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

Dendrobium phalaenopsis hybrid

To the chagrin of my more tropically-inclined colleagues, I have been resisting the temptation to sing the praise of dendrobiums for years. “Give me an oncidium any day,” I used to exclaim. “They are easier to grow and I will not kill them!”

Initially, it was true… I had issues with dendrobiums. If the vegetative growth (foliage and pseudobulbs) in many orchids is fairly unattractive when they are out of bloom, the cane dendrobiums are positively ugly.

I do not like them in bloom; I do not like them out of bloom; I do not like them Sam-I-am with green eggs and ham! I was adamant. They looked like mutant orchids, outcasts in an otherwise pulchritudinous family–the Orchidaceae.
read more »

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

Last week we were discussing vertical gardens, or “living walls,” a specialty of French botanist Dr. Patrick Blanc. Since we are now in the midst of our spring Orchid Show, today we will explore why orchids are such good candidates for vertical gardening. With somewhere in the area of 70% of all orchids being epiphytic, members of the Orchidaceae family were destined to climb.

Orchids that dangle in the air–sometimes known colloquially as air plants–are classified as epiphytes. Epi- means “on top” and -phyte means “plant”–essentially growing on top of another plant. The relation the epiphyte has with the host is not parasitic (where it is harming the host), nor is it symbiotic/mutualistic (where both parties benefit), but rather commensalistic (where one benefits and the other is neutral). The term commensalism is derived from the Latin meaning “sharing a table.”
read more »

Meet Thomas Christopher, an expert on sustainable gardening practices, who will speak about “The Backyard Revolution” Thursday, March 15, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Thomas Christopher has been covering sustainable gardening practices as a writer and editor for more than 25 years, with articles in nationally-read publications including The New York Times and Martha Stewart Living. He is also a hands-on gardener who has started his own sustainable lawn consulting business, Greener Grasses/Sustainable Lawns, near Middletown, CT.

“I was staggered to learn the area of turf in the United States is as big as Virginia, Connecticut and two-thirds of Rhode Island. Grass is our largest irrigated crop, more than corn,” said Christopher in a recent Chicago Tribune article. “Grasses are a resource-soaking nightmare, but they don’t have to be.”
read more »

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

It turns out that the French botanist and designer, Patrick Blanc, is in fact very green. If you are unaware of his reputation as “The Green Man,” the eccentric eco-artist and designer sports bright green hair, and electric green nail polish painted on a long, curvy thumb nail.

With a strong background in botany under his belt, Blanc has explored the natural world while traveling extensively throughout the tropics. Through his travels he has paid particular attention to how plants situate themselves in their native environments–tangling and twisting amongst other species, climbing over each other, and colonizing small territories in diverse communities.

Blanc has paired his fascination with plants and their natural communities with new technologies, and is now one of the leaders in the field of vertical gardening, or “living walls.” In this day and age when space is at a premium–particularly in urban environments–vertical gardening is quite literally a breath of fresh air.
read more »

Hibiscus moscheutos 'Lady Baltimore'

Every year during the winter months, growers start parading their new introductions through gardening magazines and catalogs. It’s the annual horticultural fashion show. And the horticultural models that hit the catwalk usually tell us a great deal about current trends and market demand.

As I peruse the pages of magazines this year I am struck by the balance of practicality and aesthetic. We all love beautiful plants–there is no denying it. This year, however, beauty is amalgamated with functionality.
read more »

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

Rosarian Ken Molinari offers pointers on proper pruning techniques.

Pruning climbing roses is akin to a good spring cleaning. When things pile up in the home, there is nothing like a quiet winter weekend to dive into the mess and de-clutter. It is precisely what rosarians in the Northeast do with their climbing roses at this time of year.

In order for a magnificent climbing rose to look its best, proper care is necessary. Recently I spent a delightful day with NYBG rosarian Ken Molinari, pruning our climbers and discussing roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. We have so many roses here that we like to get out early and start pruning. Find a warm day in February or early March to step outside and go to work on your climbers.
read more »

They’re inconspicuous almost to the point of invisibility, assuming you’re looking for them in their natural habitat. You might pass an entire stand of these plants without being the wiser were you to find yourself wandering parts of southern Africa. But when a grazing animal happens by, camouflage is the best natural defense in a landscape where food comes scarce and water borders on mythological.

Picking out lithops from the patches of pebbly ground where they grow is a simple task if you’re attentive–just look for misplaced symmetry. The thick leaves of the small, bifurcated plants resemble patterned stones, as evidenced in the breakdown of the name itself: lithos means “stone” and -ops means “face” in ancient Greek. But they’re not the subjects of any geology professor. You might guess that from their sometimes vibrant patterns and strange colorations.
read more »

The New York Botanical Garden’s Plant Information Specialists and the Home Gardening Center share a wealth of experience, enlightening visitors with their knowledge of indoor and outdoor plants, ornamentals, vegetable gardening, identification, and growing requirements–to name but a few of their specialties.

It was nearly 60 degrees here at The New York Botanical Garden yesterday, a misplaced spring day that brought with it a number of questions from our Twitter followers concerned for the future of their plants. As Sonia Uyterhoeven outlined only a few weeks ago, this strange back-and-forth with warm and cold temperatures has been wreaking havoc on the plants’ growth cycles, confusing some of them into blooming early and leaving gardeners wondering if they’ll have anything to show come spring.

For spring-blooming flowers, the bad news is that it’s a “one and done” agreement–if high temperatures now push these plants into their spring phase early, there will be no second bloom post-winter. The good news is that if we have long stretches of weather in the high 30s and low 40s, those growths that are blooming early will last for a very, very long time. At this point the long-range forecast is still looking promising. But look at your average meteorologist’s win ratio and you’ll take predictions with a grain of salt.
read more »

New Yorkers may wake up tomorrow in a warmer zone, according to the just-released, internet-friendly 2012 USDA Hardiness Zone Map.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released a new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM) for the first time since 1990, updating individual zones with much greater accuracy and detail. This could mean a shake-up for seed distributors and gardeners alike, with a slightly different range of plants being recommended for certain regions across the country.

Also for the first time, the new map offers an interactive format using the Geographic Information System (GIS) and the map website incorporates a “find your zone by ZIP code” function.
read more »

For the past few weeks we have been discussing the fallout of 2011′s strange weather, the damage experienced here at the NYBG, and various methods of identifying at-risk trees. Last week we examined some of the physiological processes behind winter injury.

Continuing where we left off, we will now explore several things that home owners can do to combat winter injury. The most effective remedy for winter injury on broad-leaved evergreens is prevention; in other words, the best protection is properly siting the plants.
read more »