Vertical Gardening and Orchids in Singapore

I had the opportunity last August to travel to Singapore and China.  I had more time available in Singapore to do a little touring and check out gardening spots.  What follows is what I found interesting.

First, Singapore has embraced the concept of vertical gardening in public spaces.  In the downtown area of Singapore, on the sidewalks along their main streets, are these vertical structures.  On closer inspection,  the structures were designed by mounting cellpacks on their sides and securing them to an underlying metal support system. I've seen a similar cellpack system here in the U.S.  for growing vertically.   I haven't seen a city, though, embrace vertical gardening as public display like Singapore.  I thought they were a little futuristic for my taste, but I nevertheless thought they were interesting and added more green space to a very dense, urban environment.

Second, Singapore has definitely embraced the "right plant for the right place" with orchids. If you haven't had the opportunity to travel to Singapore, the first thing I think most travelers from the U.S. notice is the heat and the humidity. If humidity could go over 100%, it would do so in Singapore. As a Chicagoan, I used to feel that Florida in the summer was about as humid as an environment could get; however, I hadn't traveled at that point to Singapore. What the climate enables them to grow, though, in terms of orchids, is fantastic and they embrace it. There are orchids everywhere. I visited the Singapore Botanic Garden which is located in the heart of the city area and within the garden is the National Orchid Garden. It was rainy during my visit (the humidity again), but the range of orchids (varieties, colors, displays) was spectacular. Here is a picture of my favorite. Apologies, but this one wasn't labeled.

Finally, my favorite plant (again, unlabeled -- don't have a clue what it is).  I love the buds, the color, and the foliage.

Planting Bulbs

I finished planting all of my bulbs today.  I planted Allium triquetrum, Anemone blanda 'Blue Shades', Chionodoxa sardensis, Crocus vernus 'Grand Maitre', Galanthus nivalis 'Flore Pleno', Hyacinthoides hispanica 'Excelsior', Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty', and Apricot Parrot Tulips.  I didn't use dried blood or plant the bulb in chicken wire cages.  Last year I lost my tulips to squirrels or chipmucks.  This year I covered the tulip planting site with black netting and secured it with small stakes. 

Great pic of container

My husband took this great picture of my container of Exacum.

Annuals

Harry Chapin sang, "All my life is a circle," and I think the verse rings true when it comes to my relationship with annuals. When I started out gardening, I bought a lot of bedding plants every year. I had a shady yard and I remember planting flats of impatiens. After I few seasons, I grew tired of the work and turned into somewhat of a garden snob with a disregard for annuals -- I had jumped onto the perennial bandwagon. I only used annuals for my containers for their non-stop blooming. Now, I am back to annuals. But this time, I am mixing them into my borders. My newest attachment is to Exacum affine, or Persian Violet. It is the most marvelous blue. Exacum is part of the Gentian family. Taylor's Guide to Annuals states that the color of Exacum affine can be mauve to blue, but mine are blue.

The only problem I've had with my return to annuals is that I've found most garden centers only stock a limited number of varieties. I've therefore had to grow these from seed. I bought the seed from Chiltern Seed. They were relatively easy to germinate, but did take quite some time to reach the height where I could plant them out. See my earlier post from March 2010. I also put them in containers.

Hardy Geraniums and Allium

I've been reading a book by Linden Hawthorne called Gardening With Shape, Line and Texture. I like the book. There is a strong disconnect, though, between the first chapter of the book that talks about classic design concepts and her following chapters that talk about how she characterizes plants. It is the latter chapers that I like and find interesting. She characterizes plants based on whether their form is horizontal, vertical, arching, transparent or mounded. The assumption is that for good garden design you should try to vary the form of plants (i.e., not just put the tall plants in the back). I've attached two pictures from my yard. One includes alliums in the forefront and the other is cropped to not show the alliums. To the extent that the allium is a "vertical" and the hardy geraniums are a "mounded" plant the composition does appear more interesting to me when the alliums or verticals are included.

What's also interesting though is when plants are massed into horizontal bands, they lose their inherent structure that Hawthorne attributes to them as you can see in the pictures I've attached of the Lurie Garden in Chicago. The purple salvia, which in Hawthorne's book is a "vertical," takes on a horizontal structure because it is planted in bands.

Nigella Update -- 3 1/2 Months Later

The Nigella damascena 'Miss Jekyll' seeds that I started way-back-when on January 31 are starting to bloom. I've been waiting to plant them into my garden beds until after May 15 which, I believe, is the average last frost date here in Chicago. I've been growing the plants inside under grow lights. About 3 weeks ago I moved them outside into a portable mini-flower house on my patio. The plants still aren't that big, but seem to be doing fine.

