Take a Hike Ike

We are breathing a sigh of relief to see Hurricane Ike take its huge self away from us on a western trajectory. Woe is Texas, though. The outer rain bands left us a good amount of rain and some wind, but we're not complaining. We got off easy.

This week we were excited to accept some unusual fruit trees for the future Garden. Stephen Brady, a local tropical fruit guru, donated 5 Chinese che (Cudrania tricuspidata). The leaves of this little fruit tree were used in China to feed silkworms when mulberry wasn't available. The fruit is said to be shaped a bit like a mulberry crossed with a lychee (see attached photo). According to Steve, the fruit tastes like a combination of watermelon and fig. We look forward to trying them for ourselves.

Speaking of odd fruits, have you sampled the Garden's peanut butter fruit? In the Fruit and Spice area, we have a peanut butter tree (Bunchosia argentea). At this very moment it has clusters of bright orange fruit. When the fruit is fully ripe and soft, the texture and flavor are slightly reminiscent of peanut butter. You can imagine what a hit it is with young visitors.

Another donation came from Ronald Rumbaugh, the former Parks Director of Miami Beach. If you will recall, he donated four baobab trees (Adansonia sp). This time around he donated a highly prized licuala palm (Licuala sp). This slow-growing palm has circular fronds that are evocative of the tropics.

The most recent travels of the horticulture staff took them to Searle Brothers Nursery in Southwest Ranches. There Jeff Searle donated 15 tropical palms for the future Gardens. Among the palms brought back were dwarf fishtail palm (Wallichia densiflora), Sagisi palm (Heterospathe elata), toddy palm (Caryota urens) and rootspine palm (Cryosophila warscewiczii). Besides palms, Jeff Searle also specializes in Ti (Cordyline sp) plants. He generously donated 20 or so rare varieties. These beauties are as eye-catching as some of their names—‘Pink Diamond,’ ‘Rising Sun,’ ‘Diamond Sunrise,’ and ‘Wilis Gold.’

A trip to ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) in north Ft. Myers introduced the horticulture staff to the challenges of extreme gardening. ECHO's mission is to help families grow food crops in areas with difficult conditions. Their demonstration garden is divided into 6 areas: tropical highlands, urban rooftops, tropical monsoon, tropical rainforest, semi-arid tropics, and hot humid lowlands. They send their interns into the world to educate families about crops that they can grow with a single packet of seed. Their agriculture consultant Larry Yarger rolled out the red carpet for our visit, and we hope they'll visit the Garden soon so we can show them what we're up to. If you haven't been to ECHO or haven't been in the last couple years, you're in for a surprise. When you go, don’t miss the store, which has great books and seeds, and the well-stocked tropical fruit nursery. Check them out at www.echonet.org.

Next time you're at the Garden, if you hear a steady buzzing overhead, it might be aerial mosquito spraying, but it’s more likely a hive of honeybees. These busy little guys and girls (actually workers and drones) have established themselves high up in the fronds of the foxtail palms (Wodyetia bifurcata) right off the visitor parking lot. They're not bothering anyone so we're not going to bother them. In fact, they're helping us by pollinating the flowers at the Garden. Just think of them as volunteers!

A plant blooming for the first time in recent memory caught our attention: Augusta rivalis. This particular evergreen shrub isn't much to look at but its flowers are white trumpets that are super fragrant. It's nestled in the same bed as the ylang ylang (Cananga fruticosa) directly outside the herbarium. We have two others in the nursery that are also flowering. By the way, the ylang ylang is outdoing itself this year. Its branches are draped with those floppy yellow petals whose lovely fragrance is simply intoxicating.

Raymond Jungles, the landscape architect for our future Brazilian Garden, has a new book coming out in October: The Colors of Nature: Subtropical Gardens by Raymond Jungles. The front cover has an image from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (see attached photo). The back cover shows the Key West garden of Judy Blume, a well-known children's book author.

