botanical gardens

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All the Plant Shows, part two

Plant podcasts are big these days, or at least that’s what it seems, which is why this has turned into a multi-part post (see part one). While in the process of compiling a list of plant podcasts that I’ve become aware of, I keep stumbling onto more. Which is great! It’s a trend that I hope continues. As it continues, I will go on compiling them here until we have ourselves a list of All the Plant Shows!

Planthropology – Plants plus anthropology equals Planthropology. This podcast covers all the many ways that plant lives and human lives intersect and features conversations with plant people about their love of plants and the work they do that involves plants. Vikram (the host) is a chatty and genial guy and a great twitter follow.

The Plant Prof – Another Vikram joint. This spin-off of Planthropology features Vikram sans guests talking about an assortment of plant-related topics. Each episode is only a few minutes long. Quick, casual, and easy to digest.

Plant Daddy Podcast – Houseplants are quite popular these days, likely due to the growing number of people living in dense urban areas. Apartment living generally means that if you want to garden, you have to do it indoors and/or on a balcony. With increased interest in indoor growing comes a slew of podcasts about it. Plant Daddy Podcast is one of the best. Matthew and Stephen really know their plants and have years of combined experience caring for a vast number of species. Other plant experts occasionally join the show to talk about the specifics of cultivating and caring for plants in small spaces.

Plantrama – Mainly a gardening podcast, but very plant-focused. C.L. and Ellen are experienced gardeners and quite knowledgeable about plants. Episodes come out regularly, and each one is under 30 minutes. In that time, the hosts cover at least three topics. Juniper berries, begonias, and orchid pots, for example. Or cherry tomatoes, silverberry, and saving seed. It’s two good friends having a chat about plants, and you get to listen in.

The Plant Kiki – A kiki is a casual conversation among friends. When plants are a major theme of the discussion, it’s a plant kiki! For each episode, Colah, of Black in the Garden podcast (another must listen), brings together a group of friends to talk about plants and whatever else comes up. The conversations are lively, humorous, insightful, and fun. If you enjoy exploring questions like “If Beyoncé were a plant, what plant would she be?” this podcast is for you.  

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t – Joe is a self-described misanthrope. He doesn’t care much for people, but he loves plants (and geology). This podcast is similar to Joe’s You Tube channel of the same name, in that it’s mostly him describing his time botanizing in various locations across North America and beyond. Expletive-filled rants help fill the time. Occasionally Joe brings on a guest to talk about plants (or trains). With hours and hours of content available, this is easily one of the best and most entertaining plant shows around.

The Taproot – A podcast produced by Plantae, a plant science hub created and managed by the American Society of Plant Biologists. Each episode is an interview with an individual who is working in or studying plant science. There are discussions about the work that went into a particular plant science journal article, as well as conversations about navigating academia and professional life. It’s a great source of information for students and professionals, with excellent tips on how to succeed in educational pursuits and beyond.   

PlantNetwork Podcast – PlantNetwork is an organization that supports public gardens and professional gardeners in Britain and Ireland. Their podcast is a series of short interviews with people who work at public gardens or in some other capacity in the horticulture industry.

Speaking of public gardens, educating the public about plants is a mission of botanic gardens and arboreta. Some botanic gardens do this through podcasts. Below are a few that I have come across. If you happen to be aware of others, please let me know.

Branch Out – A plant science podcast produced by The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney with a catalog consisting of six seasons covering a wide array of plant-based topics. Vanessa geeks out about plants and nature with a bevy of incredible guests. No surprise, much of the content concerns Australian plants, gardens, agriculture, and ecology. But who isn’t fascinated by Australia’s flora and fauna? The production on each episode is excellent, and the stories are captivating. 

Plant Power – A short series of podcasts produced by North Carolina Botanical Garden highlighting just how essential plants are to life on earth. Brief conversations about climate change, protecting pollinators, growing and conserving native plants, etc. 

