Yes They Exist!

Okay, so maybe you are not as horticulturally ignorant as I am, but until recently I still conceived (even with all my vast training) of flowering bulbs as a spring and fall thing. There is, however, a whole series of options that add interest throughout the summer. Here are a couple of my current favorites found in Hershey Children’s Garden:

• Eucomis comosa  is the pineapple lily. This semi-hardy South African bulb provides interesting spikes of color for a solid week (if I recall) and the broad, coarse leaves add great textural interest.
• Many lilies, Lillium sp., are wonderful to behold. An unknown orange cultivar, pictured above, is blooming as I write this article.
• Triteleia sp. is actually a cormous set of fourteen species, but it’s delightful summer blue is worth pointing out. The blooms last for approximately a week and definitely like more sun. Come see such a display as seen below.

Mixed What?

I have come to love mixed garden borders. Borders in general are long narrow plant compositions meant to be viewed from one side. The most commonly discussed and most difficult to design is the classic formal herbaceous perennial border like Cleveland Botanical Garden’s C.K. Patrick Perennial Border.

The mixed garden border is the slightly easier and more interesting design as far as color, form and texture are concerned. The mixed border at the front of Hershey Children’s Garden is a good example. Mixed borders are simply border designs planted with a mix of woody and herbaceous perennials and annuals.

I love the mixed border because of the greater variety of color, texture and form options. I also think they tend to be easier to plant and coordinate the timing of flowering, etc. Herbaceous borders tend to require more plant material, thus increasing their complexity. One other feature of the mixed border I like is the extended seasonality of the design. Herbaceous borders tend to have a shorter window of display. Woody plants add seasonal interest from winter to winter and annuals push color throughout the main growing season.

Other gardeners can have their herbaceous borders. Me, I am going to keep it mixed up.

Posted by Josh Steffen

One thing that fascinates me about the human relationship with plants is our nearly universal love for flowers. From a strictly biological perspective, the attraction doesn’t make immediate sense. The love of flowers seems to speak of spirituality and creativity unrelated to any daily survival concerns. I’m definitely not prepared to dissect this, or veer into philosophy. But don’t you think it’s interesting that we are so compelled by something we don’t usually eat, wear or cure illness with? (Edible flowers are a special topic that I hope to feature in a later blog. Medicinal ones are important of course, but it’s often the bark, leaves and roots that concern us, not the flowers.)

Throughout history, people have assigned plants (flowers in particular) all sorts of symbolic meanings, which are often quite unrelated to their usefulness. In a recent installment of the Garden’s monthly “Twelve on Tuesdays” program for seniors, we offered drop-in visitors the chance to put together miniature bouquets of beauty and meaning.

Using a reprint of a charming little Victorian-era book called The Language of Flowers as our guide to the “secret code” of flower meanings, we used zinnias (thoughts of absent friends), balm (sympathy), chamomile (energy in adversity) and sweet basil (best wishes) to compose a nosegay to give to someone ill or convalescing. Another combination was: honeysuckle (sweet disposition), coreopsis (always cheerful), ivy (friendship, fidelity) and fern (sincerity) to express appreciation to a constant friend.

This was actually quite fun, and it was interesting to speculate on how particular flowers got their significance. I’ll be composing my bouquets with a whole new dimension from now on!

Posted by Ann McCulloh

Changes Are A Comin’ to Our Sod Roof

If you are a regular visitor to Hershey Children’s Garden, you know that Garden staff members are constantly experimenting with new ideas to enhance the visitor experience. One of the favorite features of the garden, the sod house, is getting particular attention at the moment.

The sod house is a little play house set at the edge of the Children’s Garden prairie. Traditionally, the roof is annually planted with a wildflower sod mat. When I arrived, the flower mats were too expensive, so I went with a drought tolerant turf grass with wild flowers individually planted into the sod. Soon, all that will change.

This June, a team of contractors and garden staff are finishing work on enhancing the plant composition, as well as the structure itself. The entire wood frame has been rebuilt, and a rubber liner has been added along with modular planting trays used in conventional green roofs. The last phase will be seeding a mixture of low-mow grasses and native perennials. Come see the finished product soon!

Posted by Josh Steffen

What Shall I Do?

A visitor stopped in the garden today wondering if I have a problem with little four-legged, cute, long-eared vermin of the much breading sort.  In fact, in my first spring in the garden, I had one little fella who nearly wiped out all my newly-planted vegetables and annuals!

Many homeowners face the same problem. This particular visitor continues to see her precious perennials disappear or become short nubs. "Is there anything a rabbit will not eat?" was the anguished cry. When rabbits are really hungry the answer is, "precious little."

So, what can you do? Well the good news is that there are several options:

• The Elmer Fudd Method: You can attempt to trap your rascals and put them in your annoying neighbor’s yard waaaaay down the street. The downside is, nature hates a vacuum. The rascal’s cousins will move in.
• The Rabbit Delight Method: You can plant a crop of something you particularly do not care about in a far corner of your garden. The rabbits might eat the trap crop and not your lovelies. I have seen violets work well for this task.
• The Nasty Stuff Method: You can apply various types of repellents, such as human hair, fox urine, moth balls and various pepper sprays. The downside I find is that, again, when rascal is hungry, forget the nasty stuff.
• The Walking Yummy Method: You can try an outside cat or dog. There are public gardens and nurseries across the country that employ such a method.
• The Alcatraz Method: The most effective method I have found is a simple physical barrier. One method is to place chicken wire fencing (buried at least two feet in the ground) around the most critical areas during the most critical times (when there is very little else to eat). Another method is to use milk jugs, two-litter or twenty-ounce bottles to cover individual plants over night. Also, you can try covering various plants with white sheeting over night.