More Plant Combinations

More plant combinations that I like. This is on the west side of my house today, April 25. The plants are: Dicentra spectabilis (common bleeding heart), Vinca minor (periwinkle), and Lamium maculatum 'Purple Dragon'.

Travel to England, Volcanic Ash, and Plant Combinations

I had the opportunity to travel to England two weeks ago for work. My trip turned into an extended stay since a volcano erupted in Iceland, spewed volcanic ash, and ended up closing UK airspace for six days. In my free time, I did have the chance to explore some gardens and saw some wonderful plant combinations. Attached are a few of my favorites.

Snowdrops Are Gone. Minor Bulbs Are Blooming

What a difference a few weeks make. My snowdrops and crocus have gone to seed and all the minor bulbs have bloomed. I've done much better with the scale in the minor bulbs as I've planted a lot more to achieve a better effect.

Charleston Window Boxes

Here are two very pleasing boxes: hot colors and monochromatic (all-white). I think both have their color schemes down correctly. The hot colors box contains pansies, asparagus fern, reddish spikes, blue and orange nemesia, ivy, and an orange daisy-like flower that I couldn't identify. In color wheel lingo, the colors are "analogous-complementary" as there are three adjacent colors (red, orange, and yellow) plus the complement of one of the colors: violet-blue. The all-white box contains geraniums, impatiens, variegated ivy, and I think, bracopa and nemesia. The colors of the flowers in the boxes work well together within the box and work well with the color of the house.

Glorious Gardens, Charleston, SC

I'm on spring break and had the opportunity to go on the Glorious Garden tour sponsored by the Historic Charleston Foundation. There were 10 private homes which opened their gardens as part of the tour. I thought there were some common themes across all 10 gardens: all formal (large use of symmetry and boxwood parterres); all gated; very little if any perennials and grasses (a few used dwarf mondo grass as a ground cover, but I am not that familiar with mondo grass and whether it is a true grass); predominantly shrubs, small trees (Japanese maples, crepe myrtles, camellias), and vines; some minor use of annuals for color (pansies, impatiens). What's somewhat interesting to me is that the main use of color in the garden is in the front of the houses in window boxes. I'll post a number of the window boxes that I liked once I return to Chicago and can upload them.

Snowdrop Petal Markings

I was reading an article in Gardens Illustrated about snowsdrops. Gardeners in the UK seem a lot more interested in (or, maybe the appropriate term is "crazed about") snowdrops than gardeners in the US. The article talked about how to identify the various species and cultivars of snowsdrops. One of the key identifiers is the petal markings. I took a close-up of the markings on the petal of one of my snowdrops and tried to match it to one of the identified species and cultivars in the article. I don't have a record as to what type of snowdrops I purchased. Unfortunately, the markings on mine did not match any of the pictures in the magazine. I would have to think, though, that given the limited variety available in the US, that this must be the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis.

Hens-and-Chicks In a Wreath

I thought this was an interesting use of hens-and-chicks: in a wreath!

Combos I Like

I wish I understood more about color. I bought a "Gardener's Color Wheel" from Sydney Eddison and read a few of her pieces awhile ago. In color-wheel lingo, I think I really like the attached combination of tulip colors because the red-violet of the Triumph Tulip, Tulipa 'Attila' and the pink of the Triumph Tulipa 'Peerless Pink' are analogous colors on the wheel (that is, they are adjacent). And, white goes with everything . . . :-) The white tulip is the Triumph Tulipa 'Inzell'

Phipps Conservatory 2010 Spring Flower Show

I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last weekend and had the opportunity to go to the Phipps Conservatory. The conservatory is somewhat of a t-shaped, symmetrical design and houses a number of rooms each devoted to a type of environment (Desert Room) or type of plant (Orchid Room, Fern Room, etc). Additionally, there are some outdoor garden areas. There wasn't much historical information in the Visitor's Guide, but the ultimate resource, Wikipedia, tells me that the conservatory was built in 1893 to provide the citizens of Pittsburgh with a scientific resource for viewing different types of plants from around the world. During the flower show, they mix-in spring flowering bulbs (primarily) and some blooming annuals and perennials between their permanent plant exhibit rooms. I've attached some pictures of the containers that I liked below.

The first picture below is actually a "series of containers." They had taken a number of white Phalaenopsis (moth orchids) in pots and stacked them up on a wall with what I thought was maidenhair fern (however, I know very little about ferns and the plants were not labeled). The display was very effective. The second container was an urn with two bulbs (daffodils and hyacinth) along with a few blue pansies and ivy. The third container holds white tulips, fiber optic grass, and columbine. The fourth container is red tulips and ivy in a black urn. And, the final container also had red tulips and two plants that I did know the identities of (the trailing plant looked like some type of fern). All the containers (except the wall of orchids) made use of bulbs.

