Pruning

The Winter pruning is underway once again at MMC. On Monday, January 4, Conservatory staff spent all morning pollarding the Giant Fig, Ficus carica, in the North Garden.

The Conservatory is 95 years old, and we believe the fig to be close in age, if not 100 years or more!

Pollarding is a pruning technique that removes all of the previous years growth. Sometimes it is used to promote the development of new fruits. In our case, we use the technique to promote the new seasons growth, and to create more light in the room.

Often times the terms heading back and pollarding are used interchangeably. You can really see the structural aspects of the fig after it has been pruned. The surrounding plant material will also be able to capture some of the extra light, now that our days are getting longer!

Uninvited Guests---Integrated Pest Management

In mid-December, five Conservatory Horticulturists began participating in an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Course. Our role is to take the on-line course to give a professional evaluation of it’s use as a secondary educational tool. It is proving to be a fascinating refresher for those of us that studied IPM years ago.

Integrated Pest Management, is a long-standing, science-based, decision making process that identifies & reduces risks from pests. Here at the Conservatory we practice various forms of IPM in our green spaces. We periodically scout for pests, monitor the extent of the damage, and assess our next control strategy.

Often times, biological controls, through beneficial insect releases, provide the control we are seeking. If not, we then may choose to use chemical insecticides. We also have good insect control measures with physical & mechanical maintenance, such as pruning, wiping, or simply rinsing the plants off with water, or a simple soap/water solution.

Our goal as an institution, is to make the best choice possible to maintain the plant collections, and displays with the least amount of impact on the plants and our visitors.

Holiday Flower Show on FOX-9!

Holiday Hits

The 2009 Holiday Poinsettia Show opened in the Sunken Garden, Wednesday, December 2.

A few of the poinsettias we are featuring this season in the garden are ‘Peppermint Twist’, ‘Eggnog’, ‘Cinnamon Stick’, ‘Orange Spice’, ‘Winter Blush’, and ‘Visions of Grandeur’ .

The horticulture staff is putting the finishing touches on the various planters that are placed within the Sunken Garden and around the Conservatory.

One of the varieties we are using is a new one called ‘Polar Bear’. The grower of this variety is the Paul Ecke Ranch. With each plant produced, the Ecke Ranch will make a donation to Polar Bears International. One hundred percent of their donations goes directly to research and education projects in support of polar bears. This is especially nice for us, as we will be opening our new Polar Bear Exhibit on Zoo Grounds in Spring of 2010.

Como Park Zoo and Conservatory and AZH

The Association of Zoological Horticulture(AZH) is an organization of horticulturists that work in the specialized field of horticulture. Here at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, 2 of our horticulture staff belong to AZH, Bryn(Tropical Encounters) and Heather(Zoo Landscape). AZH works to highlight the importance of plants within zoos and aquariums, and seeks to support the horticulturist who work in a zoological setting. Zoo horticulture encompasses a wide range of activities which requires a diversity of knowledge and skills in gardening, plant identfication/selection, landscape development, plant animal interactions, plant toxicity, animal browse production, etc. Just imagine a zoo without plants and you'll agree, plants make the difference.

Highlights of the Purpose of AZH:

• To advance public and professional education regarding the importance of zoo horticulture and its role in the educational, recreational, conservation,and scientific goal of the living natural museum.
• To broaden the interests of the memberships in the pursuit of the occupations and to improve the standards of efficiency and effectiveness through fostering programs for professional and vocational education.

Recently, Heather(Zoo Landscape) from our staff, attended the AZH annual conference in Jacksonville, Fl. September 26-30 2009. She said it was a great experience for her to interact and learn from fellow zoo horticulturists. Also, she felt the butterfly house and collection/lab was spectacular.

MMC Horticulture Staff

Poinsettia Production Primer

Our production greenhouses are now in full swing with poinsettia production for our Holiday Show, which opens December 5th. The growing process actually started way back in late June when our small rooted cuttings arrived. Our ace Horticulture staff has been fussing and nurturing the tender plants for the last 3.5 months to produce luxuriant foliage that is free of insects, disease and nutrition defficiencies or excesses. This crop can be rather demanding in its care!






