A Visit to Idaho Botanical Garden

Before the bloom is off the rose, I’d like to take you on a tour of the Idaho Botanical Garden. This has been sitting in my to-do pile for a year, the delightful culmination of a trip we made to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone National Park and Sun Valley, Idaho last September. That morning, we’d driven down from Sun Valley, elevation 5945 feet, with its ski runs visible, below…..

Sun Valley Idaho-summer

….to Boise, 2730 feet.The late summer scenery on the 160-mile drive down was at first sage-dominated high rangeland (ecologically termed “sagebrush steppe”) flanking the Sawtooth National Forest….

Rangeland-Sawtooth National Forest

….and later, as we descended towards Highway 84 near Mountain Home, Idaho, gold and green farm grasses and picturesque grain silos against a backdrop of the indigo-shaded mountains of the Sawtooth Range.

Grain silo-Sawtooth Range-Idaho

How I would love to have been on this road in spring – an entire camas prairie!

Camas Prairie-Centennial Marsh

After making the turn onto Highway 84, we headed northwest into Boise where I had arranged to meet my garden writing colleague Mary Ann Newcomer, author and host of Dirt Diva on Boise radio. (If you’ve got a few minutes, listen to this excellent interview with her on North State Public Radio.) She kindly picked us up at our hotel after lunch and chauffeured us to the botanical garden where she spent 10 years as a board member and continues her relationship today as the garden updates certain sections.

Janet Davis & Mary-Ann Newcomer (2)

We entered via the newly-installed, Franz Witte-designed Entrance Garden.

Entrance garden-Idaho Botanical Garden-Boise

Coming in we passed a display of annuals that was as beautifully-maintained as it was colourful!

Annuals - Idaho Botanical Garden

There was a wedding reception going on in the English garden when we arrived, but we asked permission to sneak in.

English garden terrace-Idaho Botanical

Mary Ann continues to be particularly involved in the English garden, now undergoing a design update to accommodate the increased shade of trees that were tiny sticks when installed years ago, like the lovely katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) below…

Katsura tree-Idaho Botanical

I liked the unobtrusive shrub support for this clematis.

Clematis-English Garden-Idaho Botanical

Iron gates created a lovely flow through this garden.

Gate-English garden-Idaho Botanical

Late summer perennials, shrubs and grasses were in their glory, like the blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis) with feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) below.

Caryopteris & Calamagrostis-Idaho Botanical Garden

There were some sweet surprises, too, like this miniature pumpkin vine climbing the upright stems of fernleaf elderberry (Sambucus canadensis ‘Laciniata’).

Fernleaf elderberry & pumpkin vine-Idaho Botanical

We were chatting so much, I didn’t pay close attention to our meander into other areas, including the Rose Garden. Looking up through rose blossoms at a former prison watchtower, this is when you understand that the Idaho Botanical Garden is situated on the former site of the Idaho Penitentiary.  And though all the buildings now house botanical garden administration offices, etc., it’s a remarkable use of historic property.

Watchtower-Idaho Botanical

We passed some fun metal sculptures.

Sculptures-Idaho Botanical Garden

I loved this little inset border of colourful annuals beside the Meditation Garden.

Meditation garden-Idaho Botanical

In the Children’s Garden was a fabulous display of carnivorous plants. What a great teaching opportunity this is. (And yes, that’s native annual sunflower behind!)

Carnivorous plants-Children's Adventure Garden-Idaho Botanical Garden

And this looked like great fun for kids.

Children's Adventure-Garden-Idaho Botanical

For this high desert climate (Boise is classified as USDA Zone 7, but frequent, sustained winter lows have persuaded Mary Ann that it’s safer to buy plants for Zone 5), Idaho Botanical Garden features an important garden, the Plant Select® Demonstration Garden.  Based on a program developed by Denver Botanic Garden and Colorado State University, these are plants that are adapted to Boise’s hot, dry summers.  I loved this combination of Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’ and Wright’s buckwheat (Eriogonum wrightii var. wrightii).

