Bounty of Books and More

The library is increasing in size! By books that is! We’re in the process of receiving a number of horticulture and landscaping books from Steve Trudnak, a landscape architect. They range from general horticulture to design. It has been a welcomed addition and Joyce McBride, our volunteer librarian, is most pleased!

On December 1, we picked up a collection of palm seedlings from Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, FL). These included the following: Prestoea acuminate: seed collected in Trinidad, Pritchardia aylmer-robinsonii: collected on Maui, near Hana, Pritchardia glabrata: collected on Maui, at Kahanu Gardens, and Pritchardia elliptica: collected on the Island of Lanai.

It’s interesting that with the Pritchardia palms, there are approximately 19 native species in the Hawaiian Islands. Many of these are endangered, rare or vulnerable. Each Island has at least one distinct species or a variety (example: Pritchardia affinis var. gracilis and Pritchardia affinis var. halophila). So you might ask “What’s with the variety?” Pritchardia affinis is only found on the Big Island (the one with the active volcano). However, the geography of an Island can dictate the evolution of a species. Some of these palms may have become isolated in a valley, or on a mountain. They’re all very close (genetically) to the same, but, there are a few subtle differences (again genetically) to warrant a different variety, but not a different species.

Construction is moving rapidly. In fact, along the West edge of the garden, a privacy wall has been put up and the planting of buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus) has begun! In addition, the front entrance along Thomasson Drive has been revamped by the NBG team. The following shrubs have been added: Ixora ‘Red Maui’, Ixora ‘Yellow Maui’ and Ixora ‘Dwarf Red’. Other plant additions included Ilex cornuta 'Carissa', flax lily (Phormium spp.), green island fig (Ficus microcarpa) and a small leaf clusia.

In front of the large Garden sign, we’ve removed the caladiums (which had done very well) and replaced them with yellow lantana.

Words of Winter

A change in the temperature sure indicates that winter is amongst us. From the slow down of weed growth to the northern songbirds that have migrated south, it is a warm welcome. Last week the garden celebrated its 5th annual fundraiser, ‘Hats in the Garden’. The grounds were in tip-top condition as 400 people converged onto the grounds. A new 5 ½ minute video showcasing the garden, that had literally just been completed, was unveiled.

This week we had our ‘Thanks-for-Giving’ potluck, with volunteers and staff. We all enjoyed turkey, stuffing, potatoes and the endless supply of homemade dishes! Volunteers had the opportunity to see the new video as well, while enjoying the feast. Three 1st graders from Avalon Elementary school read their paper on “What I’m thankful for”.

The Lifelong Learning Program has begun! There were two programs this week and both were enjoyed by many! The first program was on ‘Growing and Preparing Herbs’, by Pat Johnson. She demonstrated how to make herb flavored vinegars and tea mixtures. Each participant made a bottle of flavored vinegar and also took home a number of dried herbs. And I will say this, I stepped into the room after the class was completed, and it smelled wonderful!

The second program this week was ‘Utilizing Native Plants in Your Yard’ and was taught by NBG Natural Area Manager, Chad Washburn. Chad talked about native plants and how they can be used in the landscape. This class was nearly full to capacity!

The next lecture will be on Tuesday, December 2nd at 10 AM. It will be ‘Tropical Fruits Made Simple’. Have you ever wondered what the secret is to making your fruit trees fruitful? Join local experts David and Jenny Burd as they share their successes in growing tropical fruits in Collier County.

Now, in closing, there was a spectacular site just outside the back doors this morning. A juvenile bald eagle perched itself up in the pine tree and was just calling away. It looked so majestic sitting there against the deep blue sky, just resting. It still amazes me how big these birds are!

Gifts Galore and More

Christmas came early with a surprise gift in the form of a GEM (Global Electric Motorcar). The little red buggy looks like a toy (see picture, attached) but it’s completely street legal, reaches a maximum speed of 25 mph, and is cute as a button. The unexpected gift came from Jeannie and Christopher Smith, the brother of David Smith, who, with his wife Vicky, is underwriting the Children’s Garden. Jeannie and Christopher have been involved with the Garden for several years and are campaign supporters. A test drive demonstrated GEM’s street worthiness and had us whooping and hollering like kids. Hort has been told it’s not a utility cart in no uncertain terms --- no dirt on this sweet baby.