Botanical Mystery Tour – A delightful podcast from Chicago Botanic Garden that takes the stories of plants in popular culture and explores the science behind them. In each episode, a staff member at CBG joins the hosts, Jasmine and Erica, to discuss the topic and talk about their work at the Garden. Whenever botany shows up in popular culture, it’s an event worth celebrating. It’s good to know there’s a podcast devoted to this cause.

Unearthed: Mysteries from an Unseen World – A podcast series from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew hosted by James Wong. Each episode is a mini audio documentary investigating a particular mystery, story, or current event involving plants (or, in the case of one episode, fungi). This podcast has great production and excellent, fact-based storytelling – exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a place like Kew.

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These certainly aren’t all the plant shows. Part three is in the making. In the meantime, is there a particular plant-themed podcast (or podcast episode) that you enjoy and would like to recommend? If so, share it with us in the comment section below.

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Field Trip: Green Spring Gardens and Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

Last month, Sierra and I were in Washington D.C. for the American Public Gardens Association annual meeting. We didn’t get to visit nearly as many gardens as I would have liked. Time was limited, and rain spoiled things a bit. However, we did get a chance to take an all day field trip to a few gardens in nearby Virginia. A couple of the gardens we visited on that trip were Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA and Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.

Both gardens are quite large – Green Spring is over 30 acres and Meadowlark covers over 90 acres – and there wasn’t time to get the full experience at either location. Thus, my photos are scant and obviously not fully representative of either place. Either way, we had a good time visiting both gardens.

Green Spring Gardens

The Fairfax County Parks Authority owns and operates Green Spring Gardens. Among other partnerships, they receive considerable support from a non-profit organization called Friends of Green Spring. Although it was the wrong time of year to see them in bloom, Green Spring Gardens has a nationally accredited witch hazel collection that I’m sure would be worth checking out in the winter months. I enjoyed walking through the native plant garden, seeing the newly planted crevice garden, and learning about magnolia bogs from a friendly and enthusiastic volunteer.

the pink form of smooth azalea (Rhododendron arborescens) in the Virginia Native Plant Garden

jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) in the Virginia Native Plant Garden

bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera) in the Virginia Native Plant Garden

hornbeam inflorescence (Carpinus sp.)

newly planted crevice garden

rain lily (Zephyranthes sp.) in the crevice garden

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

Meadowlark is owned and operated by NOVA Parks. Its immense size made it difficult to decide what to check out in the little time we had, but we were happy with our decision to stop by the wetlands (to see the knees on the Taxodium distichum) and walk through the forested nature trail. We also had fun watching all the bumblebees lumber about from flower to flower.

lichen on Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis)

bumblebee on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

bumblebees climbing inside leatherflower blossoms (Clematis viorna)

scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma)

A small peak into what was a very large Fairy Garden

blue leaf form of dusty zenobia (Zenobia pulverulenta)

bear’s breeches (Acanthus sp.)

Armenian cranesbill (Geranium psilostemon)

More Awkward Botany Field Trips:

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Field Trip: Orton Botanical Garden

In the inaugural year of this blog, I wrote a short post about a visit to Plantasia Cactus Gardens, a botanical garden in Twin Falls, Idaho that specializes in cold hardy cactus and other succulents. I finally made a return visit all these years later (thanks to a co-worker who organized the trip). Back in 2013, the garden was private but open to the public by appointment. Today, the garden is still open by appointment but is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a new name: Orton Botanical Garden.

With the name change and non-profit status comes a new mission statement. The garden has been an impressive display of cold hardy cactus and succulents along with native and drought-tolerant plants for many years now. It has also long been a resource for educating visitors on the importance of these plants, as well as the importance of water conservation through water efficient landscaping. So the mission statement isn’t necessarily a new direction, but rather an affirmation of what this garden has done so well for years. Few gardens are doing cold hardy, drought-tolerant plants at the level that Orton Botanical Garden is.

Many of the plants at Orton Botanical Garden are made available to the public for purchase through an annual plant sale in May, as well as through an online store. This is another great service because sourcing some of these plants is not easy, and this one of the few places they can be found for sale.

Wherever you live in the world, this is a garden that should be on your bucket list. Even at a mere 5 acres in size, one could easily spend hours exploring it, and each visit reveals something new. What follows is just a small sampling of the things you will find there.

