FLOWERS, ONE VERY, VERY SPECIAL
My Quest, Fulfilled
For thirty years, I’ve longed to catch at least a glimpse of Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia) in blossom; finally, yesterday, I achieved that goal. I wish I could say that I braved high seas to get to India, then traipsed across increasingly mountainous plains, and finally clawed my way up some jagged peak before coming face to face with the blossom. No, I was in Philadelphia, at the the Philadelphia Flower Show, when I remembered that nearby Longwood Gardens puts on a show of Himalayan poppies each year in early March. All that was needed was to brave traffic for the one hour drive (40 minutes without traffic) over to Longwood.
It was thirty years ago that expert plantsman and orchid hunter Norman Kellar told me of his admiring the blue poppy’s sky blue blossoms, both in reality and in reflection, from across a pond in England. The flowers, he said, are the purest blue of any flower. Did Longwood’s show meet up to my thirty year buildup? Yes. The petals, delicate as tissue paper, are a sky blue, the bluest I’ve seen in any flower. The center of each nodding blossom is lighted by a bottlebrush of orange stamens.
So why haven’t I, and why didn’t Norman, just plant Himalayan poppy to enjoy in our own backyards? The plant thrives — no, survives — only where summers remain cool. Above 70°F, the plant can’t photosynthesize, so it starves. I’ve tried growing blue poppy in the past. Each time it grew fine until July’s summer heat caused it to collapse, dead.
Longwood’s plants avoid heat by starting life in Alaska, where the plant thrives. Young plants are shipped in from Alaska in the fall and kept dormant in cold storage. Brought into Longwood’s cool (50-60°F) conservatory in January, they slowly awaken and, finally, blossom in March.
My plan is to sow seeds in potting soil in a seed flat in late summer, then water and chill the flat in a refrigerator for a few weeks. (Some seeds need that chilling to break their dormancy or speed germination. Whether or not blue poppy needs it, a few weeks of cool temperatures will do no harm.) By early fall, the seedlings should be up and growing, which they can do outdoors and then, if needed, in the greenhouse. When cold temperatures and low light slow the plants into dormancy, I’ll store the pots at a cool location in my basement.
Finally, in January, I’ll move the plants to a sunny window to begin growth. That time of year, even sunny windows don’t get too hot. Come March, with luck, a green thumb, and clicking my heels together three times, the sky blue blossoms will be staring at me — or out the window.
My first sighting of “our” bluebird was a week ago. Next year, looking at blue poppy plants blossoming at a window and bluebird outside the window would be a very nice prelude to spring.
Three Perennial Treats
Flowers have never been a focus of my gardens, and less so as each year goes by and I pay more attention to more enduring elements of my yard, such as fences, arbors, hedges, trees, and walls. Still, some flowers, such as the blue poppy, are worth the effort.
In years past, seed flat upon seed flat of all kinds of flowers would occupy growing space. This year: Just one flat of perennials, that one flat with four mini-furrows, one for dianthus, one for cardinal flower, one for foxglove, and one for purple coneflower. Each of those mini-furrows will yield enough seedlings, to be carefully separated then planted in individual cells of potting soil to grow into plants, for transplanting, for a nice show this summer and beyond.
The main attraction of the dianthus, for me, is its fragrance. From descriptions, the Riesen Giant Superb Mix Dianthus I just sowed seems very similar to the Dianthus caryophyllus that I grow in the greenhouse except, in contract to its greenhouse cousin, this dianthus is allegedly cold-hardy outdoors in Zone 5. (I have the feeling that both dianthus’s may be the same; the “giant” and “superb” in the name hooked me.)
Cardinal flower
Cardinal flower is perennial, but not a long-lived one. It thrives in wet areas and, in congenial locations such as, I hope, here, will self-sow. This flower first caught my attention when its spike of fire engine red blossoms stared out at me from deep, deep shade. Deep shade is not home to many colorful flowers.
With spikes of pastel-colored blossoms, foxgloves have a charm evocative of blowsy cottage gardens. They also are only weakly perennial; but they self-sow readily. Their popping up willy-nilly around any garden from self-sown seeds adds to their blowsy effect.
Foxglove
One downside to foxgloves is that flowers all line up only on one side of the flower spike, facing the sun. Except for the Excelsior series of foxgloves, which is what I have sown this year. It will be interesting to see how thoroughly the blossoms embrace the spikes and then how future years’ blossoms, from self-sown seedlings, display themselves, especially since they’ll be mating with run-of-the-mill foxgloves already growing here.
