Blooming progression this year

WordPress looks a lot different than 5 years ago, just saying!

Anyways, this year winter was strange in Kentucky in that it was long and lasted through a good part of April. There were many times were we would have snow and freezes when some of the early fruit trees were blooming, I’m sure this will impact the orchards come late summer and early fall.

The flowers this year started blooming with a warm spell in February- where it was in the 70-80 degree range for a week. This is something that can happen many years, so the progression started normally; and we had the normal early bloomers: witch hazels, snowdrops, and crocus that survive even with hard freezes. March put a stymie on most flower blooms since it became cruelly cold, snowing about 14″ throughout the month (we average 13″ a year!) Most years it warms up around St. Patrick’s Day but this year the grass was barely green even then! The few warm days and increased sunshine allowed for the early-blooming Magnolias, cherries, and Bradford pears to appear in late-March.

By April, the weather had barely let up as snow and frosts continued well into the middle of the month, putting all plant growth 2-3 weeks behind. Many of the early-blooming Magnolias had been blasted as they are most years, but the Bradford pears managed to survive. The bulbs were not hit too badly either, which is not surprising since Daffodils and Hyacinths are fairly hardy. Still, the bulbs lasted for 3 weeks this year, when they normally last 10-14 days.

My favorite part of the fragrant spring progression are when Lilacs, sweet Korean Viburnum, and crab apples pair together. Normally, this would be the 2nd week of April, this year it was the last week of April, even still with a few early frost threats. This period tends to go quickly, and did this year as well. Once the calendar turned to May we skipped straight to summer- making the progression move much quicker than it would otherwise. Now we’re wrapping up the fragrant spring progression with honey locusts, peonies, and roses blooming- which are still a week behind all things considered.

This has been a very challenging weather year for most people in the Eastern United States, and the sudden flip to summer heat is unfortunate since we never had a true “spring” this year. Given the weather and the progression of plants, spring for us ends when the peonies and Irises are done blooming, and the summer begins with sweet bay Magnolia and Hydrangeas, which are themselves overlapping this year.

 

Closure

It’s been about 4 years since my last entry and I wanted to apologize that I just abruptly quit writing. I never realized this was actually going to be a popular blog that was going to be read when I started writing originally! Thus, I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation as to what happened. At the time I began this blog, I had just graduated from UK and was looking for something to fill my time between when classes ended and I began work. I needed a way to channel my energy and between the books I was reading at the time about fragrance and gardening, it felt like a good fit. Once spring came around (after an awful winter), I was inspired by nature and working at a nursery at the time I was actively writing this blog.

In truth, I had a bad experience where I was working and I lost my love for the industry as I was more focused on the sensual experience of flowers than the business side, which was where everyone else seemed focused. I had a break down because I did not know what to offer after that. At that time, and since then- I have been struggling with depression, anxiety, and PTSD from some childhood experiences I never realized impacted me the way they did. I tried to turn to blogging to deal with those and the opposite was what actually came out in the long run, explaining my sudden departure from writing.

In truth, I’m still inspired by both gardening and fragrance- but I haven’t worked in the nursery industry since I stopped managing this blog and I’ve not had the opportunity to be as inspired since then. My goal is to come back to this blog slowly one day, and I actually think I have an opportunity to do so in the future. After wandering through a few jobs I finally settled on going back to school to do social work, and am now getting my MSW. My goal is to do trauma-informed care with my degree, and horticultural therapy is an under-researched opportunity for healing from trauma. So maybe one day I will inspire others to write about how plants and fragrance inspire healing in their own lives, and get more in-person experience doing so.

This is not the end!

Patrick

 

Night-blooming plants in my garden

I’ve not had the time to blog enough here as I like, and have not had the creative streak that enabled me to begin this blog in the first place so I may take a little leave after this post to recollect my thoughts.

Anyhow, the night-blooming plants in my container garden include Brugmansia sp., Brunfelsia gigantea, Cestrum nocturnum, Epiphyllum oxpetalum ‘Mark Twain’, and Hylocereus undatus. While it is nearly impossible to get them to all bloom together, the Brunfelsia and Cestrum fragrances often commingle, and while I’m still waiting for my Brugmansia to open that one shall surely add a sinister note to the overwhelming musky perfume of my night blooming garden! When my night-blooming cacti bloom, Epiphyllum oxpetalum is the one with the more powerful fragrance, and it disperses this fragrance much more freely than did Hylocereus undatus. Night blooming flowers truly are a magical thing!

I promise I didn’t time this on purpose!

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Hylocereus undatus.