Toroweap hedgehog (Echinocereus coccineus var. toroweapensis)

scarlet hedgehog (Echinocereus coccineus var. coccineus)

White Sands kingcup cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus var. triglochidiatus)

Orcutt’s foxtail cactus (Escobaria orcuttii var. koenigii)

a peak down a shallow gully flanked by cholla (Cylindropuntia spp.)

Colorado hookless cactus (Sclerocactus glaucus)

Fremont’s mahonia (Mahonia fremontii)

close up of Fremont’s mahonia (Mahonia fremontii)

spiny pillow (Ptilotrichum spinosum)

hairstreak on cliff fendlerbush (Fendlera rupicola)

Utah sweetvetch (Hedysarum boreale)

Several species of buckwheats were in bloom, including this Railroad Canyon buckwheat (Eriogonum soliceps).

There were also quite a few penstemon species blooming, like this sidebells penstemon (Penstemon secundiflorus).

More Awkward Botany Field Trips:

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Field Trip: Bergius Botanic Garden and Copenhagen Botanical Garden

There are very few downsides to working at a botanical garden, but one of them is that the growing season can be so busy that taking time off to visit other botanical gardens when they are at their peak is challenging. Case in point, my visit to Alaska Botanical Garden last October. Another case in point, this December’s visit to a couple of gardens in Scandinavia.

That’s right, Sierra and I took a long (and much needed) break from work and headed to the other side of the world for some fun in the occasional sun of Denmark and Sweden. While we were there we visited two botanical gardens, one in Stockholm and the other in Copenhagen. Considering we were there in December, we were impressed by how many things we found all around that were still blooming. We were also impressed by how much winter interest there was in the form of seed heads, spent flower stalks, and other plant parts left in place, as opposed to everything being chopped down to the ground as soon as fall arrives (which is often the case in our part of the world). We may not have been there in the warmest or sunniest time of year, but there was still plenty of natural beauty to capture our attention.

Bergius Botanic Garden

The first of the two gardens we visited was Bergius Botanic Garden (a.k.a. Bergianska trädgården) in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located near Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History. It was founded in 1791 and moved to its current location in 1885. It was immediately obvious that the gardens were thoughtfully planned out, particularly the systematic beds in which the plants were organized according to their evolutionary relationship to each other. The extensive rock garden, which was a collection of small “mountains” with a series of paths winding throughout, was also impressive. Since we arrived just as the sun was beginning to set, we were happy to find that the Edvard Anderson Conservatory was open where we could explore a whole other world of plants, many more of which were flowering at the time.

Walking into Bergius Botanic Garden with the Edvard Anderson Conservatory in the distance.

Sierra poses with kale, collard, and Brussels sprout trees in the Vegetable Garden.

seed heads of velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti)

corky bark of cork-barked elm (Ulmus minor ‘Suberosa’)

pomelo (Citrus maxima) in the Edvard Anderson Conservatory

Camellia japonica ‘Roger Hall’ in the Edvard Anderson Conservatory

carrion-flower (Orbea variegata) in the Edvard Anderson Conservatory

Cape African-queen (Anisodontea capensis) in the Edvard Anderson Conservatory

Copenhgen Botanical Garden

The Copenhagen Botanical Garden (a.k.a. Botanisk have) is a 10 hectare garden that was founded in 1600 and moved to its current location in 1870. It is part of the University of Copenhagen and is located among a series of glasshouses built in 1874, a natural history museum, and a geological museum. Unfortunately, the glasshouses and museums were closed the day we visited, but we still enjoyed walking through the grounds and exploring the various gardens.

A large rock garden, similar to the one at Bergius, was a prominent feature. We learned from talking to a gardener working there that since Denmark is not known for its rich supply of large rocks, most of the rocks in the garden came from Norway. However, a section of the rock garden was built using fossilized coral found in Denmark that dates back to the time that the region was underwater.

