Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is a blogger for Garden Variety News and the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org.
Roy Diblik, designer and nurseryman
Roy Diblik’s new book, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden, out this month from Timber Press ($24.95 paperback) and available in NYBG’s Shop in the Garden, is a veritable goldmine for gardeners dreaming of lush, low-maintenance planting designs. The book provides dozens of fresh, detailed plans and gorgeous color photographs of easy-care, yet highly artistic, gardens.
Diblik is a designer and nurseryman best known for supplying the extraordinary perennials—around 26,000 plants in all—for Dutch designer Piet Oudolf’s inspiring Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. Diblik actually grew many of the plants and helped with the layout and design. He has more than 35 years of experience as co-owner of Northwind Perennial Farm located in the rolling hills of southeastern Wisconsin.
The book contains 62 garden plans laid out in color-coded grids. Many of the plans express themes, Diblik notes, that are “loosely inspired by the colors, compositions, and emotions” of Impressionist paintings by Cezanne, Monet, and Van Gogh, among others. Some plans replicate Piet Oudolf’s pioneering use of grasses for The High Line in New York City, and others recreate the dynamic plantings at England’s Great Dixter garden in Sussex.
My favorite iris is blooming in the Rock Garden. It is my favorite by leaps and bounds, by landslide mandate, by as many kind words and encouraging gestures as one could drum up in support of a simple flower. The bees are of like mind.
Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ in the Rock Garden – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Just beyond the glass of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, where clouds of tropical orchids form a colorful interpretation of Key West’s wholly original island atmosphere, you’ll enter a world of poetry. More than a canvas for some of spring’s earliest blooms, the Perennial Garden is also home to theOrchid Show‘s written verse (because the flowers speak so eloquently for themselves). There you’ll find placards displaying some of the finest writing to come out of the Florida Keys, from expatriate poets as diverse as James Merrill, Richard Wilbur, and Elizabeth Bishop—all of whom found a second home near the Southernmost Point.
Not content to let these works stand alone, we enlisted some of the country’s brightest modern poets to lend their voices to their predecessors’ pens. This Sunday, April 6, join us for our once-only Key West Poetry Reading as these published writers recite the lyrical legacy of warmer climates. And if you haven’t already paid a visit to The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary, now is as good a time as any!
Our cadre of visiting poets certainly doesn’t lack for skill or accomplishments, as you’ll see below.
I can be very sentimental when it comes to gardening, and the subject of today’s topic always brings a tear to my eyes: onions. My favorite onions are bunching onions (spring or green onions), though they are not the culprits that make me cry. Spring onions are an incredibly versatile delight that can be tossed into a salad or sauce at the last minute. Instead, it’s their pungent cousins that get me, so let’s talk about them.
You will notice that onions are listed as three separate growing types: short-day, intermediate, and long-day varieties. Onions are sensitive not only to temperatures but to the amount of daylight, as well. Short-day onions will start to form their bulbs with 11-12 hours of daylight; intermediate types need between 12 and 18, and long-day onions only form their bulbs after receiving 14 hours or more of sunlight.
Northerners grow long-day onions that are planted in the spring, southerners plant short-day onions grown in the winter, and intermediate types are generally planted in early spring and harvested in summer.
On April 1, the Rock Garden reopens for the season after an extensive, winter-long restoration of its historic features! Visitors will be able to admire water running down the cascade and into the pond for the first time in years. After remaining dry for so long, the stream is now active again, as well as more water efficient.
The soft bubbling of the stream accompanied by the wind rustling the branches has defined the tranquility of the Rock Garden since its establishment in the 1930s. Originally a project of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, the Rock Garden was showing its age and was in great need of restoration. Head through for a sneak peak at the final product before tomorrow’s debut!
It’s almost the weekend, and that means more exciting events and activities in store with The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary! Saturday is another Orchid Evening, and with tickets still available you should think about booking soon—they’re going fast.
Ayesha Adamo will be our DJ for this week’s party, backed by a signature cocktail known as the Four Roses Cooler. A refreshing yet warm blend of bourbon, grapefruit, honey and lemon, this one’s not to be missed. We are also mixing things up at our Orchid Demonstrations, covering Orchid Tips for Amateurs in the GreenSchool of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Head below to check out the rest of this weekend’s activities, both indoors and out!
