Tidying the desert plant display room

There are many recognized types of biomes on earth, scientists disagree on the number, but some estimate up to eleven different types. Displayed at the U of Minnesota Conservatory greenhouse are four different biomes selected for their diversity of plant life: antarctic forest, diverse desert, mediterranean scrubland, and ancient rainforest. Today, Coordinator A.. asked me to help clean the beds in the Diverse Deserts display. This room is open to the general public, and it gets quite a bit of traffic compared the to collection side of the greenhouse which is not open to the general public without appointment or supervision.

The Diverse Desert Room, D4, has four large beds filled with desert plants. The ground cover between the plants is made of granite pebbles. As time passes, leaves and other detritus from the plants fall to the ground cover, gradually coating the surfaces with debris. Today was the day to get down on hands and knees and clean out the debris from the granite pebbles. I used a small hand-broom to gently lift and sweep the debris onto the concrete path winding through the beds. Also, some of the smaller tree shrubs have grown to the point they need support to lift them up off the ground of the beds. We used twine ties and stretchy garden tape to tie branches to the fence railing which separates the display area from the collection side of the desert room.

For example, two of the larger shrubs are Plectranthus igniarius and Adenia venenata. Plectranthus igniarius is from tropical Africa, it is popular for its colorful flower spike (similar to that of coleus flowers). Adenia venenata has deeply lobed leaves on long green vines. White flowers in the spring are fragrant, with a sweet vanilla-like scent.

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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

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

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