clear: calm: 41ºF


What a difference a week makes: before and after. A week ago the soft fronds on the golden larch (Pseudolarix ambilis) near this botanical garden’s old museum building were in full color. This week: nothing. Last week’s wind and heavy rains put a quick end to the display.

There’s a lot of chatter on the web about pomegranate trees. Most of it comes from gardeners in growing zones far south of here. There pomegranates get treated pretty cavalierly. “Don’t water them too much or they won’t get thorny enough for a security hedge,” they write. Or “Prune them regularly if you don’t want a mess of mushy fruit on the ground.” Because I live in a place where pomegranates come from stores, not trees, I stop to look any pomegranate tree growing outdoors. Here in this botanical garden’s Ottoman Garden, there is this one. It’s a variety named ‘Wonderful.’ It's growing in a container, and is now about the size of a small shrub. Earlier in the season, I touched the tree’s firm, waxy, scarlet flowers, and felt the hard, ripening fruit that were here until a few weeks ago. This morning I noticed that the glossy, green leaves had turned yellow. Since I’ve never seen a pomegranate tree out of captivity, I thought that when the colder weather set in, the tree had just two choices: die or wait out the winter in a glasshouse. Turns out, according to the National Garden Book, that except in places with very mild winters that pomegranate trees routinely have “brilliant yellow fall color” before they lose their leaves. I also found that ‘Wonderful’ will do fine down to temperatures in the mid-teens and that it’s “the best-known fruiting pomegranate.”

A flowering plant labeled Swedish Ivy has become one of this botanical garden’s favorites. I’ve spotted it growing in containers, and it’s being used in mass plantings. From a distance I thought it was some new variety of salvia because the flowers have the same luminous purple hues and the plants have a similar compact shrub shape. Turns out they’re both part of the same family: the mint family, but belong to a different genus. The Swedish Ivy is in a branch of the family named Plectranthus. The botanical garden’s plantings are all a variety named ‘Mona Lavender.’

‘Mona Lavender’ is very giving with its flowers. Each plant puts up many tall spikes lined with dozens blooms on all sides. The plants have responded to this cool, rainy fall by developing ever-more intense color and even more flowers.

I did a background check on ‘Mona Lavender’ to see whether it was a new-kid-on-the-block or whether it was around for many seasons but I just hadn’t noticed. Turns out it is new. 'Mona Lavender' was bred in the late 1900’s at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. In that garden’s sub-tropic climate the plant blooms in all but the warmest months. It does especially well in shady spots and in is at its peak in autumn as the days grow shorter. Here in the mid-west it’s probably better suited as a houseplant or as a part of that ever-increasing group of seasonal throw-away tropicals.

While the ‘Mona Lavender’ shares its genus with Swedish Ivy, it has little else in common with this low, sprawling, plant grown for its leaves, not its flowers. Seems that while ‘Mona Lavender’ is a beautiful plant, it could use a better name.

Late October-early November means the fall witchhazels bloom again. Right on schedule, here’s Hamamelis virginiana. I especially like these first blooms because they camouflage themselves among the orange and golden leaves.








clearing clouds: easy breeze: 43ºF

New flagstone walkways are being installed in this botanical garden. They snake their way through the expansive beds that used to belong solely to spring bulbs and the knobby knees of the monumental bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) that line the garden’s central axis. Flora, my gardener’s encyclopedia, says that bald cypress trees that grow in swamps develop knees that poke out of water so that they can get the oxygen their roots need to breathe. The bald cypress trees growing here are on dry land though and their underground root system seems to working just fine without needing lots of knees. Yet, these trees still do develop a few knees. Before putting in the walkway the keepers of the garden must have had an interesting discussion about whether the knees that would be cut to lay the flagstones were vital to the health of the trees or were just some genetic holdover that have no known function for trees growing on solid ground. I looked at some pictures of this botanical garden taken fifty years ago and these bald cypresses were sizeable even then. Let’s hope the keepers who gave the o.k. for the walkways to be put in made the right decision.


This is not picture of a new variety of caladium with neon orange markings. It’s just a leaf that was in the way of a worker who marked the edges for the new walkway. And this green leaf with black mottling is one that somehow got sprayed with oil and then splattered on by the rain.

A few of the reblooming irises have finally opened. This one is named ‘Licken.’ Irises called rebloomers don’t always perform as advertised. The Reblooming Iris Society (RIS) urges patience: if the irises don’t rebloom this season, wait until next year – the mantra of every losing baseball team. Why don’t the rebloomers perform consistently? The RIS says it might be that they aren't old enough. Or then again, maybe the summer nights were too hot or the winter too cold. Could be they were watered too little or that the microclimate around the plant was all wrong. The Reblooming Iris Society says that it has 450 members. I’m sure there’s not a pessimist or a quitter in the bunch.

