bright with high haze few clouds: breezy: 22ºF

The annual orchard show opened today after a preview yesterday evening. The show is astonishing. Who doesn’t believe that raising an orchid is harder than getting admitted to Harvard? Who hasn’t tried to coax an orchid into bloom? And failed. Seeing the colors, the shapes, the varieties of orchids here -- all of them blooming at the same time -- is like being invited to a private concert to hear a virtuoso perform.

I did manage to get an orchid to bloom once. I bought an Oncidium orchid named ‘Sharry Baby’ from a discount table at this botanical garden a couple of years ago because it wasn’t in bloom. It had bloomed though. I could see the dry stems where the bloom stocks had been cut. So I figured if it bloomed once maybe I could get it to bloom again. I was its slave for a year. Nothing. So last summer I put it outside with the rest of my container plants. My attitude shifted from being its servant to becoming its part-time caretaker. I checked in on it once a week or so just to give it a drink. My plan was to let the frost take it if it didn’t send out a stock before fall. No more free ride.

By late August I had a flower stock. Then shortly after that, another one. I brought ‘Sharry Baby’ inside and enjoyed its blooms from November though the middle of January. I still don’t know what I did or didn’t do to this orchid to get it to bloom. But because of my life with ‘Sharry Baby,’ I think I can appreciate even more what the keepers of this botanical garden must have to do to get 800 orchids of untold varieties and cultural needs to bloom all at the same time.

After visitors to the show have whetted their appetite for orchids, they can buy some to take home. Next door, three or four vendors have long tables crammed with orchids to go. Maneuvering around people in the sales area was harder that it was getting around the show itself. Sales seemed brisk judging from the number of people carefully balancing bundled-up orchids out to their cars. Orchids aren’t cheap here – prices for pots of blooming ones were in the $40 - $60 range. But, the sales pitch is that even if the orchid you buy today never blooms again, you get to enjoy its exotic beauty for another month or two. Compare that to how long a vase of cut flowers lasts, and orchids seem a bargain.


Back to the show. More pictures must be taken at this show than any other. Orchids are the most photogenic of flowers, and they draw cameras of all sizes. Notices outside the show warn of using tripods and of blocking aisles, but other that that it’s open season for photographers. I’ve already taken dozens of pictures. I’ll visit the show many times before it ends in late March, so I have time to take photos of the nuanced orchids. Right now, I’m looking for the big, brassy ones. Here’s what I found this morning. The pink and creamsickle-orange of this Laelia orchid named Santa Barbara Sunset ‘Showtime’ is hard to overlook. Except for the lip, no ruffles here. No striations or flecks of color on the petals or sepals. Unusual color and a strong shape are all it takes. Makes me want to go to Santa Barbara to see more

Then there’s this one: Potinara ‘William Farrell’. A ripe peach comes to mind. I wish it was close enough to smell.

Outside, the grounds are covered with a dusting of snow. This morning, I saw these hopeful hyacinths sprouts poking up in the Ottoman Garden.







a few clouds: still: 74ºF

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree'? After my visit this week to two large sub-tropical gardens near Orlando I think my enthusiasm for spotting witchhazels in bloom during the Midwest winter is waning. Never having been to Florida before, I was easily seduced by its lushness even when it’s still recovering from record cold temperatures.

While in Florida, we spent large chunks of two days visiting the Leu Gardens in Orlando and the Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales. We timed our visit to Leu to coincide with the Camellia Society of Central Florida’s annual camellia show. Leu Gardens has the largest collection of camellias in the South, and appropriately enough, the Camellia Society holds its shows here. When we arrived shortly before 10:00 on opening day, the judging was still going on and the blooms that made the judges' first cut were being shuttled from their regular tables to special honors tables. Never having seen a camellia show before I picked up a flyer that described how the long tables of hundreds of bloom stems were arranged and would be judged.

Within most of the entry divisions there was a category for “protected” versus “unprotected” camellias. According to the rules, it was o.k. to protect “unprotected” blooms from the sun, but not from “the elements of nature such as temperature, precipitation, etc.” There was also a “treated – untreated” category. Until I read the rules, I thought untreated meant not using things like fungicides or pesticides. Not so. Instead, “untreated” means that growers swore that they didn’t use chemicals to pump up the size of their blooms or to make the flowers open just in time for the show. I didn’t have a chance to check with growers, but I suspect it’s the growers who enter unprotected and untreated blooms that garner most respect from their peers.


Me – I was like that kid in a candy store at the show. I wasn’t down here from the cold Midwest looking for subtlety. I was drawn to the big blooms and to flowers with colors I’d never seen before in the glasshouse at the botanical garden where I usually walk. Look at this one: I didn’t even think to get its name. I was dazzled by its tie dyed colors and shades of red and white that would do a hibiscus proud. Then there’s ‘Dennis Vaughn.’ The bloom is more than four-inches across while still holding on to its elegant formal petal arrangement. Petals with such velvety, deep reds tipped with black were new to me.

