Above is a nice shot I took yesterday at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI. This is in their rose garden and it goes to show you the value of winter interest in containers (no soil, just cut elements). Well done. I was up at Olbrich to speak at the Midwest Gardening Symposium with the topic of "Ornamental Edibles". It was a well-attended event with 170+ attendees and kudos to the staff of Olbrich and Allen Centennial Gardens (particularly Ed Lyon) for arranging a nice day for all. All the speakers did a great job and I think these events are important for not only education but inspiration. My frigid walk around Olbrich confirmed why it's one of my favorite gardens. Olbrich's plant recorder (Robert Q.) took time out of his schedule to show me their impressive labeling operation (see below) as we hope to improve our labels in the future. White lettering on black labels is the way to go as the labels themselves aren't so conspicuous in the landscape. Our current labels are black text on white stickers. While effective and utilitarian, we look like a "graveyard of signs" with 5,000 of those labels out there. The conversion will be costly and time intensive, but necessary in my mind. Another nice container at Olbrich at the bottom. Note the interesting fruit that was placed in the empty container. These are the female fruits of the Osage orange (
Maclura pomifera) that can be quite heavy and dangerous when they fall from taller specimens in late fall. In the words of Dr. Michael Dirr (University of Georgia), the fruit is a "wide, globose syncarp of drupes covered with a mamillate rind." See
http://gardening.yardener.com/OsageOrange.html for some information on this tree. On one of our staff visits to the Missouri Botanic Garden (MOBOT), which is a must-see by the way, we noted huge specimens by their maintenance facility. Their grounds staff mentioned the close calls with the fruits narrowly missing people and vehicles alike. We have the variety 'White Shield' at the gardens which is a male and wont have the fruit.
Above is a nice shot I took yesterday at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI. This is in their rose garden and it goes to show you the value of winter interest in containers (no soil, just cut elements). Well done. I was up at Olbrich to speak at the Midwest Gardening Symposium with the topic of "Ornamental Edibles". It was a well-attended event with 170+ attendees and kudos to the staff of Olbrich and Allen Centennial Gardens (particularly Ed Lyon) for arranging a nice day for all. All the speakers did a great job and I think these events are important for not only education but inspiration. My frigid walk around Olbrich confirmed why it's one of my favorite gardens. Olbrich's plant recorder (Robert Q.) took time out of his schedule to show me their impressive labeling operation (see below) as we hope to improve our labels in the future. White lettering on black labels is the way to go as the labels themselves aren't so conspicuous in the landscape. Our current labels are black text on white stickers. While effective and utilitarian, we look like a "graveyard of signs" with 5,000 of those labels out there. The conversion will be costly and time intensive, but necessary in my mind. Another nice container at Olbrich at the bottom. Note the interesting fruit that was placed in the empty container. These are the female fruits of the Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) that can be quite heavy and dangerous when they fall from taller specimens in late fall. In the words of Dr. Michael Dirr (University of Georgia), the fruit is a "wide, globose syncarp of drupes covered with a mamillate rind." See http://gardening.yardener.com/OsageOrange.html for some information on this tree. On one of our staff visits to the Missouri Botanic Garden (MOBOT), which is a must-see by the way, we noted huge specimens by their maintenance facility. Their grounds staff mentioned the close calls with the fruits narrowly missing people and vehicles alike. We have the variety 'White Shield' at the gardens which is a male and wont have the fruit.
2 comments:
That was a nice symposium and you did a great job. I am not a veggie person but your images and the Rotary pix were fabulous. Have not been down to the gardens for a couple of years and I can see that I need to put you on my list again. I've always thought Rotary had great gardens and ideas and a wonderful natural setting, but you've really ramped it up in the last couple of years. And I can't believe that you are blogging on top of everything else! I did a brief post about Fritz and compost.
Hope you find time to visit this year. Lots of ornamental edibles around the grounds this year too! Thank you for the kind comments.
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