I am still digging tropicals and other non-hardies at home. If the weather had not been so great I would be in deep double-dug doo-doo. As it is, I’m sort of leisurely going along – but admittedly starting to look over my shoulder for “real” November weather. Whether it was the cooler summer or the steady rains I don’t know but many plants did extra good this year. The Amorphophallus konjac got huge.

The Xanthosoma violaceum produced “pups”. A first for me.

Even a stroll around the IMA reveals horticulture rarities. One of the bananas Jim planted by the Rain Garden bloomed this year. Since that stalk will die anyway he just left it in the ground. The leaves look real sad but that bloom, that bloom thinks it can still make fruit. The middle of November and it is barely touched by cold.

These little yellow flowers would each develop into a banana in the perfect (tropical) climate.

Behind Deer Zink the containers still have variegated shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata’) looking great. On November 13!

On the Sutphin Mall Geranium ‘Rozanne’ demonstrates why I still am willing to plant it. Plenty of flowers on a plant that started blooming in May.

The woody plants continue to put on a show as well. Near the Formal Garden, European beeches glow in the afternoon sun. All that yellow holding back the gray of winter.

In the Overlook an oak and some viburnums seem to have color coordinated themselves.

So even though it is mid-November there is still plenty to enjoy and delight in the gardens. Why don’t you come and visit a spell?

In the great green garden-room
There was an elephant ear alocasia
And some blue and white balloon flowers ….”

Brilliant red of the native sourwood tree with the clear yellow of Photinia in the background. IMA/Oldfields border garden near orchard.

Arisaema and sourwood leaves

It has been a long gentle slide through a beautiful autumn here in the gardens.  Cool sunny days and no heavy rain storms meant outstanding leaf color on trees and shrubs around the campus.  But the bright yellow has now fallen from the sugar maple outside the Deer-Zink Pavilion, the needles of the great pyramidal dawnredwoods around the Sutphin Fountain are going to russet orange, and the red maples on the mall above the parking garage are just past peak color.

Yesterday morning folks in my neighborhood were needing to really scrape frost from the car windows.  The last of the summer’s annual plantings are being pulled out.  Hostas are cut down, and autumn windflowers are spent.  Only some purple monkshood and blue tartarian asters have blossoms among the perennials.  And I have not been able to make myself dig this year’s surprise performer Canna ‘Ermine’ still pushing white bloom spikes 6 feet above the perennial border in the Tanner Orchard.

Canna Ermine

But it is, “Goodnight garden, and off to bed.”  The elephant ears from the Garden for Everyone are cut back and ready for their long winter nap in the hort office basement with their banana buddies.  I’m sure they are dreaming of the sunny tropics – or at least humid Hoosier July.

Bananas in the basement

A few more leaves to rake and compost, then a long winter trying to convince my colleagues to allow a few native black cherry seedlings to grow up in the gardens, “… but you heard Dr. Tallamy say black cherry supports vastly more Lepidoptera than redbud….”

Leaf pile

Post script for true plant nerds:
If Susan Sarandon can do the original version of Goodnight Moon on YouTube, is a horticultural version by Tracy DiSabato-Aust far behind for the next Perennial Plant Association conference?

Ooooo, the blog is getting a little too deep and self-consciously artsy.

Who said something about art being either plagiarism or genius?  In the horticulture trade, one of the first things a gardener learns is to borrow and adapt what others do. A good gardener  gives proper credit when told, “That is a nice plant combination.”  So, John Teramoto, Marty Krause, Annette Schlagenhauff (am I forgetting anyone?) – thank you for the exhibit Lay of the Land.

The exhibit combining Asian and Western art prints and poetry, set me to thinking about how often images in the galleries, or music and poetry cause me to recall some beautiful place I’ve experienced.  Nice memories and feelings …. trying to capture the bliss of the moment.

