Other gardens, other places – Page 6

Snowdrop city – Open day at Hitch Lyman’s garden

Update [4/6/2008]: As my good friend Carol points out in the comments, Hitch will be speaking on snowdrops in Ithaca on the Cornell campus at the next meeting of the Adirondack Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society (ACNARGS) on April 19. Find details on the ACNARGS blog. (I am the ACNARGS newsletter editor/webmaster/publicist. You’d think I wouldn’t need to be reminded. Thanks Carol.)

I had the great fortune to make it to the Open Day sponsored by the Garden Conservancy at Hitch Lyman’s garden between Ithaca and Trumansburg today. Hitch is a world-reknowned Galanthus grower, cultivating 400+ varieties outside his 1848 Greek Revival house.

I promised Kathy Purdy, who has posted several times about Hitch over at Cold Climate Gardening, that I would shoot some pictures for her while she was down at the garden bloggers convention in Austin. Below is a quick edit, with a string of snowdrop pictures at the end. (I might be able to figure out some of the cultivar names. But I was running about 10 minutes behind the group shooting pictures most of the time.)

Hitch (right rear with the turquoise sweater) answered questions for visitors from near and far, experts and newbies. That’s Alan Street in the black suit from Avon Bulbs in England, who as far as I can tell won the award for longest trip to this particular Open Day.

Hitch’s 1848 Greek Revival house (sideview) is a gem, too.

The fountain and stone work provide simple structure in the side yard.

Out back, across a small pond, is a Greek Temple folly that echoes the architecture of the house.

According to a visitor I talked to beside the fireplace in the Temple, Hitch got the chandelier hanging from the ceiling in Venice.

I had to leave before the gourmet meal was served back in the house. But I grabbed a quick picture of the snowdrop flowers on the kitchen mantel.

From here on out, it’s just snowdrops — which I admittedly don’t know much about. I’ve only got your garden variety Galanthus nivalis here and there. I like them good enough. And it’s not hard to see how someone like Hitch could get passionate about them. The variety of leaf shapes and sizes, green markings, and colored collars and combinations thereof is pretty amazing.

Clinton Library gets green roof

clinton library roof construction The William Jefferson Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., is getting a green roof.

Bill Clinton likes to brag about his presidential library being an eco-friendly building.

Now even the roof is going green.

Over the past two weeks, workers have been hoisting 90 species of plants and more than four truckloads of soil atop the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum to create a garden on an area surrounding Clinton’s penthouse apartment.

Instead of bare concrete, the glass and steel building will be topped with strawberries, ferns, switch grass, roses and other greenery.

“This is just an area he can come and relax in and just enjoy the view,” Clinton Foundation Facilities and Operations Director Debbie Shock said in a recent interview on the roof.

However, it’s not just for looks. That layer of soil and plants will provide insulation and capture rainwater that otherwise would just be wasted as runoff.

clinton's other libary? You can hear ‘Bill’ wax eloquent on the roof via the Stephanie Miller Show [mp3]. “You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think.”

I’m a little confused, because looking for better images of Clinton’s green roof garden I ran across this image of a tornado threatening the Clinton Library.

Blue alliums

Click on images (most of them, anyway) for larger view.

I had to step away from the screen at work this afternoon. I don’t do it enough, but I took a quick spin through Minns Garden — a lovely garden right outside the Plant Science building at Cornell University. I was moving faster than a stroll and paying more attention in my head to what needed doing back in the office than what was going on in the garden. I actually got three steps beyond these alliums before doing a double-take and going back for a second look.

Unfortunately, no tag. So I can’t give you a variety name. There were some other interesting alliums on the other side of the garden, too:

More midsummer highlights in Minns: Anemones. Boy I’d grow a lot of these if it weren’t for the deer.

And the potted bananas, which are getting huge. (They’ve overwintered a few winters in the greenhouse. But I’m not sure there’s room for them this year.)

potted bananas

OK. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering about the technique on those alliums. Cut a small hole in the center of a paper plate and a slit connecting the hole with the edge. Slip it around the stem of the allium to catch the drips. Shake the can well and spray. At least that’s what this year’s garden tenders told me they did.

Living wall installation

Back in May, I posted about my friend Marguerite and the business she and her partner run. (See Motherplants: Where green roofs are born.) About a month ago, I swung by a site in Ithaca where she was working with a group of volunteers to prep planting units for a living wall.

Marguerite instructed the young and old alike who turned out on a hot day to transplant sedums and other living roof plants from flats into plastic wall hanging units.

Originally, the plan was to install the planting on the roof. But the required retrofitting to beef it upÂ enough to hold the extra weight proved too expensive. So Plan B was to locate the planting where runoff from the roof will run over the plants.

The planted units were laid flat to root thoroughly and then hung a few weeks later. (See finished wall below.)

While I like the idea of green/living roofs, I don’t see too many homeowners diving in. I like the idea of trying it out on a small scale, like these doghouses I shot at Marguerite’s place or this garden shed, birdhouse and other applications blogged by Melissa over at her Gardenshed Hall of Fame website.

living wall finished

For more info about green/living roots, visit the Motherplants website.

Motherplants: Where green roofs are born

The mother plants at Motherplants (above) and demo dog house (right).

This morning, I stopped by Motherplants — a woman-owned nursery specializing in plants for green roofs. Marguerite, a friend and co-worker, is one of the operation’s principals, and I’ve been having her save up some ‘seconds’ for me for my Mudman project. (More on that later.)

The business is thriving. Marguerite is propagating and growing for projects small (the dog houses are for demo purposes) and large (one order for 18,000 square feet is keeping her hopping) from Alabama to Manhattan. But the nice thing about growing plants for living roofs is that they thrive on neglect. If being a little late to ventilate the greenhouse is going to kill your plants, you probably aren’t growing the right plants for the stressful conditions they’re going to encounter later in life.

Motherplants’ plant list includes nearly 50 sedums and a couple dozen other species, including Armeria, Delosperma, Dianthus, Festuca, Opuntia, Sempervivum, Thymus and more.

Motherplants’ primary product has been flats of plugs. But more and more they’re custom planting modules that are installed directly on the roof, eliminating transplanting on-site. Another twist along these lines is the living wall unit Marguerite is holding (right). The planting cells are angled slightly to help retain the media.

Plant ’em. Grow ’em. Hang ’em. Nothing to it.

Mother plant pad

Demo dog houses