Bouteloua 'Blonde Ambition' & Eriogonum wrightii var. wrightii-Idaho Botanical

And this little firecracker has become a new “it” plant: ‘Marian Sampson’ hummingbird mint (Monardella macrantha).

Monardella macrantha 'Marian Sampson'-Plant Select

What about this gorgeous Mojave sage, Salvia pachyphylla?

Salvia pachyphylla-Mountain Desesrt Sage-Idaho Botanical

As we left the Plant Select® garden, I stopped to admire a little sagebrush lizard.

Sagebrush Lizard-Idaho Botanical Garden

We passed by the beautiful Herb Garden….

Herb Garden-Idaho Botanical

…. but stopped for a bit in the Vegetable Garden.

Vegetable garden-Idaho Botanical

Check out the cages on those berries! That’s the way to outsmart birds and rodents.

Vegetable garden-protective cages-Idaho Botanical

You can grow grapes in the high desert!

Grapes-Idaho Botanical

Then it was on to the Summer Succulent Garden.

Summer Succulent Garden-Idaho Botanical

I could have spent a lot of time studying the various opuntias and cylindropuntias…..Summer Succulent Garden-Cactus-Idaho Botanical

But we were heading up to another of Mary Ann’s favourite areas: the Lewis & Clark Native Garden. The garden celebrates a score of native plants, including many that were recorded for the first time by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery during their President Thomas Jefferson-commissioned 1803-05 expedition west through the Louisiana Territory to the Pacific.

Jefferson-Lewis-Clark
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For me, this fabulous garden represents what botanical gardens should be doing everywhere: celebrating locally indigenous plants according to their geographical and ecological niches, and showing visitors the rich diversity of flora native to their region. Here the stone marker is appropriately flanked with snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus), a plant observed by Lewis near Missoula, Montana on August 13, 1805.

Lewis & Clark Native Plant Garden-snowberry-Idaho Botanical

I saw plants I’d never heard of before on this path, like fernbush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium), with its big, bee-friendly panicles……

Fernbush-Chamaebatiaria millefolium

…..  and cascara buckthorn (Rhamnus purshiana), whose dried bark was used as a laxative by the Native Americans of the Pacific northwest, then by colonialists. (I even recall cascara being in medicine cabinets when I was a girl!)

Rhamnus purshiana-Cascara buckthorn

In the Western Waterwise Garden…..

Western Waterwise Garden-Idaho Botanical

….. I found beautiful creeping hummingbird trumpet (Zauschneria garrettii ‘Orange Carpet’)….

Zauschneria garrettii 'Orange Carpet'

In the Wetlands Garden….

Wetlands Garden-Idaho-Botanical

…. there was familiar Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium)….

Mahonia aquefolium-Oregon grape

…. and unfamiliar black or Douglas hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii), ultimately named for David Douglas, who later collected the seed in his explorations of the west….

Crataegus douglasii-Douglas hawthorn

…. and lovely streambank wild hollyhock (Iliamnia rivularis).

Iliamna rivularis-Streambank wild hollyhock-Idaho Botanical

Then I was exploring Plants of the Canyons. I loved this creative way of showing off Idaho natives!

Plants of the Canyons-Idaho Botanical

Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) was collected by Lewis & Clark on June 15, 1806, on the Lolo Trail in Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains. Clearly, young plants are a favourite of hungry herbivores up here!

Xerophyllum tenax-beargrass-Lewis & Clark-Idaho Botanical

Here is beautiful western columbine (Aquilegia formosa), recorded by the explorers the very next day, June 16th.

Aquilegia formosa-western columbine

Nine days later, on June 25, 1806, they found scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata) on the Lolo Trail.

Ipomopsis aggregata-Scarlet gilia-Lewis & Clark-Idaho Botanical

Look at the beautiful markings of scarlet gilia, which show stripes typical of the colour shift that occurs in some populations of this species later in the season.  According to the USDA: “Red-flowered races of scarlet gilia tend to be pollinated mostly by hummingbirds, which are especially attracted to the color red because of their outstanding vision. White flowers are more attractive to moths that visit the gilia flowers at dusk or nighttime and are drawn by the flower’s unpleasant scent. Scarlet gilia blooms over much of the summer and in some populations blossoms that emerge from May to July are red and hummingbird pollinated, while flowers that mature later in July and August are white and pollinated by moths. This color shift can even be observed among different flowers on the same plant.

