300 Downed Trees And Counting

The good news is that all of the Houston Arboretum's staff is safe and sound after Hurricane Ike. The inspiring news is that volunteers armed with gloves, tools and tons of good will are helping clean up debris.

Which leaves us with the somewhat sad news that lots and lots of big oaks have bit the dust along the Houston Arboretum's Alice Brown Trail.

Post oaks and willow oaks are the big losers at the Houston Arboretum. Invasive species will likely be the winners. With so much shade lost and ground disturbed, it's inevitable that the problem plants the Arboretum always faces -- particularly Chinese privet -- will take advantage of the lincreased sunlight and the chaos.

photo credit: Lori Hutson, Houston Arboretum

 

The Arboretum is a 155 acre sanctuary native forest where hummingbirds are feeding and birds once again singing after the storm. But the hiking trails are still unpassable. If you're in the neighborhood and would like to help out, contact Lori Hutson.

9:55 AM ET | 09-18-2008 | permalink

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A Rainforest Still Grows In Galveston

Several days after Hurricane Ike hit the greater Houston area, communication still remains spotty with Galveston. I did try to contact the folks at Moody Gardens to see whether their Rainforest Pyramid sustained damage; inside is a collection of some 2,000 plant species plus 175 animal species and pools of fresh water fish.

By all reports, the Rainforest Pyramid at Moody Gardens in Galveston sustained very little damage during Hurricane Ike.

photo credit: Bryan Dawson

 

Jerri Hamachek is a spokesperson from Moody, currently in NY. She told me that despite the catastrophic hurricane, "we've been pretty fortunate. I've seen photos of the Rainforest Pyramid and there's some glass breakage but it didn't collapse. And there's been no breach of our 1.5 million gallon aquarium." That would have been disastrous.

What does concern Hamacheck are the indoor pools of fresh water fish, particularly whether there was enough flooding to have stranded them outside their pools. I haven't heard anything further about that. The few staff members still on site have enough on their hands -- particularly with all those free-range parrots -- without me pestering them for news of kalanchoe and koi.

11:17 AM ET | 09-15-2008 | permalink

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Major American Nursery Headed For Obits

Flappers were all the rage when Hines Nursery first opened its doors. That was a whole lot of management decisions ago. Looks like the octogenarian brand may not weather its last one; Hines Nurseries has filed for bankruptcy.

Though no one likes to see good people lose jobs, I did get some perspective on the bright side of the huge wholesale nursery's failure from The Blogging Nurseryman, the blog of California nursery owner, Trey Pitsenberger.

Evidentally, over the last year, Hines employees have been leaving comments on his blog about what's going on in their company. The bottom line? In turning its back on local nurseries and selling out to big box stores, the nursery got what it deserved.

"I know that at Home Depot," Pitsenberger wrote, "vendors like Hines don't get paid until the product is sold at the retail level. If the plants remain unsold for any reason, Home Depot does not pay. Considering the care plants receive at my local Home Depot I am not surprised that there are many unsold plants."

Perusing the comments on his site, Roger Dodger - who clearly works in the field - wrote this:

"Wake Up Call here people, STAY AWAY from the BOX stores if you want to stay in the business. Make those one-on-one relationships with the Indy folks, grow what they want and sell it at a price that they can also make a profit".

I haven't gotten into the nursery business much in this blog, but being a long supporter of both independent and niche nurseries, I ain't shedding tears.

11:01 AM ET | 08-25-2008 | permalink

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Do Your Plants Suffer From Indignation?

Did you miss the Nature article about the Swiss government throwing a thorny one to a govt ethics committee: to debate the dignity of plants?

The story itself makes enough sense if you read the whole thing through; among the things this committee intends to debate is whether genetic modification is more than simply controversial when it interferes with a plant's ability to reproduce and therefore, remain itself.

What's been far more amusing is how the very idea of plants having dignity has brought out great humor in those cheeky Brits and to a lesser degree, we Americans (alas, unless we're crude, we're simply not as clever and prone to humorless, narrow-focused diatribe).

See what happens when you throw me to the blogs? Hell with it, I'm heading back to the wildflowers. Will post pix tomorrow...

