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Doom and bloom: a visit to Houston’s Bayou Bend after the freeze

Last weekend I was in Houston for a friend’s memorial service. While there, I toured the gardens at Bayou Bend.

These are the opposite of a wild garden, very formal and completely delightful—most of the time. How did they look after February’s arctic freeze?  Not so good by some measures, but also not too bad, considering.

Houston does have an arboretum that emphasizes native planting—kind of like Powell Gardens meets the Lakeside Nature Center—but that’s where the service was, so I was eager to see something different. Bayou Bend is the estate and gardens of the unfortunately named Ima Hogg, an Adele Hall-type who poured her energies and fortune into worthwhile projects for the citizens of Houston. To enter, visitors cross a footbridge high above the sluggish, dirt-colored Buffalo Bayou.

It took a lot of creativity and imagination to envision this as the site of anything—estate, garden, or city. But lo and behold, look what a little imagination can do.

The mansion houses a premier collection of early American decorative arts, displayed in period rooms. The grounds cover fourteen acres, eleven “rooms” surrounded by woods. There is a pleasing contrast between the wild areas and the formal gardens, four of which are named for goddesses or muses. Visitors enter through Clio garden, where the Muse of History herself looks out from the center of a parterre, a formal circle of boxwood-lined beds that contain plantings of azaleas. No doubt these are stunning when in bloom.  Here is a historic photo, and the way they looked on February 28, 2021.

Clio gardens then
…and now

Even in their dormant state, the plantings make a pleasant impression.

The house looks out over a lawn and stunning garden named for Diana, goddess of the hunt. The mobile tour says this garden was built in 1939 to host a meeting of the Garden Club of America.

The statue of Diana stands out against “walls of evergreen yaupon hedges,” a type of holly, but the Japanese yews (Podocarpus macrophyllus) clipped into columns are what stand out to me.

Japanese yew (Podocarpus macrophyllus)

The East Garden lawn is lined with low boxwoods clipped into S’s. All the edging is brick pavers. The fountain wasn’t working on the day I visited.

Bayou Bend’s East Garden

The azaleas in the East Garden were among first to be introduced to Houston.  According to the tour, Ms Hogg helped popularize them in the 1930’s. A time when they were unfamiliar is hard to imagine, as they are ubiquitous now.  The River Oaks Garden Club’s annual garden tour is called the Azalea Trail.  Normally it would be held this week, but because of COVID, the next tour has been pushed back until 2022—a stroke of luck, given the state of the gardens this year.

From a distance, the rust-colored foliage of the frozen azaleas resembles blooms.

Some might be interested to see the environment where Bayou Bend is located. It is not a typical neighborhood. Here is a peek through the fence at the next-door neighbor’s house.

Is that work by Louise Bourgeois and Magdalena Abakanowicz?

A walk through woods on winding paths brings visitors to a garden named for Euterpe, the muse of poetry and music. Nearby are two remarkable trees, both older than the house, an American sycamore estimated to be 150-200 years old, and a loblolly that’s about 150 years old. (I didn’t get a picture of the loblolly, but it is big.)

I think it’s interesting that Bayou Bend doesn’t seem to showcase any of the spectacular Live Oak trees Houston is famous for. (You can get an idea of the sculptural quality of these trees from the photo of the neighbor’s house.)

Although most of this year’s flowers may be casualties of the freeze, I suspect that the majority of the azalea bushes will be okay.  If they’re not, they’ll be replaced.  That’s the way Houston is. It’s nothing if not resilient–I can go on and on about the place and its can-do character. The fact that city exists at all is a testament to people’s imagination and will (and wealth).

Even though many people there are still without power and water, Houston is getting on with the business of being Houston. As I was leaving, I noticed crews of workers digging up and replacing the dead annuals in front of my hotel, while tiny leaves sprouting on the trees made a green mist on the horizon. At Bayou Bend, although the damage is no doubt extensive, some of this year’s azaleas are determined to bloom–like these.

New plants for a shady spot

Remember my last post when I said the worst was over? I was wrong. For weeks I had no thoughts about gardening. None. Everything was frozen. The days were something to be gotten through. Then suddenly, everything changed. Even though the ground is still partially covered, it’s like a dam burst. Ideas are starting to emerge like dirt from the snow. It’s almost March. Time to buy. In fact, last night I looked online at Prairie Nursery, my favorite supplier, and the plant I had my heart set on is sold out. Panic!

I operate best with a plan, so I hurried to come up with one for this area by our front door. It’s unexpectedly empty after we lost a Japanese maple last year, a dark spot, permanently shaded by the house and neighbor’s trees. The ivy growing there makes it even darker. Although the maple had pretty red leaves, people brushed their heads against it on their way to the front door. My main objection was that it blocked the light coming through the north-facing window. My neighborhood is full of trees planted in front of windows.  That’s almost its signature.

Voilà! It’s gone–presenting new problems and opportunities.

I did some research and sketched a plan on a yellow pad, roughly to scale.

Here’s what I ordered.

Ceanothus americanus (New Jersey Tea) Blooms in July, August. 2 – 3’ high. The description says “popular with hummingbirds.”