Another surprise came after this past weekend’s Southwest Florida’s Yard and Garden Show. The Croton Society, which had a booth at the sale staffed by Terry Seeley of Croton Connection, donated its unsold plants to the Garden. Terry stopped by Monday with a truckload of some 40 crotons of all types — strap leaf, petra leaf, interrupted leaf --- in every color combination imaginable. If you haven’t looked at crotons lately, take another look. They are enjoying a renaissance of form and color and bear no resemblance to the Buicks of yesteryear. We are thrilled to add them to the Garden’s growing collection of crotons.

Ever wonder what it would have been like to exist in the Everglades in the 1800s? The Bucket Flower by Donald Robert Wilson takes you there through the life of 23-year-old Elizabeth Sprague. This young woman heads for the Everglades to study the plant life — a radical idea for a young woman back then. Considered a "bucket flower", a term for someone pampered and soft, she must get tough fast or perish. She faces enough terrifying animals, savage men, and the rigors of the swamp to make us modern Floridians count our blessings.

The Thomasson Drive approach to the Garden never looked so good. That area has been plagued by torpedo grass (Panicum repens) and nutsedge (Cyperus). The final planting went in the ground last week just before the rain, completing the renovation of that landscape. Nursery foreman Kurt Van de Wouw and Carlos Lopez planted dwarf pitch-apple (Clusia major ' Nana), natal plum (Carissa macrocarpa ‘Emerald Blanket’), red ixora (Ixora ‘Taiwan Dwarf’), yellow ixora (Ixora ‘Maui’), Ficus microcarpa 'Green Island’, flax lily (Dianella ensifolia), and Philodendron x ‘Xanadu’.

Another dramatic change is the visitor parking lot. In preparation for Hats in the Garden, the Garden’s fundraiser on November 12th, a hedge had to be removed. Vanquished are the golden dewdrop (Duranta erecta) and three satin leaf trees (Chrysophyllum oliviforme), one of Florida’s loveliest native trees. This makes way for the giant tent that goes up for the occasion.

Not to be missed is Colville's Glory (Colvillea racemosa), just inside the wall along Thomasson Drive. This ferny tree comes from Madagascar and is closely related to the royal poinciana (Delonix regia). The tree gets its name from the British Governor of Mauritius, Sir Charles Colville. Racemes of flower buds start out looking like clusters of bright red grapes, which is where we’re at right now. Each tight flower bud unfolds gradually, darkening to red and revealing a yellow stamen. Eventually it forms woody flat capsules of seeds.

Drum roll please. The Lifelong Learning Program is back! David Webb, manager of education, has come up with a list of exciting lectures and hands-on workshops that are sure to get you back here. Be forewarned: Continuing education is addictive. I speak from firsthand experience --- that’s how I got hooked on the Garden many years ago.

Topics in this series range from orchid how-to and fruit-tree growing to landscaping with native plants and a talk by award-winning landscape architect and designer Raymond Jungles on his plans for the Garden’s Brazilian Garden as well as 20 other design projects. Peruse the whole list (attached). For registration information please visit http://www.naplesgarden.org/ or call 239.643.7275.

The November topics are:
Growing and preparing herbs
Monday, November 17, 10am
Join herbalist Pat Johnson as she demonstrates the mixing of herbs to make teas, vinegars, and oils. You will leave this hands-on workshop with a few samples of your own herbal creations and ready to make new blends at home.
$20 member/ $30 non-member; maximum 30

Using native plants in your yard
Wednesday, November 19, 10am
Discover the benefits of using native plants in your yard, which species are ideal and some simple tips for success as Chad Washburn discusses why native plants are low-maintenance, inexpensive, and attract birds and other wildlife.
$15 member/ $20 non-member; limited seating

See you around the campus!

