Moonlight Garden

When I plan my future gardens, there are two objectives I keep in mind: form and function. I tend to favor function. There are tangible rewards for growing vegetables, fruits, edible flowers, and herbs. You can literally taste your success, which goes on to literally nourish your body, rather than just emitting an abstract sense of victory.

However, my eyes can be bigger than my stomach. I do have moments when I want a plant just for its looks. I love how my jade plant and spider plant look. I like five-color silverbeet in part for its five colors. So the wishlist moonlight garden I am about to describe is the culmination of those moments.

A moonlight garden is one in which plants with white or silver foliage or flowers are planted. The idea behind this is that the moon's rays reflect off the plants at night, leading to a glow-in-the-dark garden, perfect for evening parties or gatherings. I find this idea classy--all white flowers, lots of silvery leaves, all illuminating your guests as you entertain them in the dark of the night. It would be nice on quiet, lonesome nights too. A little surreal, maybe. At any rate, I want to try to create this kind of garden someday, and these are the plants I want to grow in it. As always with my plant lists, click on the hyperlinks to see a picture of the plant.

Iris germanica: Irises have always been some of my favorite flowers. Their elegant ruffles would fit in perfectly with the aesthetic of a moonlight garden. Which is to say, classic.

Hydrangea macrophylla 'White Ball': While most of my memories regarding hydrangeas come from my childhood vacations on Cape Cod, these beautiful bushes grow in my Midwestern hometown as well. Hydrangeas are fun as well as versatile. I don't know what pH level the soil needs to be for the flowers to be white rather than blue or pink, but the effect is worth it.

Convallaria magallis (Lily-of-the-valley): I was not familiar with these plants until this year. These are some of the sweetest flowers I've ever seen, and I would love to cultivate them someday.

Hellebore niger (White hellebore): Many of the plants on this list bloom a few feet off the ground. Irises grow atop tall inflorescences, and hydrangeas grow on sizeable bushes. Hellebores, however, grow close to the ground, so they would provide layering and depth to a moonlight garden. In addition, hellebores bloom in late winter and early spring, so they would provide white when most plants don't.

Salvia officinalis (Common sage): Writing about sage makes me happy since I already have a member of this species. My seedling's leaves are not yet pubescent, but someday they will be, and it's the pubescence (read: hair) that makes them silvery. The best part about using sage in a moonlight garden is that it provides form and function, as sage is a wonderful culinary herb.

Kalanchoe rhombopilosa: To switch things up a little bit, I'd like a white succulent in my moonlight garden. This Kalanchoe looks somewhat like an upright shelf fungus, and the entire plant (minus the flowers) is white and brown. This would, like the hellebores, give white color that's close to the ground. It would also provide a very different texture than most of the other plants.

Artemisia ludoviciana (Louisiana artemisia): This silvery bush has waist-high foliage, so the entire plant fits the "moonlight" ideal.

Senecio serpens (Blue chalksticks): Blue chalksticks are primarily ground cover, similar to the Kalanchoe. Some varieties look more blue or green than silver, but the silver ones are impressively so.

Cerastium 'Silver Carpet' (Snow in summer): This ground cover-y plant is, in one sense, the perfect plant for a moonlight garden. That's because snow in summer has both silver foliage and white flowers. Both are very pretty to boot!

Dichondra argentea 'Silver Falls' (Kidneyweed): As the cultivar name implies, kidneyweed is an ideal "spiller" plant for containers. It also makes excellent silver ground cover. A few pots of this have been growing at the greenhouse this spring, and it's a delight just to walk by them. They look even more silvery in person than in the photo.

Athyrium niponicum pictum (Japanese painted fern): I have a weak spot in my heart for ferns, and this one is no exception. Japanese painted ferns come in several colors, but most commonly seem to be silver with burgundy stems. This contrast would really liven up a moonlight garden and keep it from becoming a white-and-green monotony. Not to mention the fact that ferns like to bush out and take up some space.

Bonus: I'm going to go ahead and list Cylindropuntia echinocarpa (Silver cholla) with my moonlight garden selections. This cactus' spines are so incredibly white that a specimen would undoubtably go in this garden, should I end up living in a region that could support it. (And judging by the fact that I really want to live in the American southwest at some point, the inclusion of this plant seems likely.)

