Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.

Dusty Miller (Centaurea cineraria)

Sometimes the ordinary can look extraordinary just by making a few changes. This is the case with dusty miller (Centaurea cineraria) in the Home Gardening Center. In one of the beds we have ‘Gloucester White’ growing alongside Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’ and Petunia Supertunia® ‘Vista Silverberry’. This is how you would expect to see it in a display–partnered in a nice color combination with other annuals.

In an adjacent bed, however, we have done something different. The same dusty miller, ‘Gloucester White’, has been grown into a standard. The two specimens that you see are between four and five years old. Dusty miller is a vigorous grower and forms a woody stem fairly quickly, making it an ideal candidate for a standard.
read more »

Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.

As you walk through the Home Gardening Center and peer into the Trial Beds, you will see some unusual sights this year. The Trial Beds are well represented with plants from a number of exotic places such as New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Africa, and Thailand.

When you enter the Garden, the first bed is a riotous collection of oranges, chartreuse, and gold. One of the centerpieces of this display is a plant that is indigenous to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Flag bush, or Buddha’s lamp (Mussaenda frondosa), is a tender shrub. In this region it will grow to look more like a large perennial than a shrub, reaching about three or more feet in one season. It has large white poinsettia-like bracts and small, bright orange flowers. You can place the flag bush in full sun or partial shade. It likes rich, well-drained soil, so remember to amend your soil with organic matter such as compost before you plant.
read more »

Back in the peaceful reaches of the Benenson Ornamental Conifers, there’s a question to be asked. Is there stock to be put in rarity, and does pairing that quality with beauty somehow amplify the “value” of what we’re looking at? I’m not about to try and delineate the boundaries of taste and worth; we work to preserve the future of plants, and that’s all there is to it. But there’s one species in mind that’s worth looking into.

Catalpa fargesii manages that unique combination of scarcity and beauty. A Chinese native found in regions such as Guangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan, even in its homeland it’s considered extremely rare in the wild, only “discovered” by Western dendrologists early in the 20th century. In the Western world, where few specimens have propagated in Europe or North America, it’s rarer still. Here in the U.S., for example, there are only two recorded Chinese catalpa trees of this kind. The Arnold Arboretum at Harvard has one, accessioned in 1914; The New York Botanical Garden is home to the other. In this case, “exclusive” is not a word to be tossed around lightly.
read more »

You could call our spotlight on the lotus blossoms an opening act. The true marquee headliners of Monet’s Garden–the prima donnas of our current collection–are without a doubt their nearby neighbors, the water lilies. There is no other flower in the landscape of spring, summer, or fall that so thoroughly represents the oeuvre of master Impressionist Claude Monet.

In the closing years of his life, the genus Nymphaea would come to define Monet’s obsession. He pulled dozens and dozens of scenes from that iconic spot by Giverny’s Japanese bridge, bringing concept to canvas with a verve few painters could match, then or now. Today, his water lily series stands as the ostensible height of his contribution to the history of art.

“It took me time to understand my water lilies,” Monet once wrote. “I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.”
read more »

It’s warm but brilliant around the Water Lily Pools. Only shy a few deck chairs and some daiquiris, really. Ivo and I wandered over to the Conservatory the other day to figure out what the Garden’s horticulturists were getting themselves into, only to find everyone up to their waists in the pond. He immediately jumped into a pair of chest-high waders and joined the group–even if it meant swimming for them, Ivo had to have macro shots of the freshly-planted tropical water lilies. Just as I did, I suspect some of those gathered around the pool must have felt the slightest twinge of jealousy.

Meanwhile, I puttered toward the lotus blossoms.

Like I mentioned on Twitter, the scope of these mythic flowers isn’t something you can reconcile until you see them up close. A few of the Nelumbo nucifera blooms easily near the size of my head when in full splay! They stand there like planets in rings, petals spreading every which way in gradients of rosy color. Others, yet to open, point straight up in cones of spiraled pinks. Still others have already come and gone, leaving fresh seed pods behind. Through this cycle, with every point in the arc visible at once, I can see why the lotus is such an important symbol in followings like Buddhism and Hinduism. I’d have to write a tome to cover even a hint of its many spiritual meanings, from purity, to detachment, to the cycle of life itself.
read more »