Aeschynanthus pulcher, syn. A. lamponga, Gesneriaceae
There isn’t a section of Glasgow Botanic Gardens I like less than the others, but I always find myself spending so much time going over all the Gesneriaceae, one by one. It’s a really interesting family with such a variety of shapes and habits, and I am particularly fond of the trailing and vining species.
The one you see pictured was introduced to Britain in 1844 and is often referred to as the lipstick plant. It’s an evergreen subshrub native to the tropical forests of the island of Java, in SE Asia, where it uses its slender, arching stems to climb and scramble over other plants and surfaces. The stems produce aerial roots, which aid the plant in the ascent towards the canopy and sunlight, but it often grows entirely as an epiphyte on large trees.
The common name and the specific epithet (pulcher = beautiful in Latin) refer to the look of the large clusters of terminal, bright red tubular flowers emerging from glossy maroon calyces,
pollinated by nectar-feeding birds in the plant’s natural habitat. Both are covered in short hairs giving them a fuzzy, velvety appearance.
Its growing requirements and attractiveness make it a good candidate to be used as a houseplant or in the conservatory/heated greenhouse, where it looks its best if placed in a hanging container. For this use, the beautiful cultivar ‘Twister XL’, with curled, fleshy leaves, is probably the most popular choice.
There is literally no chance you could walk by Brasilian giant rhubarb and miss it, with its huge leaves often growing up to and in excess of 2 metres wide, held up on large, fleshy petioles 2.5 metres tall. It’s simply the most imposing herbaceous dicot you could encounter thriving in a temperate climate area, and for this reason it is often used as a dramatic backdrop to a pond here in the UK, as you can see in these photos. It instantly gives that Jurassic tropical feeling.
Unfortunately, there’s seems to be a lot of confusion online and in garden centres about the distinction between G. manicata and G. tinctoria, its slightly smaller Chilean counterpart: the best way to tell them apart, especially when young, is by looking at the large inflorescence and seed head. In the middle photo you can see an up-close of the branched, green panicle typical of G. manicata, while G. tinctoria bears a more compact reddish one.
It’s worth nothing that both species were introduced in the British Isles in the mid XX century and were already recorded growing in the wild in the first few decades of the XXI, but while G. manicata doesn’t seem likely to become invasive, G. tinctoria has the potential to do so, and is already listed as an invasive weed in Ireland.
Rapid water seed dispersal and their symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, unique among angiosperms, certainly give them an advantage at becoming established in riparian ecosystems, where their sheer size and extensive root network is enough to displace native species and alter their distribution. This said, I still haven’t seen any of the two growing wild here in Scotland, although they have both been reported in several sites.
Today marks a year since I started working at a garden centre, the best and most fulfilling year I had in Scotland so far, filled with growth and personal achievements. Like a river though, I can’t stop moving, flowing forward, and I’m already wondering what this new year will bring.
In the photos you can see the Luggie Water, a stream in a park near my work. On most Sundays I took a photo while crossing it pretty much at the same time, in the early morning, while enjoying its quiet and relaxing murmuring for a couple of minutes.
customer: About 2 months ago I bought a standard weeping juniper, it’s going all brown, what’s happening?
me:do you have a photo? no? ok *starts asking questions and listing all the reasons why a juniper could suddenly go brown*
customer:I don’t know, you should really come see it
me, half a step in their garden: that’s not a juniper, it’s a perfectly healthy larch…Larix decidua…it’s deciduous….and it’s autumn…
customer, looking at the name tag still on the plant: oh
This is what a Larix decidua, Pinaceae looks like right now. Being a deciduous conifer, it first goes through some dramatic colour changes and then sheds its needles, which grow back a bright green the following spring.
I mentioned before that I started working in a garden centre -I’m so happy my change-of-career plans are already beginning to work!- and today it’s actually been a whole month. This first month there has been decisively marked from the very beginning by the fact Christmas is approaching: my first day happened to be when the main delivery of Christmas trees arrived, so it was entirely spent unloading hundreds of conifers, which we then freed from their nets, separated, measured and finally positioned in their pens during the following days.