So as Autumn brings another season to a close, I offer some images and poems, with apologies to the artists,  that reminded this gardener of the promise and beauty of Spring as compensation for labors…

Work
The corn is baking in blue smoke,
Pickled tomato is piled ready on my plate,
And the chrysocolla of a young cedar branch is close.
Yet the breakfast that should be calm and enjoyable
makes me uneasy.
I’m worried about the manure I threw yesterday
From the horsecart and left on the slope.
Kenji Miyazawa 1896-1933

Manure and compost on vegetable garden at Oldfields

“Peasants Going to Work, by Jean F. Millet (IMA 40.65)”

============================================

Ah. It is spring,
Great spring it is now.
Great, great spring.
Ah, great –
Matsuo Basho 1644-1694

Apple blossom in April 2009, Gene and Rosemary Tanner Orchard, Oldfields at the IMA. Photograph by Sue Arnold

Check out the IMA’s searchable database of the art collection any time.

Check out the flowers, and maybe some leftover
manure,  dawn to dusk on our 152 acres, or right where you live.

I get to the point that I’m either begging for frost to come and take out the garden or begging for one more day above freezing so there won’t be any damage. Gardening schizophrenia. It doesn’t happen so much with things here at the IMA, but at home ….. well, that’s another story.
As if the gardening I normally do at my quaint little domicile isn’t sufficient to fill many of my waking hours, this year I decided to plant the entire backyard. Down went cardboard, paperboard, and paper feed bags followed by my special rabbit and chicken manure mulch.

Poof! The grass was gone. Unfortunately the dandelions, violets, and bind weed were not as cooperative and they accounted for at least half of my “turf”. But really the only serious weeding I had to do in these new areas was the bindweed. Next year there will be plenty of glyphosate sprayed on the beast. Because I’m going to have so much more free time? Who the hell am I kidding? Whatever. Hopefully I will manage to get a good spray program going because pulling the damn things does not work.
Perhaps the truly scary part of all this is the fact I was able to fill nearly all that space.

It’s hard to believe I once thought it was too much area. Not true. Not true at all. By the end of August, I was searching for more open ground. By early September I finally kind of gave up, though I am sure I will put a few more things in the ground about ten minutes before frost hits. I really am crazy! Why didn’t you people tell me?

Overall, I have been pretty-well pleased with the results. My new dahlias grew and bloomed beautifully.

My tomatoes went in late, but got huge.

My favorite is the variegated one that Gwyn gave me. That’s a feral petunia with it. They just show up every so often.

Even the fruit is variegated.

The Colocasia ‘Thai Giant Strain’ got fairly gigantic, almost six feet tall, but I know I can get it bigger.

And it has a lovely bloom.

I didn’t feel there was quite enough color, so I enhanced some Paulownia stems with paint (Mango Madness).

Then to give everything a little sparkle, a scattering of wine bottles, blue mostly.

Anyway, soon I will be having to answer the question that we all must face this time of year when the all-knowing weather forecasters say temperatures are dropping near freezing – Do I cover everything with sheets?
“The forecast says 34.”
“That’s not actually freezing.”
“But it’s only 2 degrees off.”
“Is it cloudy?”
“Any wind? Wind helps.”
“Unless it blows the sheets off and it drops to 31!”
“Aw crap! Because you know, you just know. After this one frost it’s going to be 70 for the next three weeks. “
“But I just want to get it over with. Let it die.”
“But if I cover it this one night I might have dahlias til Thanksgiving.”
If you haven’t lived it, well then, you just can’t understand it.
And if all that isn’t enough, when one finally decides it is time to give the garden over to Jack Frost and his evil sister Wanda Winter, one then must decide whom to save whom to leave to die. Gardening is not for the weak or the meek. But bi-polars do very well.

Before I arrived at the IMA, I worked in the for-profit, residential landscaping trade.   During the period of  January through mid March when work would pause due to ice and cold, I sometimes worked as a substitute teacher.  I enjoyed the time in classrooms at Pike High School except for one problem:  more than half the classrooms had no windows.  I would arrive in the dark morning and leave in dusky afternoon.  I felt like a plant unable to photosynthesize.  Worse, I had no connection to the world, no sense of wind, rain, heat or cold, nor natural sound.  I felt like I had been numbed and wrapped in cotton balls.