Packera aurea (Golden Groundsel) Blooms May-June. 1 – 2’ high. “The nectar and pollen of the flowers attract small bees such as little carpenter bees, cuckoo bees and various halictid bees.”

Eurybra divaricata (White Woodland Aster) blooms in August-September. 2-4’ high. “Deep green foliage looks great all season…Asters are particurily beneficial to late season pollinators when so many other flowers have finished blooming. The seeds are consumed by winter songbirds.”

Total cost: $46.93.  The plants will be three-inch plugs, so I don’t expect they’ll be too impressive looking at the start. They also don’t arrive until the week of April 13, which gives me time to attack and eliminate the ivy.

It’s a dead zone now, but I’m looking forward to brightening this dark corner with white and yellow flowers.

This may be too many plants for this area but we have another shady spot in back where they may work if they don’t fit.

I decided a red twig dogwood would disappear against the similarly colored bricks. They also grow to be six to nine feet tall, so I will keep thinking about that for another location.

I’m really excited about this plan–and I’m proud of myself for taking a risk, because I’m not familiar with any of these plants. (It’s not too big a risk.) I learned about them from my Know Maintenance Perennial Garden book and the Dyck Arboretum blog. Speaking of the Dyck Arboretum, I signed up for this week’s session of their Native Plant School on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, about sustainably sourcing flowers.

I’m going to do my best to enjoy these last days of winter, because I have a feeling things are going to speed up very soon.

Next up: red twig dogwood

Sure, it’s blah out, and cold, but the hard part’s over. Punxsutawney Phil may predict six more weeks of winter, but what’s six weeks?  After all we’ve been through, six weeks is nothing.

If you’ve been outside much, you must have noticed buds forming on the trees and daffodils beginning to sprout. More birds are at the feeder. This morning I spotted some early tulips the rabbits have munched down to the ground. The rabbits living in our yard are the size of cats. My strategy is to enclose plants they find attractive with cylinders of wire fencing. I have a lot of wire fencing. 

Now that we’ve taken down some problem trees, we have two new areas to work on, one in back and another in the front of the house. My mind was blank about what to do with them, until suddenly it wasn’t. I’m thinking about planting red twig dogwoods.

A neighbor down the street planted a few in front of his house. They stand out against the yellow wall. 

In real life they’re more colorful than the photo. The red branches are striking in winter, and I like the way they stand out against the snow. Copper and orangey tones lift the spirits on gray days.  They remind me of the red willows growing along creeks and streams near Santa Fe. 

Here’s what I’ve learned.  Some dogwoods with red twigs are native to Asia, but Cornus sericea, commonly known as red twig dogwood or red osier dogwood, is native to North America. As the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOTGAR) says

  • They tolerate shade but are happiest in sun.
  • They require pruning, because the new stems have the most vivid color. “Any loss of flowers through spring pruning is not terribly significant since the small flowers of this dogwood are rather ordinary.”
  • They spread by suckers.
  • They look best planted in masses.
  • Several articles recommend pairing them with yellow twig dogwoods

I think they might do well in the site I’m considering, although they will undoubtably disappear in front of the brick wall.  

Before…
The area in question, before and after we removed a dead Japanese maple

Maybe a yellow twig dogwood would be better, come to think of it. The site is shaded on the east by our vestibule, and the west by the neighbor’s spruce, which is ailing. MOBOGAR mentions that the dogwoods are vulnerable to bagworms, which is probably what’s plaguing the spruce, so that may be something to worry about. Also, since they grow to be six to nine feet tall, I will need to find a dwarf variety to prevent it from blocking the window. A quick search turns up a likely candidate, “Arctic Fire,” that tops out at 36-60 inches and is also more shade tolerant.

Incidentally, Scott Vogt, the instructor of the Dyck Arboretum’s Native Plant School class I attended in January, recommends dogwoods for wet areas.

As you can see from the photo, English Ivy covers this little plot. I will begin removing it on warm days, starting soon. I predict that will take quite a while–so expect posts about eradicating English Ivy in the next few weeks.

For this area, I also thought I might adapt this plan from Grow Native : Native Garden Design: Front Yard Formal Shade.

However, I’m not confident all of these plants will do well in such a shady spot.  Solidago? Monarda? Seriously?

I very much like the look of this Golden Groundsel, Packera aurea.

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/FullImageDisplay.aspx?documentid=75809

Doesn’t that look more interesting than English Ivy? It’s such a dark, forgotten corner right now, I love the idea of brightening it with color. The descriptions I’ve read of Packera aurea say “full sun to part shade,” so I will consult my knowledgeable friend before committing.

I still have time to plan before placing my order with Prairie Nursery on February 14.  In the meantime, the most thrilling thing having to do with gardening that I saw this week was a presentation someone shared on Facebook by Andrew Marrs Garden Design in Bloomington, Indiana. They posted fifteen photos with descriptions that show before, during, and after the installation of a naturalistic garden in a suburban backyard, complete with plant descriptions. It is magnificent. Their business website shows images, but of the finished result, not the process. If you’re on Facebook, you should definitely take a look. 

One of life’s great mysteries is that days scooch by, while years fly.  Hang in there. Spring is on the way!

