Kristine Paulus is NYBG’s Plant Records Manager. She is responsible for the curation of The Lionel Goldfrank III Computerized Catalog of the Living Collections. She manages nomenclature standards and the plant labels for all exhibitions, gardens, and collections, while coordinating with staff, scientists, students and the public on all garden related plant information.
I recently became the Plant Records Manager here at NYBG, and when I was offered the position I thought I would be spinning plant records as a DJ at the Orchid Dinner and the Conservatory Ball. Just kidding! However, while I was fully prepared to take on the massive task of keeping tabs on the Garden’s living collections, I still secretly harbor a desire to play plant records—that is to say, to play records (or CDs, or MP3s, or whatever is en vogue now) about plants.
There’s so much good music out there about plants! Sure, there are tons of vague ditties about generic flowers (blue flowers, red flowers, wild flowers, where flowers have gone, and not getting flowers anymore) but I get particularly excited about songs that allow me to “botanize” because they’re about specific plants. Songs about plants that grow here at The New York Botanical Garden are even better.
The following is an excerpt from a conversation I had with my lovely wife regarding one of my favorite plants:
“Is it…dead?”
“No, it’s not dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, it’s what I do for a living, so yes, I’m sure.”
“I think its dead.”
“I assure you it is alive.”
“I’m just saying it doesn’t look that way.”
As thrilled as I’d be to title this blog post “The Time I Was Right,” let me set aside petty triumphs (I’ll celebrate later) and address this mystery plant that looks dead, but isn’t. You don’t often stumble across Cynanchum marnierianum for sale and very rarely will you see it on display. The reason is fairly evident—most people wouldn’t consider a plant that looks like a bundle of dead twigs all that stimulating.
Call me a contrarian, but when I hear someone exclaim how ugly a plant is, it makes me love it that much more. Let us save the pretty plants for those with no imagination! I think maybe Proust said that. I appreciate conventionally beautiful plants as much as the next person but, like Grumpy Cat or Adrien Brody, some things appear so bizarre one can’t help but love them.
Kristin Schleiter is the NYBG’s Associate Vice President of Outdoor Gardens and Senior Curator. She oversees the wonderful gardening team that keeps our flowering gardens looking top notch, curates the herbaceous gardens and collections, and manages the curator of woody plants. She lives and gardens in Fairfield, CT.
Verbena bonariensis
Deadheading or removing spent flowers is an important task in the late summer garden. Simply follow the stem under a spent flower down to the larger stem it branches off from and clip it off. Deadheading has several benefits, the most obvious being that it can make your garden look neater. Removing the spent flowers can also push side buds to break, yielding a thicker and lusher plant. Removing the spent flowers and thus the potential seed from the plant can make many plants continue to bloom in an effort to create seed and to propagate themselves. Of course, the extra benefit of removing seed is that you are also removing all the work you would have to do weeding out unwanted seedlings!
Some perennials that can be very heavy seeders are garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), hosta, columbine, many of the different decorative onions (Allium) and black-eyed Susan (there are lots of different Rudbeckia and most are heavy seeders if the conditions are right). Sometimes, as with the Rudbeckia, there is a trade off. You can remove the seeds to be sure of less work or you can leave them and enjoy the goldfinches that will sit on the seed heads and have a lovely lunch. Many seedheads can also look lovely into the winter, providing architecture in your garden long after the blossoms have faded. Of course, letting plants seed on their own can be a wonderful way to increase the size of your garden without spending any money!
Don Gabel is NYBG’s Director of Plant Health. He monitors, diagnoses, and prescribes treatments for all the plants growing on the grounds, as well as in NYBG’s beautiful gardens and glass houses. Don educates and provides horticultural advice to the staff as well as teaching the public about different aspects of horticulture. He lives in Rockland county New York.
Here we go again! Just as we find a versatile, deer resistant, drought tolerant, easy-to-maintain landscape plant, a new pest problem emerges. Boxwood has been extensively planted over the last 20 years and I always say, “If you plant it they will come.” In late 2011, the pathogen causing boxwood blight (Cylindrocladium buxicola) was documented in the U.S. Since then it has been found in at least 5 states. This pathogen attacks the leaves and stems of boxwood, and a few related plants, eventually causing defoliation and death. The Northeast is full of mature specimen boxwood, and it is a popular landscape plant for new plantings, so there is a high potential for significant impact on landscape boxwood.
This disease began primarily as a nursery problem. Since then, it has spread to the landscape through new plantings of boxwood, and into the suburban landscape. When a single genus or species is over-planted in the landscape, eventually what were minor pests, or new invasive insects and diseases, can become major problems. The disease is now found in the landscape in western Connecticut as well as in Long Island and Westchester in New York. boxwood blight first appears as chocolate black spots on the foliage. In a few days the spots develop yellow to brown rings, eventually infecting the whole leaf. In a couple of weeks, the leaves die and fall off. The stem close to the infection can have black dead lesions or cankers.
There are other words that you can use to describe the piece of land between the street and the sidewalk—“tree park” or “meridian” are a couple of them—but of those synonyms, “hellstrip” is my favorite by far.
Thanks to Evelyn J. Hadden’s instructive book, Hellstrip Gardening, I can now use that term with aplomb. Where you or I might see a neglected, soil-filled curbside, Hadden sees colorful, even edible, planting opportunities. Her photo-rich book is organized into four parts, including inspirational curbside gardens around the country, the challenges of planting and maintaining these nontraditional spaces, suggestions for appropriate plants, and how to design and keep up with the needs of your new plot.