Movement is afoot to launch our life-long learning lecture and workshop series. David Webb, the new education manager, is organizing a lineup of topics and speakers that are sure to get you back to the Garden. This program is tentatively scheduled to start in November and run to April, with two events per month. If you've got an idea for a topic or know of any expert, drop David an email at dwebb@naplesgarden.org.

Next week all you Garden fans are going to have to go without. I'm off to Portland, OR, for the Garden Writers Symposium. The favorite topic is always--you guessed it--plants, but they'll also be talking about blogs, newsletters, "green" products, and trends in gardening. Then we traipse around to private gardens, botanical gardens, garden centers, nurseries--same as what I do here in Florida--only these are in Portland.

The next Tropical Mosaic Garden visit is this coming week, Wednesday, September 17th. If you're in the neighborhood, check us out between 9am and noon.

Follow the Expansion Right Here

The unveiling of the new website finally happened this week. New York-based ESI did a bang-up job designing the website. The most exciting part is the slide show of construction photos that lets you see the progress of the construction and expansion.

The blogs should be great, too. Brian Holley has his own—the Director’s blog; of course, there’s mine—called the Gardens blog. Chad Washburn, natural areas manager, will be writing the Preserve blog. The Community Forest blog has potential—it allows readers to post information and images of trees they are growing for the future Garden or their own personal garden photos. Of course, any website lives and dies on its currency. Amy Kessler, communications manager, is charged with feeding the monster. The Gardens blog will be my weekly contribution.

In the meantime, while we hold our breath waiting for hurricanes Hanna, Ike and Josephine, it’s been a mostly dry, brutally humid week. The main irrigation lake has returned to its normal level. We continue with the summer routine of renewal pruning and thinning. This week the Burgundy Border and Pink Courtyard were tamed. At its prime, the Burgundy Border was a lovely collage of the pink and purple hues of variegation provided by various alcalyphas. Alcalyphas are sometimes called copperleaf, but that’s a misnomer, as the genus includes a wide range of colors and color combinations.

In the Pink Courtyard, the tropical snowballs (Dombeya spp.) had out grown their space. We have two hybrids—the smaller growing and dark-pink flowering D. burgessiae ‘Seminole Pink’ and one we suspect is D. wallichii. The Philodendron ‘Burle Marx’ was well on its way to blocking the entrance to the Windstar Garden Room as it scrambled across the brick. The coral creeper (Barleria repens), that coral flowering groundcover along the walkway to the Welcome Center, has always been unruly. Its mass has been reduced considerably and for the moment is under control.

This time of year we also do non-horticultural housecleaning. Two days are set aside to organize and clean offices and garages. That went a little faster this year as we only had one garage to empty out (having turning the other one, the former horticulture garage, over to Kraft Construction’s command central). We even made some headway in the horticulture office, discovering surfaces we’d forgotten were there.

I have been remiss in not mentioning that the Garden enjoyed a visit by an international star of the plant kingdom—David Mabberley, one of the foremost botanists of our time. He is perhaps best known for his invaluable plant dictionary, The Plant-Book. He has been described as a renowned plant systematist and botanical historian whose interests are wide-ranging and include economic botany, the tropical flora, and botanical art history. In March of this year he was appointed Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A few staffers and board members joined David for socializing and dinner one evening in mid-August—the following day Brian Holley gave him a personal tour of our Garden.

The Orchid House Gets an Extreme Makeover

Our makeshift orchid house, while temporary, is providing staff and volunteers with a testing ground for orchid growing and maintenance. Volunteer Tony Donzello built two tables and put up more poles for hanging plants. The irrigation has been adjusted to allow the orchid-side of the house to dry out while watering the seedlings and non-orchids on the other side. Potting materials—charcoal, moss, coconut husks, Epsom salts, potassium nitrate, and liquid fertilizer—are close by in containers. Our bible for orchid growing is Martin Motes Florida Orchid Growing Month by Month. Volunteer Sandy Catron is overseeing the effort.

