It’s the classic gardener’s dilemma—you want lots of fresh flowers to decorate your home, but you want to keep your landscape flowers intact and beautiful. And the solution is… the cutting garden! This spring, Adult Education puts a fresh twist on the cut flower concept, with two classes that highlight the ever-growing interest in native plants.
For an in-depth, practical guide to the best wildflowers and techniques, join Kathleen Salisbury for Native Plants for Cut Flower Gardening(May 17). You’ll learn how to cultivate, cut and condition enough New York ironweed, sweet coneflower, meadow rue, and more to give you beautiful and natural arrangements all season long.
As spring turns to summer, try your hand at Arranging with Summer Wildflowers(June 26). Ken Norman will help you evoke a natural landscape with loose, textured designs using native wildflowers you can find in your own garden or at area farmers’ markets.
Both one-day sessions are presented in memory of Mae L. Wien, and include an inspiring tour through the Garden’s Seasonal Walk, newly designed by Piet Oudolf.
An inflorescence of Jack-in-the-pulpit showing the long spadix appendage protruding from the striped spathe.
One of our easiest to recognize wildflowers is Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). Named for its fancied resemblance to a preacher (“Jack”) in his over-hanging pulpit, the name captures the imagination and makes the plant easy to remember. Like other members of the aroid family (Araceae) the inflorescence is comprised of two parts: a spadix that bears numerous small flowers and a modified leaf called a spathe that surrounds and partially encloses the spadix. In the case of Jack-in-the-pulpit, each plant bears either male or female flowers; the plants are dioecious.
Other aroids can have different arrangements of their flowers; for example the flowers of skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) are perfect, meaning that every flower has both male and female parts, while those of the European wildflower known as lords and ladies (Arum maculatum), are arranged with separate male flowers on the upper part of the spadix and female flowers on the lower part.
A lovely mixture of spring wildflowers including columbine, rue anemone, and violets.
Columbine, with its nectar-filled red spurs, blooms just at the time that hummingbirds are returning from their winter sojourns south of the border—or is it the other way around? Do hummingbirds return just when the columbine begins to flower? From either viewpoint, it is clear that these two species have coevolved to synchronize their arrival in spring.
Hummingbirds need a plentiful source of nectar to provide the energy required for their frenetic life style. In return they incidentally transport pollen from one flower to the next ensuring that the columbine will be fertilized and set seed, thus perpetuating the species. Some hummingbirds will become summer residents here, while others will continue their northward migration as far as Canada, following the columbine bloom north.
The landscape of our new Native Plant Garden is evolving daily. Each day brings a new bloom, a new leaf, a new hue, or a new resident to this amazing 3.5-acre landscape. It is a celebration of the native plants of the northeast, of which wildflowers are the most delicate and ephemeral. And we’re very happy to be participating in the sixth annual NYC Wildflower Week!
On Friday, Wildflower Week participants are invited to a very special tour of the Native Plant Garden, Thain Family Forest, and Azalea Garden. The tour, Native Flowers, Forest & Azaleas of NYBG, will be conducted by Jody Payne, Director of the Native Plant Garden; Jessica Arcate-Schuler, Director of the Thain Family Forest; Deanna Curtis, Curator of Woody Plants; and Kristin Schleiter, Director of Outdoor Gardens. The tour–offered rain or shine from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on May 17–is free with paid admission and participants should meet at the Leon Levy Visitor Center Reflecting Pool.
A plant of Virginia spring beauty showing its grass-like leaves.
Of the many spring ephemerals cropping up in the Garden, the plant known as “spring beauty” in the genus Claytonia is one that can be seen without taking a walk through the woods. It is commonly found at the edge of woodlands, or along mowed roadsides. Like many spring ephemerals spring beauty flowers close at night and remain closed on overcast days. This tendency, combined with the plant’s grass-like leaves, make it easy to miss spring beauty if you do not look closely.
The beauty of spring beauty is best enjoyed by looking closely at the flowers with a hand lens. This allows you to appreciate the delicate pink lines that lead insect visitors to the source of nectar at the base of each petal. Insects–among them small bees, flies, and wasps–are further guided to the nectaries by a bright yellow spot; they are attracted by both nectar and pollen. The tiny flowers do not produce enough nectar to warrant a visit by the large queen bumblebees that fly in early spring, but small bees drink their fill and pack their pollen baskets with the anthers‘ creamy white pollen. The anthers themselves are pink and open before the female reproductive parts, thus helping to promote cross-pollination.
An underground rhizome of bloodroot cut to show the bright red sap.