Anticipation: planning for spring, ways to save money

In the garden, January is a quiet month.  Most of its pleasure comes from thinking about gardening, not from gardening itself. This may the case every month, come to think of it.

But things are happening: the world is gathering force for great change. Hard little buds have formed on the trees, and the foliage for some early bulbs is already pushing up through the mud. It’s a time for transforming hazy ideas into concrete plans, with budgets.

In the Facebook Kansas City Gardening Group, I see frequent posts asking when to start seeds. I’m not planning to grow plants from seeds myself, although I have brought home a few interesting-looking seedheads from plants I’ve passed in the woods. I’m not sure what they are. I’ll keep you posted. Last year I succumbed to temptation and sowed some yarrow seeds in a Styrofoam egg carton. I set them in a sunny window near my desk and misted them each day. Sure enough, they sprouted. They were very slow-growing.  I put them outside on a warm day and they drowned. Raindrops pelted them flat. They looked like a bunch of wet threads. They were too far gone to revive, so into the trash they went.

I understand they would have taken a few years to bloom.

Of course, not all seeds require so much patience.  Usually, I direct sow some alyssum and zinnias, and I probably will again this year, but I’m not going to get too worked up about seeds. They appeal to me in part as a way to save money. Every gardener I talked to last year commented about how expensive gardening can be.  Last year, my strategy for saving money was to stick to a plan.

Last week I mentioned Roby Diblik’s The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden, which contains several plans for home gardeners like me to use as jumping off points. (That’s his garden at the Art Institute of Chicago at the top of the post.) Each features a community of plants intended to be pretty much self-sustaining. They’re inspired by impressionist paintings or famous gardens like the High Line. The plan I’m using takes its inspiration from Monet’s The Artist’s Garden at Vétheuil.

©  National Gallery of Art, Washington

My budget was $100. I ordered plants online from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin.  They sell a 32-plant kit that can contain up to six species for $119. 

Diblik’s plan is for a 10’ x 14’ bed and calls for 57 plants from six species, not including bulbs. My plot is 5’ x 16’ and has a bunch of stuff already growing in it, including a grapevine and one productive blueberry bush. To help me visualize, I drew my plan on a piece of brown craft paper. I folded the paper into twelve-inch squares to make a grid.  Then I colored big circles where the plants would go. It looked like Twister.  I spread this paper over the ground for a couple weeks while I was waiting for my plants to arrive, hoping to help suppress weeds:  soil solarization lite.  Did it work? I don’t know. The ground is pretty inhospitable. Not many weeds have sprouted, but I don’t know what it would have been like if I hadn’t used the paper.

I placed my order on March 1. The plants arrived a few weeks later. They were plugs. I’d planned to cut holes in my paper and plant through them, leaving the paper on the ground, but I think I gave up on that. The results aren’t exactly what I hoped—I doubt anyone would recognize Monet’s The Artist’s Garden at Vétheuil as the inspiration, and who knew how much rabbits love eating asters? I blame all shortcomings on the modifications I made to Diblik’s plan, and my lack of knowledge about the plants and site. Live and learn. We’ll see how they do this spring.

I’m planning to do pretty much the same thing again this year, although I’m shifting my attention onto other areas of the yard.  I’ve learned a lot about plants, and I’m going to buy some favorites—so I’ll muck up Diblik’s plan even more. Last week I attended an online class, “Starting a Native Plant Garden,” given by the Dyck Arboretum of the Plains in Hesston, Kansas. They offer a series of education programs called Native Plant School that are a perfect fit for my interests. The presentation covered big picture topics, like where native plants are appropriate (everywhere), how they are beneficial, site considerations, and planning for succession of bloom. The presenter, Scott Vogt, used images of the High Line and Piet Oudolf’s garden at Hummelo, as well as a drawing from Planting in a Post-Wild World to illustrate the concept of planting in layers.

During the second half-hour, Vogt showed slides of recommended plants for our area. You can watch the video of the presentation here:

When these plants appeared on my screen, my pulse quickened and I felt alert. I had a visceral response to all that color, just like I do to plants in real life. 

I remember my mother telling me that on a visit to England she watched a television show that was just flower pictures. The announcer would say, “Oh, here’s a lovely one.” We thought that was hilarious, but now I’d like to watch that show on TV.

The next session in the Native Plant School is “Mighty Oaks: Kansas Natives for Your Landscape” on Wednesday, January 20. Presenter Brad Guhr wrote a terrific blog post about an ancient oak tree in December, “A Grand Old Burr Oak.”

Future classes include one about attracting Monarchs on February 3, and “The Native Cutting Garden” on February 24. The classes cost $5.

My own beds are a work-in-progress, but for inspiration, here’s an image of a mature garden that uses some of the same plants.

From The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden, 2014, by Roy Diblik. Published by Timber Press, Portland, Oregon. Used by permission

Wintry mix: plans, Roy Diblik, and hornbeams

Happy new year! 2021 is here at last, and like many of you, I’m full of plans and resolutions—or rather, full of dreams and desires I hope to transform into plans and resolutions. One day soon they’ll emerge like the ground from beneath the melting snow.