Those sun-shiny memories are meant as preface, sympathizing with cubicle dwellers, retail and restaurant staff, and factory workers.  Rise up comrades!  And step outside.  Even in a place with as much asphalt and concrete as the IMA parking areas, you can meet natural wonders. Just slow down and look.

There is an asphalt roadway three lanes wide, in and out of the IMA’s underground parking garage.  The low shrubs on either side, caught between the curb and concrete retaining walls are fragrant sumac.  Being careful about traffic, reach down and rub a twig and leaves gently between your hands.  Now smell.  Spicy, refreshing?

If you do this in April or May, you could encounter a female mallard duck, sitting on a clutch of eggs.  Just there, 5 feet off the curb and the cars whizzing by.  Her dark, speckled color blends into the dappled shade.   I’ve found nests in the salvia, just inside the Michigan Road gate, and the 2 foot wide liriope bed along the patio at Garden Terrace.  She’ll sit for four weeks, then she and the ducklings will make the quarter mile plus hike to the canal.

Behind the Garden Terrace building there is a dumpster.  One day I was picking weeds and trash when on the stem of a coral bell flower, almost in the shad of the dumpster, I met a stealthy herbivore in the midst of enlarging its body.  A “walking stick,” once considered a relative of praying mantis, was just finishing molting.  Walking sticks (in the order Phasmatodea, this one probably a species of Diapheromera) look like, well, a twig.  They wait, very still, moving with a rocking motion that mimics that of a branch in a light breeze.  This insect, 3 to 5 inches long, sheds its hard outer shell when it grows to large, as a  snake sheds its skin.  It then inflates its body to a larger size before the new exoskeleton dries.  So delicate, so amazing such a small creature contains organs and structures to respire, move blood, eat and digest, move and sense its surroundings.

There are moths as big as sparrows and wrens, even in a temperate climate like Indiana.  Many moths hide during the day and are more active at night.  One afternoon a colleague walking past the vegetable garden, called out to me.  Hanging from under a squash leaf was a huge brown moth. I did not immediately recognize it, so I searched several image collections on the web.   The color patterns on the underside of the moth are very different than the patterns on the top which we use for identification.  Not wanting to disturb the creature, I could only get photos of the underside, though if I craned my neck I could see the top.  With a wingspread almost as long as my palm and extended fingers, was a one of the largest lepidoptera of the Midwest, an Imperial moth (Eacles imperiales), a member of the broader north American silk moth group.

So sneak out, and take a look.

image courtesy of neatorama.com

I admit these temps are not ideal for maximum growth on my precious tropicals but for everything else (including me, okay, especially me) it’s fantastic. The Hydrangea paniculata ‘Kyushu’ along the mall has never been so happy. Not that they have looked bad other years. It’s just they look extra full this year.

The Sedum ‘Black Jack’ and ‘Matrona’ on the tunnel at the IMA entrance suffered in the spring with foliar disfigurement from fungus but now are glorious in their fall bloom, all covered in an assortment of bees (many of them of the honey variety).

I had not planned to have a mix of these two but nature thought otherwise. ‘Black Jack’ is a very dark burgundy mutation of the gray/green flushed with burgundy ‘Matrona’. But it is a rather unstable mutation and ‘Black Jack’ very easily reverts back to ‘Matrona’. Kinda like a politician heading to church on Sunday morning after a Saturday night full of debauchery in the clubs. Anyhow. We are now in September and the temps should begin cooling regardless of the summer weather pattern. The last several weeks before frost are the glory days for one of my favorite plants, dahlias. Though they bloom nicely all summer, it is here in the autumn when the sun looses a bit of its power and the nights cool that dahlias really start pumping out the blooms. It seems they are at their absolute zenith when the first frost hits. And I’m okay with that. Afterall, they have been blooming since July or earlier. Let the frost blacken them and send them off to their winter sleep. Come spring we will start all over again.

