a roving reporter visits Austin, TX

If I say Austin, do you think blue bonnets? Chances are if you're a garden fanatic, you know Austin, TX as the home of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. This time of year is when the blue bonnets (aka Lupinus texensis) bloom, and despite the fact that the last few days in Austin have been colder than NYC, the flowers are starting to pop. It's a few weeks away from peak, but I still enjoyed the show.

Also at the Wildflower Center was a spectacular yellow jasmine (Gelsemium sempervirens) climbing up a galvanized water tank; what a great juxtaposition of color and texture. But they should really do something about the fire ant problem. Cayce's screams were heard for miles as she was dragged back to the colony.

Downtown the streets are full of music lovers enjoying SXSW. (For more about the weekend in general, click here.) Street horticulture in Austin is predictably different from NYC; the plant palette tends toward the succulent, and galvanized is definitely in.




Flying home tomorrow, and this preview of spring has got me psyched to start planting! I wonder if bottle trees are hardy in New York City.

FISH GOTTA SWIM, BIRDS GOTTA FLY

Seeds gotta grow, and now is the time.
(double click on any image to enlarge)
I used to time the planting of my first indoor seed trays to the end of the Philadelphia Flower Show. I'd come home from ten days at the show where I was selling my season's crop of dried flowers. I'd unload the truck, restore some order in the barn, and plant whatever perennial seeds I was trying that year. I started annual seeds about three weeks later.
Below, Jen's sweet pea 'Cupani' that she starts from seed and sets out in the cool spring of NH.Although I had been an inveterate planter of marigold and zinnia seeds since childhood, it wasn't until I needed to plant 200 foot rows on my farm that I was forced into expanding my seed repertoire. If I had had to buy all the plants, there would have been no Meadow Lark Flower & Herb Farm.

Low and behold, I found I could grow lavender, delphinium, yarrow, globe thistle, artemisia 'Silver King', Eryngium, Centaurea macrocephala, even day lilies from seed under the simplest home conditions. I had no heating pads, no grow lights, and didn't transplant seedlings into ever larger containers. What I had were 19 windowsills, wide enough to hold two or three standard planting trays with 48 or 60 cells each, bagged potting mix, and plastic wrap to keep in humidity till the seeds germinated. My ability to grow perennials from seed under these most primitive conditions was a revelation to me. Were plant nurseries in a conspiracy to prevent my knowing that for the $1.50 price of a seed pack I could grow 48 Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote'. Did I care if the plants were not identical? In fact I reveled in the differences.

In New York I have three long windowsills with very good light. The hardest part of growing from seed is choosing which plants to grow.
Three Rules for Growing Plants
from Seed
1. Read the back
of the seed packet.
2. Read the back
of the seed packet.
3. Read the back
of the seed packet.
Determine if the
seeds are better off
planted directly in
the garden, as my
sunflower and pop-
py packets say. Pay
strict attention to
whether the seeds
prefer to be cover-
ed with soil and to
what depth. Some
seeds need light to
germinate and get
no covering.
Pay attention to the timing. If you plant too early, your seedlings will get leggy indoors, and plants will be weak and scraggly.
This Years Choice
I need morning glories to climb up my fence. Despite all the new varieties I always gravitate to 'Heavenly Blue' for that gorgeous zap of sky in large flowers. The seed packet says soak overnight before planting, and oh yes I will.
I must have bachelor buttons, and choose 'Blue Boy' for even more heavenly blue. I'll plant these outside "as soon as the soil can be worked" says the packet from Renee's Garden. That will be this week for sure, as soon as the rain stops. If I don't deadhead assiduously, these flowers will drop viable seed and I won't have to replant next year. I'm happy to see them wherever the blow.The bachelor buttons in the photo above were all volunteers from two years ago, flying in among the David Austin rose, 'Crown Princess Margareta'.

