Training a Stephanotis vine; Nescodon cleaning

I met coordinator A... in the workroom where he was inspecting a Calycanthus occidentalis plant heavily infested with whitefly. The plant is native to California, called western sweetshrub or spicebush. It has large red blossoms. He put the plant outside in the rain until he decided how to protect it from the whiteflies. I asked him about his experiment with scale insects and the three types of predators he had purchased. Unfortunately he was not happy with the set-up of the experiment, the plastic bags were too wet causing the wasp predators to stick to the plastic rather than attach the scale insects. He also said the type of wasp was probably incorrect for our soft shell scale insects, and they are better suited for hard shell scale.

Stephanotis vine

Coordinator A... then assigned to me the task of cleaning and pruning a Stephanotis floribunda vine (Madagascar jasmine). The vine sits in a 12-inch pot on the sill of the workroom. The vine trails overhead along pipes and metal support beams. I had to find a tall ladder to reach the vine. Carefully I untangled the vines as best I could, and let them drop onto a counter top in the workroom. The lower part of the plant was infested with mealybugs. I used soap, water, and alcohol spray to clean the leaves and stems respectively. After cleaning the plant, I found an old plastic tray to cut into a support base to sit snuggly on the slanted window sill. The base allowed the pot to sit secure and squarely on the sill. Then, I lifted the vine back onto the overhead metal beams. On branch of moderate size was pruned near the base to allow for new growth nearer the pot. I can imagine when the plant is in bloom the workroom will be filled with the scent of jasmine!

Next, coordinator A... asked me to trim and prune the Nescodon plants in room 1C. The old leaves are dried and falling away, they look messy. A said he and J are currently focusing on the cloud forest room while the weather is still warm enough to work in there comfortably. Perhaps I'll be able to write about the Nescodon plant in the future. Basically, it is a unique plant from Madagascar famous for being one of the very rare plants with bright red nectar. The pigment of this nectar is being studied at the University of Minnesota for its colorful properties. The color of the nectar attracts the pollinator of this plant, the gecko.

Nescodon plant

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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

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