Dale K of Fox-9 Stops out for a Sneak Peek of the Winter Carnival Orchid Show
January 27th, 2012
Winter Carnival Orchid Show Preview: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com...
A blooming Voodoo Lily, Amorphophallus Konjac
January 18th, 2012
When we came in to water the plants in this small greenhouse this morning, there was the familiar smell of dead mice lingering in the air! It is not that we have dead mice in the greenhouses all the time–gross-but we do occasionally have a blooming Amorphophallus Konjac at this time of year and that is it’s tell tale smell! This plant has a great inflorescence (a grouping of flowers) that smells stinky to us but possibly lovely to it’s pollinators. Some of you may remember another stinky plant that we had bloom here at the Conservatory last summer? Yep! It was the Corpse Flower, Amorphophallus titanum. Come and see this fun plant in the Conservatory’s North Garden. The blooms could last the week if we are lucky! And since there are actually three inflorescence’s in this pot, the lovely aroma might just linger through the weekend!...
What Is It?
November 9th, 2011
This is a photo taken of the underside of a Victoria Water Lily crown. All of the Victoria Water Lilies have been removed from the pools at the Visitor Center Entrance. The center of the picture shows the hard, fleshy main stem of the plant. Secondary to that, is the white roots that supported the lily in the pot. The thick crowns were cut out while the water was still in the pools. We used a very sharp, high-tech pruning shears from the Japanese Garden. Several cuts were made to get through the heavy stem.The top view of the cut crown shows 2 flower buds along with 2 folded, emerging pads. All of the bigger lily pads were cut off before the crowns were sliced off. Note all of the thorns. The stems, undersides of the pads, and the flower parts all have these spiny thorns. These lilies have great plant defense in the wild.This last photo is a side view showing all of the old stems from the pads that were cut off. The most pads we had on one lily at a time this year was 15. Wind gusts of 10-15 mph can overturn the pads very easily, and this accounts for the majority of our damage. You can look for the return of the Victoria Water Lilies to the Visitor Center pools, sometime in early June of 2012. ...
Only A Few Days Left To See The Summer Flower Show!
September 22nd, 2011
Summer Still in Bloom for the Garden Guy: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com...
Possible seeds?? Big tuber!!
September 20th, 2011
We discovered these seed looking structures this week on our corpse flower, BOB,too. After the initial excitement, it was determined that these were not viable seed and the reddish orange fruits were empty….This is the large empty looking pot in the support greenhouse that holds the tuber for BOB,too. The structure sticking out in the middle is actually the base of the inflorescence. The strange looking material on the left is the dried up inflorescence.It was thought that we might have some seeds that had developed!!After opening all the red berry looking structures, it was found that they were all empty. So sad……But there is a bright side to this story! Here is our Corpse Flower grower with the tuber of BOB,too!! It looks healthy and has only a few spots of rot that were treated. The tuber weighs 43lbs and 3/4 ounces! That is a change from the pre-flowering weight of the tuber. In December 2010 the tuber weighed 55 lbs 1 ounce. Now we need to get this tuber back in the pot and allow it to develop the big leaf that will channel more nutrients back into the ever growing tuber!43 lbs and 3/4 ounce!...
