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Journal October 2014
NEXT MEETING
OCTOBER 19, 2014
12:30—4:00 PM
SPEAKER—MIKE KINTGEN
Patagonia Alpine and Cushion
Plants
Toronto Botanical Garden 777 Lawrence Ave. East, Don Mills
Bring your own mug
Bring a friend
Mike Kingten, Horticulturalist at Denver Botanical Gardens
Photo: Denver Botanical Gardens
Mike Kintgen is a Senior Horticulturist at the Denver Botanic Gardens where he oversees the Alpine Col-lection and nine gardens including the Rock Alpine Garden, and South African Plaza. Mike has worked full time at DBG since late 2004, but has volun-teered and helped out since the mid 1990's. In 2012 he finished a two year project to get DBG's collec-tion of alpines recognized in the North American Plant Collection Consortium through the American Public Gardens Association. He interned at both the Chicago Botanic Gardens and at the Rhododendron Species Foundation under Steve Hootman. He has been a member of NARGS since 1993 (age 12) and is currently president of the Rocky Mountain Chap-ter of NARGS. Travel opportunities since a young age have allowed him to observe alpines in Alaska, Hawaii, Argentina, Morocco, Spain, the Alps, and throughout the American West.
What’s Coming Up
November 9, 2014
Wolfegang Bonham
Landscape Designer/Contractor
“The History and Art of Dry Stonewalling”
and
Members Show Case - Seedex Preview
October Plant Sale 12 noon Plants accepted for sale
12:30-1:30 PLANT SALE
2:30 pm Plant sale resumes after speaker
Members please bring plants for the sale!
Autumn is a great time to divide plants, especially bulb clumps, peonies, hostas, daylilies and beardless iris. Please label them clearly and the Plant Sale Committee would be grateful if you could suggest appropriate pricing for the plants and remember to take home any that do not sell.
Keep Collecting Those Seeds
There is still time to collect late-maturing seeds for Seedex 2014.
Keep a look out for the Excel spread sheet on which to list your
seed donations. Or use the form on page 62 of this newsletter.
The spread sheet or form, listing your donation, should be with
Barrie Porteous by the end of the month so that the Seedex list-
ings can be compiled to appear in the December issue . You have
a bit more leeway on sending in the actual seeds.
2014 Page 58
From the Chair
Donna McMaster
In 2015 the May Plant Sale will be, once again, a scaled down version of what was once called the Super Plant Sale. One reason for this is because the Super Plant Sale was found to be too much work for too little profit. The decision was made to omit the vendor tables and stick primarily to member-grown plants. I think perhaps the jury is still out as far as that particu-lar decision goes, however we did have a successful sale and made over $4800.00.
Let me be clear that without the income from that sale we would have ended our year of 2014 in the red.
This year we will continue with the scaled down version mainly because we have only been able to secure the Garden Hall because the larger Floral Hall is already booked to the SOOS.
Last year Carla, Manuela, and Arie did a fantastic job of pulling it all together and we want to extend out thanks to them and all those who helped out in any way.
We cannot however, expect the same people to do the brunt of the work every year. We burn them out too fast. From where I stand, ORGS&HPS has an incredible number of volunteers who pitch in willingly time after time, so I have no doubt that we will have lots of member plants donated (that is our addiction, we can’t help ourselves) and lots of helpers on the day of the sale, but what we need is a coordinator. Please step up and offer your organizational skills and your bright ideas. You won’t have to do it alone but we need your leadership. We need you.
You can expect signup sheets at the October meeting or call or
Member’s Showcase Updates There will be an additional feature in our January, February, March, November and December meetings—our Member’s Showcase, where members do the presentations! As was the case last year, Anna Leggatt is in charge of the Member’s Showcase. If you would like to share some experi-ences with your fellow members, please let her know to ar-range a time.
It could be a travelogue, some favourite plant pictures, a dem-onstration, a garden visit etc., lasting at the most, 30 minutes.
It should have some plant references, however vague.