Another great feature was the Nordic Beer Garden, a meticulously organized collection of plants used in beer recipes from the time of the Vikings to the Nordic brewers of today. Even though the majority of the plants in this garden were dormant, the interpretive signage and fastidious layout was memorable.

Walking into Copenhagen Botanical Garden with the Palm House in the distance.

lots of little pots of dormant bulbs

seed head of Chinese licorice (Glycyrrhiza echinata)

fruits of Chinese lantern (Physalis alkekengi)

alpine rose (Rhododendron ferrugineum)

Viburnum farreri ‘Nanum’

seed head of rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus)

pods exposing the seeds of stinking iris (Iris foetidissima)

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Field Trip: UBC Botanical Garden and VanDusen Botanical Garden

Last week, we found ourselves in Vancouver, British Columbia for a work-related conference put on by American Public Gardens Association. In addition to learning heaps about plant collections and (among other things) the record keeping involved in maintaining such collections, we got a chance to visit two Vancouver botanical gardens. Both gardens were pretty big, so covering the entire area in the pace we generally like to go in the time that was allotted was simply not possible. Still, we were smitten by what we were able to see and would happily return given the chance. What follows are a few photos from each of the gardens.

UBC Botanical Garden

UBC Botanical Garden is located at the University of British Columbia. Established in 1916, it is Canada’s oldest university botanical garden. We saw a small fraction of the Asian Garden, which is expansive, and instead spent most of our time in other areas, including the Alpine Garden, the Carolinian Forest Garden, the Food Garden, and one of my favorite spots, the BC Rainforest Garden. The Rainforest Garden is a collection of plants native to British Columbia, which was the original focus of UBC Botanical Garden’s first director, John Davidson.

fall foliage of redvein enkianthus (Enkianthus campanulatus)

Franklin tree in bloom (Franklinia alatamaha) in the Carolinian Forest Garden

alpine troughs

bellflower smartweed (Aconogonon campanulatum)

cutleaf smooth sumac (Rhus glabra ‘Laciniata’) in the BC Rainforest Garden

the fruits of Gaultheria pumila in the E.H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden

Himalayan blueberry (Vaccinium moupinense) in the E.H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden

VanDusen Botanical Garden

VanDusen Botanical Garden is a 55 acre garden that opened in 1975 and is located on land that was once a golf course. It features an extensive collection of plants from around the world accompanied by a series of lakes and ponds as well as lots of other interesting features (like a Scottish Shelter, a Korean Pavilion, an Elizabethan Maze, and more). Our time there was far too brief. The whirlwind tour we joined, led by the education director, was a lot of fun, and if the threat of missing our bus wasn’t looming, we would have been happy to stay much longer.

Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrida ‘Whirlwind’)

fall color on the shore of Heron Lake

knees of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in R. Roy Forster Cypress Pond

witch hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’)

a grove of giant redwoods (Sequoiadendron giganteum)

We tried the fruit of dead man’s fingers (Decaisnea insignis). It tastes a bit like watermelon.

Japanese stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia)

More Awkward Botany Field Trips:

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Screening for Invasive Plants at Botanical Gardens and Arboreta

As discussed in last week’s post, many of the invasive species that we find in our natural areas were first introduced to North America via the horticulture trade. As awareness of this phenomenon grows, steps are being taken by the horticulture industry to address this issue. The concluding remarks by Sarah Reichard and Peter White in their 2001 article in BioScience describe some recommended actions. One of them involves the leadership role that botanical gardens can play by both stopping the introduction and spread of invasive species and by presenting or promoting public education programs.

Reichard and White offer North Carolina Botanical Garden as an example, citing their “Chapel Hill Challenge,” which urges botanical gardens to “do no harm to plant diversity and natural areas.” Reichard and White also encourage botanical gardens and nurseries to adopt a code of conservation ethics addressing invasive species and other conservation issues. Codes of conduct for invasive species have since been developed for the botanical garden community and are endorsed by the American Public Gardens Association.