I realize that not all of these plants would grow in a single environment, so I will let my region dictate which I choose to grow. I would love to grow them all, though. You might notice I skipped over a couple of common choices for moonlight gardens. I have my reasons: lamb's ear is missing--this is because lamb's ear is incredibly invasive, and I prefer not to plant invasive species.

What combinations of these plants would you like to grow? Do you think a Japanese painted fern would look good next to irises? What about kidneyweed next to the Kalanchoe?

Next post: more views from around campus.

P.S. Thinking about it, Silver cholla would look really snazzy in a container with blue chalksticks and maybe some Senecio rowleyanus (string of pearls). The cholla would be the thriller, the chalksticks would fill in space, and the string of pearls would spill over. Perfect!

Campus Hodge Podge

I'm still mourning the possible loss of my camera (so excuse the phone pictures), but that isn't stopping me from photographing the best in plants from around campus! Today I have a particularly eclectic collection to show off. The weather is super nice (as in, sweaty nice), so things are starting to liven up in the realm of flora.

The first plants I noticed were these white-flowering bushes. I'm not sure what kind of bushes these are, but they smell amazing. That's one of the great things about plants: they please at least four of the five senses, if you don't count the sound of tree limbs trembling in the wind, which I do.

Also, the flowers on these bushes are adorable. So sweet and innocent-looking.

Next I saw what I believe was a flowering Japanese maple outside my dorm. I couldn't get close enough to the foliage and flowers from the ground, so I took these shots from the inside of a window.

I think the image of the leaves coming out over the dangling flowers is a great one for this time of year. I've seen it in many kinds of trees around town.

This tulip bed was outside the clinic. The clinic's pretty close to the hospital, which has the really impressive tulip display. They have hot pinks, reds, purples, oranges--you name it, basically. This bed only had red and yellow, but tulips are adamant about being upbeat no matter their color.

Oh hi, thumb!

There were only two red tulips in this area, but they were my favorite of the bunch. Here's the better-looking one of them.

What flowers are intriguing you this week? What colors of tulips have you seen?

Next post: a plant list.

Small Mourning in the Morning

Note: My camera refuses to turn on for some reason, so until I find a solution, I will be using my phone's camera. You have my sincerest apologies.

In an ironic turn of events, as I was rolling up my blinds to let light reach my plants today, one of my spinach plants got caught in the blinds and completely uprooted.

So I had roughly a mouthful of baby spinach with breakfast this morning. I'm sad to see the thing go, but you can see the root system: it's visibly lacking in substance. This plant would not have grown into a normal spinach plant. My other one probably won't either. At the end of the day, though, it will give me a little nutrition, and I wholeheartedly appreciate that. I'm grateful that my runty spinach seedlings have made it this far.

Next post: weekend outing adventures!

Crabapple Color

Walking around campus this spring, I have been impressed by all the colors and shapes of flowers. I've never been as shocked as I was when I saw these crabapple trees, though.

Isn't that an incredible fuschia/magenta? I knew that crabapples were popular for their appearance, but I guess I didn't know they bloomed like this.

The shape of the flowers seems strangely tropical, too. I've just been enamoured with these trees since they've been flowering. Yeah, I'm that pedestrian who stops to look at trees.

Have you been surprised by any trees this spring? Are you a fan of crabapples?

Next post: mystery post.

The Flora of Elephant Rocks: Finale

This is the last post regarding my trip to Elephant Rocks! It was a good time of year to go, and I learned a lot about the local flora (and fauna! see below).

This is the second turtle we saw. There was a third, but he was too far away to photograph. This one's cute as can be. He was showing off his lovely shell. He's even got his head thrown to the side in a glamorous pose. This guy's a future Ralph Lauren model, I'm telling you.

Now back to plants. At the edge of the quarry were these cattails (Typha latifolia), which are neither common nor unheard of in my area. These plants had cottony fluff on their tips. I think the fluff is the fruit of the plant, which has bristles to aid in dispersal.

Kind of different, isn't it? Dandelions and cotton use the same device to propagate their species.

After taking those pictures, we ventured away from the quarry and back onto a trail. There I found a plant that looked very familiar:

It looks like a shamrock (though there is no consensus on what species "shamrock" actually refers to)! While I cannot find any photographic evidence, this plant must be within the Oxalis genus (which also includes purple shamrock and woodsorrel). This picture gives a glimpse of the hot-pink undersides of the leaves.