This year I'll try for the first time Pride of Gibraltar (Cerinthe major atropurpurea)
The Cerinthe stunned me last summer in the gardens of Diana & John M. near Cardiff, Wales. It has dramatic purple bracts and foliage with a blue cast. I'm hoping that what grows in the Welsh countryside will look as dramatic on an 18th floor roof garden in Manhattan.
Below in Wales with calendula and poppies. And remember it's not necessary to have a doll tucked in your jacket when you plant your seeds, but who knows, it might help.Thank you to Renee's Garden Seeds, Ferry Morse Organic Seeds, Hart's Seeds, and Lilly Miller for feeding my seed habit and supplying me with free seeds to try.

You know it's hard out there for a tree (or a shrub)

A week of 50 degree weather has New Yorkers talking about spring, but I say they're tempting fate. Or at least pushing their luck with Mother Nature. It's still 11 days till spring officially begins, and it's not unusual for April storms to dump a load of snow just when we've let down our guard. It's often these late storms that bring the heaviest snows, and those can do the most damage to trees and shrubs.

So what can you do?


First, anytime there's a build-up (6 inches or more) of snow on a tree or shrub, go outside and shake it off. Six inches of heavy, wet snow can split a shrub or tree open. It may break the crown of the plant, splitting the woody stems, or it may simply bend the branches out of shape. Even the latter can severely disfigure a tree or shrub and require pruning or cabling to resume its original shape. Evergreens suffer most from this kind of damage since their foliage helps catch and hold the snow.

Deciduous trees are vulnerable, too. Acute branch angles are weaker than branch angles of 90 degrees. Tree branches are strong, but as a general rule damage occurs when the weight of snow or ice exceeds 40 times the weight of the branch itself. (No, I don't expect you to go outside and weigh the snow.) Some pre-snow, preventative pruning to remove highly acute branch angles (less than 45 degrees) will strengthen the overall structure of your tree and leave it less vulnerable to this kind of damage.


And finally, shallow-rooted trees can be pulled over by the weight of wet snow. This isn't something you can treat retroactively, but by making sure your trees are well and deeply watered, you'll encourage the development of deep roots that provide adequate anchorage. Twenty inches of wet snow was more than the shallow roots of this poor conifer could handle. Pulled those roots rights out of the ground. It hurts just to look at it.

THE ONLY ORCHID SHOW

photo courtesy New York Botanical Garden, John Peden photographer
The only orchid show in the five boroughs is wowing visitors in the landmarked Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden, but only until April 11. The theme of this year's show is "Cuba in Flower" designed by Cuban reared landscape architect Jorge Sanchez.
photo courtesy NY Botanical Garden, Ivo M Vermeulen photographer.
The show designer has planned the tour so you start with a tantalizing water view of the Castillo de la Fuerza, the oldest stone fortress in the Americas. Orchids cascade from the walls, drip into the pool, and are reflected in the water. From there you're on a path that takes you through the entire conservatory, where orchids are strategically placed among the permanent collection of tropical trees and vines. You'll can find the vanilla orchid, a native of Mexico, which is pollinated by a bee that lives only there. Vanilla orchids grown in Madagascar and elsewhere must be pollinated by hand, because the bee hasn't traveled.
DOUBLE CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Hunt for my favorite plant in the show, Darwin's star orchid ( Angraecum sesquipedale) with its eleven inch long nectar tube. Marc Hachadourian, Curator of the show and of the NYBG orchid collection, provided this fascinating story: because the flower opened only at night, Darwin's theory of evolution was able to predict the existence of a moth pollinator whose long tongue would be able to reach inside the nectar tube to pollinate the plant. Actual photos of of this event are now available to all on Youtube.

Stroll by more plants of
botanical interest until
you emerge into the
main theater of the
show. With Cuban royal
palms soaring, brilliant
flowers at every level,
and water reflections,
your eye flits from
image to image.

