clouds at start, clear at finish: light breeze: 74ºF
The keepers of the Linnean glasshouse felled the tall olive tree that grew at the east end of the house. With the tree gone I had a clear view of one of the vines climbing up the wall trellis. Sprawling upwards was a vine labeled Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum). Fronds, open and airy looking with the look of those filler ferns that get stuck into supermarket bouquets, were coiling upwards and outwards. Until this morning, I didn’t know that things with fronds did anything but stay close to patches of damp, shady ground. So, I checked with Flora. She said that climbing ferns are nothing out of the ordinary – at least in tropical and semi-tropical places. There are some forty species of them. In fact, the book says that in parts of Florida this innocent-looking fern is a “bad weed.” Left undisturbed the fern doesn’t stop growing. It drapes over shrubs and smaller trees and curls up larger ones blocking them from sunlight. What is exotic and well-mannered here turns pest and predator there.
I’ve been reading Flower Confidential, a book by Amy Stewart about the world-wide “flower industry.” She says that the “quintessential cut flower” is the alstroemeria – that colorful filler flower used in most cellophane-wrapped bouquets. Growers like alstroemeria because they are easy to pick (They can be snapped off right at the ground with just a flick of the wrist.); they have long, straight stems that make them easy to handle and to pack; and best of all, when picked as buds they will continue to mature and then open. Florists and consumers like them because they have a “vase life” of two, even three weeks. Stewart writes “If you had to name a flower that worked perfectly at every stage of the process, alstroemeria might be it.” The USDA says that alstoemerias are number four on their list of the “Top Ten Cut Flowers” selling some 266 million stems a year (win: roses; place: carnations; and show: mums).
Common names for alstroemeria are “Lily of the Incas” and “Peruvian Lily.” So what’s a thriving clump of a variety named ‘Sweet Laura’ doing blooming here? I spotted ‘Sweet Laura’ blooming wildly at the edge of one of the bulb gardens. I thought it might have been greenhouse grown and then tucked in here unnoticed after the weather warmed. Not so though. I checked this botanical garden’s plants in bloom records and found that ‘Sweet Laura’ has been right here for at least five summers. Turns out that ‘Sweet Laura’ is one of a handful of quite unusual alstroemeria developed by Mark Bridgen of Cornell University. Unlike its South American cousins “Sweet Laura” is one of just a few varieties that is hardy here and even further north if mulched over the winter. Unusual too for alstroemerias, this one has a fragrance.
I had never heard of stevia (STEE-vee-uh) until a week or so ago when my wife brought home a few sprigs of the mint-sized plant that a friend had given her. She told me to chew on a leaf of it. It was sweet – very sweet. I checked the web and stumbled on a brouhaha over the use of stevia as a sweeter. Supporters say the South American herb is a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. Hundreds of times sweeter than sugar with zero calories, they says that the herb has been used for centuries in parts of South American and is now approved for use as a food additive in ten countries around the world including Japan and China. “Stevia might by now be entrenched in the United States as well,” supporters claim, “had it not been for a concerted effort to block its very entry.”
In the U.S., you can buy stevia only for use as a “dietary supplement.” The FDA has not approved it for use as a food additive in soda, ice cream, and any other low-cal food you can imagine. In 1999 a scientific panel working for the European Union reviewed the studies done about stevia and concluded “that the substance is not acceptable as a sweetener on the presently available data.” The panel was concerned about the lack of evidence on stevia’s possible effects on fertility, metabolism, and the formation of cancers.
Whatever the eventual outcome of all of this, stevia is alive and well in this botanical garden. Oblivious to the controversy, a huge patch of it is thriving in the full sun of the herb garden near the vegetable plots.
For weeks now we’ve been watching a Bird of Paradise plant growing in a container planter on patio of the garden’s café. It’s growing under a canopy of locust trees that puts it in shade nearly all day. We were convinced that this sun lover would never bloom.This morning when we went out to the patio it was in bloom.
Each year about this time the Henry Shaw Cactus Society holds a juried show and sale at this botanical garden. And, each year the show gets bigger. Cactus and their ilk never interested me, but I go to the show every year to see the winners in “humorous container” category. These two were my favorites this year.
clear: calm: 70ºF
I like summer. Folks can wear just what they like. What will seem outlandish come fall is the norm in July. This morning my wife is wearing a loose fitting lemon-yellow men’s shirt dotted with dozens of pictures of a leaping rainbow trout. My daughter just returned from a wedding where the bridal party wore sherbet-colored flip-flops decorated with colorful plumes. I’ve yet to shed my drab outfits, but I did notice two plants this morning that fit right into the devil may care attitude of summer.
