As the calendar year comes to an end, winter has been quite mild so far here in St. Louis, with the notable exception in November of the few days of arctic air. That blast did something that's been causing some extra work: it froze leaves to some trees.
My final post on last weekend's research department open house at Missouri Botanical Garden takes us to the fourth floor and the library.
My day at the Monsanto Center at Missouri Botanical Garden continues with the rest of what I saw on the second floor. Yesterday I talked about the mounted herbarium specimens, and today I start with the answer to my question: what about the big stuff? Coconuts, banana leaves, and anything else that isn't going to cooperate by being pressed flat or put into a paper envelope.
Continuing with what I started yesterday (recapping the few hours I spent at the Missouri Botanical Garden Research Center open house) we now move to the second floor and the herbarium.
Yesterday I gave you a start-to-finish preview of Saturday's open house at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Monsanto Research Center. Today I start diving in and share details of what you would have seen had you been one of the hundreds of St. Louisans who attended.
On Saturday I spent a few hours at one of the usually-closed buildings at the Missouri Botanical Garden, at an event they called World Exploration: Behind the Science with Garden Botanists. This post is just a preview of what I saw and learned, as I'll be going into more detail throughout the week.
Goldfinches that is. I haven't seen them around for a while, but yesterday they showed up to entertain me in the front garden.
If you've been reading for a while, you know that I love trading plants with people through the mail. Sometimes the trade is for specific plants, but often times "surprise" plants are included. Earlier this year I traded Amorphophalus "babes" with another bamboo grower and plant lover (Steve). I sent him Amorphophallus konjac, and he sent me an Amorphophallus titanum seedling among other things. A. konjac is dead simple to grow, and I actually had it showing up unexpectedly in other pots this year, but A. titanum is apparently more fussy.
I've mentioned how my summer's crop of edibles was ruined by the deer finally deciding that my garden fence was worth jumping over. Too busy of a summer meant that I didn't have a good defence planned (I used the Canadian spelling because it's so appropriate), so I abandoned my crop.
I'm not quite at the point in the winter where I scrutinize every plant that's under the lights, eager for any sort of botanical excitement. That time comes after the holidays usually, although it varies from year to year. Close examination is highly recommended though, even now, as there could be something fun going on.
Not too long ago I transplanted some bamboo into the bed next to the driveway in my front garden. This Pleioblastus viridistriatus will look fantastic in the spring, its fresh foliage bright and vibrant.
Roughly 15-20 years ago, before I had a real garden and my yard was mostly turf grass and locust trees, I was given a sign. A portent, omen. A glimpse of the future. Or perhaps it was meant to be an inspiration.
There's no denying it now: winter is here. That doesn't mean that the garden doesn't hide some beauty though. You don't need blooms to make a garden sing to you during the cold months.
There are only four (or five) types of birds that visit my feeders after I switched to safflower seeds. Fortunately they're some of my favorites, so I don't mind the lack of variety.
Something a bit different today...
Refreshingly cold as I first stepped out onto the deck, clues that this was a holiday lost behind the sliding glass door to the kitchen, an ordinary winter night surrounding me. Full trash bag in one hand and flashlight in the other, I paused before descending the stairs. The fact that I had slipped on the wrong sort of shoes for this time of year made me focus on the patches of ice remaining on the stair treads before me, and it was in this quiet, still moment that I heard the footsteps.
Even though temperatures are back to normal now -- even a bit above with high 50's F expected at least one day this holiday weekend -- we had a pretty severe cold spell a week or so ago. Temperatures dropped to a low of 13ºF (-10ºC) one night, and there were a few days in a row where it didn't get above mid-20's F.
I tend to focus on the "big" aspect of overwintering plants: dragging the towering potted papyrus inside, digging up the huge colocasia (elephant ears), mulching the bananas with 250 cubic feet of leaves or more. There's the small side of overwintering too, the little details that might get overlooked.
Sun-loving plants indoors under fluorescent lighting does not make the happiest of scenes. These plants want to be basking in the sun's brilliance, not subsistent in the feeble shine of those glassy tubes.
I've written about my start in gardening before, where falling trees in my yard created impromptu planting beds, and the bug bit me. That was around 2002, maybe a year or two earlier. So I've been a gardener for about 15 years or so. Or so I thought.
Still cold here, and getting colder (tonight's low is forecast to be 13ºF/-10ºC). The big surprise though was snow yesterday.
Suppose I asked you to tell me everything you know about plants and gardening. Not the specific plants themselves -- I don't want you to create a list of plants -- but things in general: how to plant, what tools to use, where to get plants, how to create good soil, pest management, etc. Everything you can think of related to your garden. A daunting task, right? Now suppose that I asked you to include details on how you learned each of these things, especially if you learned it from another gardener.
Hello polar vortex! Displaced again, are you? The middle of the country is getting an early taste of what will probably be another harsh winter, and although it made me do a lot of work in a short amount of time, I'm glad to have the cold air come in and take out the mold spores.
I've been quite busy recently, not only preparing for the cold air that's now here and is resulting in low temperatures of 25ºF (-4ºC) or less every night this week, but with some work deadlines. So I haven't had much time to think about putting together a post. I did see a few things yesterday that stood out for me though, enough so that I took a couple of minutes off from moving pots and digging up plants to capture some images.
Do you ever feel like you're trying to solve a giant sliding tile puzzle when working in the garden? You know those puzzles: there's only one tile space available and you need to move all of the others around utilizing that one space until the whole thing is solved.
My friend Loree over at Danger Garden has been encouraging her readers to choose a favorite plant from their gardens every week. She does this in her "favorite plant of the week..." posts, and although I'm not organized enough to pick a favorite every week and post about it, sometimes a plant really shines and I take notice.
