Cable maintenance and trellis work

I always feel happy to be back in the greenhouse. Today I was offered a wide range of duties, and said "yes" to all of them. But, there was no way there would be enough time to get them all done in my 3+ hour volunteer shift.

We decided what the priorities were, and I started the list from the top:

- repositioned an electric fan cord so that it dangled more securely against a metal I-beam

- repositioned several cables which support climbing vines. Some plants had none, some had too many

- I used bricks to stabilize the base of a wood trellis, and moved a new vine plant onto it

- I used bamboo stakes to form a teepee trellis for a small vine attempting to block an aisle

While I worked on the tasks at hand, I stopped to admire an orchid hybrid called "x-wilsonara". I also noted a lovely gloxinia plant (Sinningia helleri) sporting a hugely fat stem with crinkled crusty bark flowing out of its tiny orange pot. The stem stores carbohydrate for this epiphytic plant from Brazil...I suspect.

Orchid species: xWilsonara, which is a hybrid of three different orchid genera: Cochlioda, Odontoglossum, and Oncidium

Sinningia helleri (gloxinia), with its thick tuberous stem draping outside of the pot

Electric cord, newly positioned into the I-beam space

Using bricks to support a floppy wood trellis

Bamboo teepee trellis for a Phanera scandens plant ("snake climber")

Comments

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...

I celebrate learning this about cycad plants

I didn't know that the cardboard palm - Zamia furfuracea - is a cycad. It isn't a palm tree (don't judge me, I'm not a botanist). But it also doesn't look like the other more familiar types of cycads with their fluted upright palm-like fronds. I didn't know it is said to be the second most commonly cultivated cycad, after Cycas revoluta . I didn't know this plant is unrelated to the common ZZ plant - Zamioculcas zamifolia - although they have a similar appearance. Before today I didn't know any of these things, but now I am happy to have learned them. From the parking lot I walked to the U of M Conservatory greenhouse in near-zero F weather. Stepping into the tropical spaces was a joy of its own. But being able to learn new information and experience new procedures was a compounding factor. Joy squared. During my 3-hour volunteer shift, my initial task was to clean the parasite critters (mealybugs and scale) from the stems and leaves of the cycad, Zami...

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...

City Gardener

Search This Blog