City Gardener Sandbox

 What scents do you find repellent? Here's a question: how many natural plant scents do you find repellent? The one that comes to the top of my mind is the scent of the newly blossomed corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum . It smells very much like the name implies. If I could produce a scratch-and-sniff blog post, I would be tempted. The odor is horrible to humans, but sweet to some flying insects which are also attracted to rotting flesh. But perhaps you cannot tolerate the scent of clove, or eucalyptus? Insect pests are like us in this respect. Pests in the garden and greenhouse Insects, arachnids, fungi, and viruses. Their numbers are legion. The battle is constant. The most effective weapon is vigilance. In addition to vigilance, there are biological controls made from natural compounds which are generally non-toxic to humans. Included in this category are essential oils. For example cinnamon, rosemary, sage, neem, clove, peppermint and many others. These oils are repellent,

Let me try to convince you The intent of writing a blog is to share my experience with gardening, both indoor and out. So, writing about a hiking trail seems a bit tangential to the original intent of the my mission statement -  "gardening from a high-rise apartment in a cold climate." But bear with me, maybe I can illustrate how this trail is really a very long garden, and I'm doing field work , not purely hiking for pleasure. Why we are visiting this park As I wrote in my previous blog post  we chose this area for hiking because we could do a multiday hike, walking from inn to inn using only our own two legs and public transportation (not including the flight). We walked from Muir Woods into the section of the Golden Gate Rec Area located in Marin County. Nestled within the park is the little village of Muir Beach where we spent a couple of nights enjoying coastal trails in the area. The sunny coastal trails were a great contrast to the shady quiet of Muir Woods. Golden

The goal With less than 14 lbs in our backpacks we wanted to hike through a gorgeous woodland, walking from inn to inn where we’d find  a comfy place to eat and sleep each night. Call it glamping. The setting Most of the northern California coast is dotted with an almost continuous succession of federal and state parks and reserves. At least to my eye it appears that way on the map. In terms of plant and wild life, these areas are certainly a national treasure. Sadly, as a Midwesterner I know little about them or the wonders they contain. But beginning in 2022 and again this year we were able to visit Muir Wood National Monument, located in Marin County, a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. Route to the redwoods We chose Muir Woods after reading an article about the park in the travel section of a publication (I've now forgotten which publication). The article described how one could fly into San Francisco, take a ferry (or bus) across the Bay to the city

I always feel happy to be back in the greenhouse. Today I was offered a wide range of duties, and said "yes" to all of them. But, there was no way there would be enough time to get them all done in my 3+ hour volunteer shift. We decided what the priorities were, and I started the list from the top: - repositioned an electric fan cord so that it dangled more securely against a metal I-beam - repositioned several cables which support climbing vines. Some plants had none, some had too many - I used bricks to stabilize the base of a wood trellis, and moved a new vine plant onto it - I used bamboo stakes to form a teepee trellis for a small vine attempting to block an aisle  While I worked on the tasks at hand, I stopped to admire an orchid hybrid called "x-wilsonara". I also noted a lovely gloxinia plant (Sinningia helleri) sporting a hugely fat stem with crinkled crusty bark flowing out of its tiny orange pot. The stem stores carbohydrate for this epiphytic plant from

 Sizing up the day Today I returned to a project started last week at the Conservatory of the University of Minnesota (St. Paul Campus), tending a small group of oak saplings. They are all different species in the genus Quercus (oaks). As I mentioned in last week's post, there are 16 different species of oaks in this small collection. They all have suffered a bit of neglect over the past year, and staining from an accidental spray of white wash. My project has been to clean up the damage as best I can. Today I was able to clean, prune, and stake 6 of the 16 oaks. They are mostly all evergreen oaks native to Mexico and California. Their Latin names are Quercus agrifolia, Q. oleoides, Q. champmanii, Q. wislizeni, Q. texana, and Q. acutifolia. I've included the photos of three of these in the post below. Plants new to me After my work with the oaks I took a bit of time to walk around the Conservatory. It is springtime in the greenhouse, so many plants are blooming. There are so ma

Making the rounds Before starting my shift as a volunteer at the University of Minnesota Conservatory Greenhouse I enjoy walking around to see what plants are in bloom, and I also check on my prior projects to see how they have progressed over time. Today I noted the corpse plant was in full bloom. It is a sure sign of spring when the corpse flowers are blooming (Amorphophallus titanum). From the tropical forests of Indonesia, it has one of the largest flowers in nature. When it blooms, the large red and green "flower" spathe may measure up to a meter in diameter. It has a scent similar to rotting flesh, the color is dark red like meat, and the central flower spike (spadix) heats up to body temperature. All of these features are helpful to attract insect pollinators. Corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) Oaks There are several species of oak trees (Quercus) in the Conservatory's collection. For a long time 16 of them have been used as part of a research project. Located