Climb every mountain…

The highlight of the week — hands down — was a swamp buggy tour of the construction site. We donned those fashionable hard hats and climbed aboard. Within seconds Hort manager Brian Galligan had steered us up a slight grade onto the future parking lot and Garden entrance. This plateau is just adjacent to the existing employee lot. Future rows of parking spaces are divided by swales between sections for drainage.

Then he swung the buggy around in the direction of the highest point on the site --- Melaleuca Mulch Mountain. The buggy climbed to the top. What a vista! Unlike my first trip a few months ago, things didn’t look so raw. In fact, when Brian pointed out where the first gardens are to materialize — Children’s, Brazilian, and Caribbean — we could actually see their approximate locations. The lakes are taking on more natural shapes. At a distance, you could see the boardwalk leading up to the James & Linda White Birding Tower, which was perched over a vast area of wetlands.

We left the buggy on the mountain and hoofed it, clamoring down, inspecting the islands in the Preserve that Chad Washburn, the Natural Areas Manager, has been working on. We wandered over to a second boardwalk, which awkwardly stands where the future lakes will meet. We dubbed it “the boardwalk to nowhere” for the moment. The best viewpoint was standing in the birding tower. Off to one side you could see ghostly stumps punctuating the south wetlands where the melaleuca (Melaleuca quinquenervia) used to be and the cattails have taken over.

Back in the buggy, our course hugged the construction perimeter coming around to the “old” boardwalk to the preserve and then to the new nursery location where Gumby, our sea-faring gumbo limbo (Bursera simaruba) and all the other donated trees and plants await their call to duty, which will be very soon.

Returning volunteers are asking if there is anything left to do? The answer is, you betcha! So, after consulting with the rest of the folks in the horticulture group, we’ve come up with a list of tasks you could help us with. If you’re interested, give Sally Richardson a call (239-643-7275) or email (srichardson@naplesgarden.org).

Weeding pots in the nursery; beds in Tropical Mosaic Garden; pots in shadehouse; the ground around pots in the old nursery; the cracks between bricks and pavers in Pink Courtyard and Allee
Watering pots in nursery or newly installed plants; Windstar Garden Room (plant knowledge needed to know how much)
Planting seedlings into larger containers; cuttings (dipping in rooting powder) in pots; existing plants into larger containers; seeds in small pots and flats
Mulch pots in nursery with palm fiber (see below)
Scouting for blooms so plants can be ID’d for bloom color; for insect and disease problems
Cleanup of leaf material around pots in nursery; trash around the perimeter (outside the wall) and inside
Training vines in pots in nursery or on trellis off the loggia
Staking existing plants; newly planted specimens
Securing label tags to pots; making plant labels
Raking oval lawn (dethatch)
Straighten and clean plant labels
Spread snail bait (non-toxic, earth friendly formula) and fire ant bait
Gathering palm seed
Removing fallen palm fronds

Remember the experiment we tried with shredding newspaper for mulch in the nursery pots? Turned out it wasn’t practical for the amount we needed. Now we’re onto palm fiber. It’s that stringy stuff that chokes even the biggest wood chippers and never seems to break down. We’ve had several loads of it dropped next to the new nursery. It is definitely smothering tiny weeds already in the pots. The real test will be in the spring when the weeds grow faster than they can be plucked.

This past week the Garden was open twice for Tropical Mosaic visits. These intimate peeks at the existing Garden remind me of White Flower Farm, Litchfield, CT, which used to have an annual open house. They’d have lawn chairs under big shady trees and serve cucumber sandwiches and iced tea. For our open house, Sally Richardson and several volunteers serve iced tea and cookies and talk about the flowers in the Garden. The next visiting days are just after Thanksgiving — can you believe it? — November 28th and 29th. We still get, on a regular basis, mind you; the curious visitors who “innocently” wander in passed the “Closed for Expansion” sign.