What’s outside the exhibition center? -- 50 acres of garden. The Leu estate was already filled with palms, cycads, bamboos, roses, azalias, and over 1500 camellias when it was donated to the City of Orlando by the Harry and Mary Jane Leu in 1961. They wisely stipulated that the estate would always remain a botanical garden.

When I visit a botanical garden for the first time, I stick to the highlights because I’ve learned unless I return again and again I can’t see change or detail. Seeing the highlights usually means relying on a botanical garden’s visitor’s guide and its “What’s in Bloom” list.

In winter two of big attractions on the list are the camellias and trees called the “Orchid Trees.” First the camellias. Two things: in mid-January they are not yet in full bloom. Most of trees have a sprinkling of blooms, but have lots of buds that probably won’t open for a few weeks yet. Then too, many of the camellias that had been in bloom were browned by last week’s record cold. Even so, Leu’s camellias are blooming everywhere. I took dozens of pictures. Here are three: a white, a pink, and a rose – all japonica varieties. The white one, ‘Alba plena,’ is scattered throughout the garden. A sign near one of the shrubs says it’s been in cultivation since the 18th century. ‘Alba plena’ is also part of the collection of camellias grown under glass in the botanical garden where I walk so I’m anxious to have a look at it when I return.


Next there’s ‘Pink Perfection,’ another variety that has been in cultivation for a century or more. This variety with its formally arranged petals and silken sheen is hard to beat. Finally there’s this rose-colored one called ‘Louis Law.’ What’s unusual about it is that each blossom contains three of four smaller blooms all tightly bunched together to make one big bloom. The i.d. sign says ‘Louis Law’ is a “large anemone type.” Now I know what to call what I saw in camellia-speak.


As advertised the Orchid Trees were in full bloom. They’re labeled “Hong Kong Orchid Tree” (Bauhinia x blakeana). Flora, my gardener’s encyclopedia, says the tree is the city flower of Hong Kong and that the Hong Kong Botanical Gardens has a garden devoted exclusively to the species. So much is eye-catching about the trees. The five-petaled flowers are distinctly orchid-colored. One petal is even deeply shaded to resemble the throat of an orchid. Then too, there are the leaves. They’re heart-shaped with a deep inlet at the tips resembling a resting butterfly with its wings opened.


Apart from the alligator we saw at the edge of the garden’s lake, the Sausage Tree (Kigelia Africana) was the most startling looking thing we saw at Leu. Because the tree is native to sub-Saharan Africa, much of its foliage was browned by the recent cold. But still dangling from long rope-like stems under the tree were these pods that look like super-sized brats. Each of the pods is a foot or two long and about thick as a zucchini that’s been left on the vine too long. I picked up one of the pods lying on a bench near the tree. It’s hefty enough to be used as a weapon.

Who goes to Florida without looking at the oranges? Leu Gardens has a citrus orchard that has about 50 varieties of citrus trees. Right now they look ripe enough to eat. Instead of putting up signs that ask visitors not to pick the fruit, the keepers of this garden use this sign. The intent seems to be to keep the fruit on the trees by engendering guilt.


Near the citrus grove is a sculpture titled “The Citrus Workers.” It’s been perfectly placed under a ‘Marsh’ Grapefruit that just now is brimming with ripe fruit. The work, done by New Orleans artist William Ludlow in silicon bronze, features two figures – one worker balanced on a ladder picking the fruit and another seated on a crate of oranges peeling an orange.







clear: calm: 78ºF



Sooner or later all paths in the Bok Tower Gardens where we’re visiting today lead to the Tower encircled by moat and reflected by on this pond. The Tower is over 200 feet high -- a little shorter than Flatiron Building where the ball is dropped every New Year’s Eve. Imagine. A tower with forbidding, formal gothic architecture done up in pinks and tans. The tower was build to house and amplify the sound of a four-octave set of bells. Just now, parts of the Tower are being renovated so the bells are under plastic wraps until the work is completed. Nonetheless, the Tower was singing today with amplified recordings of its carillons.

What I find more interesting than the Tower itself is the story of its beginnings and some of the ideas that guided its start. The Tower and gardens were commissioned and paid for by Edward Bok. Bok was born in the Netherlands in 1863 and immigrated with his family to the United States when he was six. He quickly learned and mastered English. Those skills led him to a job at Western Union and a couple of jobs in journalism and advertising. While still in his mid-20’s he was already syndicated in 45 newspapers. At 26, the Philadelphia publisher Cyrus Curtis offered Bok a job as editor of The Ladies' Home Journal. Bok took the job and three years later married the boss’ daughter Mary Curtis. Thirty years later in 1919 after making The Journal one of the top circulating and most influential magazines in America, Bok retired. At 56, he wrote that he needed time to develop next phase in what he considered “a complete program of life” – preparation, achievement, followed by service to the public. Building the Bok Tower Gardens was a part of that service.

When the Tower Gardens opened in 1929, Bok never referred to then as a gardens. Calvin Coolidge in his remarks at the public opening dedicated the grounds as a “sanctuary.” He explained “. . . the swiftness of the events exhaust our nervous energy. The constant impact upon us of great throngs of people produces a deadening fatigue, We have a special need for a sanctuary like this to which we can retreat . . . to rest and think under the quieting influence of nature and of nature’s God.” Unlike the newer attractions around Orlando expressly built to excite and stimulate their visitors, Bok’s sanctuary was built to calm them – an anachronistic idea just now.