12:26 PM ET | 05-13-2008 | permalink

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Pissing Rain and Standing Water

Having just heard NPR's Melissa Block report on the desperation after the quake in Chengdu, and the continuing absurdity of foreign aid not getting into Myanmar, I'm torn as always between talking plants and talking real life.

Right now I've decided they're not mutually exclusive.

Even as eyewitnesses text, phone and e-mail in accounts from China, native lewisias in the Columbia Gorge are pushing from bud to flower absorbing whatever sun's rays are available (all told, not much); the first ruellia and acanthus flowers have been spotted by an Austin blogger; and a U.K. gardener mourns the absence of bad weather as he heads into the region's biggest flower show of the year.

Thanks for the much-needed visits to Zanthan Gardens and Blackpitts Garden; your blog recommendations enabled me to pick today's small if desperately-needed bouquet.

2:00 PM ET | 05-12-2008 | permalink

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Pomegranate Juice Fights Cavities

So we know (or think we know) that pomegranate juice -- like acai from Brazil, and other superfruit juices -- helps with everything from lowering bad cholesterol to inhibiting prostate cancer and reducing some of the risks from diabetes.

Today word arrives that two young men from Flatbush have discovered that pomegranate juice can help fight cavities. Here's a bit more from Touro College contact Barbara Franklin about Zev Zelman and Elliot Lutz:

The students based their research on the knowledge that cavities are not caused by the consumption of sweets, but rather the bacteria that ferment the dietary carbohydrates to produce lactic acid, which eats away at tooth enamel. However, pomegranate juice, and to a lesser degree pomegranate tea, effectively deactivate the bacteria within 10 minutes of contact. Other beverages tested that were effective included grape juice, cranberry juice, and some wines. The other beverages tested in the research had slight or no effect on the bacteria.

So maybe this should have been a picture of pomegranates in the wild instead of Zelman and Lutz in the office of their Dean of Students (Robert Goldschmidt) to merit the TP blog? Perhaps. But if it's the thought that counts, my thinking is this: Man brags while Nature indulges.

photo credit: Richard Lobel Photography

 

Feedback, please. Do you or don't you want to see TP venturing this far from Eden?

1:04 AM ET | 05- 1-2008 | permalink

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Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Paul Zindel wrote the play, Paul Newman directed the movie and it looks like the European Space Agency is now going to show us how to grow marigolds on the moon.

The BBC reports:

A team led by Natasha Kozyrovska and Iryna Zaetz from the National Academy of Sciences in Kiev planted marigolds in crushed anorthosite, a type of rock found on Earth which is very similar to much of the lunar surface.

Wouldn't have spied this if not for our own Greg, who turned me on to http://pruned.blogspot.com/ which mixes plants with science, landscape architecture, environmental issues, all the juicy and provocative stuff. Check it out!

11:35 AM ET | 04-30-2008 | permalink

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Oregon to Ban Butterfly Bush?

HEAR YE, HEAR YE ...

A butterfly bush can be a gorgeous thing. I remember seeing my first dark purple one in full flower (it was the now-ubiquitous 'Dark Knight') covered in butterflies and not believing my eyes.

HOWEVER ... here in the Northwest, they are noxious weeds; if another one was never planted out here, the species would still dominate the landscape for decades to come. And by landscape I don't just mean gardens; I mean the ever-threatened wild.

THEREFORE ... it was with great pleasure I read today that the plant division of the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) is proposing to restrict its sale in Oregon. Woweee!

BE AWARE ... that the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) has already managed to work around the ODA ban on awful, mean, nasty ivy. Oregon nurseries can still sell Hedera helix for "indoor or containerized uses" — as if anyone's watching what Oregonians do with their ivy.

TO WIT ... I ain't celebrating just yet...but thought you might want to know it's in the works...

5:45 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink

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The Little Green Orchid That Could

On behalf of all your chlorophyllic friends here at Talking Plants, Happy New Year!

Now I don't mean to twist your arm, but what I'm going to tell you about field botanist Steve Perlman and his search for Platanthera holochila is likely to make a whole lot more sense if you listen to the Morning Edition feature.