One is called “Jacob’s Coat” (Acalypha wilkesiana), named I guess for coat of many colors that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. I found another common name that I think fits it better: the "Match-Me-If-You-Can" plant. No two leaves on this plant match. All are a mix of shades of green and creamy yellow, but the palette is used very differently on each leaf. Some are creamy with splotches, stipples, and islands of green. Some have well-defined sections of color that remind me of a mosaic. Others look like a map with continents and islands. If there is a pattern to all this lack of patterning I’ve yet to find it.
Then too caladium leaves of every variety qualify as summer frou-frou. They thrive here in July and August – the more uncomfortable I am from the heat and humidity, the better they look. I saw a new one this year that’s very different from others that rely on colored veins or splotches to make a splash. The new variety is called “Thai Beauty.” The leaves are heart-shaped just as lots of other caladiums are, but “Thai Beauty” has blocks of colors – sometimes green sometimes red – that look as though they were done by a stained glass artist or an Art Nouveau painter. I couldn’t find “Thai Beauty” bulbs listed in the offerings of any of the big caladium growers in Florida, so they’re not likely to turn up in any of the big box stores for a few years yet.
Neither will Wollemi pines – those recently discovered prehistoric hangovers that were thought to have been extinct for the last two million years. On our walk through the conservatory that houses plants from the world’s temperate zones, we saw two pots of Wollemi Pines that had died. Add these two to outdoor ones that died in the winter of 2006 and that leaves just one still alive– a fledgling of a plant tucked into a corner of the temperate glasshouse.
Last week the fall catalog for the National Geographic Society arrived. One of items offered was an eight-inch potted Wollemi Pine seedling. The caption read “Now you can have a ‘dinosaur’ living in your backyard.” The ad said that the tree was being sold in the United States by the National Geographic Society to assist in helping conserve and spread these endangered trees. The ad went to to say that detailed growing information would be included with each seeding ordered. But based on how poorly these relics are faring here in the botanical garden where they are watched and pampered, I think I’d sooner send a donation of $99.95 to the Wollemi conservation effort rather that buy my own seedling and then watch it die.
clear: still: 75ºF
I usually don’t visit this botanical garden in the middle of the week. My normal Wednesday schedule changed; I happened to be nearby; the weather couldn’t have been better, so here I am. Just me, busloads of day trippers, and more families with young kids than I’ve ever seen.
Just for fun I decided to watch kids to try to see the botanical garden as they saw it. What would I notice? What would attract me if I were three- or four-feet tall and sixty years younger?
I saw that kids like to be in places where they can make a din. Better still is when the din they make is amplified. The large open space of the entry hall to the garden is the perfect place: high ceilings and lots of hard surfaces including the massive twenty-foot long Chihuly glass chandelier. Outside, I noticed that kids huddle around the Soleri Bell Tree waiting to take a turn at swinging the clappers as hard as they could.
Walkways are fascinating too. Long stretches of flat paved walks are good for skipping and running. Stepping stone walks seem made for hopping. Paths of woodchips, especially those that curve, have forks, or lead into densely wooded areas are rarely passed by. Neither is the maze of tall yews in the Victorian part of the botanical garden. Kids also find walking on the capstones that edge the ponds irresistible. Even the youngest of them like the thrill of balancing on a two-foot ledge where a misstep would mean a dunk in the pond.
Steps and high places are both good. I saw kids walking up and down the steep steps leading to the entrance of the long-shuttered museum building and on the steps to the front door of Henry Shaw’s mansion. Kids who see the onion-domed Observatory run toward it as fast as they can. Double fun here. They can climb steps that lead them to a high place where they can look out.
Of all things that interest kids though, water is best of all: Drinking fountains that squirt with a press of a foot; fountains that spurt, move or spray water. Pebbles or woodchips near a water’s edge are irresistible too. Even still water attracts youngsters especially if they can lean over and put their hands in the water.
What surprised me was that when left on their own, kids don’t seem to give a hoot about the trees, shrubs, or even the most colorful of the flowers. The only colorful things that excited their interest were the Chihuly glass globes in the lily pond, especially the transparent ones that sparkled in the sun. Kids only seemed to look at things botanical if they were specifically pointed out to them by their parents while they were told a short something about the plant: “Let’s smell this rose.” or “Look how red that is tomato is.”
What to make of all this I haven’t a clue, but it did give me a new way of seeing this place.