Since I've been writing this blog for almost five years now with almost 1600 posts, you'd think that I would repeat myself quite often. It seems inevitable that I'd inadvertently visit at least a few topics more than once, doesn't it? Good gardens change every year though, as do the viewpoints of their gardeners. Throw unpredictable weather, some travel, and pure chance/luck into the mix and you get almost continual variety in post subjects. Repeating myself hasn't been a problem (I hope).
Well, it is for me. Pollen counts are not very high at this time of year, so what gives? It turns out that pollen doesn't bother me too much. My nemesis in the allergen community is mold spores. The falling leaves bring beauty, but autumn rains -- as we're getting this morning -- trigger a mold spore outbreak.
I've been testing another product this summer, one that is important but not essential in these modern times of connectivity: a thermometer! Is it strange that I've never had a thermometer in my garden until this year? My problem was being spoiled for choice: there are so many different types of thermometers available, how would I choose the right one for me? I knew that I didn't want to go strictly functional, so something plastic or digital wasn't right.
Although the freezing temperatures won't arrive until tonight, I brought in all of my tender plants yesterday. As usual, this was before I really had a place to put them all.
With cold weather creeping into the garden, and our first sub-freezing temperatures coming tomorrow, there will soon be less to see around my yard. These are some of the things I'll be missing soon...
I really love early autumn, when the leaves have started falling but the coldest weather hasn't arrived yet. When a cool, sunny morning invigorates you, an extra morning jolt.
Both are fruits that you won't be seeing in my garden, but the combination of the Musa basjoo hardy banana leaves and the orange fall colors of the bald cypress Taxodium distichum make this corner of the garden such a happy place on a sunny autumn day!
It's the time of year when my small pond is in peril. One of the suggestions you'll read when deciding where to put your pond is that it should not be near large trees due to the shade they provide and the leaves they will drop. Of course I put my pond directly under a large maple -- I didn't have another choice!
The question posed in the title of this post is meant in two different ways. The first is a general "how does it happen?", and the second is actually "how does it happen to me?". I'll get to the second one soon, but first, everybody who grows plants has a favorite "type" or genus. Something that really gets them excited like no other plants do, and results in them having a collection -- even though that was never their intent when they started gardening.
I don't do many product reviews on this blog, as I don't think that's what both most of you come here to read. Occasionally though I'm contacted by a company that sells a product that I think would be worth reviewing, and today you get to read about one of those.
Recently I started removing a climbing rose that was infected by Rose Rosette Disease. At the time I just pruned the poor thing to the ground, saying that I'd remove the roots later.
Earlier in my gardening career I had much more time for discovery, and finding fresh mushrooms was one of my delights. I'd grab my point-and-shoot Canon set to macro mode, lay down on the grass or mulch or whatever, and snap away.
I have a lot of gardener friends. Not as many as some people, but quite a few. Although a few of them live in the St. Louis area, most of them live in different parts of the country in completely different climates -- which makes some of their blog posts a challenge to read for me. Sometimes it's the talk (and photos) of really wonderful plants that I've never heard of, when I'll sort of nod and think "ah, nice plant" but then put it out of my mind. If it's a zone 7 or 8 woody plant, I can't grow it (probably) so why torture myself thinking about it?
Yesterday I showed you what's in bloom in the garden right now, getting up-close and personal with the plants -- something that I haven't done for a while. The result is that I saw some of the inhabitants of the garden...
Did you know that every month on the 15th, garden bloggers post photos of what's in bloom in their gardens? Carol at May Dreams Gardens is the host for this meme, and although I don't regularly notice that the 15th is approaching until it's too late (and I see other Bloom Day posts appearing), this is probably the last chance for blooms before winter sets in so I gave an extra effort.
Summer was fairly dry in St. Louis, as my water bills will indicate -- there was much hose dragging around a few months ago. Now though, things have changed. Since September 1 we are something like 8" above our normal rainfall amount.
Although it's been ten months since the polar vortex reminded us cold-climate gardeners that we shouldn't get too comfortable with mild winters and caused quite a bit of bamboo damage in my garden, I still have reminders of it: the dead bamboo culms that I left on three or four of my plantings.
I've decided to remake one of my newer planting beds. Maybe. I'm strongly considering it. I have a hard time removing plants that seem to be doing fine, but in this case I think I've almost convinced myself it's the right thing to do.
You'd think that with at least 30 in-ground plantings of running bamboos that I'd be hesitant to plant more. You're wrong of course, and having 30+ already is not a deterrent. To be honest, once you plant the first running bamboo and properly maintain it every year to keep it from spreading, adding another isn't such a big deal. Then the next thing you know you have 10. Then 20. Then you stop counting.
Cooler fall weather always invigorates me, making the horrible, put-off garden tasks look almost fun. The shorter days probably help too, as I know I can only get an hour or so of work in out there after my day job, and an hour isn't so bad, right?
A few years back -- four I think -- I built a copper trellis and planted a climbing rose outside my kitchen window. It was labeled as 'Fourth of July' rose, which should have had red blooms streaked with white.
I mowed my lawn for only the third or fourth time this summer -- one of the few advantages to a drier-than-normal season.
If you've been upset by all of the shorter posts I've been making for the past few weeks, and wish I'd do one of those 40-photo monsters, you're in for a treat! Today I show you the last garden from July's Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, a big, mature, "anything goes" type of garden.
As the garden transitions into autumn, the grasses and foliage become more important, as there isn't too much in bloom right now. Certainly the things that have been blooming all summer are contributing: the maypop and cypress vines, Salvia greggii, Agastaches -- but there's really nothing that is just starting to bloom.
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