Looking back, I can't determine whether or not these flowers are coming up from these Oxalis plants. They're pretty, though.

Yeah, still can't tell. I don't see any other leaves around them, so maybe these two have the same roots (pun?).

Here's a final "shamrock" hanging out with another woodsorrel species to the right.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my trip to Elephant Rocks! What species comes to your mind when you think about shamrocks? Are cattails common in your area? What about turtles?

Next post: the brightest pink of the season thus far.

The Flora of Elephant Rocks, Part II

Today we continue our trek through Elephant Rocks State Park to examine its plant life and diversity.

However, I'm going to start with an organism that isn't really a plant. Pictured is a lichen, which is actually a symbiosis between a fungus (a mycobiont) and a blue-green bacteria (AKA cyanobacteria or photobiont). The fungus in the relationship derives energy from decomposing organic matter on the rock or tree where it lives. The bacteria is photosynthetic, so it derives its energy from the sun. I'm not sure why these two organisms get together, but they do provide energy for each other, so they're a happy couple.

Here's a slightly different lichen.

Now, onto the actual plants. I've never actually encountered lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina, also known as woolly hedgenettle) before, but as soon as I felt this plant's leaves, I knew what it was. The name is completely accurate. Its leaves were very soft and woolly feeling. According to the USDA, these plants are absent in Missouri, but I daresay that is inaccurate.



Lamb's ear's pubescence (hair) gives it a silvery look, which makes it popular in moonlight gardens.

As it is springtime, it should be no surprise that I found a number of wildflowers out at Elephant Rocks. The light on this particular bloom is pretty wonky, but you can still see it.

Here are some even cheerier ones. These are reminiscent of bluebells, only yellow.

Now we're back to another moss. I haven't seen many mosses this color. It's got a kind of 70s shag rug look.

Pictured here is one of the quarries. All of the abandoned ones have filled with rainwater. While a lot of people have died in these deep pools, the changes have created a habitat for these aquatic reeds.

And, finally, while this is not plant-related, I bring you a turtle. Isn't he cute? I took this shot from very far away. This turtle is probably almost a foot long.

Have you ever petted lamb's ear? For those of you who have petted actual lambs' ears, do they feel the same?

Next post: more turtles, and the rest of the plants from Elephant Rocks as well.

The Flora of Elephant Rocks State Park, Part I

I went home last weekend, and I spent part of that time sightseeing. One of the places I visited was Elephant Rocks State Park, a sizeable collection of gigantic granite rocks. The site used to be a granite quarry, so there's a lot of history there. I've been to Elephant Rocks scores of times, though, so I was more interested in the plants. Oh, who am I kidding? Plants are always more interesting. I took a lot of pictures, so there will be a few posts about this. Let's get started!

The first plant at the park that really caught my eye was one you don't often think about seeing in Missouri: the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia genus, possibly humifusa since it's so far east).

While a part of me wanted to harvest a pad or two from this cluster to try to eat, I decided against it. One shouldn't disturb nature when possible, and besides, I didn't have any gloves, and glochids (the tiny spines that lodge in and irritate your skin - the brown furry bits in the following picture) aren't fun. For a cactus, this plant has seemingly survived our wacky winter and spring very well.

I definitely want some edible Opuntia someday. Eating these plants to me is a symbol of man's mastery of nature (read: I can eat things with big sharp spines!). Also, regarding the picture below, isn't it surreal to see moss and cactus in the same frame?

Speaking of the moss, that's what next captured my attention, so I captured some views of it. Moss is really cool (most of their tissues are haploid, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes. The only haploid human tissues are sperm and egg cells), so I usually stop to look at it, but some of the moss I saw at Elephant Rocks was reproducing. This is a phenomenon that only happens in really wet areas (thank you terrible flooding rains!), and it's one that I only recently learned about. That's why seeing cactus and moss in the same spot is odd to me: one needs dry climates, and the other needs very wet climates.

See those little stalks poking up from the moss? Those aren't stems--they're sporophytic (read: diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes) stalks that release spores out of the pointed structures at their tips. The spores are haploid, and they grow into the fuzzy mats of moss you normally see.

