by GardenLover | Jan 1, 2012 | Happenings
By Teresa Woodard
Escape to a rainforest filled with hundreds of orchids –right here in the Midwest, not Panama or Colombia. The Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis will open its annual Orchid Show on January 28.
Step into a renowned collection of some 800 blooming orchids, including Cattleya, Laelia, Epidendrum, Oncidium, Paphiopedilum and other varieties. This year, the 5,000-square-foot Orthwein Hall will be transformed into an architecturally-inspired Chinese strolling garden with the 30 oversized, tasseled silk lanterns suspended overhead. Don’t miss the tour’s podcast in which you’ll learn tidbits like the orchid collection was once housed outside the city because of pollution and the conservatory once made $50,000 a year selling cut orchids to the floral trade.
Other Events:
Jan. 1-8 Pineapples & Pincushions – The Art & Science of Patterns in Nature at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, University of Michigan
Jan. 14 Treeswhispers Exhibition opens at Chicago Botanical Garden.
Jan. 14 Garden Dreams: A Saturday with the Portage County Master Gardener Volunteers
Amherst, WI
Jan. 18-20 Mid-Am Horticultural Trade Show, Chicago, Il
Jan. 22-25 OSU Nursery Short Course and P.L.A.N.T. Seminar, Columbus, OH
Feb. 4 Sustainability Symposium: Eat Your Yard, Cleveland Botanical Garden
by GardenLover | Jan 1, 2012 | The Dirt on Roots
By Michael Leach
“Amend the soil” appears as a commandment in almost every gardening how-to book and article. For good reason. Roots are work horses ensuring a plant’s survival.
Granted the leaves and flowers attract all the attention and are the make-or-break for inclusion in a decorative scheme. Plus they are an essential in the plant’s survival kit. Leaves make the food. Flowers make seeds. But without the roots, that amazing leafy food factory shuts down and flowers wither. End of story.
Gardeners, however, can make a happy ending by providing a pleasant working environment for roots, which take in most of the water, nutrients — and oxygen. Adding compost, leaf mold, rotted barnyard manure, shredded leaves and such helps loosen the soil allowing more air, water and nutrients to penetrate and be available to the roots.
by GardenLover | Jan 1, 2012 | Favorite Flora
Shimane Chojuraku ('Long Life') peony (Paeonia ‘Shimane Cho Juraku’)
It is fitting to start Favorite Flora and the New Year with the tree peony ‘Long Life’ — a plant that produces flowers of incredible beauty that are short-lived in the garden, but long-lived in our memory. Tree peonies typically bloom in the Midwest in early to mid-May. Mine are often in bloom for Mother’s Day. The flower above was eight inches across and held a place of honor in my dry stream garden for two days.
Wishing you a beautiful and healthy New Year –and a happy, long life.