Ipomopsis aggregata-closeup-Scarlet gilia

To treat his fever and intestinal condition, Lewis made a dark tea of chokecherry bark (Prunus virginiana), shown in fruit below, collected May 29, 1806 near present day Kamiah, Idaho.

Prunus virginiana-Chokecherry-Lewis & Clark

Oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor) was noted on the same day.

Holodiscus discolor-Oceanspray-Lewis & Clark-Idaho Botanical

Nootka rose (R. nutkana) had already formed hips. It was observed in flower on the Wieppe Prairie by Lewis & Clark on June 10, 1806.

Rosa nutkana-Nootka rose-hips-Lewis & Clark

In the grasses grew annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus), so elegant and simple – unlike the big, multi-coloured forms produced by hybridizers over the past two centuries. Its height was impressive to Sgt. John Ordway, who referred to it as “weedy” on August 13, 1804. He wrote: “we crossed the North branch and proceded along the South branch which was verry fatigueing for the high Grass Sunflowers & thistles &C all of which were above 10 feet high

Helianthus-annuus-Idaho-Bot

Annual great blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata) was observed by the expedition in what is now Lewis & Clark County (Helena), Montana, on July 7, 1806.

Gaillardia aristata-Great blanketflower-Lewis & Clark

On February 2, 1806, the Lewis & Clark expedition was at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, when blue elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea) was collected.

Sambucus nigra ssp. cerulea-Blue elderberry-Lewis & Clark

Prickly pear (Opuntia polyacantha) was observed on September 19, 1804 in Lower Butte, South Dakota, but its effects were regularly felt by the Corps of Discovery. Wrote Clark: “… as the thorns very readily perce the foot through the Mockerson; they are so numerous that it requires one half the traveler’s attention to avoid them.”

Opuntia polyacantha-Prickly pear-Lewis & Clark

Ponderosa pine, of course, is the predominant conifer in this region. When Clark was preparing to navigate the Columbia River in the fall of 1805 and his men were ill and weak, he felled ponderosas and hollowed them out by burning so they could serve as canoes. The seeds are edible, and the pitch from the tree could be used to waterproof the canoes, but it was also used as chewing gum and as a glue to fix arrowheads to the shafts.

Pinus ponderosa-Lewis & Clark

I finally reached the top and saw a small garden devoted to Sacajawea (c. 1787-1812). As a child in the Shoshone nation, she had been kidnapped and raised by the Haditsa tribe before being sold in 1804 to French-Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau.  However unsavory her husband (nine years earlier, he had been stabbed by an old Saultier woman in Manitoba for raping her daughter, and he was already married to a Shoshone when he married Sacajawea), Clark valued Sacajawea immensely for her knowledge of the Shoshone language and arranged for her, Charbonneau (who spoke Haditsa) and his other wife, Otter Woman, to accompany the expedition as translators. In February 1805, Sacajawea’s son Jean Baptiste was born on the trail.

Sacajawea's-Garden-Idaho-Bo

Not only did Sacajawea find food for the expedition from the land, including hog peanuts (Amphicarpa bracteata) and Indian breadroot (Pediomelum esculentum), she provided valuable information on the navigability of the Missouri River, in Montana, having recognized it from her childhood with the Shoshone. On August 17, 1805, Clark  watched as she was reunited with her brother Cameahwait, the Shoshone chief.  She and Otter woman then translated communications from the Shoshone to the Haditsa language, which Charbonneau was then able to translate into English for Clark and Lewis. After the gruelling 3-week trek through the Bitterroot Mountains they finally reached a tributary of the Columbia River.  The painting below by famed Montana artist Charles Marian Russell was made in 1905, exactly 100 years later, titled “Lewis & Clark on the Lower Columbia”, and shows Sacajawea gesturing to unidentified Indians of a West Coast tribe.Charles Marion Russell-1905-Lewis & Clark on the Lower Columbia

