Yeah! Another Horticulturist has become a blogger. I just love watching my little seedlings grow and blossom into their full potential. This week Jim Kincannon posts his first IMA blog. Jim is not only a great Horticulturist but he also is the catalyst for us having entire conversations based on song lyrics. You won’t find that in other departments I bet. My hope is we will hear from Jim of Geoff (or Katie or Patty or Chad or ….) every other week opposite my weeks. Eventually we will get a bio up for each and they can quit posting under my blog. I don’t mind them being under my thumb, but under my blog? No way.

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…

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture

When I wrote the intro to Geoff’s blog a couple weeks ago I told you I was prostituting myself for plants at the Perennial Plant Symposium. There is some truth to that.

Image from slantmouth.com

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture

While I am in Saint Louis prostituting myself for plants at the Perennial Plant Symposium Horticulturist Geoff VonBurg is filling in for me. One of Geoff’s gardens here is the recently restored Orchard. But I have no idea what he is blogging about. Thanks Geoff.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Horticulture

Oh how far the rather drab coneflower has come, simple little purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. Once merely the love child of native plant enthusiasts and plant ecologists she now graces the cover of nearly every plant catalog like the “it” supermodel of the plant kingdom.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture, Musings

I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to be used to whatever nature throws my way. But really, 90-plus degrees in June? That’s just hateful. Hateful. I live in Indiana. I know the deal. It can be freezing one night and 80 a day or two later. I know to accept the weather. I – know – to – accept – the – weather. Knowing and doing ain’t always in sync. I love my tropicals and summer annuals and this weather is ideal for them. I want big bananas. I need big banana heat. The fact is though, normal June temps of 80 or so are just fine for growing bananas. I’m not freakin’ Carmen Miranda trying to grow a new hat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture, Musings