Every year during the winter months, growers start parading their new introductions through gardening magazines and catalogs. It’s the annual horticultural fashion show. And the horticultural models that hit the catwalk usually tell us a great deal about current trends and market demand.
As I peruse the pages of magazines this year I am struck by the balance of practicality and aesthetic. We all love beautiful plants–there is no denying it. This year, however, beauty is amalgamated with functionality.
Rosarian Ken Molinari offers pointers on proper pruning techniques.
Pruning climbing roses is akin to a good spring cleaning. When things pile up in the home, there is nothing like a quiet winter weekend to dive into the mess and de-clutter. It is precisely what rosarians in the Northeast do with their climbing roses at this time of year.
In order for a magnificent climbing rose to look its best, proper care is necessary. Recently I spent a delightful day with NYBG rosarian Ken Molinari, pruning our climbers and discussing the best techniques and selection of loppers for pruning and sheering of roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. We have so many roses here that we like to get out early and start pruning. Find a warm day in February or early March to step outside and go to work on your climbers.
We have a strong science department at The New York Botanical Garden. Botanists of all backgrounds come here to work on topics that span each corner of the discipline, from ethnobotany to plant genomics. The scientists host Friday lectures where members of their staff or researchers from the wider community come to give presentations of their work. During the quiet winter months, I sometimes have the luxury of attending these seminars.
A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar on invasive plants. Invasive plants are an important topic for anyone who is interested in the environment and their community. With over $120 billion being spent annually on removal of invasive weeds (whether in the realm of agriculture, roadside maintenance, or habitat restoration), invasive plants are a very real problem. I always hear about it from the standpoint of a gardener and an educator. It was interesting for me to hear it from the perspective of a botanist and an ecologist. Not surprisingly, many of the warnings, lessons and take home messages were the same.
The other day I had a conversation with one of my colleagues, Ivan Ragoonanan, about his native Trinidad. During the course of the workday he often drops interesting pieces of information about the vegetation from his homeland. I was interested in an anecdotal history of some of his favorite plants.
Local customs and the different uses of plants not only tell us a great deal about the plants themselves, but also provide a wealth of information about the lifestyles of the culture and the relationship the community has to the natural world. These things bring to light the practical and utilitarian role of nature in our lives, as well as its “magical” qualities.
Continuing where we left off, we will now explore several things that home owners can do to combat winter injury. The most effective remedy for winter injury on broad-leaved evergreens is prevention; in other words, the best protection is properly siting the plants.
For the past few weeks we have reflected on the strange weather that we experienced last year, discussing the physical damage to the Garden during the October storm and the identifying characteristics that signal future issues. The erratic behavior of the weather from September onwards reminded me of a time several years ago when an Indian summer lasted well into December. The temperatures crashed in the following January and we experienced winter almost overnight.
Some of you may remember that year. For the broad-leaved evergreens at the Garden, this was the year for winter injury, and there are several reasons why a plant experiences this.
Trees possess a physiognomy and physiology just like we do. If you are an arborist, a dendrologist, or just a lover of trees, you can walk into the woods and read the life stories of your local trees simply by tilting your head upwards and carefully observing your surroundings.
In lay terms this means that you can tell a lot about a tree just by looking at it and understanding the basics of how it functions. The snow storm we encountered at the end of October was an opportunity to reflect on the intimate relation that growth, structure, and environmental impact have on the lives of trees. I subtitled last week’s blog “No Tree Left Behind” because virtually every tree was at the mercy of last October’s unexpected snow, when the majority of deciduous trees still had full canopies.
Picking up from last week’s weird weather exposé, I would like to take time today to reflect on the unexpected snow storm that hit New York and New England on October 29th. While the damage from hurricane Irene was devastating for many areas, the damage from the snow storm was far worse for the Metropolitan New York area. There wasn’t a tree that was safe from its perils.
The aftermath of the snow storm resulted in one of the most extensive clean-up operations I have experienced in my seven-year tenure at The New York Botanical Garden, and it is still ongoing. Large sections of the grounds were closed off until they were deemed safe. The public came in hordes to see both the unexpected winter wonderland and the magnificent scale of destruction. If the power and fury of nature evokes awe, she was in fine form that day.
The other day in Manhattan I passed a man wearing a t-shirt. It has been unseasonably warm this year and this was the confirmation. Throughout the fall and winter, The New York Botanical Garden has been showing similar signs of seasonal displacement and confusion. I would like to spend the next few weeks reflecting on some of the oddities that we experienced in the Garden over the past few months.
When I was teaching in our newly-restored Forest last month, part of my tour included a flowering Carolina rhododendron (Rhododendron carolinianum). It wasn’t in full flower, however there were several open blossoms scattered throughout the plant.
With the holidays around the corner, this is the time of year when we start giving the gardeners we love the gardening memorabilia they’ll adore. I am always delighted to receive new gardening books, calendars based on gardening themes, and pens adorned with silk flowers.
If you would like to give the gardener in your life–and that may be yourself–a practical gift, then I would recommend exploring gardening journals. Getting into the habit of keeping records during the gardening season is a wonderful way of compiling a history of your endeavors and organizing your seasonal tasks. Your favorite varieties can be recorded for future use and the successes and failures of the season are always instructive.