Bok’s other now out-of-favor idea in opening these gardens was his intent to teach its visitors by example. Again President Coolidge: “Those who visit here can not escape taking away with them an inspiration for better things. They will be filled with a noble discontent . . . against all forms of physical and spiritual ugliness. . . . The streets of distant towns will cleaner. Lawns will be better kept. A larger number of trees will spread their verdant shade over highways and towns. Public buildings will take on more beautiful lines, making life more graceful and more complete.”

Coming here, recalling these thoughts seems so alien to quick, one-time visits: pick up the brochures, take lots of pictures, buy a souvenir at the gift shop, have some food at the cafe and then move on. Trying to trace and write about the thoughts of those who lived when this place was built lets me see things in a different way. A better way, I think.

Near the Visitors Center are sculptures of two carnivorous plants – a pitcher plant and a Venus flytrap. The pieces were unlabeled but I was told by a docent that both works were done by Rick Sgrillo, a Lakeland, Florida, artist who hand forges anything from staircase railings to large pieces of public art. Sgrillo’s studio forged all of 100+ benches scattered throughout the grounds.

Both of Sgrillo’s carnivorous plant sculptures are bigger, much bigger, than life. If alive, either could handily digest a cat. Both are beautiful forms, but neither is sweet or cuddly. Their hard, sharp surfaces look as menacing as the plants they represent. To emphasize that these are “look, but don’t touch” sculptures, the spiky Venus Flytrap has been installed off the main path in a patch of low palms shrubs where it can be seen, but not approached.

Along a side path that leads to the Bok’s preserve of Longleaf pines, there’s a circular sundial garden. Inside the circle is the garden’s collection of rare and endangered plants. The Bok collection is affiliated with the national Center for Plant Conservation that’s housed on the grounds of the botanical garden where I usually walk.

This morning the plot of rare plants is easy to overlook. It’s mostly barren and looks like a weedy cow pasture. Apparently most of the endangered plants here are deciduous and waiting out the Florida winter. The rarest plant in the collection is a plant called the Florida Jujube (Ziziphus celata). The spiny, zig-zag branches of this scrub-like shrub are a bright silver-white in this morning’s sun. The plant looks as though it’s survived the recent cold because it’s is filled tiny yellow-green buds. Whether this shrub ever produces fruit I’ll never know, but I found that other less endangered species do. I plan to look for jujubes at an international grocery store this week. Jujubes are sometimes called Chinese dates because of their look and taste and they're also being promoted as an all-natural remedy for whatever ails you.

There was the putrid odor of decay near a pond-side shelter set aside for bird watching. The surface of the pond was filled with hundreds of dead fish. This sign was taped to the window. Reading between the lines, I’m guessing that the fish-killing cold wasn’t entirely unwelcome here. A Florida website calls the blue tilapia or Nile perch “a significant threat to native ecosystems” because they compete with native species for food and spawning grounds. The sign doesn’t say why the fish in this pond weren’t netted and removed, but I’m guessing that birds like ospreys, seagulls and buzzards will help “nature take its course.”

This picture of honeybees collecting nectar from a camellia blossom must be a common sight here in Florida. But for me it’s not. The camellias I’m used to seeing in winter all grow in glass houses. So, coupling bees with camellias gets my attention.


About forty years ago the Bok Tower Gardens bought a garden and a Mediterranean-style mansion called Pinewoods that butted up to the Gardens. Aptly enough it was landscaped by the Olmstead firm – the designers of the Bok Garden. The 20-room mansion was closed today so that the remaining Christmas decorations could be taken down and packed away, but the formal gardens were open. I was overwhelmed by the allées of orange trees that lined every walkway leading up to the house. Each tree was groomed to resemble a pincushion. The oranges, now almost ripe, added color to what most of the year must look just glossy green.

The walkway that led to the door of the house was lined with flower beds and small kumquat trees. Never having seen a kumquat tree before, I thought the small, oblong fruits were some variety of orange until I checked their tags. A few fruit were lying on the ground around the tree so I peeled one and had a taste. Too sour. I learned later after checking Wikipedia that with kumquats “the rind is sweet and the juicy centre is sour and salty, the raw fruit is usually consumed either whole -- to savour the contrast -- or only the rind is eaten.” I need to get out of the Midwest more.

Scattered around the grounds are these pillars, each about four-feet high. Hanging from each is a plastic stylus. Fitted on top is a raised tile of some plant, bird, or animal found on the grounds. The pillars seem intended to encourage visitors to stop and maybe make a tile rubbing to take away as a remembrance.

I can never have too many pictures of camellias. I’ve given up trying to track down their names. I’m just enjoying them.







clear: light wind: 6ºF

A special treat on this first walk of new year: the windows on the south side of the glasshouse where the camellias grow are laced with frost tracings. A sight like this happens rarely and then lasts just a few hours. A sparkling beginning to the new year.