Blooms of the Drought

Adaptations of plants are fascinating.  At times when we would least expect a plant to bloom, some species will be full of blooms.  So, why is that?

In the Garden’s Madagascar biome, we stopped watering as of October, and many of the plants have begun to lose their leaves and go dormant.  During this period, the Madagascar plants stop all growth until the spring rains return or, in our case, the spring sprinkler. The plants go dormant to conserve their stored water and nutrients; the best way to help them go into dormancy is to stop watering and fertilizing.  Do not overwater succulents or cacti at this time because most of the roots have shriveled up or are absorbing minute amounts of water. 

Why would a plant subject itself to the extra stress of producing blooms? Blooming is an aggressive act of reproduction. For those plants that do bloom during this otherwise dormant period, their flowers become a limited resource for insects and, therefore, they have a better chance of being pollinated. Blooming now also gives them a jump on the other species of plants in the spring. By being pollinated during the drought, these plants’ seeds are formed in time for the spring rains.  When the other plants are flowering, the seeds of these plants will already be rooting. These crazy plants aren’t so crazy after all.

"Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

A botanical garden is in many ways a living museum – a museum of plants. Part of a garden’s mission is to aid the protection and preservation of rare and endangered plants. Botanical gardens also educate and inspire.  I recently came across an article  on Madagascar and found it rather disturbing.

It is always amazing how quickly things can be destroyed and yet how long it takes for them to recover — if they even can. Extinct is forever.  Madagacar had a growing ecotourism base under that country’s last president.  Now that has all changed.  We should consider ourselves lucky to have such an intact slide of Madgascar here in Cleveland. The five native Madagascar baobab trees are a poignant reminder that these striking trees may not exist forever in their homeland. Hopefully, with good care, we’ll at least be able to keep ours for future generations to enjoy and appreciate.

Posted by Joe Mehalik

The Lush-est Desert in Cleveland!

Lush and desert are two words not normally together. If you haven’t seen the Madagascar exhibit at the Botanical Garden lately, you are missing out. Over the last 5 years of growth, a few care adjustments and many new plant additions have produced a biome filled with succulents.

The Spiny Desert is actually a scrub forest. Succulent plants and trees stretch above grasses and lower shrubs creating a tangled web of branch and vine. Madagascar may seem very different to a Clevelander, but in many ways it performs and acts like a forest here. Instead of snow the desert has drought. Same effect though. Plants lose their leaves, stop growing and wait for the return of rain, or in our case, the snow to melt. Once spring arrives, the plants can "grow like weeds." People believe it takes a tremendous amount of time for succulents to grow. This may be true of some species, but add lots of heat and water and you can achieve substantial growth in a short period of time.

How does this happen in the Madagascar biome? The answer is Monsoon Joe. October represents the end of the growing cycle in the Glasshouse. I stop watering plants until April. Come April/May I act like the monsoons that drench the island of Madagascar. The array of hoses, sprinklers and watering cans soak the forest for weeks. Dry soil (our mix is coir, pine fines and Hydrocks) actually repels water, so it takes a tremendous amount of water to re-saturate it. It takes over a month to get the soil moist to a proper depth in the garden after the dry winter. Plants, such as the Uncarinas, can grow over three feet in a season during this time, and the rain brings on a whole host of blooms. The plants have many ways of dealing with this change from water to drought. Underground tubers, lack of leaves, spines, and water-retaining stems help them to survive the harsh desert regions of Madagascar. So, I hope everyone, especially my fellow succulent growers, stop by and see the lush flush.

Enjoy the garden

Sticking with Geckos

 
We have just purchased a pair of Mossy Tailed Leaf Geckos (Uroplatus sikorae) for our expanding collection of reptiles.  At Cleveland Botanical Garden we keep a number of animals and insects behind the scenes to rotate with animals already on display.  When we find something of interest that benefits our biomes, like the geckos, we try to acquire them.  Matt Edwards, our Animal Care Specialist, found a pair and they arrived this week. You can look for them to be on periodic display after they have adjusted to their new surroundings.  Residents of the rainforest in Madagascar, these nocturnal geckos like high humidity and full spectrum light.  These carnivorous tree dwellers will be dining on a main course of crickets and super worms, sometimes with a calcium dusting.  Yum!

Be sure to look for their adapted feet that can cling to almost any surface. They can do this because of millions of tiny hairs called setae that branch into thousands of nanoscale tips called spatulae. These spatulae are only 200 billionths of a meter wide.  The combined adhesive ability of four gecko feet is about 90 pounds. Scientists continue to create new ways to apply the design of gecko feet using what is known as geckomimetic adhesives. The benefits are far reaching since gecko feet work under water and on most surfaces. This technology could replace glue or even screws at some point in the future. So forget that insurance gecko in the commercial and “stick” with the power of science.

New this summer in the Madagascar Desert glasshouse we’re creating a fun exhibit that showcases many new cacti and succulents that resemble coral. Tentatively titled ‘Seaside succulents’, you’ll see really cool, diverse and unique cacti that look like they’d be at home underwater or in a clay pot. I was inspired last year when talking to colleagues at a public garden conference to do something fun with cacti like this display. Also, I found a great book- Designing with Succulents by Debra Lee Baldwin. She has an entire chapter dedicated to the ‘undersea succulent garden’. Why not do a fun container on your own patio this summer using cacti that look like corals? Using drought tolerant plants in containers is very trendy right now and think of the conversation piece it would be! I think all desert plants are weird and wonderful, don’t you? They have adapted to some of the most extreme weather conditions known on earth. Imagine not seeing rain for years at time! Here in Cleveland, we begin to worry when it hasn’t rained for a few weeks! Beginning next week, come by the Glasshouse again and see our new, cool seaside succulents!

Some cool Euphorbias — or are are they corals? 

Spring comes in the Glasshouse for our avian species

While it has just started to feel like spring outdoors, the birds in the Eleanor Armstrong Smith Gasshouse have been in spring mode for weeks now. They are even more active and vocal than usual and are constantly building new nests. Of course, with new nests often come new birds. Here are a couple photos of the latest additions.

Violaceus Euphonia in nest	Young Bananaquit

     It can be a lot of fun watching the birds collect their nesting material. They often seem so clumsy as they try to tug down a dried up root from the cissus vine or untangle a piece of spanish moss from a branch, but then they are able to weave together such intricate nests!

Fire finch nest in the Madagascar biome.	Bananaquit nest (left) and honeycreeper nest complete with straw wrapper (right).

    Take a closer look at our birds the next time you visit. You’ll be able to spot bird nests in both Madagascar and Costa Rica. If you are having trouble finding the nests, ask a docent to point one out for you. You might even be able to see a bird collecting nest materials.