Ficus maintenance

I spent the 3 hours of my shift almost entirely occupied by a single chore: scrubbing the black sooty mold off of the thick, leathery leaves of a ficus tree. The tree is in D2 (display room 2, tropical rainforest of New Caledonia) located in the northeast corner of the room. The sooty-mold problem had become more noticeable since the collapse of a tree which had been hiding the ficus from view. The collapsed tree had become very top-heavy, on a spindly trunk unable to support the weight of its own canopy.

There were a few minutes to perform a few other smaller chores: cleaning up leaves from D4.

B showed me how to use the computer located in the workroom to enter my schedule into their online calendar. I entered the dates I would be coming to the greenhouse through April, 2023. I’ll have to remember to fill out their calendar when I return from my winter trip in April.

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I celebrate learning this about cycad plants

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The eponymous palm of Palm Springs

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Another routine spectacular day in the greenhouse

It has been a sincere pleasure for me to volunteer a few hours a week at the University of Minnesota Botanical Conservatory. After many visits over the last few years, exactly none of those days have felt ordinary or repetitive. If there is a routine , it is that the botanic diversity of the collection - with over 3000 species - is displayed in a spectacular way each day. The Conservatory is located on the St. Paul campus, and is free of charge and open to the public during typical weekday hours. For instance, today most of my allotted time was spent in just one of eight rooms, the room that houses the tropical collection. The chores included pruning, re-potting, spraying, sweeping, etc. As I moved through the room, in every direction, there seemed to be a stunning plant pleading to be admired. After the chores were complete, I had the opportunity to go back and photograph some of the beauties that surrounded me while working. Dendrobium tangerinum , Papua New Guinea Dendr...

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