I promise I did not time this on purpose, but last night, my Dragonfruit cactus bloomed! Dragonfruits are native to Mexico and Central America in dry monsoonal forests. I happened to have one in my collection of plants that bloomed last night- again I promise I did not time this on purpose!

They are not as fragrant as the other flowering cacti in the genus, but have a similar, albeit faint mustiness characteristic of night-blooming cacti. The picture below is for reference to the size of the flower. As you can see, it is as large as my head! Hopefully soon, this bat-pollinated flower will produce a dragonfruit- an exotic fruit with a flavor between watermelon and kiwi!

Moonflower

Ipomoea alba. http://www.joenesgarden.com.

No flower is perhaps so striking by moonlight as the moonflower.  What is otherwise a rather unscrupulous vine by day suddenly becomes the focus of nature’s attention, for as moonlight hits the plant, little moons suddenly appear from the otherwise gangly vine, beckoning moths from miles around to drink its magical elixir. Moonflower is not shy about its night display, and tens if not hundreds of flowers will glow with the moonlight on a large vine. This plant is steeped in magic, and certainly fairies will gather to frolic around the flowers when prying eyes are no longer awake to ruin their night dance.

Indeed many poems could be written about the magical display of the moonflower, not only for its look but also its scent. Moonflower is also steeped in mystique for gardeners, for it is unfortunately rather short lived outside the tropics. Moonflower is an unfortunate annual in areas of freeze, and may only bloom for a few weeks in most places before this un-comely event occurs. Moonflower also only blooms at equatorial day lengths (i.e. it only blooms when days are 12 hours or less) further making its anticipated debut almost too late to enjoy for so many.

This relative of the Morning glory family is native to the Central and South American tropics, and can grow to eventually be a twinning vine up to one hundred feet tall, with heart-shaped leaves. The real show is in the night-blooming flowers, which begin as tightly wound buds that have a most interesting spiral shape, that open to large, six inch flowers. The corolla is white, but with yellowish star-like veins. The scent is not one that is easily spread through the night garden like many others, but is quite like the scent of Brunfelsia gigantea, although lighter in essence and with a lemony-flair. Its a very delicate scent that I love, even if it is so short-lived.

Growing these vines is easily done from seed, but the vine does not transplant well. Seeds ought to be sown directly in the garden, after having been soaked overnight in warm water and nicked with a knife prior to sowing. The vine is slow to grow as well, needing warm soil temperatures and warm weather to grow quickly; but given a large trellis or support, it will grow almost a foot a day in the middle of the summer! Lastly, buds will only appear near the equinox, and flowering is most done in late September and early October. For the southern garden and well-protected Northern garden, this is a month or less of display before an unfortunate frost-nip, but the small bloom window is well worth a summer of growth if just for the scent of a moonflower under the bright autumn moon.

 

 

Brunfelsia

Brunfelsia americana. toptropicals.com.

If one corner of the world holds more night-blooming shrubs than any other, it is certainly the Caribbean and Central American realm. It is from this region that many of the cultivated night-blooming shrubs come from, including Brunfelsias, also known as raintree. The Brunfelsias are native to the Western Caribbean and Central America down to the Amazon. The genus is known for its white or purplish, long-tubed flowers (pollinated by moths) that are quite eerily fragrant by night.

Like many night-flowering plants, Brunfelsias feature a nice clove-like scent, but adds several layers to it in doing so. Truth be told, the fragrances are different per species but have an overall fragrance that seems to combine a light musk perfume essence with clove. I have since come to realize the night scent I remember on a family vacation years ago to St. Croix was a mixture of Brunfelsia americana and Cestrum nocturnum, and no doubt a mixture of night fragrances with these two inundates many Caribbean and Central American forests.

Most well known to the horticultural world is B. nitida from Central America, which truth-be-told is one of the hardest to grow in containers. It has a typically clove scent and grows best in the outdoor climate that can endure it, as opposed to a greenhouse. Very similar, and easier to grow indoors is B. americana, which is more floriferous, but one of the least attractive ones of the family.

Brunfelsia gigantea. toptropicals.com

B. gigantea is probably the most aesthetically-pleasing member of the family with the largest flowers (about 5 inches long) and porcelain-white flowers that maintain their scent through the morning and in early evening. Even when not in flower, the leaves are a solid addition, being a dark forest green with hardly any problems from insects. This variety tends to grow faster than the others as well. The scent is more musky than the others and lighter on the clove, but it is most certainly a well-pleasing fragrance on a humid evening.

