Inside The New York Botanical Garden
Francisca Coelho
Posted in Horticulture on March 21 2014, by Francisca Coelho
Francisca Coelho is the NYBG’s Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions. She designs and installs the major flower exhibitions in the Conservatory with a creative, hardworking team of managers and gardeners who also produce the plants for display and maintain the invaluable collections of tropical, sub-tropical and desert plants.
Each morning, I am greeted by the majestic presence of the traveler’s palm (Ravenala madagascariensis) in the Palm Dome of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. I planted it myself back in 1996, when the stem was just five feet tall, and I have been watching it mature into this fine specimen ever since—growing taller and stronger daily for the past 18 years. It seems to me that its main goal is to see how quickly its 10-foot-long leaves can touch the glass of the lower dome 60 feet above.
Despite its name, the traveler’s palm is not a palm at all, but instead closely related to the bird of paradise and the banana. Its native home is in the forests of Madagascar, but it can now be found growing in gardens all over the Tropics. It takes the form of an enormous green fan on a tall, robust, grey stem, with its north- and south-pointing leaves providing a makeshift compass for weary travelers. In desperate situations, it also provides much-needed water—not always palatable—that collects in the stem sheaths for those thirsty souls who might happen upon it.
Read More
Posted in Exhibitions, The Edible Garden on August 13 2010, by Plant Talk
Anything Goes—and Grows—in Potting Up Vegetables for Small Spaces
 |
Francisca Coelho is the Vivian and Edward Merrin Associate Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions. |
You may not be aware of this, but every plant you have grown in a pot, box, can, tub, or other vessel is an example of container gardening. Your potted houseplants, summer pots of annuals, and hanging baskets all represent gardening in containers. In the tropics where I grew up, people lined their front steps with many colorful, painted containers of every shape and size. They filled them with beautiful, tropical, flowering exotics and with plants used for food and medicine. Versatility is the hallmark of the container gardener!
In front of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, as part of The Edible Garden, I am growing an assortment of tasty vegetables in containers. The design is simple-a mix of semicircles and straight lines with pots ranging in size from 14 to 36 inches in diameter.
The steps leading up to the elevated area are lined with pots filled with Tumbling Tom tomatoes, mammoth red cabbages, purple kohlrabi and kale, ornamental trailing sweet potato vines, and marigolds, included to ward off unwelcomed pests and to encourage hungry bees to pollinate my edible delights.
Read More
Posted in Exhibitions, People, The Orchid Show on April 10 2009, by Plant Talk
Living Orchid Chandeliers and Wall Dazzle Visitors
 |
Karl Lauby is Vice President for Communications.
|
Francisca Coelho has outdone herself this time.
The Senior Curator and Associate Vice President for Glasshouses and Exhibitions is principally responsible for the creation, implementation, and management of the exhibitions that have solidified The New York Botanical Garden’s reputation as an international leader in horticultural display.
But she’s taken her work to new heights with the sensationally popular Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern, which takes its final bow this weekend.
While the whole show is her handiwork, in particular she has created a set of four massive hanging baskets of tropical aroids and descending orchids that alone are worth the trip to The Orchid Show. The baskets or chandeliers—each containing a huge philodendron, six smaller philodendrons, six grape ivies, and 120 orchids overflowing and pouring down from high overhead—embody living art with hidden engineering, creative design, and clever construction.
Fran took designer Raymond Jungles’ illustration and executed it brilliantly, using pipes, cables, and four-foot metal baskets that, once arranged with flowers, became six-foot-wide creations. In rummaging through her storeroom, Fran saw just the right-sized tree baskets—baskets usually used for moving big trees in the nursery trade—and traced the manufacturer to McKenzie Nursery Supply in Perry, Ohio. She asked the company to make eight baskets to her design and placed one basket within another and tied them together to make four strong baskets that would hold the weight of the hanging plants. A smaller, 30-inch-wide basket holding the large philodendron was then placed within the large basket on a wire frame placed six inches above the basket bottom. Each large philodendron is flanked by six more philodendrons and six grape ivy vines.
To suspend the whole apparatus, Fran rigged up crossed galvanized pipes in a square formation from which the baskets are suspended. Then the whole planter was lifted—using two lifts, one for the basket and one for the person hanging the basket—and hung from the conservatory ceiling. It took four staff members working in unison to accomplish this.
The outside of the entire large basket was then wrapped in black chicken wire. The basket-within-a-basket design left enough room for Fran’s able gardening colleagues to create the chandelier effect by edging the baskets with two types of orchids, Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium, in the pink-lavender color range and hung upside down, defying gravity, 120 orchids to each basket.
But the chandeliers are only part of the fun.
Fran also built the Orchid Wall. While it looks spontaneous, whimsical, and picturesque, in fact, the wall is meticulously designed and executed with artifice, contrivance, and calculation. The wall, 8 feet tall by 25 feet wide, is covered with 800 orchids, all Phalaenopsis, each hand-tied one by one to create a wall of flowers that mesmerizes visitors. In the center of the wall is a giant staghorn fern, surrounded by the five varieties of Phalaenopsis. Fran herself tied each of the 800 orchids onto the wall and has great stories about how she arrived at that number, tied each one, and managed to keep the entire wall seemingly in subtle motion from top to bottom as well as appearing fresh for the six-week run of the show.
Come see for yourself these magnificent, unique orchid creations in this, the final weekend of The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern. Meanwhile, take one last chance to vote for your favorite type of orchid in our poll at right. So far, Vandas are in the lead by a large margin.
As we say goodbye to the orchids, we say hello to the Auricula Theater, a display in the Herb Garden of two types of alpine primroses in a presentation based on a centuries-old tradition.
And, of course, it’s spring all over the Garden. Walk around and see what’s in bloom, look for seasonal birds that are arriving and the recently born baby owls, participate in waking up the Family Garden, and more. Click on the daily highlights below.
Check out all of Saturday’s programming
Check out all of Sunday’s programming
Each morning, I am greeted by the majestic presence of the traveler’s palm (Ravenala madagascariensis) in the Palm Dome of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. I planted it myself back in 1996, when the stem was just five feet tall, and I have been watching it mature into this fine specimen ever since—growing taller and stronger daily for the past 18 years. It seems to me that its main goal is to see how quickly its 10-foot-long leaves can touch the glass of the lower dome 60 feet above.