Planning the Wild Garden…

I started out years ago wanting to recreate The High Line in our backyard. Of course this is impossible, but after looking at millions of pictures and reading many books, I’ve come to understand some basic principles I want to apply.  I just don’t know how to put them into action in a pleasing way—and I don’t know much about plants. Sometimes I feel like if I could just get a plan, I’d follow it.

I picked up this pamphlet, Native Plants for Your Landscape, at a presentation at the Anita B. Gorman Nature Center. It contains four design ideas. I had my eye on the Hummingbird haven. I don’t know what happened to that idea. I may have substituted milkweed for all the suggested plants. This is what made the garden wild.

This stuff (Asclepias incarnata, I think) is aggressive.  The Missouri Botanical Garden calls it rough and weedy, and they are right. It grew into a thicket six feet high. The second year it sprouted all over the yard.

Monarch Watch says: “Fun Fact: In the past, the roots of swamp milkweed were simmered to make a tea taken in small quantities both as a general purge and to destroy and expel parasitic worms.” We haven’t tried that, but we love watching the butterflies.

Eventually my research led me to Roy Diblik’s The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden: “a simplified approach to making a design magazine-worthy garden achievable at home.”

Diblik worked with Piet Oudolf on the Lurie Garden in Chicago, and some of his work at the Art Institute can be seen by the public. I adapted two of the book’s plans for areas in my yard. One is a plan for shade, “Moments of Color,” and the other, for sun, is inspired by Pierre Bonnard’s painting Earthly Paradise.

© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Diblik says, “I designed this garden for the Art institute of the Chicago,” but I could not find images of gardens that follow either of these plans. I planted anyway.

Stachys officinalis ‘Hummelo,’ part of Diblik’s plan, and Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost,’ not part of the plan

The first thing that grabbed me about the Know Maintenance book is that Diblik despises wood-chip mulch. He describes surrounding plants with wood-chip mulch as wistful, sad, a wasteland. I always kind of liked seeing neat, brown beds dressed with dark brown mulch, so that was new and surprising. Now the sight of crews out spreading this stuff in the fall makes Diblik’s line chime in my head: “American the beautiful is now just the land of neat and tidy.”

He recommends mulching with ground-up leaves instead. “Your goal, remember, is to let the plants live in and with their own decaying leaves and stems, never again removing them from the garden.” Yes! The arrival of the leaf-sucking truck in our neighborhood has always been exciting for us, but not anymore. In fact, I wanted more leaves than I had, so I brought home some of my neighbors’ and mulched them up.

I love Diblik’s ideas, but must admit, my own results with these plans have been mixed. Some plants are doing great, but others aren’t. I misjudged how shady the strip along the south side of our yard is, and I substituted natives for some of the plants so I could buy them from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin. I also only planted small portions of each plan. 

You have to know the plant! Without plant knowledge, nothing can happen.

You have to know your site conditions.

You have to own your commitment to care and maintenance.

You have to be sure you’re telling yourself the truth.

Roy Diblik, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

I disregarded all his advice, in other words. Also, my taste is evolving. Lately what I desire is a herbaceous border like the one at Arley Hall.

Layering…

All the garden blogs, books, TV shows, podcasts, and experts give the same advice.  Begin with structural layer, then add seasonal layers, and fill in with a ground layer of ephemerals, or bulbs.

I’m missing the structural layer.

Last week we got rid of some trees, a Japanese maple by our front door and two eastern red cedars in back yard.  The maple had died. We don’t know why. The cedars were bent, twisted, and unattractive. When we moved in ten years ago, ivy covered two-thirds of the then-shady backyard, and although I dug it up and pulled it off the cedars, they never thrived. House-eating squirrels used them as an onramp to the roof. The constant thump of their galloping overhead finally convinced us to cut down the trees.  Now this expanse of our rectangle of a yard is empty, leaving the entire east side completely without a structural layer.

Potential! We will replace the trees in the spring, but with what? We are considering hornbeams.

Hornbeams not native, although that doesn’t necessarily disqualify them. In much of my reading the authors recommend creating plant communities: groups of plants that thrive under the same conditions. These may be natives, but they don’t necessarily have to be. The Missouri Botanical garden lists the European hornbeam as a Plant of Merit. And while there is an American hornbeam, I’m not sure it has the distinctive almond shape we admire.

What should we do? I’m open to suggestions. (But no snarky ones, you Moldovans.) I’ll be making plans over the next few months.

Thank you!

I’d like to close by thanking the gardeners who visited with me in 2020: Jacques Bredius, Dana Posten, Marissa Adams, Deb Guardia, and Brent Tucker. Thank you for sharing your wonderful gardens and deep knowledge of plants. I’m also grateful for the help and encouragement I received from my friends Susi Cohen and Grace Suh.

I already have some garden visits lined up for spring and can’t wait to write about them. If you have a garden you’d like me to visit and write about, please let me know how to get in touch with you. I’d love to see it.

Most of all, thanks to all of you for reading. Happy gardening and dreams of summer!

A visit to Powell Gardens’ winter wonderlands

The week after Christmas is always one of my favorites of the year. Deadlines have been met. Work doesn’t start up again for another few weeks. The pace of life slows. Usually we visit family in Texas, but not this year. Instead we’re looking at outings and excursions we can take from home.