Dahlias were brought to Europe over two centuries ago from there homeland in Mexico and Central and South America. It was nearly 200 years before that when the Spanish conqusitadors first saw them in Mexico. The tubers were first tried as food. The Europeans found them rather bland though I think the petals will work nicely in a salad or as a decoration. After the food thing didn’t work out so well the blossoms were looked at and declared pretty enough for the garden. The modern dahlia was created using up to seven different species mostly from Mexico and Guatemala. You rarely find the species type today with the exception of the tree dahlia. Which as it turns out may be two distinct species, one white the other lavender. The tree dahlias can reach 25 – 30 feet in height but they take a long time to bloom so success this far north may not come every year. Nor will those heights. You can find more information in great detail from the American Dahlia Society. We grow several older cultivars here at the IMA. I think of them as justified and ancient.

Many of these came from Old House Gardens, a mail-order nursery that specializes in heirloom bulbs (and tubers and rhizomes). They have Dahlia atropurpurea introduced in 1789 which I should try one day. But for now we have plenty of others. Jersey’s Beauty is from 1923. It’s one of out tallest growing cultivars. I’ve seen ours over 6 feet tall.

One of the heaviest bloomers is ‘Glorie van Heemstede. It’s called a waterlily type because the flower shape is reminiscent of waterlily blossoms.

Another yellow but with small ball shaped flowers is ‘Yellow Gem’. This one dates back to 1914.

Introduced in 1944, ‘Sherwood Peach’ has the largest flowers of the heirloom varieties we grow. The big peach flowers have a hint of lavender in them with makes them all the more beautiful.

I first tried to just cut the fully open flower and leave the lateral buds. I couldn’t get enough stem for it to be useful. I now cut the stem longer and the lateral buds add can be cut off or left be. The heirloom that really brought dahlias back to forefront of current garden design beginning in the early to mid 90’s has to be ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ introduced in 1927.

The screaming scarlet flowers combined with black lacy foliage make it an absolute standout in the garden.

I’m quite certain it is in the parentage of most of the current dark leaved plants on the market including ‘Bishop’s Children’ (duh) and the Happy Single® series (They couldn’t find Happy Marrieds?) We have three that I just call by their color as they were purchased before individual names were given like Happy Single® Romeo™ from Proven Winners. Just look at all those trademark symbols. I call the ones we have simply Happy Single® red, lavender, and amber.

I wish I had space and time to go into the modern cultivars but I fear I may have said too much already. So much to tell you all about. All the plants I mentioned growing here can be found in the cutting garden adjacent to the IMA Greenhouse.

Uh-oh, somebody left the blog-o-graph in the Division of Environmental and Historic Preservation unsecured! Well, I am done cleaning Irvin’s and Geoff’s garden trowels so let’s see how this thing works…

I don’t usually make my bed, but if I did I know I’d have to sleep in it. That’s kind of what happened when the rain garden project here at the IMA came along. Not to get too mired in details, but when a preliminary plan for this type of garden at another site on the property became unworkable, Chad Franer, Horticulture Manager, asked the staff for suggestions for another location. Before I could slap my hand over my mouth, the words had already dribbled down my stubbly chin and onto the table: “annual border.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the designations for sub-areas around the campus, this is a garden bed running along the northeastern edge of the greenhouse parking lot which has traditionally been planted with annual and tropical plants. Make that “was”. After a single season of being under my complete control, I had just suggested eliminating a parking lot paradise in favor of a utilitarian system for dealing with storm water. I looked over at Irvin, one of my inspirations for all things shiny and sparkly, and thought I saw his eyelids narrow and his lips mouth the words “you will PAY for this!” Actually, I wouldn’t -because somebody else was going to pick up part of the tab! Still, I knew I would have to face the accusations of betrayal by the Chanteuse of Chartreuse. As quickly as the thoughts congealed in my head, I babbled on and on to Mr. Etienne about how I would transform the beds along the fence in front of the greenhouse into the “new” annual border, complete with bold foliage, contrasting textures, and a riotous rainbow of color.

A reasonable compromise I thought, especially since it was already spring and the plants I ordered in the winter for the annual border would be arriving soon anyway. Disastrous wrath averted, I slinked back to my office to begin pondering the radical changes in store for this particular square footage. Honestly? At first I was intimidated by the prospect of designing from scratch a functional landscape feature of which I only had a rudimentary knowledge. I didn’t feel very passionate about it at the time either. Nonetheless, I set about researching these types of installations, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources. Thanks to the many other professionals involved, certain characteristics of this purpose-built landform were determined for me (Go Engineers!).