B. jamaicensis from Jamaica is another commonly grown one, with a form very similar to B. americana but with more ruffled flowers. Jamaican raintree is easier to grow than B. americana, but less floriferous. The fragrance is said to be fruitier than the others, probably due to its natural range being up in the mountains, so as to also attract bats.

There are countless other fragrant species, but the one most known of the family B. grandiflora (yesterday-today-tomorrow) is not fragrant. Many endemic species are better known to their native environment, all with a familiar hauntingly fragrance of night.

Night Fragrant Flowers- Annuals pt. 2, Flowering Tobacco, Dame’s Rocket, and Catchfly

Nicotiana alata. 21 July 2007. Carl E. Lewis. Wikimedia Commons.

Continuing on with night-fragrant annuals, one cannot fail to mention tobacco as night-fragrant. Tobacco and its genus, Nicotiana, is well known for this phenomenon and the great majority of species are night-fragrant so as to attract their pollinators- moths. The genus is native to Central and South America, as well as South Africa and Australia, but its locus of diversity is South America in the lower Andes.The typecast of the species (N. tabacum) was introduced from this region after the discovery of the new world and took the world by storm, reaching production heights around and after the Civil War. This species is also night fragrant, but is mostly known in the Bluegrass as having fragrant leaves, that when dried, will waft through the countryside around barns where they are drying, giving the area a sweetly earthy odor.

Nicotiana alata and Nicotiana × sanderae are the two species most commonly frequented in gardens, and are relatively easy-to-grow annuals, coming in a variety of colors and open during the day (except N. alata which remains closed in hot summer weather.) N. alata is the more fragrant of the two, with an eerily sweet night time scent that gives it away as a Solanaceae family relative. N. longiflora is the most fragrant member of the family I have come across to date, and is more free with its scent in the garden than N. alata, but more delicate. This tobacco grows slightly taller and has long flowers. It comes across lightly clove-like, much like petunias and Brunfelsia. N. sylvestris is a biennial in zones 7-10 and reseeds in gardens easily.

There are doubtless other fragrant members of this family, some with more or less fragrance. The species grows well in the garden and flowers from seed in about 2-3 months time. Its an easy to grow plant much like petunias, but is less forgiving of underwatering.

Hesperis matronalis. June 2004. Gregory Phillips. Wikimedia Commons.

A Brassicaceae relative, Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is a short-lived, weedy biennial/perennial native to Eurasia. The whole plant resembles Phlox, but with four petaled flowers as opposed to five, and they tend to bloom earlier in spring, whereas Phlox will bloom in mid-summer. The scent much resembles stocks, from the same plant family. Dame’s Rockets are highly weedy in the cooler parts of Europe and the U.S., and easily grown in many gardens.

Silene nutans. 22 May 2005. Bernd Haynold. Wikimedia Commons.

Catchfly, or campion is in the same family as pinks, and the fragrant members of the genus exude a fragrance much like pinks. The family is mostly native to the Northern Hemisphere, with a loci in Northern Europe (mostly the British Isles) and the cooler parts of Eastern North America. They have a weedy look and growth habit, but a few exude a wonderful nighttime fragrance. Particularly beloved are S. nutans and S. latifolia, both European introductions to the United States, where they grow as weeds. They bloom in June and July for the most part, and are truly night-blooming, looking wilted and grey during the day. Its difficult to find the fragrant members of the genus in seed form for garden usage, but wild collection is easy where they are found.

Night-Fragrant Annuals pt 1. Petunia and Stocks

Petunia ‘Dreams White’. http://www.parkswholesaleplants.com

While many of the fragrant annuals grown are most know for their fragrance during the day, a few are particularly know for their night fragrance. Petunias have the luck of being fragrant both at night and day, but the fragrances are completely different between the two. The purple petunias of day have a nice warm fragrance, almost like daylilies, but with a sinister kick that resides in all solanaceous plants; But at night, this fragrance is akin more to clove. This fragrance is so pervasive that entire garden centers and lawns at evening are reminiscent of fine clove wherever they are grown in abundance! The white petunias are freest with the clove fragrance, all others less free and with a bit more floral in them.Petunias are easily the most well-known and widely grown fragrant annual of the night, and its clove-scent pierces its  surroundings, even on dark, cloudy days, and in a way that would make pure night-fragrant plants jealous.

Petunias are widespread and easily grown as an annual, and the wave series surely adorns every hanging basket in the Eastern United States! Petunias require little, except well-drained soil, full sun, and plenty of fertilizer. They also require deadheading for a true all-summer display. Who would have ever thought, a dowdy tobacco relative from South America would be brought from obscurity to be such a popular garden plant? Well, too many relatives of them have been to be honest…but that’s beside the point.