We are now at the stage of there growth when they need the long 13 hours of darkness each 24 hour period, and then for the other 11 hours, they need strong, strong sunshine. We achieve these 13 hour nights by pulling a shade cloth over the plants at 6:00 PM and then opening the cloth at 7:00 AM.






Our Holiday Show this year will feature many new cultivars and will have a warm orange, blush pink, creamy yellow and cinnamon color theme, a little something to warm up our visitors as winter settles in on us.

A FIRST FOR OUR WATER GARDENS

On September 23, 2009, we had our first succesful harvest of Victoria Cruziana seeds. Victoria Cruziana is one of the three Victoria Platter lilies that we grow or have grown for display in our visitor center pools.

Victoria Cruziana are native to the southern part of South America. It's leaf is lime green and has a 4 inch plus lip. The Victoria Amazonica leaf is reddish in color and has no lip. The Victoria Longwood hybrid is a cross between the Amazonica and the Curziana. It was developed by the world famous Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. It's leaf is red on the bottom and green on the top and it has a smaller lip than the V. Cruziana (about 2").

All three of the Victoria Water Platter Lilies are night bloomers. The first night they open the flower is white. On the second night, the flower turns pink. The flower has a very fragrant pineapple smell to it.

The importance of this harvest of seeds for the Horticulture staff is that producing our own seed is a good sustainable practice versus purchasing seed from outside sources.

Horticulture Staff

The fragrance is intoxicating!

When you enter the Sunken Garden during the Summer Show, your nose is blasted with a very heavy, spicy scent eminating from the flowers. If you investigate further with your nose, you will eventually find the culprit; our Oriental and Oriental-Trumpet lilies. These wonderful flowers last about 2 weeks in the garden, and our horticulture staff produces 11 crops to cover the 5 month long show.

These tropical looking, and smelling, beauties are reliably hardy in our climate. This seems just too good to be true for our zone 4 gardening . If you visit our gift shop, look for the spent lilies for sale. It is a great time to plant these bulbs and you will be rewarded with flowers in July and August for years to come.

Horticulture staff

Production Greenhouse Glazing Replacement

There are various materials that are required to grow top quality plants like we produce here at the Conservatory. Using quality fertilizer,plants,plugs,seeds and soil(soilless mix) are important parts of the equation. Another important part of the equation is the glazing material covering the production greenhouses and the light transmission level it provides to the plants.

Replacing the yellowed glazing on our production greenhouses, which is happening now, is important during the low light levels of the winter months. During the summer months we use shade cloth to reduce the light transmission level.

The glazing was last replaced over twenty years ago, it had a estimated light transmission level of 50% and was quite yellow. The old glazing material was made of polycarbonate and had a light transmission rating of 81%.The new glazing material is made of impact modified acrylic with a light transmission rating of 86%.

This project only involved replacing the side panels of the production greenhouses. Seven years earlier the roof panels were replaced because of hail damage.

Horticulture Staff

State Fair Orchid Show 2009

Every year the horticulture department participates with the Orchid Society of Minnesota in an orchid show at the State Fair. This year people can see some of our beautiful specimans on Friday and Saturday September 4th and 5th in the Horticulture building at the fair.

Each year the planning starts well in advance of the actual event. We start to pull together orchids that are beginning to bloom about two months ahead of the actual show. We move orchids to different parts of our greenhouses to either speed up or slow down the blooming.

Every year there is a theme to the show and this year it is "In Your Garden" It will be fun to see what the other exhibits come up with for this. We are planning to create a scene that is in our garden; the conservatory. With the help of our creative orchid team we think we have come up with a nice plan. You will need to visit us at the fair to see the actual final set up!

We need to track and list the plants we enter so that we can make labels and get all the results into our database afterwards. This is a ribbon show which means that our plants are judged against all the other plants entered in this event. This is a bit different than the orchid show that you would see during the Winter Carnival here at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in January. That is typically an American Orchid Society judged show that brings in trained AOS judges who evaluate our orchids in comparison to all previously judged plants of that type. An AOS award is very hard to come by.

We have about 50 orchids in the show this year. After we have all our props and plants loaded into our vehicles we drive everything over to the fair and typically start setting up at 10:00pm After this is completed the judging starts and ribbons are in place by around 2:00am. It is an exciting and fun evening for everyone!