Beyond that, I (and my superiors) just wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing. This was accomplished (I hope) by sticking to the “right plant, right place” philosophy which requires matching plant tolerances with environmental conditions. Simply put, in lower elevations of the garden plants have to be amenable to occasional inundation as well as periodic dry spells. Mostly, native species made the cut, along with their cultivars and a few exotics (non-invasive ones).

How will it all work out? Only time will tell. Let’s just ignore the huge downpour which washed out a seven-foot section of the berm on the back side of the garden less than a month after it was constructed and planted (I can easily do that – I was on vacation that week!) On a final note, I would like to thank all the staff, volunteers, and outside organizations whose efforts helped make the new IMA rain garden possible. I hope y’all take pride of ownership in it. Hey, what’s this feeling coming over me? I love what we’ve created!

Image from slantmouth.com

But I won’t whore myself. When accepting payment it must be clear that it is no guarantee of a favorable review at a later date. Not every thing is as great as the marketing would suggest. Shocking. Of course human nature makes me giddy with excitement over many of these new and exciting and best-ever-introduced plants. It’s variegated? I’m smitten. It’s chartreuse? I’m falling in love. It’s orange? I’m shopping for a ring. It’s all of those? I’m booking the wedding hall and registering at Target. The result of placing my chlorophyll in such a vulnerable spot is that some times my little horticultural heart gets broke – “I was sure this was the one that would bloom forever (sob, sob)”. But I know the pain will ease and soon I will be lusting and loving anew. Ah, the life of a plant slut.

Sometimes a plant isn’t so much sexy as practical. I think many natives fall in this category.I wouldn’t call Tiarella sexy. Pretty? Maybe. A hard worker? For sure. These woodland plants bloom in spring usually with new selections continuing until as late as July. Flowers are usually white with a pink blush but some are a rue light pink. They have very good foliage all season. I’m now trialing five new cultivars of running Tiarella cordifolia, foam flower from Plants Nouveau. Tiarella tends to be either a clumper or a runner. Runners can make better groundcovers because they spread by sending out runners, small plants on the end of horizontal shoots. These are all native to eastern Pennsylvania and named after five rivers in that region. Here are pictures of two.

'Delaware' (Plants Nouveau)

'Susquehana' (Plants Nouveau)

We will have to see if they like Indiana as well. I don’t think there will be a problem as we grow plenty of Tiarella already.

Some natives on the other hand are sexy. The Silphiums in all their big, bold, bodacious beauty are a fine example. Another example would be Tiarella’s somewhat slutty cousin Heucherella, a hybrid resulting from a one-night stand between a Tiarella and a Heuchera (coralbell). Heucherella is sometimes called foamy bells (foam flower x coralbell). The result is plants with flowers generally larger than Tiarella blossoms but smaller than Heuchera blossoms. Some have dark pink flowers. Now all the fantastic colors of Heuchera foliage is being introduced to these plants. Terra Nova has some hot ones right now. I am very interested in trialing some of these as well (my wish list is growing daily and gets sent next week). Jimmy Turner – I can’t help it, I have to call him by both names – Director of Horticulture Research at the Dallas Arboretum, likes them so I know they can handle heat and humidity. My favorite is probably ‘Golden Zebra’ though ‘Sweet Tea’ makes my blood boil a little too.

‘Golden Zebra’ (Terra Nova)

‘Sweet Tea’ (Terra Nova)

So many plants, so many vendors. Such is the life of a plant slut. Now, who had that chartreuse-leaved daylily with delphinium-blue flowers?