We may put on coats and hats and drive out to visit the Festival of Lights at Powell Gardens, which runs through January 3, 2021. (They’re taking a break on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day). Now in its fourth year, the festival’s fanciful displays transform 25 acres of the gardens into a kaleidoscope of lights.  

The Festival of Lights at Powell Gardens runs through January 3, 2021..

We went earlier in the season. We’re always looking for fun, safe things to do outdoors with our friends, and this was a perfect fit.

If the weather outside is frightful, a step into the conservatory’s holiday exhibit transports visitors to the tropics.

2020 holiday display in the Powell Gardens conservatory

A holiday tradition since 1997, the 2020 display is one of the few of its type open to the public this year—perhaps the only one, as the orangery at the Kauffman Gardens remains closed because of COVID. 

The conservatory is part of the Fay Jones-designed visitor’s center. Its pyramid-shaped glass roof is a prairie interpretation of a Victorian glass house, with a rectangular pool centered beneath the apex.  The cheerful sound of the moving water stimulates all the senses.

The sight of so much color is bracing. According to horticulturist and designer Brent Tucker, this year’s exhibit contains almost 500 plants.  Poinsettias of many colors and varieties crowd the beds, accompanied by snapdragons, Cuban oregano (coleus amboinicus), Dusty miller, eucalyptus, Pink anthuriums, soft ferns, and hundreds of others.   

Conservatories are often living plant museums, showcasing plants from different environments. For example, the conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden has areas dedicated to rainforest, desert, aquatic, and carnivorous plants. In contrast, Powell Gardens’ holiday exhibit includes plants from all over the world that thrive under similar conditions.  Tucker says that in a true conservatory, the plants would be in soil, but these are all in pots. This gives him flexibility to move things around, but he has to hide the pots and water each plant individually.

This is a lot of work. An enormous amount of care goes into keeping the display fresh and alive. Tucker keeps the humidity at fifty percent.  Earlier in the season, warm temperatures outside heated the air inside, requiring constant adjustment. Like most houseplants, many of the tropicals in the display are sensitive to being moved, and react to the stress by dropping leaves or turning brown as they acclimate to the lower light and humidity levels.  Tucker monitors their health to maintain the display’s lush, tropical feel.

Anchoring the display are four trees growing in enormous pots: a striking fiddle leaf fig (ficus lyrata); two large ficus, one green, the other variegated; and one of Powell Gardens’ most unusual plants, a rare Amorphophallus titanum, commonly known as titan arum, or corpse flower. Despite its appearance, this isn’t a tree at all. 

Only a few specimens of this unusual plant are in cultivation. Titan arum blooms rarely, at a frequency that’s hard to predict. Its striking flower, called inflorescence, emits a foul odor Tucker describes as “wretched, like rotting flesh.”

New York Botanical Garden corpse flower in bloom June 27, 2018
© wikimedia commons

“The plant hasn’t flowered for us yet,” Tucker says. “I hope within the next few years it will!”

I do too. As part of the holiday exhibit, it is on display in the conservatory during the Festival of Lights, which closes on January 3, 2021.

Seeing red—and pink, and other colors: poinsettias

If you wanted a real Christmas tree this year but haven’t bought one yet, you may be out of luck. As The Wall Street Journal reports, we have a nation-wide shortage of trees, caused by more people staying home for holidays and retailers underestimating demand. Last week while I was up buying one of the last remaining trees at a garden store, workers were taking down the poles in the lot. Greenery is hard to find, too. Stores had heaps of it before Thanksgiving, but the next week most of it was gone. Now seeing pretty houses with green-framed doorways makes me feel slightly envious. However, plenty of the most-holiday-of-holiday-flowers are still available:  Ponsiettias.

Harlequin

Poinsettias bloom as the days get shorter, which makes them popular around the holidays. In addition to traditional red, nurseries have many different colors to choose from, including pink, ivory, and variegated.

Whitestar

Each year my father would give one to my aunts. Now he gives one to me. When I received it, the planting medium was very moist. I planned to keep it that way, but forgot. That was the right thing to do, it turns out. According to my friends at Family Tree, a poinsettia should be allowed to dry out between watering, about half way down the pot. Then soak it.

Speaking of variety, the holiday exhibit currently on display in the conservatory at Powell Gardens offers plenty of inspiration. Horticulturist and designer Brent Tucker has grouped poinsettias with other plants that thrive under similar conditions. The lively mix of colors and textures is a visual feast.

The 2020 Powell Gardens Holiday Exhibit mixes red and ivory poinsettias and begonia, Cuban oregano, peperomia, and snapdragon.

Tucker begins ordering poinsettias in January for the following year’s display.  Small, rooted cuttings arrive at the greenhouse in summer, where gardeners coax them into bloom by November.

