Eric's Pet Plants
It must be spring – after a string of posts from the greenhouses, our friend Eric over at Yale is moving outdoors again. But he’s still in highlight-the-underdog mode. Today’s pet plant is pretty much the Rodney Dangerfield of conifers.
Granted, Pinus rigida isn’t usually much to look at, but it is singularly resilient, and perhaps fittingly, it does approach genuine beauty just where it’s needed most: at the salty, wind-scoured seaside and on rocky slopes, where it can survive in crumbs of soil too scant for anything else.
One of Eric’s young pitch pines.“This one is only 5 years old but looking good,” he says.
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Every year about this time I get thinking it would be nice to have a citrus tree in our little greenhouse – a Meyer lemon, perhaps, or a kumquat. Not so much for the fruit, of which we would get not so much, but for the long season of powerfully fragrant blossoms. A mature plant can sweeten the air for months on end
The sweet orange in blossom over at Yale’s Marsh Gardens. Flowers are only 1 to 1.5 inches across
No way of knowing if it was the perfume that inspired Eric to choose his sweet orange as a Pet Plant, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
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I think he’s getting cabin fever over there in the snows at Yale, and that fed-up-with-winteritis is turning his thoughts to approachable old friends. On the other hand, after two serious touch-me-nots ( Tree Ferns and Cholla cactus) he may simply be thinking “approachable” as in “can be handled without injury.”
Scented leafed geraniums like the plant in the center are not only safe to handle, they're downright pleasant to stroke. Brush your hand against the velvety leaves and you release a cloud of perfume. The leaves are often quite beautiful, too. And that's it. Scented leafed geraniums bloom sparsely when they bloom at all. The flowers in the picture belong to plants from different geranium categories.
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Building the desert section of Yale’s new greenhouse has been consuming Eric’s every waking hour, so I guess it’s hardly surprising we’re hearing about the plants that will live there. His last column was devoted to a vicious tropical tree fern, and this time he’s palling around with one of the least friendly cacti in existence. Pretty though (if you like that sort of thing).
Cylindropuntia bigelovii is showing its silvery-grey aura, which is much nicer to view than to touch
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The Tree-fern in its new surroundings seems to be quite happy. There is a smaller one lurking to the left.
Big doings over at Yale’s Marsh Gardens. Our friend Eric is finally about to climb out of the greenhouse construction blues and ascend toward the greenhouse enjoyment oratorio. This week he starts celebrating, giving us the lowdown on tree ferns and inviting us to the grand opening.
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Fittingly, we have a beautiful evergreen for the holiday – in the landscape, not in the house. Our friend Eric over at Yale’s Marsh Gardens is extolling the merits of cedars, his baby blue one in particular.
A close-up of the foliage shows the whorled-arrangement of needles along the stem. This is distinctive to all of the Cedars.
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One of my favorites! For trouble-free late fall bloom on a plant that’s lovely all summer long, I’m with Eric in finding it among the best.
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In this post, our friend Eric over at Yale’s Marsh Gardens reports on his new pet greenhouse, which will include - finally! – a proper environment large enough to house the significant collections of desert plants. The cheiridopsis, an iceplant-relative that like most of them is only a weed in warmer climes, is about to be one very happy camper. (Eric, too, once the dust clears.)
the (currently somewhat cramped) carpet weed
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Over in Connecticut, our friend Eric at Yale’s Marsh Garden has lifted his eyes from his greenhouse’s travails and fastened them on the ginkgo trees. Herewith his overview of the ginkgo’s unique place in the plant kingdom, its fascinating history – and its worthiness in the garden.
Ginkgo biloba, a late-bloomer in the fall color department
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This week, my friend Eric over at Yale has his mind on disappearances: the original completion date for the new greenhouse, the promise of post-construction peace and more worryingly, several rare cactuses stolen by someone who obviously knew just what they were after. But thanks to a glitch he will describe ( and fortunately for us) he also found himself thinking about bananas.
The banana at Marsh Garden
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