We welcomed a large trumpet tree (Tabebuia impetiginosa), a gift from Bob Peterson that was planned as a donation down the line but, once uprooted by Fay’s winds, came early. It’s now in our holding area with Gumby (the sea-faring gumbo limbo, Bursera simaruba) and a growing number of trees that have been donated.

The new nursery there has filled up quickly. Nursery foreman Kurt Van de Wouw has it all set up with irrigation on a large expanse of ground cloth. The banana collection hardly skipped a beat after being dug up from the other location and moved. You can almost see them grow with recent generous rains.

Brian Galligan, horticulture manager, and Carolyn Miller, curator of collections, returned recently from a trip to the east coast, where they visited with Don Evans, the former director of horticulture at Fairchild Botanic Garden. While in the Homestead area, they stopped by Bloomin’ Good, a nursery specializing in flowering trees. They came back with nearly 50 unusual and rare plants, including a new cultivar of tropical dogwood called Marmalade (Mussaenda ‘Marmalade’), a rare Philippine fig (Ficus pseudopalma), and cutting-edge butterfly tree (Erblichia odorata), which has large orange flowers that smell like apricots.

We joined up with the Croton Society at their August 16th meeting in Bradenton. It was held at a collector’s house and culminated in a raffle of palms and crotons, from which I brought back two crotons--- ‘Princess Diana’, which gets jumbo sunny-yellow paddle leaves, and Magesticum, which has strappy leaves mottled in a rainbow of colors (Codiaeum ‘Majesticum’ and C. ‘Princess Diana’).

We bid a sad farewell to Eric Van Arsdale this week. He has worked all summer with natural areas manager Chad Washburn. Eric returns to Brown University as a sophomore to continue studying environmental science. It was nice to have a kid around. We hope he visits often.

Wednesday, August 17th , the public was invited to stroll the Tropical Mosaic Garden. Thanks to volunteers Dave Catron, Patsy Sachs and Tony Donzello–they were very busy and most accommodating for our 50 or so visitors. Tony helped with set up and clean up, Patsy learned some new plants and kept the cookies and drinks coming from the kitchen, and Dave (aka Super Dave) spent the entire time out in the garden answering questions about plants. My “what’s in bloom” guide proved to be good reference. The Windstar Garden Room’s ‘face lift’ enlivened the interior landscape. The next public visit will be September 17th.

Tropical Storm Fay’s Visit

Fay will not go away. Sure, we needed rain but enough already. Tropical Storm Fay had our full attention this week. Monday was devoted to hurricane preparation—nursery plants were laid on their side, anything loose was tied down or brought inside, hanging pots were put on the ground.

Fay left trees leaning or toppled, black bamboo whipped to the point the canes broke and, of course, lakes where none had been. The aftermath was caught in photos taken by Kurt Van de Wouw, nursery foreman, and Rich Lewis, operations manager. We had fish swimming among the floating anthurium collection in the butterfly house. That's volunteer Win Turner standing in the butterfly house at the edge of the water; Rich Lewis, operations manager, is knee-high in water in the gecko section. The lake on the way to the Preserve climbed its banks to meet the path. The nursery site just abandoned by Palmetto Road became a lake --- got out just in time! The water at its high point in the Tropical Mosaic Garden reached about 12 inches as the water line on the concrete bench in the photo shows.

The Garden had some work to do to prepare for Wednesday, August 27th's Tropical Mosaic Garden visiting day. Besides the righting of trees and huge cleanup, the Windstar Garden Room is being "refreshed." If you haven't visited for a while check out the next dates for these pre-registered visits on our About Us page of the website. When you come, from the visitor parking lot, you can get a peek preview of some of the construction. Bayshore Drive offers another vantage point.

Volunteer Ann Raker surprised us with a tetrio sphinx moth (Pseudosphinx tetrio). She lives in old Naples and found tetrio caterpillars defoliating her frangipani tree (Plumeria spp.). This caterpillar has to be on steroids as it’s the size of a small snake.