 

Botanical gardens that adopt this code have a number of responsibilities, one of which is to “establish an invasive plant assessment procedure,” preferably one that predicts the risks of plant species that are new to the gardens. In other words, botanical gardens are encouraged to screen the plants that are currently in their collections, as well as plants that are being added, to determine whether these plants currently exhibit invasive behavior or have the potential to become invasive. Many botanical gardens now have such programs in place, and while they may not be able to predict all invasions, they are a step in the right direction.

In an article published in Weed Technology (2004), staff members at Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) describe the process they went through to determine a screening process that would work for them. CBG has an active plant exploration program, collecting plants in Asia, Europe, and other parts of North America. Apart from adding plants to their collection, one of the goals of this program is to find plants with horticulture potential and, through their Ornamental Plant Development department, prepare these plants to be introduced to the nursery industry in the Chicago region. As their concern about invasive species has grown, CBG (guided by a robust Invasive Plant Policy) has expanded and strengthened its screening process.

In order to do this, CBG first evaluated three common weed risk assessment models. The models were modified slightly in order to adapt them to the Chicago region. Forty exotic species (20 known invasives and 20 known non-invasives) were selected for testing. Each invasive was matched with a noninvasive from the same genus, family, or growth form in order to “minimize ‘noise’ associated with phylogenetic differences.” The selected species also included an even distribution of forbs, vines, shrubs, and trees.

Weed risk assessment models are used to quickly determine the potential of a plant species to become invasive by asking a series of questions about the plant’s attributes and life history traits, as well as its native climate and geography. A plant species can be accepted, rejected, or require further evaluation depending on how the questions are answered. For example, if a plant is known to be invasive elsewhere and/or if it displays traits commonly found in other invasive species, it receives a high score and is either rejected or evaluated further. Such models offer a quick and affordable way to weed out incoming invasives; however, they are not likely to spot every potential invasive species, and they may also lead to the rejection of species that ultimately would not have become invasive.

After testing the three models, CBG settled on the IOWA-modified Reichard and Hamilton model “because it was extensively tested in a climatic zone reasonably analogous to … Illinois,” and because it is easy to use and limits the possibility of a plant being falsely accepted or rejected. The selected model was then tested on 208 plants that were collected in the Republic of Georgia. Because few details were known about some of the plants, many of the questions posed by the model could not be answered. This lead CBG to modify their model to allow for such plants to be grown out in quarantined garden plots. This way pertinent information can be gathered, such as “duration to maturity; self-compatibility; fruit type and potential methods of seed or fruit dispersal; seed production, viability, and longevity in the field; and vegetative spread.” CBG believes that evaluations such as this will help them modify their model over time and give them more confidence in their screening efforts.

More about botanical gardens and invasive species: Botanic Gardens Conservation International – Invasive Alien Species

More about weed risk assessment models: Weed Risk Assessment – A way forward or a waste of time? by Philip E. Hulme

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Horticulture’s Role in the Spread of Invasive Plants

I live in the city of Boise – a bustling metropolis by Idaho’s standards. It is located in the high desert of the Intermountain Northwest in a region called the sagebrush steppe. Our summers are hot and dry, and our native flora reflects this.

When I leave my apartment I am greeted by a flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.). At this time of year it is in full bloom and looking amazing. It originated in East Asia. To my left I see a tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), a common urban tree that came to America from China via Europe. To my right there is a row of Norway maples (Acer platanoides), another popular urban tree. As its common name suggests, it is a European species that is distributed across large portions of eastern and central Europe. None of these plants are native to the sagebrush steppe, nor would they survive the harsh conditions without supplemental irrigation. All are horticultural introductions.

Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) – photo credit: wikimedia commons

But there is another thing that at least two of these species have in common. Tree of heaven and Norway maple are considered invasive species in North America due to their propensity to spread into natural areas and disrupt native ecosystems. They also have a reputation of being pesky urban weeds.

My experience isn’t unique. Yards across North America are planted largely with species that are not native to this continent, and while most species stay where we plant them, a significant portion of them have leaped out of our tidy landscapes and disseminated themselves across natural areas, earning them the title invasive species.