Upcoming Showcases:
November 9: Seedex Preview
December 14: Mary Ann Robinson: Record Keeping and Making labels for the Garden
Margaret Bennet-Alder : "The Gardeners' Journal"
January 11: Virginia Hildebrandt Plunge Beds: What can be grown and the rudiments of how the Europeans do 'plunge pots'
Seed starting Questions Answered - Panel
February 8: Anna Leggatt NARGS in Santa Fe - 2014 Annual Meeting
March 15: Sheila Hirsch-Kalm: Monet's Flower Paint ings
We sometimes receive requests for the names of ORG&HPS members who are available to speak to other organizations. If you want to publicize your talks, you can do so by posting an advertisement on our website. These ads are free and will rotate throughout the website pages with those of other adver-tisers. To arrange for an ad, please contact [email protected].
Our Facebook Page
In lieu of placing a group order for seeds from Jelitto, we are encouraging members to post a note on our Facebook page to share the purchase special items like seeds and bulbs. Like-wise, requests for ephemeral plants can be posted there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/740896525938734/
Introduction Rodgersia is a genus of architecturally significant, large leafed plants belonging to the Saxifragaceae family. There are cur-rently 5 accepted species and dozens of named clones.
R. podophylla is native to Japan and Korea and the other spe-cies are found in China, Tibet and Nepal. In native habitats they grow along streams in shady woodlands.
Rodgersia flower in mid-summer producing large flowering stems that rise above the foliage. The astilbe-like panicle of flowers is spectacular and in some varieties can reach 2 feet above the plant. Flower color ranges from white, yellow, pink and red. All species are apetulous (no petals) and the flower colour is provided by the sepals and stamens. All species have 2 carpels, and R. podopylla and R. pinnata have 10 stamens (number of stamens in other species unknown).
Even though the flowers are significant, most people grow the plant for the leaves. The leaves are large, and strongly tex-tured. Newly forming leaves can be bronze, copper or metallic colored and in some varieties this color remains as the leaf matures. The leaves have strong stems that can be up to a meter in length. They hold the leaves up well, even in a windy condition, although strong winds may tear the leaves. In fall, the leaves of some species and cultivars can turn a nice cop-pery-brown color.
Rodgersia tabularis was at one point part of the genus, but it has now been moved into its own genus, Astilboides tabularis. It is not discussed further in this report.
Culture Plants prefer a semi-shade location which has rich, moist soil. They will grow in full sun provided they have enough soil mois-ture. The leaf edges will turn brown if they get too dry. Plants will be smaller and grow more slowly in less than ideal situa-tions, but even in these conditions Rodgersia make impressive specimens.
Plants are hardy in zones 4-9, but new spring growth can be damaged by an early frost. Once a plant is established it will
recover from frost damage and grow new leaves, as if nothing had happened.
Thick rhizomes spread just under the surface of the soil. They are mostly clump forming, but R. nepalensis and some forms of R. podophylla have a bit of a tendency to spread. All of the large leafed varieties create impressive plants in a few years.
Rodgersia can be propagated by seed or by spring division of the rhizome.
Plant Identification Key The identification of Rodgersia is complicated by a number of factors:
All of the species interbreed easily. Plants grown from seed where more than one species or cultivar is grown have a good chance of being hybrids. Too many times these seeds are incorrectly labeled with a species name.
Many of the pictures on the Internet are wrongly identified. Even prominent plant information sites such as the Encyclo-pedia of Life have incorrect pictures posted.
Leaves on a single plant can vary. Young leaves can be different than leaves produced later in the season. Leaves on seedlings may not look like those found on mature plants and therefore seedlings need to be grown for a couple of years before you can be sure of the leaf type.
R. pinnata is a very diverse species and at times its leaves can look like that of other species.
There are five or six species of Rodgersia, depending on the current taxonomic climate. Currently, R. henrici is considered to be a variety of R. aesculifolia and that is the format followed by this report.
Single plant purchased as Rodgersia pinnata var. superba showing a
variety of leaf types; (A) almost palmate, (B) pinnate and (C) pseudo-
pinnate
Cont’d/...
2014 Page 60
3b. leaves are true pinnate with leaflets more or less equally spaced along the rachis
4a. flowers are white—R. sambucifolia
4b. flowers are green or yellow—R. nepalensis
The Species R. aesculifolia rod-JER-zee-ah ess-kew-lih-FOE-lee-ah (tetraploid 2n=60)
The leaves of R. aesculifolia look very much like a horse-
chestnut (Aesculus) leaf. It is symmetrically palmate with
obvate leaflets that are coarsely serrated. The leaflets do not have petioles. The flowers are white, white tinged pink, or a definite pink color. It is commonly called the Fingerleaf
Rodgersia.