The Garden Goes Virtual

The rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning late yesterday weren't just another storm rolling into Naples--it was fanfare for the opening of the Garden's virtual garden on the web. The new website debuted with lots of photos of the construction, background on each of the future Gardens, an area where you can post your own photos (Sally Richardson has posted pictures of her mangos), a detailed look at green building practices being used in the expansion, as well as staff blogs.

 

Blogs, short for web blogs, are commentary, descriptions of events, etc., in this case about the Garden. Blogs by Brian Holley (listed as director's) and Chad Washburn's (listed as preserve) will appear every other week or so; mine (listed as gardens), every week. In fact, the weekly Insider Update email provides the content for the gardens blog and eventually will disappear as an email. In a few weeks, the only way you will be able to read this is to go to the gardens blog at naplesgarden.org.

 

In the director's blog, Brian Holley talks about the competition to name the swamp buggy, the camouflage-covered buggy with four wheel drive, a dump bed and winch to use for maintaining the preserve areas. Send in your suggestions for naming the buggy by September 15 by clicking on the "contact us" at the bottom of the page. The prize is a personal tour of the natural areas and construction site for three people with Chad Washburn.

I've attached one of the latest aerial pictures of the expansion. The Garden's existing building is in the upper right hand corner. According to Chad Washburn, the gray swaths are dead melaleuca (Melaleuca quinquenervia); the green areas are scrub habitats.

 

After last week's rave about new Thai caladiums, I had to share a photo of one. It's Siam Moon. The leaves are white with a pink blush and green veins. We have it planted in part shade in the Pink Courtyard. Carolyn Miller has promised to take more photos I can share next week.

 

How many times can a person misspell a word and get away with it? It seems indefinitely. It came to my attention that baobab (Adansonia sp.) ends in -bab, not -bob. I blame middle-age eyesight for part of the problem.

 

In the non-virtual Garden, the sweat and toil continues. The shifting of the nursery to a nearby new site was completed successfully, allowing the perimeter berm to wrap around the odd-shaped corner by Palmetto Drive and Thomasson Drive. That task involved replanting our row of bananas, putting down new ground cloth, installing irrigation and, of course, moving hundreds of plants. Nursery foreman Kurt Van de Wouw worked tirelessly to get that done before he left on vacation. Volunteer Dave Catron assisted Kurt.

 

Dave Catron and his wife Sandy continue to volunteer at the Garden at least one day a week. Dave spends whole days weeding, potting, building a potting bench, whatever is needed, hence his nick name "super Dave." Meanwhile, Sandi is working miracles on the orchid collection, organizing, repotting, and nurturing.

 

The other big effort around the Garden continues to be renewal pruning. This time of year is perfect for cutting back over-lush foliage and branches. (Although in the case of fruit trees, pruning needs to be done after the harvest.) Gardener Carlos Lopez attacked the plants outside the wall along Thomasson Drive. The shrubs, especially the firebush (Hamelia patens) had become so large that the sidewalk was crowded and impeded motorists' view when leaving.

 

If you're interested in who's who in the horticulture department, take a look at the attached photo. In the back row from right to left is Brian Galligan, Horticulture Manager; Kurt Van de Wouw, nursery foreman; Chad Washburn, Natural Areas Manager. In the front row (r to l), Carolyn Miller, curator of collections; myself and Carlos Lopez, Horticulture Staff.

The Land Clearing

The land clearing is proceeding quickly and is plainly visible from the Garden’s backdoor. You can see the progress that’s been made from the attached aerial photo. Staff have captured wonderful photos and video of specimen trees coming out. One is a beautiful laurel fig (Ficus nitida), which is headed for a temporary home near Gumby (the gumbo-limbo from Marco) but ultimately it will preside over the future children’s garden. A giant black mangrove (Avcennia germinans) is being rescued and later will be positioned near the birding tower at end of the river of grass.

The butterfly house is quickly being transformed into a temporary shade and orchid house. Work started on the far end, potting up bromeliads from the conure area. Now it’s home to valuable Brazilian palms from the Windstar Garden Room. The rainforest plants in the honeycreeper section are next to come out.