The reason moss can only reproduce when its environs are wet is that moss sperm is "swimming sperm," just like in ferns. This means that the sperm cells can't move on their own; instead, they must be carried to and fro in water. Moss can produce all the sperm and eggs it wants when it's dry out, but they will never meet and produce these sporophyte stalks that spit out the next generation of moss.

Before long, there's going to be a lot of moss in this spot!

You can actually see the effects of swimming sperm here. The portions of this clump of moss that aren't in shadow aren't reproducing because water evaporates more quickly from them. The portions that are more protected from the sun's rays are able to reproduce. I didn't think of that when I took this picture. I just thought it was odd that only some of it was producing the sporophyte stalks. Now I'm glad I noticed.

I hope you learned a bit about plants today. Do you still find moss adorable, even though most of its cells are technically sex cells? Are you surprised to see cactus in Missouri? (I've never seen any that big here before.)

Next post: more from Elephant Rocks!

New Bamboo (Kind Of)

My friend Jing came home with me over the weekend. She's from Shanghai, and as a gift for letting her see how an American family (atypical as mine may be) lives, she gave me this adorable lucky bamboo plant! How she knew that this species is on my most-wanted houseplant list is beyond me.

Lucky bamboo, Dracaena sanderiana, is not bamboo at all, nor is it of any relation.
However, it makes a good houseplant because of its low light requirements (after all, it is naturally found growing under trees in the rainforest).

My pictures may not make this clear, but this plant has been grown hydroponically. It is planted in small pebbles instead of soil. Lucky bamboo is very resilient, which is part of the reason it symbolizes luck, so it doesn't need much in the way of nutrients. It's even sensitive to phosphorous, so fertilizer is only necessary if the plant begins to yellow.

This plant came in the cutest little container! See the frogs frolicking around the edges?

I'm no expert on lucky bamboo health, but this plant looks healthy to me. Here's a better shot of its leaves.

I'm very happy with this gift. Jing knows what I like. Have you ever had lucky bamboo? Any tips on keeping it healthy?

Next post: a journey to Elephant Rocks State Park.

The Crops in Mid-April (With Special Bonus Flower Action)

There have been a couple of significant changes in the crops in my room. To supplement this news, I will include some eye-candy flowers.

First, my Swiss chard's true leaves are growing well! Slowly, but well. They're even developing the wrinkles characteristic of the species.

Also, another Swiss chard seedling has surfaced where the old one withered up and died. I knew I kept watering that spot for a reason!

In other news, I finally said goodbye to my wheat. Maybe I can repurpose this colander (as a colander, perhaps?).

Those are all the developments in my plants. There have, however, been lots of developments outside. This is one of the nicest. I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it has adorable green blossoms that I couldn't resist photographing.

That's all I've got for now. How are your crops doing?

Next post: another plant acquisition.

What I Harvested from the 2013 Spring Sale

I have the most exciting kind of news--I have new plants! I bought two vegetable plants from the plant sale for myself, and I bought one for a friend. Here's the scoop.

The first plant is sage. This, from what I've gathered, is just garden-variety (pun?) sage, and I'm fine with that. I love sage for cooking and general eating purposes. When I was younger, we had one that was in a gigantic container, and it was a veritable bush. I hope this little plant can get that big.

Generally, sage is pubescent (meaning the leaves have tiny hairs all over them). The sage bush we had when I was little was hairy. This seedling, so far, is not. Maybe when it gets bigger it will develop hair.

This next plant is a first for me: a tomato plant! This variety is called 'Yellow Pear.' It produces hundreds of cherry-sized, pear-shaped, tangy, yellow tomatoes throughout the summer. It's also indeterminate and can grow up to seven feet tall (so I'm on the lookout for a large container and a tomato cage!). I'm very excited to try this. My mom is babysitting this and the sage until I move.

Lastly, I bought a Mr. Stripey tomato plant for Scott's parents. This variety produces gigantic (1-2 pound) fruits with red and yellow striping. These tomatoes also have a very high sugar content. Hopefully it works out for them!

That seems like a small harvest (a lilliputian bounty, anyone?), but greatness from small beginnings, right? What odd tomato cultivars have you encountered this season? Does sage usually lack pubescence when it's young? What plants are you trying out for the first time?

Next post: updates on my existing plants, plus an interesting tree.