Many of the late fall plantings in the display gardens are now in. Lavenders and thymes are here as expected. But new to me was this outdoor bergenia named 'Winterglut' WINTER GLOW. The yellow-green leaves are leathery and edged in ruby. They are arranged as though the plant was some kind of loose-leafed cabbage. Web sources about the plant, formally called Bergenia cordifolia, say the leaves will bronze completely in the winter and then turn to green again in the spring. Also in early spring ‘Winterglut’ is supposed to send out a tall bronze-colored stock that will be topped with clusters of purple-pink flowers. As if all that weren’t enough, bergenias are reported to be distasteful to rabbits and deer and the plants will thrive in sun, part shade, or shade. And they’re hardy in zones far colder than this one. The label alongside the planting say the plant is commonly called Pigsqueak. Flora says the plant got its name because of the sound the leaves make when rubbed with wet fingers. You can bet I’ll try that when I return next week.

As remarkable the Pigsqeaks might be, they’re essentially green. They’re at foot-level too, so you have to be looking down to even see them. Not so with these dahlias lining the ponds outside the Linnean glasshouse. They were planted here about the same time the mums replaced the summer gardens. Since then, I’ve seen many visitors stop, stare, and photograph. It’s the color that holds them. The one-two combination of the glowing red-orange simple blooms framed by the backdrop of filigreed foliage the color of dark tropical wood is remarkable. This dahlia variety is ‘Scarlet Fern.’ It’s part of a group of dahlias named Mystic Series developed by Auckland, New Zealand breeder Keith Hammett. Rare among plant breeders, Dr. Hammett writes about what he does: “I believe that when engaged in any activity, it is important to frequently question what one is doing and why. For me, breeding ornamental plants is an aesthetic activity comparable to painting a picture or composing a piece of music.” In dahlias, Hammett says his aesthetic favors “neat and tidy rather than big and blowsy.” I think he’s nailed it with the Mystics.






sun and clouds keep swapping: windy: 48ºF

October and beer – a nice pairing. Seeing the ripening cones on the hops vine trailing up the arbor in this botanical garden reminds me I need to get tickets to the Fresh Hops Beer Festival coming up soon at a nearby microbrewery. It’s a chance to sample brews made with fresh hops from six different brewers. The hops growing in this botanical garden are labeled ‘Common hop’ (Humulus lupulus) with no variety listed. From what I’ve been able to pick up on web, there are dozens of hop cultivars for brewers to choose from depending on how bitter they want their beer to be or how they want it to smell or taste. The idea of brewing beers with hops straight off the vine is just catching on. Hops are picked and shipped overnight to the breweries just as though they were fresh flowers. Then they’re added to the brewing mix the day they’re received. The result is supposed to make a beer that “adds extra layers of hop taste and aroma with . . . hops featured as a flavor and smell, instead of mostly bitterness.” Maybe so. I can’t say, just yet since I’ve never tried a brew made with fresh hops. Two weeks to go though.

About this time of year I look forward to seeing this botanical garden’s display of pumpkins and gourds. Some years the display is lavish with dozens of artfully arranged pumpkins. This year though there are just a few -- but each one makes me pause and stare. This pumpkin got the longest look. A site I found on the web names it: ‘Brodé Galeux d’Eysines’ (Cucurbita maxima). It’s a French heirloom variety whose name means “embroidered with warts from Eysines” (a small town in southwestern France). It has tan warts on the outside that look like peanut hulls, but on the inside the flesh is reportedly plentiful, sweet, and deeply orange.

Toad lilies – lots of them – are blooming in many places. The English Woodland Garden is an especially good place to find them. Nearly all are white with irregular purple splotches. Close-up though, each blossom spreads open like a Roman fountain. Who knows how these elegant blooms got stuck with an inelegant name





This morning we saw a very different variety of toad lily growing at the edge of the English Woodland Garden. It was a yellow tubular variety with brownish-red petal markings. Inside the flower was the same protruding fountain of familiar whites and purples – although smaller and harder to see because the flowers on this yellow variety all pointed down. The sign near the plant labeled it as “Toad lily Tricyrtis macrantha.” The botanical garden’s website doesn’t make much of a fuss over the plant. It says that all of the toad lilies are valued because of their unique flowers, their ability to bloom in the shade, and their late season blooming time. It goes on to say that his particular variety features large, yellow, pendant flowers with raspberry spotting inside, flowers that bloom in the upper leaf axils, and stem-clasping, shiny, dark green leaves. Check, check, check – all true from what I saw this morning. Common name: none given. But I do like the one I found on the web – “Weeping Golden Toad Lily”