clouds, then some sun: breezy: 76ºF

Heavy rains passed through here last night. Mulch and dirt left from the runoffs are still on a lot of the walkways and paths. The rains bought us a cooler morning walk in the garden, but highs in the upper 90’s are still ahead.

I think there is just one medlar tree (Mespilus) in this botanical garden. The tree is about the size of a dwarf fruit tree. It’s planted at the edge of a formal herb garden. This small medlar tree doesn’t bear fruit very reliably, but this year looks as though it’s going to be a good one for medlars. The medlar fruit looks a bit like an overgrown rose hip. The Romans grew them and brought them along as they occupied the rest of Europe. The Victorians used medlars make jam which probably explains why the tree was planted here in this botanical garden’s Victorian Garden. Medlars were the perfect fruit for times before refrigeration because unless they are allowed to rot a bit, they are said to have a tart, bitter, sharp taste that puckers the lips and upsets the stomach. Those who like to eat medlars describe their taste as “winey, cidery or like apples and cinnamon.” A nursery that sells medlar trees likens their taste to a “complexity of several flavors merged into an indescribable pleasurable and aromatic bliss.” Flora, the Gardener’s Encyclopedia, says more simply they’re “an acquired taste.” Whatever the taste, I can’t see medlars making a come-back. It would take one hell of a marketing campaign to sell the public on the virtues of digging into a bowl of blackened, rotten, mushy fruit and saying “Yummy.”


I must have been thinking of flavors and taste because the next stop on my walk was at a ground cover in the English Woodland Garden labeled Chocolate Vine (Akebia quinata). In early spring, this vine was cut back to almost nothing and covered over with leaf mulch. Now it’s again a dense, matted tangle covering a large swath of densely shaded ground. The chocolate vine has five neatly arranged glossy leaflets -- dark green when fully developed and lime-colored when they’re young. I rubbed the leaflets and smelled – not a hint of chocolate scent or anything else.

I’d never seen this vine flower or fruit, but there are plenty of pictures of both flowers and fruit on the web. The flowers are dark maroon akin to chocolate and are supposed to smell like chocolate. The fruits are sausage-shaped and “are edible, though insipid,” says Flora. Pretty as it is here in the Woodland Garden, the chocolate vine is an outlaw in the wild. It’s seriously invasive. Once established it chokes out all native undergrowth and can climb into and smother small shrubs and trees.

“When did they plant that?,” I often ask myself as I walk though the garden. Botanical gardens like this one often have little surprises that suddenly appear in unexpected spots. This week’s surprise was this Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata). It's the size a small juniper and is tucked away in partly shaded spot in the English Woodland Garden where a clump of hellebores used to be. I saw it from a distance because its glowing blue color makes it a stand-out. Up close the fir’s twigs bristle with grass-like needles. They look soft and pliable, but when I touched them they didn’t have as much give as I expected, but weren’t as sharp either. Flora says this evergreen can grow to 150 feet in China and Taiwan, but I’m wondering if it will even make it through the winter here in Missouri. It’s northern range listed as zone 7 and this garden is in 6. Another botanical experimental checking on climate change maybe?

Another surprise. I thought until this morning that I’d have to wait until next spring to see another squill. Then I saw this late-summer squill called Chinese Squill (Scilla scilloides) blooming in the rock garden among the cactuses. Same familiar star-shaped flowers, but pink now, jutting out from strap-like leaves that look like miniature hyacinths.

Top this flower for pure razzle-dazzle. It’s a sunloving, yet shade tolerating, New Guinea impatiens brand-named ‘Sunpatiens Spreading White.’ It’s planted in one of the test gardens here. Plants in these plots are evaluated by the garden's keepers to see whether they’re ready to be rolled out for visitors to see next year in one of the major display gardens. The sign in the plot says this flower was developed by Sakata Seed, a global seed and plant producer headquartered in Yokohama, Japan. The plants I saw here this morning are planted in full sun and have had to endure nearly two months of temperatures in the 90s. And still they’re flowering wildly and show no signs of bleaching in their yellow leaves collared in green. I think ‘Sunpatiens’ will get a big rollout next year.

The venerable Henry Shaw Cactus Society show is in the display hall of this botanical garden this weekend. Here’s the 2010 Judges Choice Award for the best in this hall of hundreds of examples of cactuses and succulents. The Judges Choice winner this year is this succulent named Euphorbia cylindrifolia.


Pretty little butterfly – a skipper of some kind I think – on a lantana growing in the rock garden.