MANTS, 2012

Last Friday I attended MANTS, 2012, or the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show.  It had been a few years since I'd been to one but if you are interested in plants, there's no better place to connect with growers and plant care specialists.

The Baltimore Convention Center was filled with booths representing different nurseries and as you make your way through the space you can amass a very heavy load of plant catalogs.  Since I design from catalogs, quite regularly, it was great to find special growers like the one below - who has an excellent Camellia selection. Of course, there's also no shortage of candy at things like this -- jars filled with mini chocolates, luring you towards the booth, are ubiquitous!

The University of Maryland and the USDA also had booths, keeping interested people up to speed on local insect threats such as Emerald Ash Borer and Asian Longhorned Beetle.  It's always good to check in on their literature and get up to speed on another disease currently receiving a lot of attention: sudden oak death. 

Strelitzia nicolai and the Japanese White Eye

The Saturday before I left town for Hawaii, I met my students at Brookside Gardens.  If you remember, Saturday the 29th was snowy, sleety, rainy and cold.  To wit, we covered some plants in the conservatory.  One of which was the giant bird of paradise, or Strelitzia nicolai.  While looking at it, we wondered what kind of pollinators would frequent it, and its relative, the regular bird of paradise, or Strelitzia reginae.  We suspected perhaps birds, due to the large, perchable flower and in the case of S. reginae, the parrot-colored flower.

While it's not certain that this bird, the Japanese White Eye, is the primary pollinator, its relationship here is pretty clear.  The bird, also known as Zosterops japonicus, is an introduced bird to Hawaii, originally brought to the islands with the good intent of using it to control populations of destructive insects.  As you can guess, this did not work out too well and now the bird is a vector for avian diseases that affect the native bird species. 

Back to the plant -- this may look familiar -- in fact the plant is very similar to traveler's palm, which I blogged about on NYPAOS.  Aloha!

Joe Pye Weed

This is one of my favorite North American wildflowers -- Eutrochium purpureum (formerly Eupatorium), commonly known as Joe Pye Weed.  Eutrochium is a tall (6-7') summer flowering perennial, typically with pink flowers as seen below.  Part of the reason that this plant is now Eutrochium and not Eupatorium is because the former has whorled leaves (indeed, trocho is Greek for wheel-like, thus whorled) and the latter has opposite leaves. Both genera remain in the Asteraceae family.

Below, a white flowering variety, less common than the purplish pink flowers.  One way to distinguish E. purpureum from E. maculatum (these plants are often confused) is the presence of pink spots along the entire stem of E. maculatum, as opposed to the clear green or purple stems on E. purpureum.

Joe Pye weed is a pretty terrific common name, too.  It's named for a Native American who was known by colonists as Joe Pye.  As legend goes, he used the roots of this plant to aid a colonist who was ill with typhus.  The plant induced sweating which broke his fever. The plant was also used by Native Americans as an ailment to "breakbone fever" (which is now known as dengue fever), thus another common name of boneset (though boneset is usually considered the common name for Eutrochium perfoliatum, a close relative). 

You need a fair amount of real estate to use this plant, as large as it gets.  But if you have the space, it's a great addition as it provides habitat to bees, butterflies and birds.

Heptacodium miconioides

Last Saturday, I took my students on another Ladew field trip.  While there, we noticed the flowers buds on a very large specimen of Heptacodium miconioides or seven son flower.  Unfortunately I rarely teach and take photos at the same time, so today I'm posting a photo of a specimen at Kurt Bluemel's nursery. 

Heptacodium is a rarity and horticultural buffs love this plant.  It seldom grows higher than 15' so seeing specimens like this one and the one at Ladew is a special treat.  A member of the honeysuckle (or Caprifoliaceae) family, the plant has two ranks of long, strappy leaves and the panicles of white flowers occur from the center of the stem.  The leaves are particularly unusual, as the midrib vein has two additional prominent veins that run parallel and to each side of it. The bark is putty colored and very stringy or fibrous.  Habit, if left unpruned, is quite wild, though it can be shaped quite well.  Dirr:
Upright, irregular, loose, almost artistic; grows to its own beat." (Emphasis mine.)

The infloresences consist of seven solitary flowers, thus the name Heptacodium.  Hepta of course means seven and -codium is referring to heads.  It's thus a pretty direct translation for seven son flower.  Miconioides means it looks like a plant in the genus Miconia, which are largely tropical plants.

