Morning Glory

Variegated Morning Glory

Ipomoea purpurea

(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

Gilded Grape Wishbone Flower

Wishbone Flower

Torenia fournieri 'Catalina Gilded Grape'

(tor-EN-ee-uh) (for-NEER-eye)

Synonyms: Bluewings, Dancat266

This was a new flower for me. Of course I am familiar with Wishbone Flower but this looked so different that didn’t even cross my mind until close inspection. Its not new to the market (introduced in 2008) but Torenia has never been real popular around here. I have very limited experience growing Wishbone Flower and only in containers. The velvety blue and purple are eye catching and fun to have.

This color combination was a little odd to me at first but the more I looked at the several flats sitting together the more I liked it. They have a trailing habit and were trying to exhibit that in the pots. It is a nice flower for shady somewhat moist locations. It is heat tolerant and gives good color throughout the summer.

Since I feel a little guilty about not posting yesterday (out late rehearsing) here is an extra picture. Normally I wouldn’t have taken this picture because the plant is just a wild growing weed but the light was nice and the super washed out color attracted me.

Morning Glory

Ipomoea sp.

(ip-oh-MEE-uh)

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Ipomoea purpurea 'Grandpa Ott's'

(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

I have to admit the color of this flower is very enchanting to me. Truly a sight to see in the morning when the vine is covered with hundreds of flowers each reflecting the sun in their own way. It has seeded itself but not in a malicious way just enough to keep enjoying it year after year. Some control was used on the plants last year but that was more to keep the size in check. There is some wild Morning Glory in the garden some of which is allowed to grow, I have found it to be an onerous and formidable opponent and realize that we are just going to have to live with it.

Our wild and whacky weather continues. Lucky most everything bounced back from the freeze of a couple nights ago. We had a cold night last night but not freezing. When I got home from work on Wednesday I noticed my front and back yard was covered with something white. Turns out we had about an inch of gravel sized hail.  Have to add it’s supposed to snow tonight with a dusting by morning. What a roll coaster!

Morning Glory

Morning Glory ‘Heavenly Blue’

Ipomoea tricolor

(ip-oh-MEE-uh) (TRY-kull-lur)

Even though many people consider the Morning Glory vine to be a pest I think it is a great plant to have in the garden. This white one has grown from seed the last five years and has steadily become more and more beautiful. Its getting to the point where I may start pinching it a little more and remove a few of the seedlings.

The composition is a little different than most of my photographs. I have found the front of the morning glory flower to be difficult to photograph so I switched to the back. The gentle striping and luscious curves were enchanting.

This is a link to Today’sFlowers. I really hope it doesn’t throw the formatting off. Sunday means a bonus snapshot. This week it is a Wax Begonia.

Wax Begonia

Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum

(be-GON-yuh) (sem-per-FLOR-enz kul-TOR-um)

Synonym: Fibrous Rooted Begonia

Caudiciform Morning Glory
Ipomoea platensis
(ip-oh-MEE-a) (pla-TEN-sis)
Synonyms: Plata Ipomoea

This was a new flower for me. It was growing in a container and the vine part of the plant had grown to about 10 feet tall on its trellis. One of the interesting parts was its large and swollen caudex (the thickened persistent stem base of some herbaceous perennial plants). The way it had intertwined itself was amazing. This native of Argentina uses the water storage tissue in its caudex to survive extended droughts. The flowers were pretty with their two shades of pink and ruffled appearance. The foliage was nice too. You can see a little peeking in the side of the photo.

I have recently been struggling in how to write the story of the last member of the ‘Big Three’ that passed away last week. First I want to say that both of my dogs are okay. Both Ruby and Juno are doing fine. This is about someone else’s dog. During the 1990’s there was a lot of construction at the Estate. Not only were a lot of the gardens built then there was a lot of building construction at the same time. Almost everyday we would bring our dog, Molly, to work. There was also the caretaker’s dog, Garlic and the owner’s dog, Lily. These three dogs got along very well. They would often be hunting, digging (ugh) or just hanging out together. I don’t think I have ever seen dogs from different families enjoying each others company as much as these three did. We would often have Garlic and Lily over for sleepovers.



Molly (l) and Garlic
Photos courtesy of Conley Myers

Lily

It was one of those times in life when everything seemed to be just right and the three dogs just added to that. Molly would get so excited in the morning because she would know that she would be running around in with Garlic. All I had to say to her was “do you have your hard hat and lunch bucket?” and all hell would break loose. Three exceptional dogs, all gone now, that made a mark on my life and will never be forgotten.

Planting Fields Arboretum

Planting Fields Arboretum
Oyster Bay, New York


Yesterday I drove out to Long Island and visited Planting Fields Arboretum. My main goal was to see the Camellia Collection but I was, however, a little early as most of the plants were just in bud. There were a few blooming but the real show looked like it would be coming in a couple of weeks. Hardly a disappointment I decided to go to the Main Greenhouse and have a look around. They still had the Poinsettia display up and that was colorful with some interesting types and colors. My camera fogged up and I wasn’t able to get a clear picture in that part of the greenhouse. The other parts of the greenhouse have Orchids, Succulents and Cactus and Begonias in separate rooms with some other tropical plants displayed along the way.

Morning Glory seed pods

Normally when I have gone to this Arboretum I have just stopped in along the way from buying plants out on the North Fork, which kind of makes for a rushed visit. Yesterday I decided to make it my primary destination. I could have stayed all day, oops, that’s what I ended up doing only leaving because of the dusk. I wasn’t really prepared for the riot of bark, berries, flowers and other botanical delights. The large collection of Witch Hazels was amazing and I kept coming across them here and there in the garden. I am not sure they were all marked correctly but they made for a fragrant and colorful distraction for a winters afternoon. Seeing the arboretum ‘bones’ was good, as I found several new (new to me) plants that I want to go back and photograph during the spring and summer.

Main Greenhouse, I got both pictures of the Greenhouse before the 8400 died

Since I only used the 60mm/2.8 Micro-Nikkor and the 50mm/1.8 I didn’t really take any landscape shots. I wish I had but maybe next time. I had my Coolpix 8400 and that has a 24mm equivalent lens but the battery died shortly after I got there. I really need a spare battery for that camera as it only lasts about 25% of the D70s battery. It is going to take awhile to sort through all the pictures I took. I was doing some depth of field and exposure experiments to get ready for the upcoming season. I also tried a few menu adjustments and wanted to see the results of that. With my newly stocked up Ipod on and the pretty nice weather (not super, windy and cloudy but fairly warm) I was really ‘out there’.

Bark from a large specimen of Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)

Their website gives some of the rich history and explains the collections better than I could:
Planting Fields.org

Morning Glory ‘Heavenly Blue’
Ipomoea tricolor
(ip-oh-MEE-uh) (TRY-kull-lur)
1/60 sec. F/5.4
Nikon Coolpix 8400

This plant was supposed to be ‘Star of Yelta’, which is a dark purple and red stripe Morning Glory. This is getting to be a pet peeve of mine. There have been several plants this year that were marked wrong. The ‘Star of Yelta’ was going to be a nice foil for some white petunias but it didn’t work out that way. 'Heavenly Blue' looks nice with the petunias, but it is just not as dramatic. Anyway, it is hard to mad at this plant as each morning it greets me with a dazzling array of beautiful blue. I decided to mix in a Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) and that really livened things up a bit. They are happy twisting around each other.

There are 68 species in the genus, a lot of which are considered invasive. The Sweet Potato Vine (Ipomoea batatas) is among the species.