The leaves of this Rodgersia tend to be more green than other species, but some clones do have a copper metallic sheen.
R. henrici was listed as a separate species at one time, but it is
now considered to be a variety of R. aesculifolia.
In researching for this report it became clear that the experts don’t agree on what the differences are between the two spe-cies. The following table (next page) is a list of features that have been reported, but not a single source of information in-cludes all of the differences. The differences may or may not be valid and are documented here only to show the complexity that exists.
R. purdomii is now considered to be a group within R.
aesculifolia.
Rodgersia species can be identified primarily from their leaf shape, with some clarification provided by flower color. They have compound leaves of two general types:
Palmate - several leaflets radiating out from a central point, similar to a horse-chestnut.
Pinnate—leaflets arranged in pairs along a central rachis.
The following plant key can be used to identify species. It may be helpful to know that R. sambucifolia and R. nepalensis are fairly rare in cultivation.
1a. Leaves are palmate.
2a. Leaflets have an ovate shape—R. aesculifolia
2b. Leaflets have 3-5 shallow lobes near the apex,
resembling a ducks webbed foot - R. podophylla
1b. Leaves are pinnate
3a. leaves are more pseudo-pinnate than true pinnate, with one group of leaflets near the apex and another group of leaflets near the base of the leaf. At times the rachis is so compressed to almost disappear, making the
leaf look more palmate than pinnate—R. pinnata
Palmate leaf
Pinnate leaf
Rodgersia aesculifolia, photo source Wikipedia
Cont’d/..
2014 Page 61
R. aesculifolia is a large plant that can grow to 2 m (6 ft), but is normally 1.5 m (4.5 ft) tall. It is the largest Rodgersia and may be hardy to zone 3, but definitely zone 4.
Cultivars:
Big Mama – usually has 7 leaflets, 4 feet tall, pink flowers
Werner Muller – commonly listed as R. purdomii, dark green leaves, white to light pink flowers
NARGS Book of the Month - August 2014
A Rage for Rock Gardening: The Story of Reginald Farrer, Gardener, Writer & Plant Col-lector. Nicola Shulman.
Reviewed by Kendall McLean.
The book added a great deal to my understanding of Reginald Farrer’s personality, but rock gardening, in spite of the title, was not a primary focus of this book.
It presents a thorough picture of the social and family world that shaped him, along with his physical limitations. My im-pression was of an author who felt sympathy for a not very likable person.
She discusses his profound impact on garden writing and his relationships with some of the famous gardeners of his time.
The book covered quite fully his plant hunting expeditions, again expanding our knowledge of Farrer the person.
Ed. Note: Reginald Farrer (1880-1920) was born into a well-to-do family in Yorkshire England. By 10 years old he was a well-qualified field botanist. He had been homeschooled due to a speech defect. At
14, he made his first rock garden in an abandoned quarry. From there he went to Oxford at 17, and lived for 8 months in Japan after gradua-tion. His first book, The Gardens of Asia, was published in 1904. From
Tokyo he explored China, Korea and Japan. My Rock Garden was
published in 1907 in England. His other books resulted from explora-tions in Italy and China. He died while on a China expedition with
E.H.M. Cox, and is buried in Konglu.
Feature Flower diameter Bud color Flower color
Inflorescence
Leaf texture
Veins
Number of leaf-lets
Pubescence
Sepals
R. aesculifolia 2-8 mm White, yellowish or pink White/green or white tinged with pink, aging to green
Airy
Tends to deflects down at the mid-vein and the apex
Smooth upper surface, only main veins are prominent on the underside of the leaf 6-7
Underside of leaf and petiole is pubes-cent Enlarge after fertilization
Feature
Flower diameter Bud color Flower color Inflorescence
Leaf texture
Veins
Number of leaf-lets Pubescence
Sepals
R. aesculifolia var. henrici
8-18 mm pink pink, color deepens as flowers age
Not airy, multiple tiers of flowers, which are closely packed
Firm, with no tendency to deflect down
Sunken, giving top of the leaf a quilted effect, prominent on the underside of the leaf
7-9
Pubescent only on the veins
Don’t enlarge after fertilization
Part II of Rodgersias: Garden Giants will be featured in an upcoming Journal.
