Repotting a Giant Orchid

This week the Horticulture staff is working on repotting our largest orchid, an Angraecum eburneum. This is an orchid from our collection of almost 1200 orchids. We like to use fresh mix in the orchids every two years. The Angraecum eburneum has been in this pot and soil mix for at least five years. We are concerned the soil mix will start rotting. This is a specimen orchid and we do not want to divide it. The concern we have is lifting this heavy plant without damaging it. We came up with the idea to use the lift that we use to move our soil bags. This has been a very exciting repotting experience.

Kapok Tree

This week we had another big event happen in Tropical Encounters. The Forestry Dept. came in to cut down the kapok tree which was touching the top of the glass structure in TE. The room at this point is 45 feet. Kapoks can grow up to 180 feet. Kapoks are a very fast growing tree. In order to cut the tree down the forester needed to climb up the tree, tie a rope to it and knotch the tree so it will fall in the direction he wanted it to. Then he pulled on the rope in a controlled manner from the ground. This routine was repeated several times. We did leave a 12 foot section and this will resprout. Please come and look at the shorter kapok in Tropical Encounters.

Balsa

We are very excited to see that our Balsa tree in Tropical Encounters is blooming this spring. This is the first time that it has bloomed at the Conservatory. Balsa is a very fast growing tree that is growing in our light gap area. The light gap area in the rain forest is an area where trees have fallen that allows a good amount of light to enter an area of the forest. Because this is a fast growing plant we have to continually prune. Balsa easily becomes to big for our space. Now that we have had the balsa flower we are hoping that we will have our own seed source. If we have our own seed souce we can continually start new plants as we need them.

New Growth In the Green House

It is now the beginning of February and the Horticulture staff can tell that things are changing in the greenhouses. We can feel that the angle of the sun is getting stronger. The green houses are noticeably getting warmer during the day. We can tell that the days are getting longer. It is no longer dark when we start out our day. And as you can tell from the picture we are beginning to see new growth popping out all over the greenhouses. This picture is of a cycad that is growing in the palm house. Please visit to see all of our new growth.

Winter Show Opens

Today January 29th we are very excited to open the 2009 Winter Show. We worked very hard this week planting in the Sunken Garden. The featured plants we have in the show are azaleas, velthemia, cyclamen, cineraria, oriental lillies, amaryllis, pansy, and primula. This was an extremely hard show change because we had to dig out and then replace all of the soil in the sunken garden. We are thankful to the extra volunteers that came in to help with that process. Please come to enjoy our new show.

We will now be preparing for the next show which is the spring show featuring spring bulbs.

It's a dirty job...

This has been a very busy week for us between preparing for the upcoming Winter Carnival Orchid Show and undergoing a major show change in the Sunken Garden. This show change has been a bit more complicated than most because we are also replacing the hydronic heat system that warms the soil beds throughout the room. This involved digging out all 7,500 pounds of soil to remove the old heat pipes below. It was quite an undertaking for our staff but luckily we had help from a large number of volunteers. The installation of the new heat system is now almost complete. Tomorrow we will begin filling soil back into the beds and preparing them for planting. It will take most of next week to install the new show which will open Friday Jan. 30th. Although there is an absence of blooming plants in the Sunken Garden for now, the public can get their fill of flowers this weekend at the Orchid Show Jan 24 & 25. Hundreds of orchids from private collections as well as specimens from the Conservatory’s extensive collection will be on display throughout the Conservatory. Admission is $5.00 for Adults, $3.00 for Children 3-12, Under 3 FREE. Save $1.00 with Winter Carnival Button.

Orchid Show Preparation

The St. Paul Winter Carnival is fast approaching and the horticulture staff has been preparing our orchid entries for the Winter Carnival Orchid Show on January 24 & 25. A joint effort between the Conservatory and the Orchid Society of Minnesota, the Orchid Show is an incredible exhibition of hundreds of orchids from the private collections of Orchid Society members as well as specimens from the Conservatory’s extensive collection. Several vendors will also be on site with an array of orchids available to purchase. Judges from the American Orchid Society will be awarding the best entries in a number of different categories. The orchids will be judged on criteria such as plant health, number of blossoms and quality of blossoms. Keeping with the theme of the Winter Carnival many of the awards are named in honor of the carnival’s mythological characters. The Queen of the Snows Trophy is given to the best white flowered plant in the show. The Vulcanus Rex Trophy recognizes the best red-flowered orchid. The King Boreas Trophy is given to the best specimen plant and the Princes of the West (Zephyrus) and East (Euros) Wind Trophies recognize the best new-world and old world species respectively. Come enjoy this unique event January 24th an 25th at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory.

Upcoming Sunken Garden Show Change

The Horticulture staff is busy getting plants ready for the next Sunken Garden Show which will open on Jan. 30th. Before that date alot has to happen for us to have the show ready. The evening of Jan. 19th we will be pulling out the plants currently in the Sunken Garden, mostly pointsettias. On Jan. 20th we need to do two things that are unusual to most show changes. The first is to remove the carousel horses that we borrowed for our holiday show. We will return them to the carousel. We need to be careful not to damage the horses in this process.



The other unusual part that has to happen is that we need to remove all of the soil currently in the Sunken Garden. We are going to have work done on the heating system we have within our garden beds. This will be a fun and exciting process. If you are interested in soil removal please contact our volunteer services department.



We are busy growing cyclamen, veltheimia, oriental lilies, azaleas, and digitalis. We are excited about new azalea varieties that we are growing this year. The new varieties that we have for the beginning of the show are Aquarell, Luntra, Inga, and Hulsten. In the later half of the show we will feature Jacinth, Super Nova, Victoria, Dewales, Rosalie, Jean, and Terra Nova. We keep the azealeas year round. Five weeks before we put them on display we move them from a cooler temperature of 40 degrees to a warmer temerature of 60 degrees.



We hope that you can come to visit our Winter Show.

Winter pruning

The horticulture staff has been busy this week pruning trees inside the Conservatory. Pruning is essential to maintain the health of our plants and the aesthetics of our displays. Although we prune trees all year-round on an as needed basis, winter is when we do the most extensive pruning. We face unique challenges growing plants in an indoor environment versus an outdoor landscape. While plants outdoors have all gone dormant during the cold months of winter, the plants inside the warm, tropical-like Conservatory continue to actively grow. Although the temperatures inside the Conservatory remain relatively constant throughout the year, the short days of winter bring a significant decrease in the amount of sunlight that the plants receive. Much of the tree pruning we do in winter allows more light to reach the understory plants which would otherwise struggle during these months of reduced sunlight. Pruning is also necessary to control the size of our trees. The potential mature height of many of our tree species is greater than the height of the Conservatory itself. It takes a continued effort to cut back trees that would naturally grow well beyond the ceiling. We are constantly amazed at how quickly the plants grow back after being pruned. Our work is never done!

The Holiday’s are here!

The Horticulture staff has been busy this week installing the 2008 Holiday Flower Show in the Sunken Garden. A Typical show change lasts five days. On the first day, the previous show is dismantled, a process that only takes a few hours. It takes the remaining four days for the staff to install the new show, meticulously positioning thousands of plants to create the breathtaking floral display. This year’s show has a carousel theme to coincide with the 95th anniversary of the Cafesjian Carousel located here in Como Park. The show features six of the original wooden carousel horses in amongst the poinsettia plants. The flower beds are planted with a gradual variation in plant height to mimic the up and down movement of a carousel. The effect is a wonderful visual sensation of seeing an actual carousel in motion. This show will open on Saturday Dec. 6 and runs through Jan. 19.