Exotic Planting

Something I was pleasantly surprised to see was the sheer number of Colocasia and its relatives in private and municipal gardens. This Colocasia "Black Magic" (I think) was in someone's front garden in Cambridge, MA:


And New York was full of exotic planting!


There was a rather well-fertilised Colocasia leaf:


And some pretty huge Alocasia by the looks of things!


I guess they'll all be dug up for the winter.

Autumn In The Pinetum

In a garden full of evergreens it's nice to get a bonus bit of colour, even if that colour comes from the plants shedding their leaves, thus beginning my nervous wait for spring buds and the proof that I haven't killed them.

I was relieved to see Taxodium distichum is deciduous, as when I got back from the US it was doing this:


The Ginkgo biloba is yellow, and shedding leaves (if only I could lift up its skirt and check if it's a girl ginkgo or a boy ginkgo...):


And although it looks a bit miserable, up close the Metasequoia glyptostroboides is actually really pretty:


It seems a little strange that all my lovely autumn colours have come from gymnosperms - I have a Magnolia and Hamamelis, and I'd hoped to have some colours before they shed their leaves, but the witch hazel went from green to bare, and the magnolia looks like it's going the same way!

Comments

I have a confession - I set all the past week's posts (and a few coming up at the end of this week) up as scheduled posts, and I've barely been around. So thank you all so much for carrying on commenting, and I shall have a commenting spree in response to you all when I've finished this post.

The photos I've been putting up have all been from my holiday in October, a massive roadtrip taking in every state north of the Mason-Dixon Line and culminating in five days in New York City.

At the weekend I visited my parents, and Mum and I went off to her local garden centre so Dad and Hubster could get on with studying and writing respectively (Dad is doing a masters degree, Hubster has entered NaNoWriMo). It's perhaps the first time I have been to a garden centre in over two years and not bought something, but I did spend money vicariously through Mum, who now has even more Christmas decorations and seriously considered buying the £269 life-size stuffed reindeer toy.

Yesterday I took a photo of my windowseat as it stands at the moment (it may get worse as other plants have to come indoors...) in response to Diane's comment on Friday Fern #24 - there'd be nowhere for you to sit now, Diane!!


See Sideshow Bob in the right hand corner and how much he's grown? And the dead-looking plants are divided Colocasia esculenta "Mammoth". One of them is already growing another leaf, which is excellent.

My gardening mug says "You have to propagate to accumulate", and while I suck at taking cuttings and getting things to germinate from seed, I seem to be pretty good at dividing plants...

America <3 Metasequoia

And I have to say, I <3 Metasequoia too. This is a M. glyptostroboides being hugged by your very own JJ, on Boston Common:


In fact, I think this is the exact same one that Tai Haku showed us a couple of weeks ago (although his photo is much better because it shows the actual whole tree...).

Then, outside the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, there was a smaller one:


And it was showing its autumn foliage (which was good for me to see as otherwise I'd have returned to the UK absolutely convinced that my own Metasequoia was on its last legs):


We were back up to full size outside the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh (you might just be able to see my shortarse form next to it for scale):


Couldn't resist adding in an extra little picture of a baldcypress, Taxodium distichum in the cemetery at Gettysburg...


And this mobile phone mast did a reasonable job of masquerading as a (weirdly symmetrical) conifer of some description:


It was great to see so many great old trees. I think the world would be improved by the addition of more Metasequoia. They really are magnificent organisms. And I love, love, LOVE them.

The Pearl In The Big Apple

On West 105th Street, Manhattan, is a community garden called La Perla. We saw it all decorated for Hallowe'en (at least I'm assuming the "Caution: enter if you dare" banner is temporary):


La Perla used to be a drug hangout, but has been transformed over the space of four years. Community gardens aren't that common over this side of the Atlantic, but there are a few of them, most commonly in inner city developments where, like in Manhattan, the residences are all apartments with little communal outdoor space. I suppose our allotments are a more common occurrence.


I was only able to see it through the fence, as it was quite early in the morning and I expect it was closed to visitors by this time of year. But it looked like a really happy, friendly place to be. And I had a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that there are community gardens like this providing little pockets of green all over New York.

New York's Flower District

With all those community gardens, balconies, conservatories, windowsills and actual proper back gardens (for the rich or lucky), I started to wonder where New Yorkers actually bought their plants. And I found this out on a chance wander around downtown Manhattan en route to Greenwich Village.


This is the New York Flower District! And I just happened to stumble across the exotics section...

There were cut flowers for sale, including loads of proteas:


And you'll be pleased to know that I did briefly wonder if I could buy one of these and have it shipped over to the UK...


I'm willing to bet several people have tried to get one of those home on the Subway before now. They could probably do it. The Subway is much larger than the London Underground, and I've seen people lugging their Chelsea Flower Purchases onto the Tube at Sloane Square.