With about 7000 orchid
plants on display,
flowers are groomed
daily. Whole plants are
replaced as needed by
understudies waiting
in the wings so the show
will always look
SPECTACULAR.
Photo to the right courtesy NY Botanical Garden, Robert Benson photographer

Remember to take your cell phone so you can dial in to the narrative, greatly enhancing your experience, or plan on attending one of the guided tours, lectures or demos scheduled.
Every visitor has a camera or at least a cell phone and is vying for the best angle to capture the color and the drama. Hey, you just walked in front of my best shot. Well, it would have been my best shot if I had remembered to charge my back-up battery. But since I failed, NYBG came to my rescue with these memorable scenes of the show.
As you leave walk under the palm allee draped with orchids, and breath the air mixed with sweet and spicy scents of over thousands of orchid plants.photo courtesy of New York Botanical Garden, Ivo M. Vermeulen photographer

I beg to differ.

I know this is a city gardening blog. But since I split my time between rural PA and Manhattan, I am constantly reminded of the differences between the two locations, despite the fact that they're separated by a mere 90 miles.

During the growing season, my PA garden is at least 2 weeks behind the gardens in NYC. Frosts linger longer and start earlier, and of course I don't find too many deer munching the Rhododendrons on the 20th floor. This week, while O.E. watched robins on her rooftop, we shovelled out from under 40+ inches of snow. And by we, I mean Michael.

34 of those inches fell in a single blast, so even though the roads were clear, our driveway wasn't plowed. Which means we lugged two cats and four heavy canvas bags of absolute necessities down our 86 yard driveway. (note to self: increase aerobic workout, your endurance needs work!)




We have hunkered down, stoking the wood stove and pulling liberally from the chest freezer. No robins here, only wood peckers, tit mice, and chickadees, grateful for the bird feeder. And squirrels. Enough to keep the cats entertained, but not enough to convince Sisko to venture off the deck.


Hard to believe that in a few hours we'll be back in Manhattan, land of plowed streets, swelling buds, and early robins.

ALMOST SPRING

Nine-thirty am, still snowing, schools closed, but no child has yet made it up to the roof garden that I tend for my building. Mine are the first tracks of the day. I plod through drifting snow past the stacked-up lounge furniture and displaced planters to find the snow image I didn't know enough to look for. Five fat robins are visiting. I don't know if they had stayed in New York City all winter or had just flown back for spring, but they are eating the leftover aronia and barberry fruit. I'm not prepared, have no telephoto lens, but I'm thrilled that they stay a while in my garden.
(double click on any image to enlarge)

How did they find the 18th floor?

WHEN THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL

The living butterfly exhibit at the Am. Museum of Natural History.

Sometimes I need a place to go in winter, breathe some humid air and observe plants and wildlife, a place not more than one fare away on my Metrocard. Not the obvious destinations like botanic gardens and zoos, but the lesser known and maybe less visited finds.

I've been to two recently, one at The Rusk Institute at NYU Hospital, and the other at the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West and 81st. St.Above, an aquatic garden with fish and plants demonstrates the ecological interplay of both at Rusk.

Right, Clerodendrom in bloom in the glass house at Rusk.

Rusk is famous for it's
physical rehab program,
but they also have a hort
therapy program for
children and adults who
are patients there. Since
1958 the Enid A. Haupt
Glass House provides a
tranquil retreat for both
patients and visitors.
NYU started the first
horticultural therapy
dept. in the US in 1970 and as part of the program established an outdoor children's garden. Visitors are welcome 365 days at no charge, although to enter from the street you need to come into the hospital on the 34th St. side between First and York Aves. and pass the security guard who waves you on through to the Glass House and walled garden. Neighborhood mothers with strollers often sit on the benches to meet and greet their friends. Songs from caged finches bred in captivity and pairs of lovebirds add a charming note.
At the Natural History Museum, the butterfly exhibit (with tropical plants) is on display through May 31, 2010. There's a fee in addition to the general museum admission. I was hoping to sit on a bench, watch kids watching the butterflies sipping nectar from flowers and fruits, but alas, no benches in this smallish space; keep moving through the exhibit, so not too much tranquility here. Butterflies alight seemingly at random on hair and clothing of visitors. There's great hilarity when one perches on the seat of some nicely worn jeans, giving new meaning to the word butt-erfly.