This weekend is the annual SW Florida Yard and Garden Show out at the Extension Service (14700 Immokolee Rd. by the Fairgrounds). Plant nerds come from near and far to peruse a wide variety of plants and wares. They’ll have talks, demonstrations (non-political), and more than 35 vendors, including Top Tropicals and the Croton Society. Yours truly will be there on Saturday demonstrating our “virtual” garden; Kurt Van de Wouw takes over on Sunday. For more information, call 239-353-4244. See you there!

I only went out for a walk...

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. -- John Muir, 1913.

That sentiment is one all of us feel strongly about, otherwise why would we be supporting a botanical garden? My husband’s only complaint is that I forget to come back in. My favorite time in the garden is at dusk when the light is changing and wildlife starts murmuring. I wipe the sweat off my brow for the umpteenth time and know that whatever task I was working on is done for the day, finished or not.

Some of the tasks around the Garden this week were driven by the preparation for the Marco Island Men’s Club Thursday, October 9^th, and the bridal show put on by the Wedding & Party Professionals of Naples (WPPN) Sunday, October 12^th. The visit by the Marco club brought out nearly 50 Marco Islanders. After the group had lunch in the Windstar Garden Room, Brian Galligan and Chad Washburn pointed out the highlights of the Tropical Mosaic Garden.

WPPN’s event on Sunday afternoon was for anyone planning a wedding. There were 40 or so vendors around the grounds and in the Windstar Garden Room selling everything from wedding gowns, cakes, honeymoon travel, planning and catering services. A giant tent over the runway on the oval lawn made a perfect setting for the fashion show.

For these visits, the grounds were spruced up (that sounds like a northern term, doesn’t it?), including the Windstar Garden Room. New plants were deftly tucked into the coral planters and fresh palms dropped in behind them. The Pink Courtyard pots were refreshed by yours truly. Some pots needed more color or reining in of chocolate sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Blackie’). Plants that had run their course were replaced by whatever I could find in the nursery. One such find was young silver agaves (Agave americana ‘Blue Huntington’), which I placed in the middle of two pots overflowing with sedum rosettes, possibly Sedum cauticola 'Lidakense'.

The bed under the caesalpinias (Caesalpinia granadillo ‘Bridalveil’) and white begonias (Begonia alba) enjoyed color from yellow gaillardias (Gaillardia pulchella) most of the summer. Those fading blooms were replaced with cockscomb (Celosia argentea) in every shade of the rainbow. It’s a hot, dry spot that’ll test its stamina.

In our continuing search for special plants, Carolyn Miller and Brian Galligan took to the road again to visit a nursery in Sarasota owned by Faith Bishock called Rare Palms & Tropicals. This was a lead we gleaned from the Croton Society meeting I attended in September. Besides obtaining a highly desirable assortment of young palms, the owner donated an African Palmyra palm (Borassus aethiopum) in her husband John’s name.

Speaking of the Croton Society, I took a ride up to Tampa on Saturday to assist that group in their fall plant sale at the University of South Florida’s Botanical Garden. While lending them a hand I learned more about crotons. I brought back two cultivars for the Garden collection: ‘Congo’ and ‘Queen Victoria’. While at the sale, I interviewed one of their charter members, Phillip Stager, for a future article in the Croton Society newsletter. After the sale, Phillip gave me a tour of his croton collection in St. Petersburg. The Garden joined the Croton Society this year and will be depending on its experts to help us identify the cultivars we have and still need.

The Garden announced this week that Kraft Construction is the sponsor of the Garden’s 2008-09 season of events. “Kraft is known as the builder of our community, so it is natural that they have joined with us to lay a strong foundation of the Garden’s events,” said Brian Holley, Executive Director. “Kraft has been such a great supporter in many ways – last year they were presenting sponsor for our golf tournament. And, of course, we are partners on our expansion.”

This season’s events include the Fifth Annual Hats in the Garden on Wednesday, November 12^th, 2008. This event, the largest fundraiser of the Garden’s social season, is nearly sold out. That’s our high-society lunch under the tent in the parking lot. It’s quite the fashion show for hats and other elegant apparel, as you can imagine, and we always hope it won’t be windy.