Most of the remaining birds from the Butterfly House are on their way to Miami. Our finches, honeycreepers, and cardinals are actually returning home--that’s where they came from in the first place. We have two saffron finches and one red-capped cardinal who are playing hard to get. We’ll try again to outwit them next week.

Two interns have joined the horticulture staff for the summer. Eric Van Arsdale, a sophomore at Brown University studying environmental science, is working with Chad Washburn. Kelly Cadenas has a PhD in neurobiology and is working with Carolyn Miller.

George Wilder updated staff recently on his work. He has been exploring the Panhandle, documenting vegetation for the herbarium. Another ongoing project is studying plants on Marco Island. He’s fascinated by this coastal community and is working with Mike Owens to identify and document their finds.

Windstar Garden Room has a new look--blank. The Brazilian rainforest is gone and on the sidelines are some fresh plants that will soon be installed. For this go-round, we chose durable plants that will be at home in low light conditions.

You should have your NBG newsletter this week in the mail. It has more details on Garden activities and the schedule of events. Don’t forget Sue Gallagher’s plant sale June 28. She always has an amazing selection of plants at reasonable prices.

I’ll be vacation next week so I’ll miss sending this email on June 20^th. I promise to catch you up with the news in the following week’s email!

Regards,

Linda Coyner

Horticulturist

Naples Botanical Garden

4820 Bayshore Drive

Naples Florida 34112-7336

239-643-7275

The Most Asked About Plant of This Week

Dear Volunteer Angels,

Hands down the most asked about plant this week is bridal’s veil or nodding clerodendron (C. wallichii). It’s right outside the Naples Garden Club door. Masses of large white lacey blooms cascade from arching branches like a living veil. This has been its best year yet. The other question has been about the golf-ball size fruit on the palm outside the Windstar Garden Room. The fruit of the fox-tail palm (Wodyetia bifurcate) is very showy. It is edible although not very palatable and, with enough sugar, can be used to make jams and jellies. The seed is poisonous.

There’s something about free admission that gets people moving. The Garden has had a record number of visitors during this last two-week free period. We’re definitely going out with a bang at close tomorrow. Friday’s Showcase of the Naples Daily News featured the Garden in its “pick” for the weekend.

The Horticulture staff has been kept on alert trying to keep ahead of the site work as bulldozers uncover large specimen trees. Among the prized trees are water oaks (Quercus nigra), royal palms (Roystonea regia), black mangroves (Avicennia germinans), pond apples (Annona glabra), and paurotis palms (Acoelorrhaphe wrightii). A large slash pine (Pinus elliottii) hammock was discovered and preserved.

Other work in progress is the emptying out of the Horticulture garage, no small feat for those of you have seen it in recent months. A storage trailer was purchased to catch the overflow, namely tractor, off-road vehicle, golf cart, etc, and positioned out in the field near Gumby. Once empty, the hort garage will be converted into offices and communication center for the construction team.

Sunday—our first closed day—the first of the birds head out for new homes. We finally found a home for the little birds—red-capped cardinals, honeycreepers, saffron finches, and bananaquits—with the breeder who originally supplied them. They along with 5 sun conures and 2 rainbow lorikeets start their journey to new homes Sunday. The rest of the feathered gang is here till Monday. Can you picture them netting those little birds; much less the ducks, shooting like Luke Skywalker through the butterfly canyon? We’ve got to get some pictures.

The toughest part of this week has been seeing butterfly house volunteers go. Some of you have been with the Butterfly House since the very beginning, October 2005. Sally Richardson says we’ll dream up some fun things to do to together this summer just to keep in touch. She welcomes suggestion for a field trip.

I can no longer say “see you around the garden,” can I? But I will keep these emails coming. Stay in touch!

Linda Coyner

Horticulturist

Naples Botanical Garden

4820 Bayshore Drive

Naples Florida 34112-7336

239-643-7275