ORG&HPS 2014/15 Seedex All seed collections are very welcome with everything from alpines to bulbs to shrubs being appreciated. Novice grow-ers might be a bit shy about collecting and sending in seed. Don’t be. All entries are of interest.
For those that are new to seed collecting, a few tips are listed below:
1) Seeds are often ripe when the pod starts to go brown and cracks appear.
2) Many seed pods can be collected before they open and allowed to mature in a warm dry spot.
3) Fleshy fruits are usually ripe when they become soft or when they begin to drop.
4) Seeds should be collected, when possible, on dry days by cutting the ripe stems off and putting them in paper bags or envelopes so the seeds can drop to the bottom. Write the name on the outside and note colour, height and any special features that will help you formulate a good description later.
5) When collecting seed for the exchange please clean them as much as possible. I use a series of sieves but perhaps the best way is often to put them on an 8½ by 11 sheet and tip it carefully so that the seeds roll off. Gentle blowing will remove much of the chaff from heavier seeds.
6) Package the seeds in a well sealed paper or glassine envelope such as those used for stamp or coin collect-ing. Plastic is not advised in the event that, if some moisture remains, the seeds may rot.
7) Fine seeds may be also wrapped in paper or foil to stop them from leaking out of the envelopes.
8) Write the name of seed on the envelope. If you are not sure of the species just list it as such with a description. Most garden grown submissions will possibly be crosses anyway.
9) It is very important to fill in the seed donation list included in this edition of the Journal. Please put as much
information, regarding the plants, as possible. While we added descriptions where none were submitted last year, we will not be doing so for this year due to the reasons listed below.
10) There will be a mass mailing of an Excel spread sheet to as many members as possible. It would be very help-
ful if you could use this as it saves me from having to type all your entries. If you need to get in touch with me my email address is [email protected] and my phone number is 905-764-0309.
11) The headings on the Donation Form are as follows:
a) W stands for wild collected seed
b) C stands for colour i.e. pink is pink, white is whit or the first 4 letters of the colour
c) T stands for type i.e. perennial (PE), bulb (BU), shrub (SH), vine (VI), annual (AN) etc
d) H stands for height in cms
e) Description is an opportunity to give your view of the plant along with growing tips
f) The genus should be listed in the first column and the species or hybrid name in the second
g) The donor name in the RH column is the first four letters of your family name in capital letters
Please mail your packages to Barrie Porteous, 3 Breda Court, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, L4C 6E1 as
soon as possible and before October 31, 2014.
In some cases seeds may not have ripened by the deadline. If this is the case, please let me know what you intend to send, by the due date, and the seeds can arrive later when ripe and dry.
I would like to thank all of you, in advance, for taking the time to collect, clean, dry and catalogue your donation.
Happy growing - Barrie
Please remember the deadline for entries is October 31st 2014
Printed Seedex Version Available for Digital Users
Members who normally receive their newsletter in the digital format can request a printed version of the Seedex issue in addition. You must order your copy before November 12 by contacting [email protected]
Upgrade Your Life We have ten meetings each year, generally the second Sunday of the month, at the Toronto Botanical Garden. To join, send your name, address with postal code, telephone number, e-mail address and your cheque payable to ORGS & HPS to: 88 Cottonwood Drive, Toronto, ON, Canada M3C 2B4.
Canadian individual membership: $25.00
Family membership: $30
US membership: US currency as above
Overseas memberships: $30 Canadian
Membership is for the calendar year. The ORGS&HPS Journal is pub-lished ten times per year in printed and electronic formats. Canadian chapters: Ottawa Valley, Calgary, Quebec, Newfoundland & Nova Scotia.
North American Rock Garden Society: To join send US $30 cheque,
Visa or MC. to Bobby Ward, PO Box 18604, Raleigh, NC USA 27619-
8604. 4 bulletins a year, the premier NA gardening publication, 3 an-
nual get-togethers; 2 winter, 1 summer, Seed Exchange with over