Irvin Etienne, Aesthetic Czar, whose garden trowel I am not worthy to clean, is away this week.  He said something about a professional conference in St Louis, but I hear Dolly Parton is performing in Branson, so I’m not sure…

Anyway, he left me keys to the blog-o-graph and said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

More and more this season, I have been enraptured with wonder at what nature does.  For the blog’s title, I turned to Jens Jensen, one of the great evangelists for the church of mother earth.   In the first chapter of Siftings (1939) he said that the “[natural world] about us has within it all the joy and happiness that we need.”  Amen.  As much as my life is enriched by the amazing work I see in our galleries, more nourishing for my soul is the beauty and humility of plants.  I want to offer three little samples.

Symbiosis.  A pea does not spring full grown, drenched in butter, from the head  of the Jolly Green Giant.  It is the product of co-operation with a bacteria Rhizobium leguminosarum.  Nitrogen is the most limiting nutrient for crop growth, it is not readily available in the soil.  Nitrogen is 78% of the air around us, but can you grab some to get your plants to grow lushly?  I didn’t think so.  A slender vine leaps from the earth, makes beautiful flowers, and delicious sweet peas – because it forms little nodules on its roots to shelter the bacteria.  As the bacteria goes happily about the business of life, it pulls this invisible gas nitrogen out of the air and provides it for the pea plant’s nutritional needs.  Does the iPhone have an app for that?

Effortlessly graceful patterns. The harmonious flow of line is a goal of design from cups to clothes to cars (well, okay, not for every designer and artist).   But how would humans know what beautiful pattern is if not for nature’s originals?  I love the swirl and arc of maturing sunflower seeds in arrays that cannot quite be predicted (in the IMA orchard, photo “Sunnyside up” by “whisperingwolf1” on Flickr)

If miraculous productiveness and original design are not enough to draw you into the church of nature surely the silky white color and heady perfume of the lilies that line the aisle between our new apple trees will convert you (thanks again to “whisperingwolf1”).

It’s also generally out of view to some degree and less likely to be disturbed by staff and visitors. The bees are not aggressive but if you mess with them they are defenders of their territory. The honey is so sweet but the stinger is so sharp.

Tuesday Chad did the first inspection of the hive. This requires a wee bit of prep. You don’t go in with street clothes, at least not the first time. Here’s Chad all suited up for the inspection. Notice the smoker at his feet. The smoke calms the bees somehow. Maybe that explains why so many humans are addicted to cigarettes.

First Chad removed the sugar water that has been a supplemental food source to the bees as they get established.

Smoking the hive.

Removing the outer cover.

Removing the inner cover. Without the inner cover the bees would try to fill all the space between the box and the outer cover with honeycomb. It also provides some ventilation for the hive.

Chad gingerly removing a frame filled with honey comb, bee larvae, honey, and BEES.

I can almost taste the honey. Ooooo, a taste of honey!

Here Chad is carefully inspecting a frame. He’s looking to see if the Queen is laying eggs (YES), checking for any signs of disease, and in general making sure all is well in the hive.

Still looking it over closely here.

Where’s the honey? I want the honey! Honey. Honey.

Just as Chad needs to be careful removing the frames, he must be just as careful returning them. It’s easy to crush a bee if you rush and that goes against the idea of building the colony.

Here’s a shot of a frame filled with hard working bees. Can you spot the Queen? Be nice.

I still want a taste of honey. (video 3)

As he ended the inspection Chad got a little suspicious of some activity in his pant’s leg. It was a false alarm fortunately.

Now I know some of you might think all this dance music is strictly for my enjoyment. Oh but you are so wrong. Bees dance as well. It is essential for their very survival in fact. They do ”the waggle dance”. Don’t believe me?

Honey bees have been suffering from several problems in recent years. Colonies can up and disappear almost overnight. Sometimes an entire hive dies. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. I won’t go into detail but you can find info at many sites including Purdue University’s The Bee Hive and the USDA. Being one that always tries to find some humor or happy in any situation I was glad to find Help the Honeybees, a website created by Haagen-Dazs (ice cream!). I love their videos of “bees” dancing. It’s a fun way of sending a serious message.

If you are interested in going to Bee School like Chad did checkout the Indiana State Beekeepers Association. Lastly, let me dedicate this song to all the bees in our hive and all the worker bees in our division dedicated to making a good home for our colony.