Hellstrip Gardening manages to combine the promises of community beautification and the psychological benefits of having nature close at hand with practical and clear-eyed advice. Hadden does not pretend that you will simply plant your hellstrip and it will be appreciated by all, remaining untouched by pedestrians, dogs, rodents, restrictive city or community laws, or road work. Instead, she outlines the realities of planting in semi-public or public spaces and how to approach this kind of gardening with reasonable expectations. Her refreshing and upbeat book is a good choice for anyone who is patient and looking for creative opportunities to establish beauty where others see blight.
Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise Between the Sidewalk and the Curb by Evelyn J. Hadden, Portland, Or.: Timber Press, 2014
Walt Whitman once wrote, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” For a poet who glimpsed a universe of wonders in a mere sidewalk weed, his beard might have dropped off in amazement had he fixed his gaze upon little Aloe rauhii but it seems the best beard oil is serving him well, his beard did not fall off! Before turf-lovers get upset, it is not my intention to besmirch your lawns, good sirs and madams. Like Whitman, though far less eloquently, I simply hope to call your attention to the marvel of smaller things. Things that, perhaps, you might just miss. In a glasshouse like the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory—exploding with bold textures, extravagant colors and flowers that often flirt with the ostentatious—occasionally missing small things is a forgivable offense.
Jaime Morin is The New York Botanical Garden’s Assistant Curator in horticulture. She works with the plant records and curation teams to help keep the garden’s information on its living collections up to date. She also oversees the details of the garden’s Living Collections Phenology Project.
Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) – ripe fruit
Since its creation, the New York Botanical Garden has been a local haunt for scientists studying the phenology (the seasonally changing biological processes) of plants. More recently, the institution has invited the public to study these important seasonal markers as well through two citizen science programs.
In early 2001 the garden began a program that creates the opportunity for novice citizen scientists to collect data on the life cycle changes of plants in the Forest. Dedicated groups of volunteers traverse three different trails on a weekly basis, checking on 17 different kinds of forest plants to record their major seasonal benchmarks such as leaf emergence, flowering, and fruiting.
Starting in 2009, the Garden began to offer Citizen Science Professional Development for middle school teachers, focusing mostly on the native trees in the Forest. In turn, these teachers help their students conduct phenology research projects around their school at local parks, and on the Garden grounds. Over the years, with the support of the NYC Department of Education, the NYBG Professional Development Program has expanded its citizen offerings to K-12 teachers throughout the city.
The uncommonly cultivated cobweb flower (Platycrater arguta) is one of many rare Asian woodland species grown in the Azalea Garden. A hydrangea relative, this species is native to southern Japan, as well as a small range in eastern China, where it is considered threatened.
This deciduous shrub reaches about 3-4’ feet high and wide and is sure to stump many a horticulturalist with its lovely, unique blooms. Four-petaled white flowers form a balloon shape before opening to display abundant, large yellow stamens. Floral bracts persist into fall, adding texture while the leaves fade to yellow.
If you can find this plant at a nursery, it might be a perfect addition for a partial shaded, well-drained spot in your garden. At the center of the Azalea Garden you’ll find this lovely, well-behaved species in bloom right near the overlook.
Don Gabel is NYBG’s Director of Plant Health. He monitors, diagnoses, and prescribes treatments for all the plants growing on the grounds, as well as in NYBG’s beautiful gardens and glass houses. Don educates and provides horticultural advice to the staff as well as teaching the public about different aspects of horticulture. He lives in Rockland county New York.
The other day, a friend asked me how much he should water his plants. And oh boy was that a loaded question. “Sit down,” I said. “This may take a minute.”
Most plant enthusiasts would agree that this is not always such a cut and dry subject. Some plant fanatics even go as far as to us the Best Water Softener Systems in their gardens! What comes to mind is the litany of questions I would want to ask before coming to any sort of conclusion.
Michael Hagen is the NYBG’s Curator of the Native Plant Garden and the Rock Garden. He previously served as Staff Horticulturist for Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, NY and Garden Manager at Rocky Hills, in Mt. Kisco, a preservation project of the Garden Conservancy.
Plymouth Gentian (Sabatia kennedyana)
Summer’s definitive arrival has brought bold sweeps of color across the Native Plant Garden’s Meadow, and with so much in bloom it might be easy to overlook one of the gems of the garden, the delicate pink and white open blooms of Plymouth gentian (Sabatia kennedyana).
By its flower alone, with its delicate rayed petals and yellow and red central markings, you might mistake this flower for an unusually colored Coreopsis or perhaps a daisy, but when you see its tall, upright stems growing where it’s happy—along the wet edge of the pond next to the Boardwalk, or in among bachelor’s buttons (Marshallia grandiflora) and pitcher plants (Sarracenia sp.)—it’s hard not to realize that this beauty is something very special.
Plymouth Gentian has a patchy distribution in the wild, and can be found in just a few sunny spots in wet, open ground along the sandy and peaty shores of coastal streams and lakes from Nova Scotia to South Carolina. It is one of the few species of Sabatia that is reliably perennial among the 18 or so mostly annual or biennial species that are native to North America.
Here we go again! Just as we find a versatile, deer resistant, drought tolerant, easy-to-maintain landscape plant, a new pest problem emerges. Boxwood has been extensively planted over the last 20 years and I always say, “If you plant it they will come.” In late 2011, the pathogen causing boxwood blight (Cylindrocladium buxicola) was documented in the U.S. Since then it has been found in at least 5 states. This pathogen attacks the leaves and stems of boxwood, and a few related plants, eventually causing defoliation and death. The Northeast is full of mature specimen boxwood, and it is a popular landscape plant for new plantings, so there is a high potential for significant impact on landscape boxwood.
