Beautiful Plants For Your Interior
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Where have all the people gone?
In 1962 I started to get involved in what I call “Organized Horticulture”. At that time there were many civic, religious and horticultural organizations. Every church and temple had a men’s club, woman’s club, single’s club, couple’s club etc. There were Masons, Elks, Moose, Odd Fellows, Eagles. Societies existed for chrysanthemums, rhododendrons, African violets, roses, orchids and several others that I can’t remember. Many localities had a garden club, probably 30 or so in Nassau County alone. All of these organizations were vibrant, active, energetic groups. The Long Island Chrysanthemum Society limited itself to 125 members and it had a…
The Species Look
I recently returned from the Northeast Regional Conference held in New Jersey in November 2005. It was a terrific meeting with everything done beautifully. There are, though, some comments I’d like to make. The theme of the meeting, the “Species Look” in rhododendrons, meaning rhododendrons with splendid foliage and compact plant habit, was different from other meetings and engendered a lot of interest. The idea was, since we look at only the foliage for 50 or 51 weeks a year, we should pay more attention to it and the general appearance of the plant out of bloom. This theme was…
Some thoughts on a dry/hot summer.
Written in September, 2010 This summer has been murder on Long Island (just outside of New York City). We started off with a very wet spring and the rhododendrons looked great, even though we didn’t have a great bud set caused by a cloudy, dark summer in 2009. It started to get dry in June and in July the heat hit. 103 degrees F. one day and in the high 90s for weeks on end with no rain and bright sunlight. My garden is mostly shaded by very mature oak trees. With that heat and sunshine, no matter how much…
La Bar’s White and Fifth Generation Glass White
Fifth Generation Glass White was in Sid Burns’ garden in 1965 and I don’t remember anything about it except it was white (I don’t remember anything about a blotch) and that Sid and Paul Vossburg valued it greatly. Paul developed it by first selfing ‘Glass White’. Only 3 or 4 seedlings of that were white, the rest mauve. He then crossed the two whitest, grew the seed and repeated the crossing of the two whitest. It took five generations until all the seedlings came white. It was VERY DIFFICULT to root, in fact I don’t think either Paul or Sid…
Containers are Murder!
The following article first appeared in the New York Chapter newsletter, The Rhodora, Winter 1995. Richard Murcott East Norwich, New York During the last 15 to 20 years, the nursery industry has changed the way they grow and ship rhododendrons. Instead of in-ground growing, they have switched to growing the plants in containers with an artificial mix as a growing medium. This technique allows them to produce a salable plant quickly, efficiently and economically. There is only one problem: the typical casual gardeners who purchase the plant in the spring have a terrible time keeping it alive after they have…