Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Gardening Tips
Posted in Exhibitions, Gardening Tips, The Orchid Show on March 1 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
We are celebrating Cuba this year in The Orchid Show. While Cuba lays claims to great national parks such as La Güira National Park and Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve, which houses the exquisite Jardín Botánico Orquideario Soroa (Soroa Orchid Botanical Garden), historically, the island wasn’t immune to the ravages of colonization and industrialization.
When Christopher Columbus sailed into Cuba in 1492, he encountered a tropical paradise covered with old-growth forests full of Caribbean mahogany, walnut, ebony, cedar, pine, and oak. This vast arboreal expanse was a paradise for Cuba’s native fauna and flora, including orchids. But the ideal wasn’t to last, giving way to deforestation and sugar cultivation.
At one time, according to https://www.thetoolboss.com, the felling of trees was regulated by the Royal Forest Reserve, which prohibited the indiscriminate felling of trees so that specimens could reach a certain height to supply shipbuilders with timber for masts, keels, and hulls for the Royal Navy.
But a greater threat to the environment and its ecological communities existed: a wholesale deforestation of the island by the sugarcane industry.
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Posted in Gardening Tips, People on February 22 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
Last week we looked at how Dan Pearson transformed landscapes through his naturalistic vision and his skill as a designer. Today I’ll detail some of his practices that you can use in your garden.
When Pearson was young he would observe plants in the wild, studying where they grew and the patterns and associations they formed with other plants. As a result, his planting style is never rigid, and plants form loose and successful partnerships with one another.
Gardens are rarely just a healthy conglomerate of plants. In a discussion of hardscapes during his lecture, Pearson said to think of gardens as needing “good bone structure.” The walls and other structures in the garden are meant to be recessive, fading into the background and offering support for the dynamic plant palette; they frame the space.
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Posted in Gardening Tips, People on February 16 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
Just like Beethoven took ordinary musical notes and elevated them through simple and complex melodies into his immortal symphonies, the well-known British landscape designer Dan Pearson (right) has the ability to transform space into visual wonderlands.
Pearson was at the Garden last month for the first of three lectures in the series From the Ground Up: Gardens Re-Imagined. He presented Into the Wild, an exploration into his natural landscapes.
I was prepared for a talk on how a talented designer re-creates the artifact of nature on his project sites—not as nature would herself but as an artist reinterpreting and reconfiguring nature’s portrait. This point was certainly made and beautifully illustrated.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on February 8 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
In last week’s blog post, I discussed the virtues and drawbacks of balled and burlapped (B&B), container grown, and bare-root trees. Before I move on to planting particulars, I’d like to first talk about the roots of trees.
The average person on the street would probably describe a tree’s root system as made up of large roots that tunnel deep into the ground. The logic is sound—many trees do have deep vertical tap roots that keep them anchored in the ground and stable.
The majority of a tree’s root system, however, spreads horizontally. These roots are just 12 inches deep and stretch and branch over a large surface, producing tiny hair-like roots that absorb water and nutrients. If you’ve ever seen a fallen tree, you’ll note a sizable horizontal slab of soil that had been uprooted with the tree.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on February 1 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
One of the highest arts or noblest feats in life is to put new and ambitious ideas into practice. New Yorkers were promised “a million trees” to green the city, combat greenhouse gases, and improve the quality of life. Can it be done? Thanks to some phenomenal research by the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University that makes planting street trees easier, the answer from the horticultural side of the equation is “yes.”
Trees are sold three ways—balled and burlapped (B&B, see photo), container grown, or bare root. They all have their advantages and disadvantages when it comes time to plant.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on January 25 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
Don’t Forget Foliage as well as Flowers in Garden Design
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
In last week’s tip I reviewed the basics of good garden design to remember while facing the onslaught of catalogs that tempt us to do more in our gardens. So what are some of the hazards in designing your garden from the glossy images you find in your winter catalogs?
For one thing, sometimes the colors in the catalog can be misleading. Years ago I cut and pasted photos from a catalog to create a collage of perennials for a border based on a specific color scheme. It looked glorious on paper. When I arrived at the nursery, I realized that many of my combinations didn’t work, because I had based my design just on the flowers shown in the photos, without consideration of the foliage. My pairing of perennials changed drastically, and I was forced to rethink my plan in terms of the entire plant.
Catalogs often do a beautiful job of showing us photographs of the flowers, but they rarely give us adequate views of the foliage, which is just as important. A good design should still look good even when the flowers are gone. Break up color combinations with areas of neutral shades where your eye can rest. Focus not only on color but texture and form.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on January 19 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
Keep These in Mind When Faced with the Season’s Onslaught of Catalogs
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
Now is the time of year that every good gardener gets inundated with new catalogs. For the plantaholic it’s a blessing and a curse. The feeling of a kid in a candy store is rekindled in even the most reticent gardener. The curse is that there is never enough time, space, or money to satiate our herbaceous or woody appetites.
However, the cold winter months are an ideal time to dream of redesigning your garden. I love spreading all of my catalogs on the living room floor and getting to work on lists or colorful collages of plants. To help navigate this challenging terrain, here are lessons learned and a few guidelines.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on January 11 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
During summer you will often find around the Botanical Garden weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) growing in decorative containers, as they look reliably good all season long.
Most of you, however, grow weeping figs as a houseplant. It is one of many favorite choices for the indoor gardener, even though it can be temperamental. One of my grandmothers (not the gardener…the other one) had very little interest in growing plants, yet she had a glorious weeping fig in her living room. In spite of several minor catastrophes during its lifetime, it was resilient and always rebounded to its former glory.
Ficus benjamina, a tropical plant from South Asia, is a member of the Moraceae family, which includes mulberry (Morus), Osage-orange (Maclura), and breadfruit (Artocarpus) trees. In tropical regions Ficus benjamina can grow into a huge specimen with aerial roots. In warm climates devoid of high humidity, the tree does not develop aerial roots but still grows to a respectable height. Weeping fig trees are commonly used as a hedge in California.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on January 4 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
They are ubiquitous during the holiday season…and for good reason. Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are full, colorful plants with an enormous amount of festive appeal. As many of my botanically savvy readers know, the flowers are actually minuscule. The beauty of the poinsettia comes from its large, colorful bracts.
My personal delight with poinsettias is that they come not only in the traditional yuletide red but also in cream and rosy-pink. Whatever your taste, they seem to adorn every church altar and brighten up many homes at this time of year.
I cringe, though, when I see people walking down the street with an open poinsettia in hand, exposed to the elements. Please be an informed shopper and insist that the florist or retailer wraps the plant. This can simply mean temporarily covering the plant with a shopping bag. Remember that this tropical plant cannot handle cool temperatures.
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Posted in Gardening Tips on December 28 2009, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
This was the year that The New York Botanical Garden and the entire nation celebrated edible gardens. A slew of beautiful and interesting fruits and vegetables flooded the market, and local farmer’s markets became very trendy. I make it a habit of going to the Union Square Farmer’s Market to search out tasty fruits and vegetables for my own table: for eating as well as for displaying in easy-to-make centerpieces. I bought a rustic, square wooden plate for my centerpieces. The container or plate you choose to showcase your creation is just as important as the centerpiece itself. Buy one that fits your decorating style.
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