Posted by Josh Steffen

The "Right" Place for a Rose

Whoever said that life is a bed of roses was loony. They clearly never spent any time working in a rose garden. Roses are a high maintenance plant, period. They require lots of attention, fertilizer, water and weeding (do not get me started about weeding among roses, ouch).

I think roses are ideal in a lovely mixed planting of shrubs, herbaceous perennials and annuals. I like variety and roses become a lot easier to manage when mixed in among other garden plants. If you’re not careful, a bunch of roses in the same place could be a smorgasbord for all kinds of pests. Spread your roses throughout a garden and watch your pest problems diminish (do not read as “gone completely”).  So, there you go. Now it is out. You know the "right" place for roses in the garden.

Posted by Josh Steffen 

Plain Dealer Night Picture Editor Jon Fobes has a new floral slideshow that you can check out at cleveland.com. He snapped some of the photos here at the Garden!

I’m frequently asked, “Why did the Garden choose to display only Madagascar and Costa Rica biomes?” At the time we were planning and designing the Glasshouse, it was decided that we would concentrate only on these two places because they had cool, endemic plants and we really wanted to give visitors an immersion experience. We wanted visitors to see not only weird plants, but also the animals and the geography of Madagascar and Costa Rica. This concept also set us apart from other botanical gardens, which have conservatories that tend to display plants from all regions rather than in a highly-focused manner.

Today, this still presents us with some challenges: how do we keep people coming back once they’ve seen the Glasshouse? In the winter, when Madagascar is dormant (yet still beautiful in my opinion) and visitors walk through on their way to see the butterflies in Costa Rica, how can we make visitors slow down to enjoy Madagascar? As a society, many have become numb to the normal, daily happenings in life. What people do not realize is that you don’t need constant change to be engaged. Each time you visit the Glasshouse, or any garden or zoo, take a few minutes to slow down and watch the plants and the animals. I guarantee you will have a different, wonderful experience every time.

 Posted by Cynthia Druckenbrod

Two Heliconius butterflies diving into a Psiguria vine in search of pollen.

Limited Choice - Hmmm…What To Do

I am writing a series of posts about eight principles of education integrated into the design and activities of Hershey Children’s Garden and how you can use these principles with your little green thumbs.

Principle number two: let those kids run wild. Let them do absolutely whatever they want to do. The sky is the limit! Or should it be? Most of us do not fare well creatively without some parameters and some sense of definition. "Don’t give all the possibilities, just give me the best ones," I can hear myself saying. Anyone who has walked onto a university campus without a declared major knows the paralyzing feeling of not knowing where to start.

The Children’s Garden is designed to give visitors limited free choice. There is a fence surrounding the entire Garden with only one way in and one way out. There is also one wide path that circumnavigates the entire space. In between, however, there are many small paths connecting different parts of the big loop. Children can take whatever avenue they want. They are free to explore within the given parameters.

The same idea can be applied to gardening activities, too. Most kids have no idea what a gardener does, so give them some options:

"Want to plant a many-colored vegetable garden?"

"Want to plant some seeds?"

"Today, you can choose to do the weeding or the composting."

"Where do plants get their energy?" (There is a reason why kids and adults both like multiple choices!)

Until next time, what gardening options have you given your kids today? You do not have to wait until spring to start!!

You could give your kids the options of:

1. Windowsill gardens

2. Painting flower pots for the spring

3. Having them research and plan a flower or vegetable bed, including buying the seed

4. Getting down on the worm farm

5. Reading a good gardening book (Shameless plug: The Eleanor Squire Library at Cleveland Botanical Garden has excellent storybook options!)

Mimicry in nature is a fascinating phenomenon. It’s well known that certain butterflies deter predators by resembling other bitter-tasting or poisonous butterflies. It’s slightly less common knowledge that many orchid flowers lure pollinating insects by “tricking” them with the appearance of offering nectar, homes for their eggs, or even a mate of the opposite sex.

One of the most visually arresting examples of orchid mimicry is offered by the Central American Reed Orchid, Epidendrum radicans (pictured bottom left). These bright red and yellow flowers look so much like the Tropical Milkweed, Asclepias curassavica (pictured top left), it’s hard to believe that the two plants are completely unrelated. They are often found growing in the same environments.                     

Butterflies and hummingbirds are both drawn to brightly colored flowers, with a special preference for the colors red and orange. Hovering birds and delicate butterflies need flowers that provide easy access without obstacles to their wings. They also require abundant nectar to fuel their constant motion. The tropical milkweed satisfies on all counts, while the orchid has the bright colors and accessible flowers, but is stingier with its nectar. The orchids get pollinated without expending all their energy on nectar production.  There are thousands of different orchid species with unique and fascinating pollination strategies. Many of these are yet to be discovered and described.