DC Trip was Plant-tastic! (part 3)

Alright, so I was terrible and didn't take many worthwhile pictures of my plant-tastic DC trip (and this is the worst verbal slide show ever...) I'll be briefer from here on out about "DC trip."

(UPDATE: Ho, ho! I have pics now from the trip! My wonderful sister in law has provided! viewing pleasure abounds!)

The National Arboretum was a blast, though a long, hot muggy blast, so more like a sweaty hike around the beautiful acres and legions of ground you'd expect an arboretum to cover.  This area actually reminded me of the Memphis Botanic Gardens really with the amount of land a person covers.  I've never been to an official Arboretum before and the Botanic Garden feel was compounded by the fact that this one had exhibits/divisions such as the bonsai section (it's all trees right, albeit tiny ones).

The bonsai were pretty splendor-ific, and intimidating (started in the 1800s?! and you're only 3 feet tall?!)  The fact that something can be tended for many centuries, by generations of people is inspiring, but one swoop of some disease and all those centuries down the drain.  Talk about an investment.  There ought to be a bonsai market.

We came at a pretty good time as the azalea bonsais were in bloom.  Tiny trees with ginormous looking blossoms on them!  I thought that the flowers were supposed to become miniaturized too... I need to look into that,  maybe I just saw dwarf plants bonsai-ed once, making their fruit and flowers appear more in proportion? 

Some had some nifty scenes with tiny plants to look like larger shrubs and miniature figurines in them:

Um, they had a slightly larger landscape are complete with a small bridge that I danced/played Godzilla on:

I loved the garden's use of sedums as groundcover!

 Pretty fun to look at the bonsai, though admittedly, and especially on a hot day, after a few dozen, one starts to look like the other (unless it's a truly startling one) and a person sort of wants to move on...

So off we went and checked out the Arboretum's AMAZING herb garden.  Yep, this is another garden I'd love to own if it were possible.  Lots of delineations of gardens (their list): "Dye Garden, Medicinal Garden, Culinary Garden, Fragrance Garden, Industrial Garden, and Beverage Garden feature the different ways in which herbs are important in our daily lives.  The Native American Garden, Colonial Garden, Asian Garden, and Dioscorides Garden"
WOW.  The highlight of the Herb Garden was a central brick area for resting that also had various herbs too of course, but had many, MANY pots of.... scented geraniums.

Needless to say, I went a little nuts.  Like the little kid I sometimes act like, I had to smell every freakin' pot (and I think there had to have been at least 40 of them).  I don't think any of them overlapped either in type! They were unbelievably lovely in all their various sizes, shapes, flowers and leaf types and almost all (minus those weird cedar/nut-what scents) were delightful.  My husband and his brother sort of stood by the side for the next half hour slightly bemused, slightly helpless and impatient as my sister-in-law caught my geranium fever and by the time we were done my fingers smelled like something out of a perfume factory disaster. (Husband gagged when I put my fingers up to his nose).


The worst (and best part) was when I noticed that some of the geraniums were in seed.  So, yep... there I went all Augustus Gloop-ish picking seeds fervently (only 3 plants had seeds) into my pockets.  (1) I'd like to add that I wasn't shoving them into my pockets... just small little fistfuls.  (2) I wasn't sure if they would be viable or germinate true anyways, because I understand that scenteds are either notoriously difficult to germinate by seed or aren't true and thus that's why cuttings are almost always necessary.


Please realize, that I was TOTALLY not thinking as I was doing this... just regular seed saving habit I suppose... instinct?  Either way, my husband, who was flipping through the Arboretum brochure sort of coughed at me and my sis in law and pointed to a section that mentioned "no picking or taking plant matter out of the arboretum."


Oops.  So, I stopped that rightaways.... but figured the seeds in my pocket could just stay in my pocket...?


Either way, my brother in law was having a mini-hey day plucking lavender all around.  Guess we all have our perks.


