of a tree that’s 90 feet tall. They just send up a midrib that twines like a thin wire all the way up a tree. Then from that wiry rib, elaborate lacey leaflets spout on both sides.
Leftovers and Holdovers
After Christmas sales tell a lot about what we don't like. It’s 15 shopping days after Christmas and the gift shop in this botanical garden still has baskets of these glass ball ornaments left. Some have a chic matt finish. Others have geometric designs that remind me of Ukrainian Pysanky. All are beautiful and elegant. All are black. Clearly shoppers don’t want to buy black ornaments for their Christmas trees. Maybe the shoppers at this botanical garden here in the Midwest aren’t yet in the eye of high fashion. Luxury Topics, a web site that tracks and reports on “all the mind can imagine” if money is no object, reports that when used as a part of Christmas décor, black is “unusual and mysterious” and white “looks beautiful and elegant.” When used together, they “create a harmonious and at the same time accentuated decor for Christmas holidays.” So get to the garden shop now. Then when next Christmas comes, you too can have a Christmas tree that has a fresh and innovative look. And you’ll get it at 75% off.
Last week the holiday train/flower show closed. I stopped in again one last time to look at two plants that normally are not on view to the public. One is this healthy-looking six-foot tall Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobellis). It’s the tallest Wollemi Pine I’ve ever seen at the botanical garden. The only other Wollemi Pine on view is about a foot high and seemingly none too hearty. It’s on permanent display on the south side of the Linnean glasshouse. The Wollemia attracts lots of attention because it was thought to be extinct 200 million years ago. Then in 1994 a small population of them was discovered in a remote forest in Australia. The tree in this show descends from those trees.
The other usual tree on display at the holiday show is the Monkey Puzzle (Araucaria araucana). It’s native to Argentina and Chile. The tree was named by an Englishman who thought that even a monkey wouldn’t be able to puzzle out how to climb this tree because of its spine-laced trunk and sharp spiny needles. Before today the only other time I saw the Monkey Puzzle was at Kew Gardens outside London. Here it is when I saw it nearly 20 years near the Orangery at Kew.
The Monkey Puzzles on display here aren’t as imposing. They’re more like house plants than trees. Still it’s exciting to see these curiously grand, yet stand-offish trees again after so many years even if they are being used only as model railroad scenery.
Among the thousands of spring bulbs planted each fall by staff and volunteers, there are always a handful that somehow get overlooked. I like to try to find them. The stragglers will never bloom, but they often have a beauty of their own as they lie on top of the ground. These are three forgotten hyacinth bulbs that had they been planted would likely have had stocks of fragrant white flowers.
A few of the limbs on the columnar apple trees in the Ottoman Garden are being separated by these red plastic gadgets. They’re called “limb spreaders.” Nurseries that sell fruit trees sell them too. They’re meant to be wedged between young branches to encourage them to grow at about 45 degrees apart before they get set in their ways. If the young branches are disciplined while they’re young, they’re likely to grow up strong enough to hold a heavy crop of top-quality fruit. The mature limbs may sag a bit, but they’ll never crack or split if they were brought up right. It’s satisfying to know that these little pieces of plastic that cost less than 50 cents apiece can make such a vast difference in a young tree’s future.
Yellow isn’t a winter color. Yellow needs longer days, sunshine, and warmth. Think buttercups, primula, forsythia, and tulips. They all have the good sense to wait until the dark cold months are gone. This one though, the bright yellow Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) doesn’t mind being out-of-step. Over the years, I’ve seen it bloom anytime between November and February. This morning the Winter Jasmine shrubs in the botanical garden’s Chinese Garden are full bloom. Nothing better than to have their bright yellow flowers as a shield against this morning’s cold rain.
They’re not yellow, but they too are unimpressed by winter. In the Mausoleum Garden, there’s a large patch of green that from a distance looks like a well-manicured lawn in summer. It’s sleight of hand done by planting a bed of liriope and allowing them spread by underground stems until they tightly fill the expanse with solid color.