In a paper published in BioScience (2001), Sarah Hayden Reichard and Peter White discuss the role that horticulture has played in introducing invasive species to the United States. Humans have a long history of moving plants from one part of the world to another for food, fuel, and fiber. However, collecting plants from around the world and organizing them into gardens for aesthetic purposes is, by comparison, a more recent thing. Species used for ornamental horticulture are what Reichard and White are concerned about.

As an introduction, Reichard and White offer a quick history of the beginnings of ornamental horticulture in the United States. This period is summed up well in an article by Richard Mack and Mark Lonsdale in the same issue of BioScience:

As colonists became more secure in their new environments, they began to import ornamental species from their homelands and elsewhere, in simultaneous quests for both familiar and unfamiliar plants. These plant importations sprang from deep-seated or primal aspects of human behavior shared by people in former colonies and homelands alike. … Many needed to be reassured with familiar plants from home, and they also had seemingly antithetical desires to experience novel, exotic ornamental plants.

Today, plant explorations continue throughout the world, often with the goal of introducing new plant species to the horticulture trade, and avid gardeners remain eager to find something new and interesting to add to their yards. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Nor is there anything inherently wrong with filling our yards with exotic plants. The trouble comes when these plants escape cultivation and cause problems in neighboring ecosystems. Bringing awareness to this darker side of ornamental horticulture is what Reichard and White endeavor to do.

“Thomas Jefferson, an avid horticulturist, also introduced several species. He may have been the first person to introduce Cytisus scoparius (Scotch broom) as an ornamental species; that plant is now an invasive species in many parts of North America.” — Reichard and White (2001) [photo credit: www.eol.org]

Major players involved in the global movement of horticultural specimens include botanical gardens and arboreta, nurseries, garden clubs and horticultural societies, and the seed trade industry. The motives for transporting species vary among the groups, as do their roles in addressing the invasive species issue. Many botanical gardens have extensive plant exploration programs, which today are often more conservation focused than they were in the past; however, some of the species acquired during these explorations are released to the public, often without certainty that they won’t spread.

Even though most nurseries don’t have active plant exploration programs, they may acquire plants from nurseries or other institutions that do. For business reasons, plants may be sold before they have been properly screened for invasive-ness. Some retail nurseries make an effort to not sell plants that are known invasives in their regions. However, there are plenty of mail order nurseries that may not be aware of or may simply ignore the fact that they are shipping plants to regions where they are invasive. Seed exchanges between garden clubs and botanical societies, as well as the seed trade industry, are also responsible for shipping species to areas where they are currently or may become invasive.

“Uninformed people sometimes dump their aquarium water and plants into local water sources, and many of the aquarium plants survive and multiply. Hydrilla verticillata, a very aggressive aquatic weed in the South, was probably introduced to provide a domestic source of this plant for the aquarium trade.” — Reichard and White (2001) [photo credit: wikimedia commons]

Plant exploration will continue, and many new plants will be introduced to the public through the horticulture trade. Rules and regulations help restrict some plant movement, but in a capitalist society such restrictions will ultimately be, as Reichard and White write, “a compromise between ideal invasive plant exclusion and trade facilitation.” Plants can be screened for invasivibility, but it is difficult to know if, when, and where a species may become invasive. Furthermore, given enough time, a species that appeared to stay put can suddenly start to spread (or could have been spreading all along unnoticed).

Reichard and White acknowledge that “the burden of finding a solution to the problems posed by invasive plants does not necessarily fall on the shoulders of [the horticulture] industry.” Various groups from broad disciplines will have to come to together to work towards a solution. Reichard and White offer some suggestions for working together. For example, invasive species biologists can share their research with the horticulture industry which can, in turn, communicate this information to the public through garden writers and speakers. Botanical gardens can take a leadership role by vowing to “first do no harm to plant diversity and natural areas” and by providing public education about the issue.

Efforts can be made to ban the sale of problematic plants and to encourage proper screening of new introductions, but public demand for certain plants may remain. So, “better communication from ecologists to the public about which species are causing problems will discourage people from buying them.” Involving the public in eradication efforts can also help raise awareness, as people can see first hand that plants in their yards have invaded the wild.