There are many scientific textbooks around that will tell you all you ever cared to know about soil analysis, plant physiology, and propagation techniques. These tomes all have their place if you have the endurance to plow through them chapter by chapter.
If we are to conjecture what an antipodean approach would look like, then perhaps gardening to lunar cycles would fall at the opposite end of the spectrum from scientific research. The reality of the situation is that information, from whatever quadrants of learning it stems from, is just information–it all tends to intersect at some level. I find all types of knowledge useful. Ultimately, it is about cultivating your own gardening philosophy.
This year is the 20th Anniversary of our Antique Garden Furniture Show. In honor of its celebration, I will review some of the basics for maintaining antique garden ornaments, but my best suggestion is that you stop by the show from April 26 through 28 and talk to the experts. We will have over 30 antique dealers who specialize in garden ornaments, catering to a wide range of tastes and budgets.
In anticipation of the show, I have been perusing the library’s collection of books, finding inspiration not only in the traditional tomes filled with marble nymphs and cast iron urns, but from modern design books that suggest repurposing local material.
I have started to construct my dream garden piece by piece. One item that is at the top of my wish list is a 19th century terra cotta oil jar from Italy. It was traditionally used to hold vats of olive oil, but in its modern rendition would make a wonderful focal point in an herbaceous border.
I walked by a restaurant in my neighborhood and realized it was closing down. Large industrial-sized pots, pans, and trays were piled up on display in the window to be sold off for a bargain the next morning. My eye caught a colander in the midst. I stared longingly at the colander and sighed, knowing that I wouldn’t be around when the doors opened for the sale.
I love collecting good, sturdy cookware for my own kitchen, but my motives that night were different. The large colander would have made a perfect planting container–perhaps as a hanging basket or a round, squat container that would have added an elegant touch to an intimate terrace garden. Unlike the small ones that I buy at retail stores for draining my pasta, this industrial colander was about 16 to 18 inches in diameter. It was crying out for a collection of herbs, sedums, hens and chicks, strawberries or colorful cascading annuals. It even could have become a home to mesclun mix.
If you haven’t already gone out to buy your seeds for your vegetable garden, now is the time to do it. I have been reading Steve Sando’s ‘The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide’ and would like to talk today about an overlooked topic: heirloom beans.
Some of you may sigh and think, “Oh, beans! Why doesn’t she talk about heirloom tomatoes or peppers?” But beans are one of the easiest things to grow in the vegetable garden; as legumes they are nitrogen fixers, so they don’t deplete the soil of nutrients, and they come in a delicious variety of mouthwatering flavors when you grow them from seed (I’m not kidding). Some are nutty, some are buttery, some are starchy, some are creamy and some are meaty.
Last week we discussed basic orchid care and explored how to assess your home as a suitable place for growing orchids. This week we will grab our wallets and talk about buying an orchid. You may have noticed that orchids are not cheap. Their price has dropped measurably over the past decade due to tissue culture and the ability to produce orchids on a mass scale. But even with all of these advances in propagation techniques, they still command a decent price.
If you are spending between $20 and $50 on an orchid, you will probably want it to last for some time in your home. Following a few simple guidelines will help you ensure that your orchid flourishes. I am frequently asked if it matters where you purchase your orchid since this often influences the price. High-end florists and nurseries will have a better selection with many exotic and unusual varieties. Big box stores will have a limited selection of the standard fare.
Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.
For all of those orchid neophytes or orchid wannabes, this article is about giving you some courage. Not enough bravado to go out and buy a vanda or a masdevallia–that would be foolish to start–but hopefully the resolution to take a stab at a moth orchid, a slipper orchid, or dancing ladies.
Let’s start from the beginning, because wise purchases come from planning. Walk around your home and look for the empty spaces that you would like to fill with orchids. What does the light in this area look like? If you are not sure, place your hand 12 inches above the spot and see what kind of shadow is cast on the area. If it is a well-defined shadow, you have bright light; if fuzzy, you have medium light; and a faint shadow signifies low light. If there is no discernible shadow, then it is not the right place to try and grow a plant.
To the chagrin of my more tropically-inclined colleagues, I have been resisting the temptation to sing the praise of dendrobiums for years. “Give me an oncidium any day,” I used to exclaim. “They are easier to grow and I will not kill them!”
Initially, it was true… I had issues with dendrobiums. If the vegetative growth (foliage and pseudobulbs) in many orchids is fairly unattractive when they are out of bloom, the cane dendrobiums are positively ugly.
I do not like them in bloom; I do not like them out of bloom; I do not like them Sam-I-am with green eggs and ham! I was adamant. They looked like mutant orchids, outcasts in an otherwise pulchritudinous family–the Orchidaceae.
Doug Tallamy (Photo courtesy of the University of Delaware)
Doug Tallamy’s lecture started from a basic and logical premise: if you take away the places for wildlife to live and feed, you will lose your wildlife. We are all aware that habitat destruction leads to a loss of species, but very few of us believe that we can make a difference or that we are directly linked to the process. I mean this in a non-judgmental way and from a place of empowerment.
Some of you may think that this is an early case of ‘election fever,’ but alas it is not. Last month I sat in an auditorium and listened to a very convincing and lucid proponent for environmental restoration and species diversity. Regardless of his own political views, with respect to the biome Tallamy is definitely not a democrat. “All plants,” he asserts, “are not created equal in their ability to support wildlife.”
Last week we were discussing vertical gardens, or “living walls,” a specialty of French botanist Dr. Patrick Blanc. Since we are now in the midst of our spring Orchid Show, today we will explore why orchids are such good candidates for vertical gardening. With somewhere in the area of 70% of all orchids being epiphytic, members of the Orchidaceae family were destined to climb.
Orchids that dangle in the air–sometimes known colloquially as air plants–are classified as epiphytes. Epi- means “on top” and -phyte means “plant”–essentially growing on top of another plant. The relation the epiphyte has with the host is not parasitic (where it is harming the host), nor is it symbiotic/mutualistic (where both parties benefit), but rather commensalistic (where one benefits and the other is neutral). The term commensalism is derived from the Latin meaning “sharing a table.”
It turns out that the French botanist and designer, Patrick Blanc, is in fact very green. If you are unaware of his reputation as “The Green Man,” the eccentric eco-artist and designer sports bright green hair, and electric green nail polish painted on a long, curvy thumb nail.
With a strong background in botany under his belt, Blanc has explored the natural world while traveling extensively throughout the tropics. Through his travels he has paid particular attention to how plants situate themselves in their native environments–tangling and twisting amongst other species, climbing over each other, and colonizing small territories in diverse communities.
Blanc has paired his fascination with plants and their natural communities with new technologies, and is now one of the leaders in the field of vertical gardening, or “living walls.” In this day and age when space is at a premium–particularly in urban environments–vertical gardening is quite literally a breath of fresh air.
There are many scientific textbooks around that will tell you all you ever cared to know about soil analysis, plant physiology, and propagation techniques. These tomes all have their place if you have the endurance to plow through them chapter by chapter.