I later emailed the Arboretum and inquired to some Smithsonian workers about why there was no nursery to sell extra plants/cuttings on site and I was essentially told that because it's government and non-profit they can't sell their items.  BUT, when compost day comes in... there's a line of people waiting and they don't tell the people "no."  Note to self: DC looks like a better and better place to live... Free entertainment, free gardens to visit and maybe even free plants....



We soon took refuge in the Native garden/Fern Valley which was blissfully shady.  Native garden was as you could expect, native and things rambled unattended mostly and there were lots of wonderful ferns which is my husband's plant of choice (I'd like to add that he's not a fan of sunlight, so that might be a hint to his predilections).  

There were, however, frogs in a boggy section that made the best sounds and had leopard spotted golden eyes which I adore, so we stopped to stare at those for a while.

So, of the MANY places to see in the Arboretum, we only got to THREE. Hopefully we'll get to trek over there many more times and complete the trip (and send a donation to the Arboretum...)


Finally my last bit of plant-i-ness (until I talk about the new additions to my garden Monday) is the National Botanic Garden, with the conservatory area being the area I spent most of my time in.  I was unawares and short of time of some of the other areas, so that'll be for yet another trip!


The National Conservatory houses many different environments within its 29,000 square feet.  While I could go through the list online, ones that were favorites and stuck out to me were the children's section, the sedum area and the tropical section which by far was the best.  


The tropical section is tiered so that you can go up a metal walkway and follow the vertical height of tropical palms and other taller canopy plants.  Along the way up he walkway tucked into the taller plants and hanging from the walkway or higher posts are tropicals such as bromeliads (usually a plant that doesn't interest me much usually but they had some very cool varieties I was unaware of and also probably not available in the regular store nurseries) and epiphytes like air plants and orchids of course. 


During the walk up to the second tier my eye alighted upon a strange vine that somewhat thickish and had long slightly curved up leaves.  The vine ran off of the tree trunk and onto the walkway which allowed me to inspect it closer.  The leaves, when I got a better look, reminded me of the orchid leaves at my house, and the only orchid that was a vine that I knew of.... after searching around to find a tag, affirmed my suspicions, it was a vanilla orchid!  And it had to be at least 50 feet long! (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating) but it was a very long vine!

The outside gardens were nice and I could see lots of edible action, but as it was blazing hot, the husband and I missed out on Bartholdi Park, the Rose Garden, and the Water Garden.


So, after 3 days of possibly boring material of verbal slideshow  I'll get on to regular gardening programing with the introduction of new plants to the garden Monday.  Have a great weekend and send some cool air my way, 93+ degrees F of temperatures headed my way this weekend and for about a week on and off!

DC Trip was Plant-tastic! (part 1)

...unfortunately, I'm terrible when it comes to traveling that I don't take many pictures.

I realize that this is especially unfortunate when person such as myself has a blog and many people who read it like pictures :\

Part of the reason why I don't really have pics of DC and the landscaping and plants I'm going to talk about is because I find that carrying a camera around and taking pics all the time makes me feel like I'm losing out on my fun and time when traveling (stopping and taking pics all the time and etc.) and when I take pics for 'looks' I take forever and as my husband and I were wanting to cram in a LOT of Smithsonian museum time, stopping often to take pretty pics was not exactly (pardon the pun) in the picture.  Also, my sister and brother-in-law accompanying us on parts of this trip had super badass SLR cameras that put mine to shame and while I'm not competing with their camera-tude, I almost feel a sort of "what's the point?" in taking pics when their cameras are around (and I can try to ask for pics from them later), except for the fact that my eye is interested in very different things than their eyes and so I do end up regretting not having taken my camera with me more often when I find particular plants or textures interesting.  Perhaps on another trip when I'm not having to rush!

But anyways, allow me to use my "talent" with words to whisk you off to a faraway place called Washington DC also known as, Our Nation's Capitol.  Let us hope that I can give the required thousand words that  picture gives to make up for the lacking of eye candy here.