Ivory and red poinsettias with Cuban oregano, peperomia

Native to Mexico, Poinsettias are members of the Euphorbia, or spurge, family. What we think of as their colorful flowers are actually bracts, or leaves. The tiny yellow flowers in the center are called cyathia. Poinsettias change color in response to lower light levels, and getting them to re-bloom can be tricky.  Plants must be kept out of the light and stay healthy, and they won’t be as bushy and compact as ones from a greenhouse. Family Tree Nursery provides detailed instructions for the determined. In warmer climates poinsettias can survive year-round as green plants. When I lived in Houston I planted one in the yard that grew to be five feet tall and was as gangly as a young chicken.

Poinsettias’ popularity as holiday plants can be traced to the efforts of horticulturist and nursery owner Paul Ecke of the Ecke Ranch in Encinitas, California. He was first to develop their commercial potential. His promotional efforts included giving free poinsettias to television studios during the 1960s. Ecke also perfected important propagation techniques, which he kept secret.

Vintage postcard: Field of poinsettias grown by Paul Ecke

A 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times compares the Eckes’ dominance in the poinsettia market to the DeBeers in diamonds. “The Ecke family had a virtual monopoly on the world’s poinsettia market largely because no one could figure out how they produced uniformly perfect plants with multiple branches emanating from a single stem—the so called Ecke style.”

Eventually somebody leaked the nursery’s secrets, which ended their monopoly but led to the creation of many new varieties. Apparently customers’ interest in new poinsettias is insatiable.

Poinsettia prices vary widely, ranging from $40-50 for a tall plant to just a few dollars for a three-inch one. I saw some for sale at Lowes for one dollar.  As the folks at Family Tree point out, these are loss leaders, priced below cost to get people into the store. “Nobody is going to make a profit on a $3.99 poinsettia plant.” We’ve all have seen neglected plants languishing on the carts at big box stores, although sometimes they can be saved. The poinsettias from a nursery like Family Tree are all home grown, cultivated in their own greenhouses and carefully tended to provide best experience possible for customers.

And despite what you may have heard, poinsettias are not dangerous. Poinsettias are harmless to people. According to the American Kennel Club, they can be irritating to dogs and cats if consumed, but not serious or fatal. 

The Powell Gardens holiday exhibit will be on display during the Festival of Lights, which runs until January 3, 2021.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you all love, joy and, a wonderful holiday!

Glass Houses: fantasies you can enter

Last week I visited the conservatory at Powell Gardens and spoke with Brent Tucker, the horticulturist who designed the holiday display. I’ll talk about their colorful mix of poinsettias and other tropical plants in another post. In the meantime, our visit got me thinking about conservatories and their purpose—and about orangeries, glass houses, hot houses, and greenhouses.

The Conservatory at Powell Gardens

At one time these words may have denoted different things:  an orangery was a free-standing structure for growing fruit; a heated conservatory conserved tender plants. However, over the years these distinctions have been lost, and now we use these terms pretty much interchangeably. Whether practical or decorative, free-standing buildings or sunrooms, these structures exist to alter the normal range of seasons and protect tender plants during winter.

For me, the term conservatories conjures pictures of wealthy Europeans cultivating tropical exotics from the colonies—Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy walking down a gallery at Pemberley lined with glittering panes. Turns out, I’m not far off the mark.

The history of conservatories parallels the history of window glass, and also of wealth and fashion. Greenhouses have been around forever—the Romans had greenhouses—but early ones weren’t glass.  Roman greenhouses were basically frames built over the plants and covered with cloth or selenite. In the medieval times, ordinary people covered their windows with wood shutters or animal skins.  By Shakespeare’s day, glass windows were becoming more available, but they didn’t look like contemporary windows. Often opaque, they were made of something called crown glass, which looked like the flattened bottoms of bottles.

Innovations in glass-making technology in the mid-1600’s allowed for the production of panes.  Around the same time, growing orange trees became fashionable in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the UK, one of the earliest surviving orangeries dates from the 1670’s. Ham House in Surrey is a solid-looking brick building with long line of large, south-facing windows. Before it was built, gardeners planted the orange trees in tubs, which they covered in winter. After the orangery was built, they moved the orange trees inside and out depending on the seasons.

The orangery at Ham House, Surrey, is one of the earliest ones surviving in the UK. The large openings were once filled with glass.

Some orangeries, like the greenhouse designed by George Washington at Mt. Vernon, had in-floor heating systems warmed by fire. This is a good video.

Monticello also had a garden room attached to the house, which Jefferson called the South Piazza. Apparently, he had difficulty heating it and his plants often died. (Thanks to my friend Michael Ray for this photo.)

Monticello’s garden room © Michael Ray

The enthusiasm for oranges that swept Europe in the 17th century is hard to imagine now that every grocery store in the country stocks them year-round. When my brother and I would find them in our Christmas stockings, we scorned them for taking up valuable space. But our grandmother, who grew up on an Iowa farm in the early 1900’s, described how exciting it was to get oranges from Florida at Christmas. They must have seemed miraculous.

Built in the early 1700’s, the ornate Orangery at Kensington Palace was used for ceremonies and entertaining, as well as growing plants. Considered a significant and influential building, it has a slate roof, which limits the amount of light and makes it impossible for some tropical specimens to thrive. Technological advances in glass and cast iron during the Victorian era allowed for the construction of glass roofs, like this one on the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden.