Now that a lot of the big box stores, garden centers, and grocery stores sell relatively inexpensive bulbs in pots, I thought it would be relatively easy to try to recreate one of these.

.

Up Close -- Spring is Starting

Front yard under Magnolia tree -- Not much to look at

It strikes me that after a few years at this (gardening), I still don't have a good sense of scale. I like bulbs -- especially, the small, early bloomers such as Galanthus (snowdrops), and Crocus tommasinianus, and Crocus chrysanthus 'Cream Beauty.' But, looking at the area where I planted them, it doesn't appear like much from 30 feet away. Up close, the plants are awesome. I'm thinking that at a minimum you must need at least 500 of these to have any impact whatsoever. Over time, I've probably only planted about 100 and while I've read that these small bulbs will naturalize over time, I haven't really seen much of that.

Crocus tommasinianus

Crocus chrysanthus 'Cream Beauty'

Crocus tommasinianusCrocus tommasinianusGalanthus

Seed Germination Update

Exacum affine

Trachelium caeruleum

I feel as if this is my year for trying to germinate and grow flowers from extremely small seeds. I ordered Exacum affine from Chiltern Seeds and planted them up on January 27th. The seeds were small. The seeds germinated within two weeks and I now have small seedlings 6 weeks later. I've attached a picture. I also tried Trachelium caeruleum. Chiltern actually has a warning on the seed packet that says, "Caution. The seed in this packet is minute . . . " They weren't kidding. You open the packet and to the naked eye, the packet is empty. The seeds did germinate (since I couldn't see the seed, I emptied the packet into a small amount of vermiculite I had in the palm of my hand and then sowed the vermiculite). Again, it was about two weeks for the seeds to germinate. I started the Trachelium on January 31 and you can see from the picture that the seedlings are still very small and barely visible to the naked eye 5 weeks later.

Proven Winners Chicago Outdoor Living Extravaganza

I attended the PW Outdoor Living Extravaganza last weekend. Not sure what I expected going into it to be honest. I thought there would be more of a focus on outdoor lifestyle: containers and "patio-style", vertical planting, etc. They focused more on their new selections. The two selections that they are excited about for 2010 are Supertunia TM Pretty Much Picasso and Snow Princess TM Lobularia hybrid. They had a demo container with both of them and I've attached a picture. I'm not sure on whether the Pretty Much Picasso is vibrant enough for a container. The color seems somewhat washed out due to the green edging on the flower. I do like the Snow Princess.

Snowdrops!

First bloom of the season. My snowdrops appeared yesterday. We still have snow on the ground here in Chicago, but the snow started to melt last week and yesterday we had sun, and, a high of 50 degrees. We have flowers! Also, I saw my first robin of the season last Friday, March 5, but I was too slow in pulling out my camera to take his picture. He was gone by the time I had the camera ready.

Ikea Mandel Plant Pots

Good, inexpensive pots. Here is a favorite of mine. These are from Ikea. They are called Mandel pots. The Ikea web-site says that Mandel pots are made of "silicon treated red clay." I'm not familiar with what the significance is in treating clay with silcon. The web-site seems to indicate that the silicon makes the pot waterproof; but, aren't all clay pots (unless they are cracked) waterproof? I'll need to do some research on that.

The smaller one is 3 1/2 inches in diameter and sells for $2.99 at the suburban Chicago Ikea -- the price is actually $1.00 less on their web site; the larger one is 4 3/4 inches in diameter and sells for $3.99 at the suburban Chicago Ikea -- the price is also $1.00 less on their web site. Interesting pricing strategy to charge more at the retail outlet. Each saucer is sold separately. The smaller saucer costs $1.00 and the larger saucer costs $2.00 (again, retail prices). The pots do not come with drainage holes and you need to take a screwdriver and lightly tap the end of the screwdriver with a hammer to knock out the indentation at the bottom of the pot to make a hole. It is easy to do. I like the color of the pots (to me it is a muted, brown) and the shape.

Starting Seeds

March 3, 2010

Starting seeds -- or otherwise known as something to do with your time during the winter. I purchased Nigella damascena 'Miss Jekyll' seeds from Chiltern Seeds in Cumbria, England. To start the seeds I made soil blocks out of Fafard's Superfine Seed Germinating mix. To make soil blocks, you need a soil blocker and have to throughly wet the mix to enable the soil to stick together to form the blocks. I placed a few seeds in the indentation of each soil block. I didn't cover the seeds with soil. I did cover the flat with a plastic dome and placed the flat on a heating mat. The seeds were very easy to germinate and germinated in only 5 days. Since I started the seeds on January 31, the seedlings are now about 4 weeks old and have their first true leaves. I've included some pictures.