Both the scientific name, Sanguinaria canadensis, and the common name, bloodroot, of this spring wildflower are descriptive. The generic name Sanguinaria has its roots in the Latin word for blood, and bloodroot describes the root-like rhizome of this plant, which contains a bright red sap. Like other members of the poppy family, Papaveraceae, the sap throughout the plant is colored, which may be seen by breaking a vein in the leaf with your fingernail.
Without aroma, Dutchman’s breeches flowers use contrasting yellow and white colors to attract pollinators, namely early-flying queen bumblebees.
In the early spring wildflower parade, Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) follow closely on the heels of hepatica, blooming by mid-April. Dutchman’s breeches are one of the true spring ephemerals, plants that complete their entire above-ground life cycle within a period of only a few weeks and then disappear until the following spring. Of course, the underground portions live on, storing the carbohydrates manufactured by the leaves during the brief period before the trees have leafed out and shaded the forest floor. But spring ephemerals are not roadside plants.
To see most of our native ephemerals requires a pleasant walk in the woods. Ephemerals are plants that have evolved to live in the primeval conditions of Eastern North America—a land once covered by forest. They must take advantage of the short period of year when temperatures are warm enough and sunlight sufficient enough on the forest floor for the plant to accomplish three tasks: food production, reproduction, and storage of carbohydrates for the subsequent year’s growth.
Dense hairs serve to protect the delicate flower from cold temperatures and drying winds.
Hepatica is the first “true” wildflower (that is, other than the rather unusual-flowered skunk cabbage) to bloom in the tri-state region. Its lovely flowers are a cheerful indicator that spring has really begun, but they can be surprisingly difficult to spot among the dull brown leaf litter. The flowers range in shades of pink, lavender, purple, and white, but they are small and low growing—plus they only open on sunny days. This strategy serves to conserve the flower’s pollen for days when its pollinators (usually small native bees) are likely to be flying.
It may be easier to find the distinctive leaves of hepatica; they are three-lobed, leathery, and often a deep burgundy color at this time of year. Hepatica retains its leaves for a full year, allowing the plant to photosynthesize on mild winter days and thus get a jump-start on the season. The appearance of the leaves is what has given this plant its somewhat unattractive common names, hepatica and liverleaf, both references to the imagined similarity of the leaves to a human liver. This fancied resemblance almost led to the plant’s demise during the 19th century.
The sensuous curves of skunk cabbage inflorescences brighten a swamp in early spring.
For those thirsting for some sign of rebirth after a long, cold winter, you need go no further than the closest swamp. Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) has been up and in flower for over a month now. In fact, skunk cabbage may be found in flower as early as mid-February in this area. While many people may not consider skunk cabbage to be a ”true” spring wildflower, that is, one that is sweet, delicate, and pastel-colored, it is, indeed, one of our native wildflowers, and a plant deserving of our attention and admiration. The floral parts have a certain sculptural beauty, and the deep maroon color is striking in the otherwise bleak landscape.
Travis Beck, Landscape and Gardens Project Manager, The New York Botanical Garden
Every time I’ve spoken to a landscape architect or nursery grower about taking an ecological approach to landscape design–something I’ve been doing a lot throughout the planning and development of the Garden‘s new Native Plant Garden–I keep hearing the same phrase repeated over and over: “You should talk to Colston Burrell.”
Up until this point I’ve known Burrell mostly through his writing. Of recent note is his American Horticultural Society (AHS) award-winning Hellebores: A Comprehensive Guide. This is the time of year when I really start looking forward to the blooming of the Lenten Rose and other garden hellebores, but Burrell’s knowledge goes far beyond the mere beauty of these harbingers of spring. Another book of his that won an AHS book award is A Gardener’s Encyclopedia of Wildflowers. Wildflowers . . . Now isn’t that just a friendly term for native plants? Burrell is deeply involved with using and promoting native plants, whether he’s lecturing on plants and ecology at the University of Virginia, getting his hands dirty in his own garden, or working on designs through his firm Native Landscape Design and Restoration.
There are a lot of reasons to use native plants. They’re also commonly misunderstood, both by those who overestimate their powers, and those who underestimate their potential. I’m looking forward to getting a real plantsman’s perspective on how to use native plants in the landscape, the perspective of someone who loves wildflowers and hellebores with equal passion. That’s why I’ll be in the front row on February 17, when Colston Burrell speaks as part of NYBG’s 2011 Winter Lecture Series. I hope to see you there!
It’s the classic gardener’s dilemma—you want lots of fresh flowers to decorate your home, but you want to keep your landscape flowers intact and beautiful. And the solution is… the cutting garden! This spring, Adult Education puts a fresh twist on the cut flower concept, with two classes that highlight the ever-growing interest in native plants.
Every time I’ve spoken to a landscape architect or nursery grower about taking an ecological approach to landscape design–something I’ve been doing a lot throughout the planning and development of the