Other widely grown petunias besides the wave series have been supertunias, multifloras and grandifloras, but each hybrid has its own perk. Related Calibrachoa, although similar in look, have little to no fragrance in them.

Matthiola longipetala. 6, December, 2006. Al-Bargit. Wikimedia Commons.

Another commonly grown night-blooming (or at least night-fragrant) annual is stocks. Stocks are best known as fillers in cut-flower arrangements, where both day and night-fragrant species are used. Stocks are Mustard family relatives, native to the Northern Hemisphere, and grown outdoors in cool gardens in the Northern European and Northern American reaches. Otherwise, they are grown as short annuals in early spring or early to late fall in warmer climates.

M. incana and M. longipetala are the species best represented in the garden and as cut flowers. M. incana hybrids are known for having double flowers, but the true to type species and the one that survives and reproduces is the single. These are better cut flowers, and are fragrant during the day as well. The single species is mostly white-flowered. M. longipetala is a better garden plant, but is true to type in being evening and night-fragrant only. The flowers of these are purplish, and appear wilted in strong sunlight. M. longipetala also tends to bloom for a longer period than the ’10-weeks stock’ M. incana. Both feature a nice, clove-like, sweet fragrance at evening, strongly reminiscent of pinks and carnations.

 

Night-Fragrant Flowers, An Introduction

Epiphyllum oxypetalum. MAK, Wing Kuen. Wikimedia Commons.

‘The true vesper flowers, those that withhold their sweetness from the day and give it freely to the night are rather a curious company. Few have any daytime attractions…But with twilight comes an extraordinary change.’ The Fragrant Path, Louise Beebe Wilder.

In the plant world there is a certain sweetness that comes with vespertine air- a scent all too unfamiliar to the world of the light, but familiar to that of the night. A sweetness beyond expectation that rarefies the cool dark air, calling forth night creatures to drink in the dark, an ambrosia by moonlight. A scent that only moths and bats will find edifying in the deep darkness, a flower from which a musty scent pours forth. Indeed, the midnight air is the rarest of scents, as it is the one least sampled to the human nose.

To tell the truth, many flowers are night scented, from daphne to lily, jasmine to tuberose. However, many of the former are fragrant by day as well, and even open during it. True vespertine flowers are only identifiable at twilight, and redolent by dark fall. Of the most common are flowering tobacco, followed by Angel’s trumpet and night-jasmine- all others are either too uncommon, or scented as well on darker days. But to the night, these flowers call forth, haunting as a silent witness to the floral wonders of the world. Only a certain few astound and amaze, but all stand as a guardian, a watch in the night.

Lilies pt. 3- Night-Fragrant Lilies

Lilium nepalense. http://davesgarden.com.

Lilium regale. 2007. Epibase. Wikimedia Commons.

Last in my detail of fragrant lilies are those that are only or moreso fragrant at night. The lilies in question are most fragrant or solely fragrant at night. In a sense, most lilies are more fragrant at night, but L. regale and L. nepalense are more impressive than the rest in the olfactory department, and provide a good segway into my next series of posts about night fragrant plants.

I cannot attest to having sampled L. nepalense, because it does not easily grow in Kentucky, but it is a solely night fragrant plant, and heavily so. This lily is native to the Himalayas and prefers cool and moist climates (something this area is not!) These lilies are also very different from all detailed so far in that they are stoloniferous as opposed to bulbous, and have a very unique color scheme, being green on the outside of the petal and reddish-chocolate colored on the inside. These lilies grow well in coastal California and the Pacific Northwest above zone 8, otherwise are cool-greenhouse plants.

Next is L. regale, the regal lily from China. This is a more typical lily of the family, although growing up to seven feet, with beautiful six inch flowers in white (outside petals purplish) with yellow throats. While these lilies are day fragrant, they increase at night, giving their wonderfully sweet, musky scent to the night garden (they are in the same clan as Easter lilies if that gives an indication of the fragrance.) L. regale is also one of the easiest lilies to grow in the garden, and the University of Kentucky arboretum has a few in its inner garden areas. Because these lilies are rather large, they do require staking, but are bound to be any fragrant gardener’s best friend otherwise!

Many more lily posts could be made than the three I have, but again, this is a genus that I frankly am not prepared to handle as there are so many single cultivars and hybrids that are wonderfully fragrant. Luckily, lilies are going nowhere, and many more wonderful hybrids await to be made in the gardening world! Starting next are night-fragrant flowers in my sad attempt to keep up with Tovah Martin’s The Essence of Paradise selection for July. Gardeners beware, the intense fragrance that awaits the night air.