The New York Botanical Garden’s Plant Information Specialists and the Home Gardening Center share a wealth of experience, enlightening visitors with their knowledge of indoor and outdoor plants, ornamentals, vegetable gardening, identification, and growing requirements–to name but a few of their specialties.
It was nearly 60 degrees here at The New York Botanical Garden yesterday, a misplaced spring day that brought with it a number of questions from our Twitter followers concerned for the future of their plants. As Sonia Uyterhoeven outlined only a few weeks ago, this strange back-and-forth with warm and cold temperatures has been wreaking havoc on the plants’ growth cycles, confusing some of them into blooming early and leaving gardeners wondering if they’ll have anything to show come spring.
For spring-blooming flowers, the bad news is that it’s a “one and done” agreement–if high temperatures now push these plants into their spring phase early, there will be no second bloom post-winter. The good news is that if we have long stretches of weather in the high 30s and low 40s, those growths that are blooming early will last for a very, very long time. At this point the long-range forecast is still looking promising. But look at your average meteorologist’s win ratio and you’ll take predictions with a grain of salt.
New Yorkers may wake up tomorrow in a warmer zone, according to the just-released, internet-friendly 2012 USDA Hardiness Zone Map.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released a new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM) for the first time since 1990, updating individual zones with much greater accuracy and detail. This could mean a shake-up for seed distributors and gardeners alike, with a slightly different range of plants being recommended for certain regions across the country.
Also for the first time, the new map offers an interactive format using the Geographic Information System (GIS) and the map website incorporates a “find your zone by ZIP code” function.
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.
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.
The season is winding down, meaning it’s a good time to reflect and take stock of what was grown in the garden this year. If I don’t keep my records and notes, the observations that seem cemented in my mind will have evaporated into a fuzzy haze of vague recollections in no time. As such, I will begin some initial record keeping here.
At our side entrance gate we planted a trio of coleus (Solenostemon) cultivars. We selected ‘Green Card,’ ‘Saturn,’ and ‘Brooklyn Horror’ for variety. The first two are large-leaved specimens, while the latter has very fine, feathery foliage. In terms of color, ‘Green Card’ is a bright citrine green while the other two are a luxurious combination of the same iridescent green and a rich burgundy.
A few weeks ago, I was displaying some grasses and sedges for a home gardening demonstration when a woman asked me what the difference is between the two. Naturally, there are anatomical and sometimes cultural differences (always generalizations) between these similar plants, however, they are often categorized together and thought of as the same. To help clarify the differences, we will begin with a useful mnemonic:
Sedges have edges, Rushes are round, Grasses have nodes from the top to the ground.
Grasses and bamboos are in the Graminaceae family, sedges are in the Cyperaceae family, and rushes are in the Juncaceae family. When you look at a grass or sedge, what you see are the stems, leaves, and flowers. And in the case of this explanation, the stems are referred to as culms.
I went up to our Native Plant Garden the other day to check on the progress of the restoration, an undertaking being handled by my colleagues, John Egenes and Michael Wronski.
Our Native Plant garden has been closed for the past year and is undergoing a full-scale redesign that is spearheaded by the design firm Oehme van Sweden, whose work has been seen in the Chicago Botanic Garden and United States National Arboretum. As part of the firm’s plan here at The New York Botanical Garden, the location will be broken down into disparate native habitats that include a wetland, a sizable pond, and a meadow. It will also have a large woodland area.
My colleagues spent most of their time over the last year preparing the soil in different sections of the garden, adding truckloads of compost and leaf litter. The topography of the garden has since changed and many areas have been graded, making paths ADA accessible for wheelchairs.
Last week we spoke about the art of growing giant pumpkins. Now, we will take a look at some of the creative things that you can do with your pumpkins once they have been pulled from the vine.
The chef will recommend pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, or a slice of pumpkin bread washed down with a pumpkin latte. The entertainer and the homemaker have another option, though–pumpkins crafted into splendid temporary vases. Every year I do a demonstration on festive seasonal floral arrangements intended to give visitors to The New York Botanical Garden some simple and fun home craft ideas, a few of which I have detailed here.
A giant pumpkin displayed just before carving. (Photo by Ivo. M. Vermeulen)
For the past two weekends, The New York Botanical Garden has been abuzz with the return of the giant pumpkins. We had four mega pumpkins shipped in from different parts of the U.S. and Canada. Their weight ranged from 1,693 to 1,818.5 lbs. With colors ranging from a cheerful orange hue to pale orange, green, and silver gray, it made for a fascinating variety of size and color.
They were all reclining on multiple bales of hay like Ingres’s Odalisque in a somewhat regal and enticing fashion, surrounded by a harem of smaller heirloom pumpkins and gourds.
Before the exhibition opened, I arrived early one morning to see the pumpkin aficionados carve an opening in the back of the pumpkin and carefully remove all the seeds. De-seeding the pumpkins is an integral part of the process. Not surprisingly, the seeds are jumbo sized, just like their parents. Seeds of these record-sized pumpkins go to an auction where they are generally sold for $300 a seed. Just last year one of the seeds sold for $1,600.
It was nearly 60 degrees here at The New York Botanical Garden yesterday, a misplaced spring day that brought with it a number of questions from our Twitter followers concerned for the future of their plants. As Sonia Uyterhoeven outlined only a few weeks ago, this strange back-and-forth with warm and cold temperatures has been wreaking havoc on the plants’ growth cycles, confusing some of them into blooming early and leaving gardeners wondering if they’ll have anything to show come spring.
