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.
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.
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 the best techniques and selection of loppers for pruning and sheering of 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.
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.
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.
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.