Needless to say, I’ve learnt a lot about the most common Christmas trees you could find in a garden centre in the UK this time of the year. I’ve also ended up reading briefly about the tree farming industry and what it entails in the UK, rest of Europe and America with their differences. But this is not meant to be a post about a tradition which is quite new to me -decorating a real cut tree is not nearly as popular in Italy- its history or the industry it supports, so let’s get to the trees.
From top to bottom, they are ordered by their popularity as I’ve experienced it, although most of the stock was of the first two species and we only offered a few of the other three.
1. Nordmann fir Abies nordmanniana, Pinaceae
Very large tree native to the southern and eastern coast of the Black Sea. It’s considered the favourite and the best seller in the UK for two main reasons: it retains its needles, which are soft and have a notched tip, and its spaced layers of symmetrical, almost horizontal, sturdy branches are ideal to accommodate heavy or large ornaments. Especially when young and under 6ft it can look quite wide and bushy at the bottom with a sparse top and often a very long and straight leader.
2. Fraser fir Abies fraseri, Pinaceae
Medium-sized tree native to the southeastern Appalachian Mountains. Also very popular, mostly because it’s sheared in the field to retain a conical shape and this results in a slimmer bottom, ideal for small spaces, and high density of soft branches, which work better with small, light ornaments. The stem and branches seem to grow in a sinuous fashion and the tree often has more than a single central leader tip, which is generally not straight, but twisty too. Its citrus-y sent and the ability to retain its needles help making it a popular choice.
3. Lodgepole pine Pinus contorta, Pinaceae
Medium to large tree or shrub, depending on the subspecies, native to western and north-western North America. As the only Pinus in the list, it looks rather different from the other trees and decorating it can be a challenge, people seem to either love it or hate it, so we only stocked a handful of them. It tends to be quite bushy and, as the name suggests, the trunk can often be twisted. It smells like clean pine forest and is very good at holding its needles.
4. Rocky Mountain fir Abies lasiocarpa, Pinaceae
Generally medium-sized tree which shares its native area with the lodgepole pine in north-western North America.This was a novelty species at the garden centre and we only stocked a few large ones.Most people seemed to love its imposing, but airy and symmetrical structure and blue-grey hue and it’s probably my personal favourite. Its scent is aromatic and as interesting as the colour.
5. Norway spruce Picea abies, Pinaceae
Large tree native to an area spanning from the mountains of southern Europe to Siberia. Most people recognise it as the traditional, old-school Christmas tree, however it has now fallen out of fashion as the worst performing in the list when it comes to retaining its needles. For this reason we mostly stocked pot-grown trees of this species, and just a handful of small, cut ones. The short, thin needles give it a feathery look compared to the others and its structure is similar to that of the Nordmann fir.
Now, just out of curiosity, I’d love to see lists made by my counterparts in the rest of the world! Also, if you have bought a tree, what species is it?
This attractive, low-growing evergreen shrub is probably familiar to most people from northern Europe, where it is known by a large number of common names, but if not the plant itself, many will certainly recognise the small, glossy red fruit, the tart and refreshing lingonberry or cowberry.
Native to much of the Northern Emisphere, this evergreen species is extremely hardy and grows well in the partially shaded understory of taller plants on moist, acidic soil, where it spreads laterally through underground stems.
Here pictured is the cultivar ‘Fireballs’, which flowers and fruits earlier in the summer, bearing a generous amount of larger, persistent berries. I have two small plants at my allotment and I’ve been collecting and freezing a handful of berries most weeks for a few months now, but they don’t seem to be done fruiting yet, so the crop season has proven to be longer than I expected.
Considered by some to belong to the Citrus genus, while genetically different enough to grant it its own, Poncirus, by others, the bitter orange is a uniquely interesting large shrub I was ecstatic to find loaded with fruits when wondering through the gorgeous Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli in Milan back in October. I still have to write about it in detail on this blog, but I have a passion for raising citrus plants indoor from seed, and with five species (seven plants in total) currently growing in my living room, it’s quickly getting out of control.
This species has some peculiarities which set it well apart from your common citruses though, the most relevant being its hardiness. Native to Northern China and Korea, it is hardy to -15
°C if placed in a sunny, sheltered position on well-draining soil. Being deciduous and performing a great deal of photosynthesis in its young branches are adaptations that help make this feat possible. Interestingly, it is genetically close enough to other citruses to hybridise with them and, more commonly, to be used as a rootstock in grafting to improve cold resistance in more tender species.