Nothing special about coneflowers. They’re native, easy to grow, and common. They’re also pretty.
Back to Fruit
Enough with the frills! Back to pruning kiwifruit and grape vines, blueberry, gooseberry, and currant bushes, and the plum, pawpaw, mulberry, a pear trees. They are pretty, too, and give me fruit.
TOTIPOTENT — NOT WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE
Cells Beget Plants, or Animals
As I strode out to the garden today, the word “totipotency” was forefront in my mind. No, I wasn’t thinking of myself as “all powerful,” which is what totipotent (Latin totus=whole, potent=powerful) might seem to mean.
Totipotency is the ability of any cell in an organism — you, me, my dog Sammy, my rose bush — to potentially give rise to any other kind of cell of that organism, or to a whole new organism, a clone of the original. Under the right conditions, you could put one of your skin cells in the right environment, and have those cells grow into new skin, toes, eyes — even a whole new you. Fortunately, nobody has yet figured out how to do that with a human.
(What I wrote is not exactly true. Not every cell within an organism is totipotent. In organisms that reproduce sexually, egg and sperm cells — the germ cells — have only half their complement of genes, so these particular cells can’t be cloned to reproduce non-germ cells or whole organisms.)
Back to the garden and totipotence . . . Using random plant parts to make whole new plants is nothing new to most gardeners. With stem cuttings, for example, you put a stem into a suitable environment, and it’s induced to grow roots at its base and new shoots, followed by flowers and, perhaps, fruits, above ground. With leaf cuttings, all these new parts spring from a mere leaf.
Stems and leaves are more than just a few cells. More specialized, but still feasible, is cloning with just a few cells: so-called micropropagation or tissue culture. A few cells are removed, usually from a growing point, and then, under sterile conditions, put into a petri dish containing a medium to supply nutrients and a balance of plant growth hormones. The cells multiply without differentiation into anything special until they are transferred to another medium, this one with an altered balance of hormones, that induces cells to differentiate into leaves and roots. After a period of growth, the plantlets graduate to real soil.
Micropropagation is a way to create many new, pest-free clones quickly and from a minimum of amount of mother plant.
Apolitical Graft
My foray into “totipotencing” plants today required pretty much nothing more than pruning shears. I was cutting scion wood, which are stems for grafting onto growing plants. In this case, the growing plants — the rootstocks — provide roots to the clone; the completed plant, from the graft upwards, is the clone, in this case various varieties of pears.
Watersprouts on old apple tree
In the past, I’ve done a “Henry IVth” on pear trees whose fruits were not up to snuff, then grafted a more desirable scion on to the decapitated trees. Today’s scions are for grafting onto one-year-old pear seedlings, to make new pear trees. (Not that I need that many pear trees. The grafting will be done by participants at a couple of grafting workshops I’ll be holding this spring. Stay tuned to my website for when, where, and other details.)
Grafts are most successful with young scions — one-year-old stems, those that grew last season. They come in various sizes, depending on their vigor; pencil-thick is about right. I cut them into foot-long lengths. Watersprouts, those vigorous, vertical branches often appearing in the upper parts of a tree, are good for scionwood, and most, anyway, should be removed.
Pear scions
The odds for success are also increased if grafting takes place with dormant scions grafted on rootstocks that are either dormant or awakening. That’s why I collected scions today; they’re still dormant, but not for long, outdoors.
I’ll keep those scions dormant with cold, in the refrigerator or my mudroom (north side of the house, tile floor over concrete).
Drying out would spell death to the scions, as it would to any living plant or plant part. They need to be kept hydrated, but not in so moist an environment as to cause rotting. So I store them in a plastic bag, around which I wrap a moist towel, and then put the towel-wrapped bag into another plastic bag, well-sealed.
I Was Wrong About Arnold
I was wrong. Back in December, I wrote, “My Arnold’s Promise witchhazel usually flowers in March. This year’s October flowering means no flowers this coming spring.” Well, it’s March 1st as I write this, and Arnold’s Promise is showered with strappy, yellow blossoms.
Witchhazel’s winter flowers and remains of fall flowers
Evidently, not all flower buds slated to open this month opened prematurely, last October. Some did as they are supposed to do: waited. Why? Good question. Looking at the shrub, a location effect does not seem to come into play. Late winter blossoms seem randomly distributed rather than concentrated on older, younger, lower, higher, southern, or northern stems.
With no explanation coming to mind (yet!), I’ll just relax and enjoy the unexpected show.