Bottlebrush Buckeye

Bottlebrush buckeye, or Aesculus parviflora is one of my favorite summer-flowering shrubs.  The one below is blooming at the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park.  If the genus name is familiar, that's because I've also blogged about Aesculus hippocastanum, or horsechestnut.  Like that species, this plant has opposite, palmately compound leaves, though A. parviflora is typically large, sprawling shrub, and A. hippocastanum is a tree.

Of course, the flowers are quite different too.  As the common name implies, the spikey infloresences look like bottlebrushes.  The species name, parviflora, means "small flowers" - as the individual flowers on this infloresence are quite small.

 

Now, I said that the plant is typically a sprawling shrub (it's also one of the very best plants to use in dense shade), but on a recent visit to Manor View Farms in Maryland the owner John showed me some unusual specimens he had that had been limbed up into treeforms.  It's killing me that I don't have a chance to use them on any current jobs - they make a lovely silhouette. 

Last Bit on Ladew

The outdoor seating area for the cafe at Ladew is an old horse barn.  The roof and upper walls have been removed and all that exists are the foundation walls and this trough, which has been converted into a water feature. 

The walls themselves are in a beautiful state of decay, with Sempervivium and other plants growing in the crevices.

Decay or atrophy in a garden is such a fun theme, on a project that is in design now, we're trying to create a "decaying" path through the client's wooded lot, finally reaching a terminus on a ridge that faces a creek.  It will be tricky to pull off, but the feeling you get when looking at this beautiful wall -- where time, human design and nature all intersect -- is the goal we have.

More Ladew

A few scenes from the large hedged garden at Ladew.  Clipped Tsuga create massive hedged walls.

Statues are hidden in side the hedged walls.

Below, a vista to the more formal topiary garden, nearer the house.

The axis between the hedged garden and topiary intersects with the axis between the rose garden and a streambank garden.  At the intersection, sits this oval pool.  Though it looks round below, it's truly elliptical.

Ladew Gardens,

Without a doubt, the Water Lily Gardens at Ladew were among my favorites.  But I am sadly a bit too busy to elaborate on why.  So I'm posting these shots without comment....

Ladew Topiary Gardens

On Friday, I mentioned a recent visit to Ladew Topiary Gardens but only shared a few pics of the window boxes.  We'll look at a bit more today.  Ladew is named for Harvey Ladew, who designed and created the 22-acre site.  Ladew was born in 1887 and bought the land in 1929.  He died in 1976 but not before making preparations so that his home could be made open to the public.

  

The Manor House was built in 1747 though wings were added by Ladew in the '30s. Tours of the house are available, though regular readers know I rarely bother with the interiors.

 

As the name implies, there is a large amount of topiary in the gardens.   The scene above, called the 'Hunt Scene' shows a rider, following dogs that are chasing a fox. 

Above, swans 'float' near the oval pool.

The gardens are set up as a series of rooms, including: The Victorian Garden,

The Rose Garden, 

The Water Lily Garden,

The Terrace Garden,

and the Portico Garden, to name a few.

More detail shots of these rooms in the days to come.

Ladew Topiary Gardens

A couple weeks ago, I took my students on a tour of Kurt Bluemel's perennial nursery.  After that tour (photos to come, no doubt) we stopped by the Ladew Topiary Gardens nearby.  More on the gardens later this week and next, but in the meantime, I am sharing photos of these lovely window boxes, planted almost entirely with succulents and Euphorbias.

Wood Poppy

I absolutely love learning a new plant.  I saw this at a client's property in Maryland last week and was informed it was wood poppy, or Stylophorum diphyllum.  Though not a true Papaver it is indeed in the poppy, or Papaveraceae family.

I'm chagrined because at first glance I thought it was a buttercup, or member of the Ranunculaceae family.  The yellow flowers influenced my snap judgment, which is always a good reminder to look more carefully when inspecting plants in the field.

If I had paid closer attention, I would have noted the poppy-like fuzzy flower buds and the soft hairs on the flower's peduncle -- both typical to poppies and not at all common on buttercups. Also like poppies, when the stem is broken a milky sap exudes from the plant.

