Skip to main content

Cleaning a conifer, with leaves rather than needles

Again I was able to cycle to the GH. The weather was a bit steamy with high humidity. There were broken clouds threatening to coalesce into thunderheads at some point - they didn’t. The sky on the return trip was sunny and hot.

My first task was to help B wash dirt plastic and terracotta pots that had been emptied. The plastic pots were going to be dipped and rinsed in an antiseptic solution of some sort - located in the pot cleaning room. The terracotta pots were to be sterilized by heat after we had rinsed out the dirt chunks. B had set up the hose outside in the courtyard next to the workroom. The pots she had selected took about 45 minutes to clean. She brought the pots to the cleaning room to finish the process. The pots will be reused, cleaning them helps to prevent the spread of pathogenic organisms:  bacteria, fungi, and viruses.


The next chore was helping Curator J and B clean the sooty mold and scale from a couple of podocarp (family) trees in the gymnosperm clade. They were both grown from seeds collected in North Vietnam, and eventually donated to the GH. Curator J is not a fan of this sort of plant scavenging - he would rather the plants were obtained through reputable processes. Anyhow, these two plants have strap-like almond-shaped leaves rather than needles (like other gymnosperms). Nagleia nagi is the scientific name of the plant, also called Asian bayberry for its fragrant seed berries. The plant is dioecious, males and females, which spread pollen by air. The habit of the tree branches does, however, resemble a small conifer tree.


The plants were covered with black sooty mold from a heavy infestation of scale, dozens of parasites covering each leaf. Curator J and I tackled the cleaning of the larger (6-foot bush), B cleaned the smaller 3-foot plant. Fortunately, the leaves are quite thick and strong, they were easily cleaned without being damaged in the process.

Conifer: Nagleia nagi (Asian bayberry)


The final task was to complete the cleaning of a small bonsai-like cactus plant:  Leuenbergeria portulacifolium. It too was covered with scale insects and black sooty mold. The challenge was to clean away the soot and scale from delicate leaves set between spine needles (arising from areoles). I found the best combination of tools was a toothbrush and a small jug of isopropyl alcohol (70%). Initially I thought it was a euphorbia because of the presence of leaves and spines. But the needles arise from areoles, which is a feature of cacti, not euphorbias. 


Cactus: Levenbergeria portulacifolium (pink rose cactus - not a euphorbia)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thrip control: peppermint and clove

Here's a question: how many natural plant scents do you find repellent? The one that comes to the top of my mind is the scent of the newly blossomed corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum . It smells very much like the name implies. If I could produce a scratch-and-sniff blog post, I would be tempted. The odor is horrible to humans, but sweet to some flying insects which are also attracted to rotting flesh. But perhaps you cannot tolerate the scent of clove, or eucalyptus? Insect pests are like us in this respect. Pests in the garden and greenhouse Insects, arachnids, fungi, and viruses. Their numbers are legion. The battle is constant. The most effective weapon is vigilance. In addition to vigilance, there are biological controls made from natural compounds which are generally non-toxic to humans. Included in this category are essential oils. For example cinnamon, rosemary, sage, neem, clove, peppermint and many others. These oils are repellent, and even toxic, to many of the pests...
Post a Comment
Read more

Remembering my former city garden

This post is more of a journal entry than a public blog post. It is interesting to me, but won't be too interesting to almost any other reader - except perhaps my partner who was there as a co-conspirator. I want to document my thoughts about the past, my backyard garden, and what we put in it. The size of our city lot was not large. At 100 x 50 ft, there was just enough room for the house, a small garage, and back yard. The driveway was shared with our neighbor. The style of the house was standard American Foursquare, built in 1903. We bought the place in the early 1990's and slowly, over the next 25 years, renovated almost every inch the house and garden. A dry stone wall was built, with terrace bed to break up the height of the wall Caladiums and dragon-wing begonias line the steps of the front porch Well-earned sit-down on the front porch after a busy day Front wall terrace with blue phlox, hostas, astilbe, snap dragons, and coral bells. Front wall terrace, brunnera "J...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more