Cast-iron frames supported curved glass roofs like the one at the Crystal Palace, perhaps the world’s most famous conservatory, designed by Joseph Paxton in 1851.  

The Crystal Palace was constructed from millions of standard-sized panes, a decision which lowered costs and sped up the pace of construction. Unlike anything people had ever seen before, the structure had “the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building. It astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights.”

When fire destroyed the Crystal Palace in 1936, 100,000 people turned out to watch it burn.

If this subject interests you, you’ll love this article, A history of glasshouses, orangeries and potting sheds, from the UK National Trust.

The conservatory at Powell Gardens is one of the few currently open to the public in Kansas City, perhaps the only one as the orangery at Kauffman Gardens remains closed because of COVID. (The rainforest exhibit at the Kansas City Zoo could be considered a conservatory.) Unlike historic orangeries, which are oriented to the south, the Powell Gardens conservatory depends on pyramid-shaped roof to let in light.

Conservatories and greenhouses create a world within a world, a tropical rainforest under glass.  Visiting them can be magical. I love going swimming on a snow day, enjoying the damp, humid air while white snow piles up against the windows. It’s fun, like wearing rain boots and stomping in a puddle. Even though I’m drawn to gardens that express authenticity and a sense of place, I love the way conservatories bring the outside in, all year round. Like an aquarium or the zoo, they nurture living treasures, educate us, and stimulate our curiosity.  They transport us to another world.

Native, natural, neither: Westwood Park’s “rat house”

Instead of posting regularly as I planned, I now seem to be posting when inspiration strikes—as it did last week when I read a discussion of this article from last Sunday’s Kansas City Star:

Owner of Kansas City ‘rat house’ plaguing Plaza area neighbors sentenced to prison

I’ve lived near this house for years and have followed this story with interest. On Facebook someone commented that they liked seeing the yard go “natural.” This got me thinking. Despite what one photo caption says, few would consider this landscape “native” or label this “naturalistic gardening.” 

I’m all for bucking convention and rethinking lawns.  But neglecting a yard does not fulfill conservation goals in any meaningful way. Instead of supporting necessary bugs and birds, not-mowing provides an opportunity for invasive species to move in—like dandelions, clover, and creeping Charlie (not to mention rats). These may be succeeded by brushy shrubs, especially Asian bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii, L. tatarica, L. morrowii, and L. x bella). In front of this house, Asian honeysuckle is growing in the gutter.

In fact, this shrub can grow almost anywhere, including shade. Its white or pink flowers are fragrant for a few days in May, and birds like its pretty red berries. (Everything I read says the berries have low nutritional content, like they’re Doritos for birds.) Asian honeysuckle is among first shrubs to green up in spring and last to lose leaves in fall. This makes it easy to spot in our landscapes, as in this photo.

This time of year, Asian bush honeysuckle is one of the last shrubs that’s still green.

In this case, easy-to-grow means easy-to-spread. According to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Asian bush honeysuckle was first imported to the U.S. from Europe in 1897 through seed exchanges among botanical gardens. The USDA promoted its use from 1960-1984, although the plant began escaping from cultivation in the 1950’s. In Missouri, the first documented escape was in in 1983. Now it’s so widespread I can’t imagine walking in a forest without seeing it. It’s not just a problem in our area: it ranges from the east coast to the Midwest and has appeared in Oregon. The plants take over entire forests and crowd out other, native species, reducing habitat for wildlife—including butterflies—that depend on native plants to survive. It’s been linked to an increase in ticks and is apparently a preferred egg-laying host for mosquitoes.  It can be challenging to eradicate.

American forests have been irrevocably changed by this plant.  It is insidious. This is what will be growing in our yards if we stop taking care of them.

Sometimes you must name a thing to see it. This morning I passed beneath a red tail hawk flying in relaxed, seemingly aimless circles over the road—making lazy circles in the sky.  I might not have understood that the banks of Brush Creek had become a monotonous monoculture before I learned to spot Asian honeysuckle. It’s as ubiquitous as trash.

Being more mindful about what we plant can yield amazing results.  The “rat house” is next door to fabulous example of what a natural or native garden can be. Dana Posten’s pollinator garden is full of rich, diverse plantings, with very little turf grass. Its beauty delights many passers-by.  It’s a planned environment, meticulously maintained—because everything we care about must be cared for.

But preserving biodiversity doesn’t have to be a huge production. We don’t have to eliminate our lawns entirely, either. As people like Doug Tallamy and Rick Darke point out, even simple steps and slight adjustments can help us rewild our yards.  Here is a list of Tallamy’s recommendations (from the Smithsonian Magazine‘s “Meet the Ecologist Who Wants You to Unleash the Wild on Your Backyard,” by Jerry Adler).

8 Steps to Rewild America

To Tallamy, the nation’s backyards are more than ripe for a makeover. Here are some of his suggestions to help rejuvenators hit the ground running.

1. Shrink your lawn. Tallamy recommends halving the area devoted to lawns in the continental United States—reducing water, pesticide and fertilizer use. Replace grass with plants that sustain more animal life, he says: “Every little bit of habitat helps.”

2. Remove invasive plants. Introduced plants sustain less animal diversity than natives do. Worse, some exotics crowd out indigenous flora. Notable offenders: Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose and kudzu.

