Watering the cloud forest room

I rode my bicycle to the greenhouse today. The plan is to continue this practice until it gets too cold in the Fall to be comfortable on a bike. On arrival I could see several of the outdoor native cacti had already bloomed. Several more were starting to bud out with flowers. There was only one small native cactus with an active yellow blossom.

I began the day watering the plants in room C1. This is the “cloud forest” room, with quite a wide variety of plants including the Hawaiian Brighamia and several species of cymbidium plants, and a few cool-hardy cacti too. My favorite flower of the day was an impatiens plant with dark rusty red leaves and a blossom that looked like a small white lady slipper.

Next, Curator J..., B... and I walked over to the Cargill Building to place the large Agave americana into a plastic saucer. We had to coax the plant pot off of the small wooden dolly into the saucer sitting on the floor. Luckily, we got it placed into the saucer with a minimum of scratched and bloodied arms. The plant sports razor-sharp spines along the edges of its leaves!

I helped B and Curator J remove part of the metal grid holding most of the Tillandsia plants. The cork panels are held in place by thin wires which are now rusting through. We took down the grid and removed the cork panels and rusting wires. Tomorrow Curator J and B will begin to catalog the plants and identify the name of those that have lost their labels. Then, they will reattach the panel using stronger, rust resistant wire. There were a few Tillandsias that were in flower, with lovely purple/lavender bracts.

Finally, I spent the remainder of my time there picking up leaves and trimming overgrown plants in room D2 and D3.

Comments

Rebuilding the support for vanilla vines

Raining in February The morning began with a walk in the rain from my car to the Conservatory greenhouses - in the month of February. According to the calendar, we should be in the depths of winter. The precipitation today should be snow not rain. The storm system that we're experiencing is probably related to drenching rains moving inland from the west coast. I met Coordinator A... at the door of the Conservatory. His office desk faces one of the main doors to the building. He cannot escape observing everyone who enters...poor guy, it must be distracting for him. Anyway, as soon as I entered the building we started to discuss his plan for my activity of the morning. He offered me the project of rebuilding the support for vanilla vines which have been suffering from overexposure to sunlight and dry air. A bit of background The vanilla plant (Vanilla planifolia) is in the orchid family. It is native to Central America and Mexico. The seed pods were used by the Aztecs to flavor coc

Frankincense and Myrtle: Fragrant Treasures

If you were raised in the Christian religion, you've probably heard of frankincense and myrrh. But, do you know much about them, beyond being fragrant commodities as precious as gold? Until today, I could not have described frankincense, myrrh, or citronella. But, by the time I was finished with my volunteer shift at the U of M Conservatory greenhouse I knew more about them. However, I will have to wait for another time to actually see a myrrh tree. I'm not sure if the Conservatory has a myrrh tree. I do know myrrh is in the Burseraceae family, the same family as the frankincense tree. They are not in the myrtle family as the name would suggest. The myrtles (or Myrtaceae) are the gum trees of the Australasia, one which gives us citronella (see below). Maintenance of small trees The day's duties assigned to me were to provide general light maintenance to a group of small trees located in the desert and subtropical rooms of the greenhouse. Maintenance included pruning and mak

Infection control in the Conservatory, from mundane to amazing

Volunteering at the University of Minnesota's Conservatory Greenhouse As mentioned in prior blog posts, for the past three years I've been volunteering for a few hours a week at the Conservatory greenhouse at the St. Paul campus of the U of M. This blog is about activities there, and the many fascinating and beautiful plants in the collection. A little background about plant infections Everyone who has cared for a plant, from houseplant lovers to professional nurserymen, has learned the hard lesson that plant pests and diseases are an inescapable fact of life. All plants, domestic or wild, are susceptible to the infectious agents and parasites. Plants in their native habitats are largely protected by the ecosystems surrounding them, where pests do not have the luxury unfettered consumption. Plants grown indoors have been removed from their ecosystem and they are sitting ducks for parasites to proliferate unchecked. Indoor gardens rely entirely on pest control methods with var

City Gardener

Search This Blog