Friday Fern #24

And another non-new fern this week. Although I don't think I've actually done Sideshow Bob for Friday Fern, I have mentioned him in the past. Sideshow Bob is my Nephrolepis exaltata, the Boston fern (shown when he was about half his current size, in between Bastard the Cycad and a maidenhair fern):


Now, I've often wondered why it's called a Boston fern, and while it's probably not the real reason, I did begin to wonder when I saw hanging baskets full of Boston ferns all over the city of Boston itself!


I didn't think Nephrolepis exaltata were particularly hardy, so I'm assuming these chaps get taken in once the frosts start coming thick and fast (although they'd be protected from some of the frosts by virtue of being seven feet above ground).

And Now For Something Completely Different

As much as I adore Jurassic Park, sometimes I get a bit of a craving for a really pretty flower border. And the groundsmen and I have finally reached an understanding that they don't mess with the beds out front, so I decided to go for some spring bulbs.


First up in February will be the Crocus mix, followed by the Anemone blanda in April, and then topped off with some Dutch Iris in June.

One thing I did notice - when scattered on the ground ready to be planted, Anemone blanda corms don't half look like fox scat...

Go To Sleep, Damnit!

Today was the first really nice dry day in some time, so I took the opportunity to fleece up some of the larger and more delicate plants. There's the Blechnum tabulare all cosy and warm in its fleece:


It's only Zone 9 hardy, so it needs a bit of help!

Some of my garden just doesn't want to hibernate for winter though. One of my Ensete "Maurelii" is still trying to grow another leaf:



Araucaria araucana has decided now is the ideal time to put on a growth spurt:


Dryopteris sieboldii succeeded in growing another teeny tiny frond:


And the Little Brainea That Could is looking strong...


But perhaps the most surprising thing was to see my Grevillea juniperina with FLOWER BUDS!! In freakin' November!


I know proteas go for late-winter or very early spring flowering, but I can't help thinking this is a bit too early. These flowers have got to get through everything that December and January have to throw at them, and that's before we even get to February (which is so often one of the crappest months)!

Stinko Ginkgo

Sometimes the best way to learn is to make a really, really dumb mistake. Outside the Phipps Conservatory there was an avenue of Ginkgo biloba.


And they were starting to show their autumn colours (I have never seen a Ginkgo go any colour other than yellow). Now, perhaps I've just been really unobservant, but I had never seen Ginkgo fruit before, even though there are plenty of the trees in and around London.


And I thought, wouldn't it be great fun to pick a few fruit, get them through customs (the Defra website seems to say seeds are unrestricted, but my little brother, who works for a Defra-related organisation, nearly had an aneurism when I told him about this later), and try to grow a few Pittsburgh ginkgos.

Being a bit short, I asked Hubster if he could reach some for me. He smiled at me in that kindly way he does when he's humouring me, and grabbed a handful of fruit.


I put them in my bag, and we left for Philadelphia.

And then, over the space of the next 48 hours, I became aware of a truly foul smell. It was almost as bad as the pigeon I've been dissecting for "research". Sort of decomposition, sort of stagnant water, sort of faecal matter.

Yeeeaaaahhh, that was my introduction to the high butanoic acid content of ginkgo seeds. By the time we got to New York, they were so vile that they made the rest of the hostel smell delightful by comparison. So they were all quietly disposed of.

But my handbag still smells a bit shit. Literally.

Two Of My Favourite Things

Ferns and coffee. Here was morning coffee in Providence, RI, at Blue State Coffee:


And here was afternoon coffee at a little French place in Greenwich Village, NY:


I think the Greenwich Village one looks prettier, but I felt more righteous after drinking the one from Blue State Coffee.

I-95 Service Area

While it's quite easy to spot cool plants and flowers in national parks and botanical gardens, I was dead impressed to see these unusual flowers in a service station car park in Connecticut.


Haven't a scoobies what they are, but they must be pretty sturdy to be planted in the ground just off I-95 - I know that it doesn't get THAT cold, but it's still colder than the average minimum temperatures for my part of the UK. If I were into flowers, I might even consider one of these for the garden, as they look a little exotic and other-worldly.

Friday Fern #23

You're probably going to get a bit annoyed with me, but here's another revisit. I covered Asplenium trichomanes in July, and I wanted to basically show you a few more of my holiday photos, and the insane places that the maidenhair spleenwort managed to attach itself and thrive.


These ones were in Treman State Park, on the way down to Lucifer Falls, in Ithaca, New York, clinging onto a sheer cliff face, perfectly happily (I didn't have a poke around, but I expect the roots had found a nice moist fissure). And then these chaps were under an overhang.


As I said the first time round, one of these was growing in the Blue John Cavern in Derbyshire, next to the spotlight. Maybe I should consider growing one of these in my dark, dingy bathroom...

Got Autumn?

I have an absolutely stinking cold (which coincided exactly with my final decision to buy bulbs for the front borders - not sure if bulbs benefit from extra protein, but with my nose running all over the place they'll sure get it). So I shall let you get on with oohing and aahing at some luvverly New England colours. These were taken on various interstates and highways around Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York (including, towards the end, some of the gorges around Ithaca).






































Hope you enjoyed those. With any luck, the cotton wool will clear from my head by tomorrow and I can write about some of the more useful stuff I saw on holiday.