Other dates include the

· Seventh Annual Trunk Show in the Garden Thursday, February 19^th through Saturday, February 21^st, 2009

· Naples Flower Show, Saturday and Sunday, March 28th and 29th, 2009

· Ninth Annual Swing into Spring Golf Tournament on Monday, April 6^th, 2009

For those of you in town, there are more opportunities to visit us. There are two dates for Tropical Mosaic visits this week — Wednesday and Saturday, October 15^th and 18^th. Please call 643-7275 to make a reservation.

Another way to visit is volunteering. There’s plenty to do, in the dirt or otherwise. We’d love to see you, either way.

Busy, busy, busy…

A gardener’s work is never done, and that goes double for an expanding botanical garden like ours. The hum of heavy machinery has become a constant. That humming will stop soon, however, and the focus will change to getting plants in the ground. The goal for having the future Gardens planted is June 2009. Can you believe it?

Kurt Van de Wow, nursery foreman, keeps chipping away at all that has to be done with the help of Carlos Lopez – of course, while maintaining what we already have:
Potting up Brazilian seedlings
Digging up plants in honeycreeper section of butterfly house in preparation for moving them out – at that point the orchid collection will be moved in when the orchid shade house makes way for the Education and Research Center

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  Starting cuttings in the mist room from rare plants in honeycreeper section of butterfly house


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  Organizing and redesigning irrigation in the orchid shade house


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  Germinating seeds in the mist room for plants for future Garden


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  Using new tank sprayer to foliar feed nursery stock


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  Fertilizing large potted plants


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  Fall fertilizing of Tropical Mosaic Garden


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  Renewal pruning and thinning out existing plantings


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  Organizing and repotting anthurium collection


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  Starting cuttings of rare cordyline hybrids donated by Searle Brothers
  
  Ongoing is a project to renovate the plant beds along Thomasson Drive. For sometime now they’ve been embarrassingly overrun with torpedo grass (Panicum repens) and nutsedge (Cyperus). The thatch palms (Thrinax radiata) and dwarf variegated bougainvillea (Bougainvillea sp.) planted earlier this year have established themselves and will be the backbone of the planting. Once the weeds are under control, we can dress the beds up with some colorful, low maintenance plants.
  
  Dr. George Wilder, our herbarium curator, recently was asked by Collier County to give a class on invasive plants, specifically Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council’s (FLEPPC) Category 1 plants. George always does things thoroughly—he gave a 3-day intensive class for 19 or so Conservation Collier and Park Rangers, among others. His classes included lectures, a lab exercise on leaf morphology, field trips and quizzes to cover the 67 plants on the list.
  
  The class textbook was the 2nd edition of University of Florida's Identification and Biology of Nonnative Plants in Florida’s Natural Areas. It’s a beautiful book. The 2nd edition is just out (see the attached cover).
  
  This was an amazing presentation and took him a lot of time to prepare for. He donated the $800 he received for the class to the herbarium. If the class would be useful to others in the area—other county employees, landscapers, certified horticulturists, master gardeners, etc.—he’s indicated that he’d be interested in earning more money for the herbarium.
  
  In the Garden, we continue to delight in the fragrance of the fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum). It’s positioned by the gate so that we brush the cascading branches on our way into work. Tassels of white flowers adorn the ends of pendant branches and contrast nicely with the shiny, dark green foliage. Its flowering season is waning – soon the black berries will begin to form. This is my favorite native shrub.
  
  Around the base of the fiddlewood, bright pink petals signal pedestrians to look up. Hovering high above is the floss silk tree (Chorisia speciosa). This tree is our grafting experiment in progress. Volunteer Crafton Clift, a horticulturist, world traveler, and grafter extraordinaire, has been grafting on branches of other later-blooming chlorisias such as ‘Double Tem’, ‘Sunset,’ ‘Santi,’ ‘Elsie Page,’ and ‘Willis Red’.Signs indicating the names of the grafts dangle from the branches. The goal is to find a cultivar that blooms later in the season so that more guests can enjoy the tree’s annual display.
  