3. Create no-mow zones. Native caterpillars drop from a tree’s canopy to the ground to complete their life cycle. Put mulch or a native ground cover such as Virginia creeper (not English ivy) around the base of a tree to accommodate the insects. Birds will benefit, as well as moths and butterflies.

4. Equip outdoor lights with motion sensors. White lights blazing all night can disturb animal behavior. LED devices use less energy, and yellow light attracts fewer flying insects.

5. Plant keystone species. Among native plants, some contribute more to the food web than others. Native oak, cherry, cottonwood, willow and birch are several of the best tree choices.

6. Welcome pollinators. Goldenrod, native willows, asters, sunflowers, evening primrose and violets are among the plants that support beleaguered native bees.

7. Fight mosquitoes with bacteria. Inexpensive packets containing Bacillus thuringiensis can be placed in drains and other wet sites where mosquitoes hatch. Unlike pesticide sprays, the bacteria inhibit mosquitoes but not other insects.

8. Avoid harsh chemicals. Dig up or torch weeds on hardscaping, or douse with vinegar. Discourage crabgrass by mowing lawn 3 inches high.

These plantings outside the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center show how attractive landscaping with native plants can be.

Adding winter interest: a visit to the Conifer Garden at Powell Gardens

This week’s snow reminds us that winter is coming, and soon we’ll be extra-grateful for plants that retain traces of green during the months when all the color has leached out of our landscape. That makes this a perfect time to visit Powell Gardens’ Conifer Garden.  What other options do we have besides junipers and yews? I have some of these growing in my own yard, as well as boxwood and holly—and I expect you do too.  But we don’t need to limit ourselves to just a few familiar choices. The collection at Powell Gardens represents almost every type of conifer hardy in our area, including pines, spruce, firs, cypress, arborvitae, hemlock, and even ginkgo. The collection now contains over 100 varieties and has been certified as a Reference Garden by the American Conifer Society.

Before I continue, I should point out the distinction between evergreens and conifers. Plants that don’t lose their leaves (or needles) are considered “evergreen.”  Conifers reproduce by forming cones.  While not all evergreens are conifers (like holly, southern magnolia, and boxwoods), most conifers are evergreen—think pine, spruce, and juniper. To complicate things more, some conifers aren’t evergreen at all.  The collection at Powell Gardens contains a bald cypress, which is deciduous and loses its needles each winter; a rare ‘Chief Joseph’ Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta), whose needles turn yellow in the fall and green up in spring; and ginkgo.  Most conifers do have needles instead of leaves, an adaptation that helps them survive challenging growing conditions. 

Located just north of the Visitor Center, the Conifer Garden is shady and intimate, on the scale of a suburban yard—which may help gardeners imagine how conifers can be used in their home landscapes, as well as give them a sense of scale. Apparently, a number-one problem people have with conifers is underestimating how large they can grow.  While the rest of Powell Gardens’ many areas are wan and faded at this time of year, the conifer area is bright with vibrant color: chartreuse, yellow, silver, and dark greens.  

The diversity of shapes and contrasting textures is invigorating.  Some of the conifers are tall trees, while others are low mounds, offering welcome variety and relief from monotony. (Most of the things in my yard are four feet high.) Some have interesting, sculptural shapes.

The area has recently been renovated. Marissa Adams, the lead for the conifer garden, and volunteer Deb Guardia began working in May, doing a plant-by-plant evaluation. They removed poorer specimens, weeded, and topped off the pea gravel mulch, which Marissa says does a great job keeping down weeds. The color and texture of the foliage stands out against the pale gravel. “Renovated means thinned,” Deb points out. The extra breathing room helps showcase the specimens and contributes to their health and vigor.

The garden originated in 2001 when gardener Marvin Snyder, a past president of the American Conifer Society, donated a collection of dwarf conifers that had been used in a temporary model railroad exhibit in the conservatory. In 2006, berms were created from sandy soil excavated during the construction of the nearby Fountain Garden. Described as “sandstone rubble subsoil,” this proved to be ideal for the conifers, most of which require well-drained soil. Our area’s heavy clay soil can be problematic for this reason. “They don’t like being to put to bed wet,” Deb says. Conifers do need moisture to get established, and they may need watering during the winter. Pruning is best done when the tree is dormant, and dressing wounds is unnecessary. 

Some conifers seem to struggle here, like Scots Pines, which have been dying off because of pine wilt.  Each species has its own potential problems and vulnerabilities. Some species of juniper are native, such as eastern red cedar, but as horticulturist Dennis Patton points out, Kansas is the only state without a native pine: “Missouri does but not locally in KC.” Conifers evolved under different, mostly colder conditions, and that makes it tough for some to do well here. Patton says, “Evergreens that are non-native struggle with our too syndrome:  Too wet, too dry, too cold, too hot, too windy and all the combinations.”

Nevertheless, as the Conifer Garden shows, Kansas City homeowners have literally hundreds of options besides dependable yews and junipers. All provide winter interest, sustained color, structural variety, and contrasting textures. With the right care, conifers of all shapes, sizes, and colors can provide beauty and interest in the garden year-round.