The small, yellow fruit is downy like a peach and very fragrant, with a sweet floral scent similar to that of the blossom, but it’s actually extremely bitter and mostly filled with seeds. It can be used to make a marmalade and a dry seasoning powder, but is also an ingredient of Chinese medicine.
The seeds require cold stratification to germinate, so after washing them well I placed them over a layer of moist sand in a sealed container at the bottom of my fridge. I’m curious to see if I will be able to raise this species successfully in my allotment here in Scotland, and it might give me the opportunity to experiment with grafting my other citruses and test their ability to survive a Scottish winter outdoors, obviously with plenty of protection still provided.
You might rememberwhen back in July I wrote about experimenting with grafting succulents prompted by the lack of literature about this practice, most likely due to the fact it hasn’t any practical uses I could think of. Nevertheless, I wanted to know if it was possible, so I grafted a Graptopetalum sp. scion on x Graptoveria rootstock and x Graptoveria on x Graptoveria. The former was unsuccessful as my cuts weren’t clean enough, while the latter took and formed a beautiful union. You can read all about it by clicking here.
Right after writing that post I went on with more attempts at splicing up Crassulaceae:
1. Graptopetalum sp. on x Graptoveria
This time the cuts were good and it worked perfectly, creating a neat, permanent union, the Graptopetalum sp. scion started growing almost right away. The rootstock was the x Graptoveria I had already grafted on x Graptoveria just to save plant material, and it made it even more interesting as this is now a double-grafted plant.
2. x Graptoveria on Crassula ovata
Far from a neat and solid union, the callus tissue doesn’t seem to be developing well enough to create a proper bridge between the two plants. The Crassula keeps trying to put out leaves from the top left leaf scar and the x Graptoveria keeps growing short roots. However, it has been three months now, and the x Graptoveria is growing and showing no sign of dehydration. I doubt this will be a permanent union, but there must be some passage of water and nutrients between the two parts.
3. Crassula ovata on Graptopetalum sp.
The least successful of these attempts. The union formed, but it doesn’t look great, the Graptopetalum sp. rootstock keeps trying to sprout new shoots, which I keep rubbing off, and the Crassula ovata scion hasn’t grown at all. It looks like it’s just hanging there, surviving. It has to be noted this Graptopetalum sp. has one root system from which three stems emerge, as you can see in the photo. My guess is the plant is directing most of its energy towards the two stems which are not grafted, so this experiment isn’t really conclusive as the conditions weren’t ideal for success to begin with.
I will let them do their thing and we’ll see what happens with time. I might try more of these grafting experiments in the future, but last year I reduced my succulents collection by a lot so at the moment I don’t have the plant material (or plant material I’m willing to sacrifice) to try new combinations. Once again, I’d encourage anybody curious to try for themselves, please let me know if you do!
Thanks to the great promotion work by@seedkeeping, I was dying to get a chance to cook and eat dahlia, or Acocotli/Cocoxochitl tubers, a traditional Aztec crop: if anything excites me more than plants, that’s food that comes from plants! Also, whenever I would deadhead or trim dahlias at work, the scent coming off the cut parts would instantly and strangely cause my mouth to water copiously, so I just wanted to give my body what it clearly seemed to want.
I started with a small batch of mixed tubers from different plants, from the large-flowered cactus-type dahlias which seem to give the largest crop, and from some single-flowered ones. I cut them up in wedges, dusted them with corn starch and fried them in corn oil. I only added salt and no spices as I wanted to get a clear idea of the real taste.
Well, both me and my boyfriend really liked it! It would be hard to describe it though. It’s mild and has a hint of the smell of the greens, which I really enjoyed. We both agreed the taste reminded us of the smell of roasting dandelion root from when I made coffee with it, which makes sense as they are both Asteraceae and their roots contain the sugar inulin.
Since trying them I’ve been telling all the other gardeners in my allotment association and encouraged them to give it a go, as many grow dahlias, but nobody seemed particularly interested so far. I am certainly going to grow them for eating next summer now that I’ve discovered the dual-crop potential of these wonderful plants.
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