It was a habitat kind of day when Steve Perlman led our merry band of plant hunters through the Alaka'i Swamp on Kaua'i, just a dozen miles from Mount Wai'ale'ale, the second wettest place on earth. Our quarry: the fringed orchid.

photo credit: David Bender, National Tropical Botanical Garden

 

It wasn't a very big plant, maybe 20 inches high. The chances of spotting it were absolutely nil. But Steve Perlman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden had seen this rare orchid years ago, before it was dwarfed by knee-high shrubs. So it wasn't entirely miraculous — but it was pretty damn impressive — when he found it growing the middle of a wind-swept, fogged-in swamp.

His timing was perfect; the orchid was ripe for picking. So he carefully removed a couple of pregnant pods for safekeeping, each filled with hundreds of dust-sized seeds.

An ancient plant finds its future in the hands of men like Steve Perlman, who is shown here collecting seed from the fringed orchid. The next day this vial was winging its way to Illinois College where the seeds would be propagated.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

This fringed orchid was the last of its kind on Kaua'i, and previous attempts to propagate it had failed. Since there could be no certainty that the orchid would live to see another September, the seeds Perlman was collecting this day were crucial to its survival.

One of the main reasons this particular orchid survived was because the enormous bog it was growing in was pig-proof. No lie. Hawaii's wild pigs are like living rototillers; one of the only effective defenses against them is some very serious fencing.

Not an ounce of mean in this man, honest. But a lot of talent. A debt of gratitude to botanist Dave Bender for his many great shots, including this seriously macho self-portrait with fern frond.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

The next day, Perlman shipped this vial of seed pods to orchid specialist Larry Zettler, professor of biology at Illinois College. (Think: Larry, Larry, he's our man, if he can't do it, NO ONE CAN).

And now, through the magic of radio, you can Be There! when he gets the package.

About six weeks after receiving the little guys, Zettler e-mailed Perlman with good news, saying, "in a nutshell, this has not been an easy orchid to work with, but I am much more optimistic." I wrote to Zettler just the other day. Here's his response:

Hi Ketzel. We sowed the seeds that Steve sent us and they are in incubation. At last check, the embryos appeared OK. Platanthera species in general take considerable time in vitro, especially without fungi, but I'm becoming more convinced that this should be our option with this extremely fastidious species ... I find it ironic that my research with fungi may be taking a back seat with this species in favor of the asymbiotic technique which I had little faith in for the terrestrials. But that's how science sometimes works.

In other words, after intensive work growing terrestrial (ground) orchids in different fungi typically associated with the plant in the wild, Zettler's coming to the conclusion that he might have better luck not using any fungi at all. His findings seem to be consistent with a recent breakthrough in orchid growing at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (beware annoying little "chirps" at this site!).

I have to admit that despite the looks of this, um, shall we say underwhelming orchid, finding the little sucker made for one of those all-time perfect days.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

So will the little green orchid that could ever grown on Kaua'i again? Chances are pretty damn good, given that there's not a more delicious spot in the world to set down roots if your idea of a very good time is relentless wet, muck and rain.

Yes, you're right, this job definitely has its perks.

photo credit: Clay Trauernicht

 

3:15 PM ET | 12-31-2007 | permalink

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Plants Give Cues To Offspring

As many of you Tgiving types get ready to visit your own roots...

Most gardeners are hip to the fact that plants do best in their "native" environment -- that is, if a plant naturally grows in a bog, we keep its feet wet; if it likes windy cliffs and fast-draining soil, we put it in a rock garden.

A just-released report in Science Daily takes a gardener's common sense a step further. It seems parent plants teach their children well, according to evolutionary biologist Laura Galloway, who found that "maternal plants give cues to their offspring that help them adapt to their environmental conditions".

Here's my favorite part:

Historically maternal effects have been viewed as a complicating factor, an inconvenience, explains Galloway. But we have found that they can dramatically influence the performance of an individual.

My own Ever-Ready Bunny of a mother is going to be 92 this spring. A dramatic influence? Ever more, every day...

12:00 PM ET | 11-20-2007 | permalink

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