Stylophorum is a native wildflower and naturalizes damp woods with ease.  The genus name simply means "having styles" which are the stem(s) that supports the female flower part - the stigma.  Diphyllum refers to the pair of leaves that usually are found at the base of the flower.  The plant is also commonly called celandine poppy.

Lawns and Fertilizer in the Post Today

A few months ago I posted a link to Todd Haiman's blog Landscape Design and More.  The subject: lawns. 

I offered my own reservations about an irrational abundance of turfgrass in the landscape, saying restricting lawn use could be for ecological reasons because, "you don't want to use too much fuel for your mower or water for irrigation."  Well, shame on me for not adding excess fertilizer and runoff of chemicals to that list.  I surely know that's another hazard of lawns, but failed to add that in my post.

Perhaps fertilizers are more on the brain these days -- I've been teaching a horticultural science course at the Grad School here in DC and recently lectured on plant nutrition.  I'd like to think I was fairly strident when telling my students to avoid thoughtlessly throwing fertilizer on everything, precisely because it's contributing to the pollution in our waterways. And I'm part of a much larger trend, as evidenced today in the Washington Post.  The piece features a study by the Environment Maryland Policy and Research Center citing lawn fertilizers as one of the major sources of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and imploring the state to issue mandates limiting their use, similar to restrictions in New York and New Jersey.  The study is countered by the president of the Maryland Turfgrass Council, Vernon Cooper, who offers a quote that is full of bad science: "[turf is] one of the best filters to prevent damage to the bay." He elaborates that it acts as a sponge that filters nutrients from rain runoff and adds. “A weak or thin lawn allows more sediment to be washed in the bay,”  His quotes are theoretically accurate: plant coverage reduces erosion and the loss of topsoil and sediments to nearby waterways.  But turf that is inundated with fertilizers which in turn wash into waterways is far more damaging than "sediment." Grr.

American Smoketree

Last week I was tagging some plant material for a property in the District and spent the better part of the day at wholesalers in Maryland.  When I was at Manor View Farms, I was lucky enough to start a conversation with one of the owners.  It went something like this,

Me: "I think I checked on your inventory and saw you're out of Amelanchier but that's what I was hoping to get.  Something small, multistemmed, with good fall color."

Him: "Well, you could go with a crape myrtle..."

Me: "Yea...I really don't care for that plant.  There's nothing wrong with it, really, but I'm just sick of seeing it everywhere.  Maybe a Stewartia, or..."

Him: "Franklinia?"

Me: "Oh, for sure.  Love that plant!"

It turns out John and I had pretty similar tastes in plants.  We discussed our admiration for black gum, yellowwood, American hornbeam and others.  Soon enough, he was giving me a tour of their hundred-acre farm.  While driving around, I pointed out the tree below and inquired about it.

Turns out the tree is a native species of Cotinus, Cotinus obovatus.  I never knew there was such a thing.  As you can see it's more tree form and less of a large shrub.  Occasionally these leaders will fail, at which point the nursery cuts it back to the ground and starts growing it as a multistemmed shrub.  The flower set is not as heavy as Cotinus coggygria, but the fall color is reportedly far superior.  I was intrigued.  The plant's native range is is primarily in the mountainous regions of northern Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, though it reaches as far west as Oklahoma and Texas.

I have blogged about Cotinus on NYPAOS a few times, I'm always a touch ambivalent about it because it seems so alien to our indigenous landscape.  I have to say the tree-form habit of this species makes me warm to the genus considerably.  I will definitely look forward to an opportunity to use this in a planting.

Helianthus annuus

I was in Maryland last week, scoping out plant nurseries and setting up accounts when I saw a flash of yellow on a hillside in the distance.  As I approached the field closer, it was evident that I had stumbled upon a sunflower farm. 

The last time I saw this many sunflowers growing in the landscape was in 1996, when I was driving through Kansas.  It's hard not to think, Kansas=Corn, but Kansas is one of the top three sunflower crop producing states in the country (along with North and South Dakota).

Sunflowers were first cultivated by Native Americans at around 3000 BC.  Over the years, the plant  has been hybridized so that it yields as many seeds as possible, since that is its valuable resource.  However, the specimens above have fairly large ray florets and the area of disc florets is relatively small, leading me to speculate that these plants may be farmed for cut flowers, and not for sunflower seeds.  Though I just don't know...Maybe the next time I'm nearby I will go and ask!