I lived in the concrete jungle of Chicago a long while ago and never saw much interest in plants or landscaping, nor was it expected with their relatively short warm season I suppose.  I've been to California many times and when it comes to plants there, they don't count when I can compare locations on plants, landscaping and etc. because plants are abundant and happy there all the time, any time just about.  Californians barely need to do anything, and really don't to have trumpet vine running prettily and rampantly all year around, and have rosemary as a common form of edging on the side of the highway and so on and so forth.

So, I was pretty impressed getting to Washington DC to see a ridiculous amount of landscaping and diversity of plants not only our nation's capitol but in the random neighborhood my sister in law was in (granted, being the capitol of our nation they might be putting a special foot forward and my sister's neighbor was a bit of a plant nut which could be considered outside the norm).

Granted once again, Thomas Jefferson, a plant nut himself, may have caused this lasting impression for DC's plant cool-ness but nonetheless, allow me to be impressed that a non-tropical city such as this (in a state that's not tall like Cali and thus have a million zones) is so plant-tastic!  (I must parenthesize here that I have not been to famed Buffalo and its Garden Walks too, so maybe we can just say that I've been a little sheltered since my incarnation as a plant-o-holic?)

Before heading to DC proper I was thrilled to see that no one in my sis-in-law's suburb appeared to take particular care of their lawn.  Weeds and clover everywhere! Score! No little tags proclaiming particular landscaping companies, no stupid crunchy fertilizer pellets ruined my walk as I took the dog out, no idiots watering their lawns at 2pm or after a rain.  It should be noted that most of the lawns were somewhat on the smaller side and that there were lots of trees, but the notice that there were TREES (and lots of them) is a happy reminder of what a few good deciduous trees can do for a neighborhood in the cooling, habitat for animals, and less watering for grass way.

I was really pleased to see too that the National Lawn was also in the same state as most of the suburban lawns I saw earlier.  Loads of weeds and clover, but it was still relatively green.  Maybe I caught it on a particularly bad week, or maybe the Gov decided that it did have better things to spend their money on than lawn maintenance especially when how many thousands (if not millions) of people tromp all over it a day.

Despite all the buildings everywhere for all the many departments and agencies of whatnot and all in the capitol, any little bit of green space that could have just been relegated to a simple lawn mow job was actually really nicely landscaped with hardy, interesting shrubs and many perennials.  I didn't recall seeing many generic annuals like petunias, but there were lots of smoke trees (love!) and mahonias (both of which are actually natives to Washington interestingly) and other eye-catching plants in those spaces with relatively little grass to cut.  Maybe even less lawn to mow in total for a building than the lawn at my house (sad, really).

 Another thing which I found pretty cool of note was the use of tall permanent concrete planters all around many of the buildings.  These planters appeared to be there to delineate the sidewalk of the building from the street, eradicating the need/use of a grassy parking strip and probably also being safe for pedestrians from cars on top of being mostly easy to tend to.

Many of these permanent planters were simple: full of mondo grass, or other tall grasses, trailing naked jasmines and the like, but in a tall planter were sufficiently nice as a long set down a sidewalk.  As you might have noted, these plants were all pretty nearly perennials, which is an awesome cost-saving thing.  I found it sort of funny that the the Department of Finance building was one of a few locations that did  not have their planters filled with any plants.  Maybe they deemed it a unnecessary and a cost-saving measure?  Come on guys, mondo grass is cheap!  Even accountants need a little more green (in the living kind sense!)

Interspersed between the buildings were little gardens and the Smithsonian museums, all of which were landscaped not just prettily but interestingly.  My interest is peaked at unusual plants, but even more so when the unusual plants (of no edible interest that I was aware of) are planted with EDIBLE plants.  Lots of basils, and ornamental peppers and random herbs (or maybe it's just that I knew those plants were herbs that are edible or medicinal that made me interested).