This morning I noticed that the lawn where crocuses were planted in early spring still had not been mowed. The sign at the edge of the lawn filled with waist-high grass says that lawn mowing couldn’t be done until the crocus leaves had died back. Since by now they’ve died back, withered, and crumbled, I suspect the reason for the tall grass has a lot to do with a wild hen turkey that’s taken up residence in grasses and on the ledge in front of the mirror reflective glass walls of the research building at the edge of the lawn. We first saw the turkey two weeks ago. This morning I saw her again. She was lying on the concrete ledge looking at her image in a mirrored glass.
The turkey was featured in the latest issue of this botanical garden’s magazine. The article said that the garden’s “south end-hen” stayed there because the food was good. In summer there are plenty of insects in the tall grass and in fall there will be lots of acorns. The hen’s fondness for the mirrored wall comes from mistaking the image for another bird. Whether friend or foe, the turkey likes to go beak to beak with it. I think that as long as the south-end hen stays so will the tall grass.
With so many cars in the parking lot this morning I had park at far eastern edge of the Garden. When I got back to the car I noticed that my car was parked under a persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana). It was one of a line of six or so that lined the eastern edge of the parking lot. I didn’t see any green fruit on the trees, so I suspect the flowers were frozen by the too warm followed by too cold weather this spring. But even without fruit, the cork-like streams of chunky bark that eddies along their trunks is stunning.
-- from 'August Morning' by Albert Garcia in his book "Skunk Talk"
The keepers of the Linnean glasshouse felled the tall olive tree that grew at the east end of the house. With the tree gone I had a clear view of one of the vines climbing up the wall trellis. Sprawling upwards was a vine labeled Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum). Fronds, open and airy looking with the look of those filler ferns that get stuck into supermarket bouquets, were coiling upwards and outwards. Until this morning, I didn’t know that things with fronds did anything but stay close to patches of damp, shady ground. So, I checked with 
Common names for alstroemeria are “Lily of the Incas” and “Peruvian Lily.” So what’s a thriving clump of a variety named ‘Sweet Laura’ doing blooming here? I spotted ‘Sweet Laura’ blooming wildly at the edge of one of the bulb gardens. I thought it might have been greenhouse grown and then tucked in here unnoticed after the weather warmed. Not so though. I checked this botanical garden’s plants in bloom records and found that ‘Sweet Laura’ has been right here for at least five summers. Turns out that ‘Sweet Laura’ is one of a handful of quite unusual alstroemeria developed by 
I had never heard of stevia (STEE-vee-uh) until a week or so ago when my wife brought home a few sprigs of the mint-sized plant that a friend had given her. She told me to chew on a leaf of it. It was sweet – very sweet. I checked the web and stumbled on a brouhaha over the use of stevia as a sweeter. 
For weeks now we’ve been watching a Bird of Paradise plant growing in a container planter on patio of the garden’s café. It’s growing under a canopy of locust trees that puts it in shade nearly all day. We were convinced that this sun lover would never bloom.This morning when we went out to the patio it was in bloom.
One is called “Jacob’s Coat” (Acalypha wilkesiana), named I guess for coat of many colors that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. I found another common name that I think fits it better: the "Match-Me-If-You-Can" plant. No two leaves on this plant match. All are a mix of shades of green and creamy yellow, but the palette is used very differently on each leaf. Some are creamy with splotches, stipples, and islands of green. Some have well-defined sections of color that remind me of a mosaic. Others look like a map with continents and islands. If there is a pattern to all this lack of patterning I’ve yet to find it.
Neither will Wollemi pines – those recently discovered 
Walkways are fascinating too. Long stretches of flat paved walks are good for skipping and running. Stepping stone walks seem made for hopping. Paths of woodchips, especially those that curve, have forks, or lead into densely wooded areas are rarely passed by. Neither is the 
Steps and high places are both good. I saw kids walking up and down the steep steps leading to the entrance of the long-shuttered museum building and on the steps to the front door of 
hen turkey that’s taken up residence in grasses and on the ledge in front of the mirror reflective glass walls of the research building at the edge of the lawn. We first saw the turkey two weeks ago. This morning I saw her again. She was lying on the concrete ledge looking at her image in a mirrored glass.
With so many cars in the parking lot this morning I had park at far eastern edge of the Garden. When I got back to the car I noticed that my car was parked under a persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana). It was one of a line of six or so that lined the eastern edge of the parking lot. I didn’t see any green fruit on the trees, so I suspect the flowers were frozen by the too warm followed by too cold weather this spring. But even without fruit, the cork-like streams of chunky bark that eddies along their trunks is stunning.