  New grow lights installed in the Windstar Garden Room already add much needed light and will aid plant growth. Horticulture will soon begin to update the display for the bridal show on October 18th. The coral troughs stand empty, ready for new plants. The show will feature 35 to 40 vendors displaying all manner of wedding items. Public hours are 2 to 5pm.
  
  There are more opportunities coming up to visit the Tropical Mosaic Garden. Wednesday, October 15th and Saturday the 18th from 9am to 12pm. Please call ahead at 239-643-7275.

Garden Writers Symposium – Portland, OR

Portland, OR sends its regards. I am just back from the Garden Writers Symposium; I think my tailwind brought back some of their cool air. Thank goodness, we’re all ready for a break from the heat.

There’s nothing like a conference for networking and stimulation, and this one was no disappointment. It drew some 600 plant nerds from all over the country. Besides every type of journalist, there were photographers, growers, garden designers, public and private garden employees.

Portland, OR is the perfect setting for a symposium on gardens. For rose lovers like me, it’s heaven. Roses were everywhere, from front yards to strips along sidewalks to harsh highway dividers. The international testing site for roses — trials of several new unnamed varieties take place every year there. It currently boasts some 500 roses. The city’s weather is ideal for plants (less so for people)—a mild short summer and a very long but mild wet winter. One show vendor has already sent me its rose, Oso Easy Roses, as a trial in my home garden along with the cracker roses, heirloom own-roots, and others I already have. If I have anything to do with it, we will have easy to grow roses in the future Garden.

The schedule kept us hopping. We had classes in the morning and tours in the afternoon. Topics ranged from photography and self editing to ornamental grasses and garden blogs. Tours took us to urban private gardens as well as nurseries.

On my free day I drove down to Oregon Garden in Silverton and discovered a very innovative garden. This 80-acre garden is only 9 years old and is on the forefront of public garden design. Some of the things they’re doing:

In partnership with the town, it developed a wetland system to recycle the city's treated wastewater and irrigate ornamental plantings; water features throughout the Garden demonstrate that purpose.

Being pet friendly — allowing dogs on short leashes.

Work with the local soup kitchen, donating some 3,000 pounds of vegetables grown on site this year.

Offering on-site lodging at the newly opened Oregon Garden Resort.

In my absence, somehow life at the Garden went on without me. The Garden was open for a Tropical Mosaic visit on September 17th and again September 27th. Brian Holley joined up with Brian Galligan and Carolyn Miller to collect plants from Montgomery Botanical Center and Bloomin’ Good Gardens in the Miami area. Hort staff attended classes on palm identification and irrigation.

The annual FNATS (Florida Nursery & Allied Trades Show) September 25th and 26th in Orlando beckoned. Brian Galligan and Carolyn Miller came back with valuable new and renewed contacts and product information. They also toured Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando and Bok Tower Sanctuary in Lake Wales.

Upon my return I found that autumn was indeed afoot. The cooler night temperatures had triggered some plants like the Brunfelsias into bloom. The Garden has several hugging the loggia that beckon with their scent (hence their common name Ladies of the Night). The flowers usually are trumpet shaped but vary from yellow (B. lactea) to cream (B. ‘Isola’) or cream with shades of blue (B. Americana). The most eye-catching and well known is Morning, Noon and Night (B. pauciflora), whose flowers change from purple, to pale lavender to white.

The burgundy border has a new look. After its severe pruning, it was a sorry sight. Hort staff filled in gaps with maroon and ruby plants: purple fountain grass (Pennisetum rubrum), red hibiscus (Hibiscus acetosella), Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’, purple threads Joseph’s coat (Alternanthera ‘Red Thread’), and purple-leaved canna (Canna indica ‘Purpurea’).

Tropical Mosaic Garden visits continue. Future dates include Friday and Saturday, Nov. 28th and 29th, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Dec. 26th, 27th, and 28th. Visit the Garden on those dates anytime between 9am and noon, except for Dec. 28th, when the hours are 1 pm to 4pm.

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