The Natural History museum's entire perimeter was lined with many wonderful edibles one of which was nigella, aka love in a mist or black cumin, a plant that I loved as a child and didn't know what it was despite it running rampant in my mother's flower bed (until she decided she didn't like it anymore and ripped it all out).  I only came to know what this plant from my childhood was a few years ago and I have been desperately trying to get it to grow in my garden.  The seed pods in the museum beds were dry and ready to drop, and here is where I made a gardener's sin: I took a seed pod.  *covers face*  I do not condone stealing and think it's pretty abhorrent, but seed gathering I feel a little less bad about.  "But what if everyone took a seed pod?" my brain asks.  I know, I know, so bad and the Smithsonian doesn't deserve tourists like me, but a nice donation will be made soon-ish?  There are many seeds and I don't really buy souvenirs, so I usually take a rock, some sand, a leaf, drift wood or the like as my souvenir when I go on trips, obviously most never on an institution's property... so this is my guilt and man, am I guilting here (as I should).  Writing... check.... for Smithsonian... donation...(should I write "for the seed pod?" on it?)

This whole seed pod just brings down a whole slew of apple-Adam-Eve and 'Beauty and the Beast' tales in my head.  If anything, I can say that a Smithsonian garden person working on another garden was going to offer me a pod of nigella anyways (after I had already taken one from the Museum of Natural History... but I didn't mention that...)  No excuses though still.

But yeah, that whole seed thing, DC trip and more, tomorrow at my blog!

Not dead yet!

You know, I didn't know that in Monty Python and the the Holy Grail, the official title of the character of the old man who "wasn't dead" (but was being forced into the 'dead cart' by who we can only presume to be his son) is called "The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't"

I'd almost like to claim that I'm the "The Dead Blog that Claims It Isn't" for all the times that I've left you all in a lurch except I'd be paranoid-ly looking above me for some sort of Monty Python-esque massive paper cut-out hand above me ready to bop my head.

So yes, for the second time in the past 2 weeks I must apologize for the lack of updates.  Usually I am better about having posts interspersed and prepared to entertain you whilst I am running about on vacation (yes, that's the reason for my absence as many of you might have surmised since it was over Memorial Day weekend).  I have a tendency to  not want to proclaim to the world, via Twitter, Facebook, blog and the like that I am not in the house for an extended period of time for good reason.  Not like I'm famous like Elvis or have a collection like the Kew Conservatory that I'm worried about but too many people tell the world when they're not at home and it's just not smart.

Anyways, please give me another day to recover from many days of nonstop walking around the Washington DC area (8-10 hours a day, 5+miles a day, not including the time spent upright in museums) and the 12-14 hour nonstop crazy drives my husband and I make to get to see family and fun because sleeping at night (when there's less traffic too!) is for newbs and we're just crazy like that.

Upcoming posts will be about the awesomeness of:

-Washington DC's plants and landscaping

-The National Arboretum

-The National Botanic Conservatory

-Having a family that trades plants with EVERY visit (you'd think that the plant varieties would equalize out at some point..) (this post will also highlight the plants traded)

Segueing into plant trading with family I have an admission that I am going to make that's relatively stupid (but the husband insists I need to update my foibles--- and I should, but still, blah.) but I broke my plant moratorium.  Just this once!  After I was stung by the wasp recently I was "le sad" and at the local farmer's market they were selling pretty, 6 inch tall coleus plants for a $1(!) and I, uh, believed it would dull the sadness and pain of wasp sting-i-tude(ness).  The seller also gave me a piece of a pretty purple and green coleus that had snapped off, so it was like I got TWO coleus for $1(!). 

 I'd like to blame Dave at The Home Garden for influencing me many months ago to the idea of keeping, cutting and saving coleus cuttings for over the winter (and just to make more).  I don't tend to like to purchase non-edibles, but having a yen for color lately and add in some easy propagation on TOP of being severely malnourished of new plant/interesting growth in the garden I succumbed.  SIGH. There, I got that out.  Guilt be gone?  Except for some guilt that occurred in DC... but not in the plant purchasing way! More on that later and until then, thanks for your patience.