In early winter, Clark and Lewis reached the Pacific Ocean. When a trip was arranged to procure whale meat, Clark wrote of Sacajawea: “She observed that She had traveled a long way with us to See the great waters, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be Seen, She thought it verry hard that She Could not be permitted to See either (She had never yet been to the Ocian).”  She and Charbonneau were allowed to go. They began the return trip in late spring, Jean Baptiste, and the Charbonneau family stayed with the expedition until August, 1806, when Clark offered to set them up in St. Louis and oversee the education of Jean Baptiste, whom he had nicknamed “Pompey”, his version of the Shoshone word for “firstborn”.  Though Charbonneau refused initially, in September 1809 he bought land from Clark and tried his hand at farming for 18 months, before quitting and departing with Sacajawea, leaving behind their 5-year old son to be raised by Clark. Sacajawea would die of typhus a few years later, four months after giving birth to their daughter Lisette. Eventually, the guardianship of both children would be transferred to Clark.

Sacajawea-sign-Idaho Botanical

It would have been wonderful to visit Sacajawea’s garden in spring, when the camas is in bloom.

Camassia quamash-Camas lily

As it was, I had to content myself with enjoying this sculpture by Rusty Talbot called Camas Lily/Sacajawea.

Sacajawea-Camas-Lily-Rusty-

Standing at the Promontory, I was able to look down at the old prison buildings below through two more common sage steppe plants mentioned by Lewis & Clark, green rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus) with yellow flowers in the foreground, and rubber rabbitbrush or chamisa (Ericameria nauseosa) with glaucous leaves beyond.

Promontory view-Idaho Botanical

I could have dallied for hours more, but it was time to make the trek back down. Thank you, Mary Ann Newcomer, for introducing me to your special garden. I learned so much!

August in New York’s Conservatory Garden

It was a steaming hot August afternoon in New York City. I’d arrived just hours before from Toronto with three days of area garden viewing and photography on my agenda. I hadn’t made plans for today, but then I remembered a city garden I hadn’t visited for more than a decade. There were still hours of daylight, albeit crushingly humid hours with temperatures in the mid-90s. So I filled my water bottle, slung my camera bag over my shoulder and headed out of my hotel (Hotel Boutique at Grand Central), conveniently located near Grand Central Station and the 42nd Street Subway. The subway tunnel felt like a tropical jungle, but it was nothing compared to the inside of the subway car heading north, whose air-conditioning was broken. “59-68-77-86”, I counted down the stations, fanning myself madly and hoping I wouldn’t faint before arriving at my stop.  When I climbed the stairs to 96th Street (the dividing line between Manhattan’s Upper East Side to the south and Spanish Harlem to the north), the humidity was even higher. I’d only walked a block or two westward towards Central Park before the first fat raindrops fell. Fortunately, I’d tucked my umbrella into my bag and as the rain became a torrent, I pulled my camera bag closer to me and hurried on. By the time I’d crossed Fifth Avenue and walked north along the park to 105th, people were running out and taking shelter under trees or dashing along the sidewalk to their cars or buses. I, on the other hand, was heading into the park, and as I entered the Conservatory Garden through the Vanderbilt Gate, the rain magically abated and the lawns and hedges steamed in the late day heat. Ahead of me was the formal Italianate garden with its lush lawn and fountain.  In May, those crabapple trees on the sides are fluffy clouds of pink and the pergola in the distance is wreathed in wisteria.

Italianate Garden-Conservatory Garden-New York

I watched a young girl playing in the fountain’s cooling spray.

Fountain-Conservatory Garden-New York

The Italianate garden is in the middle, one of three sections that make up the 6-acre Conservatory Garden, which is named for the lavish greenhouse that occupied the site from 1899 to 1934, before it was officially opened as a garden in 1937. After the second world war, the garden was increasingly neglected; by the 1970s it was a derelict place  Under Central Park Administrator Elizabeth Barlow Rogers and renowned New York designer and public gardens champion Lynden Miller (who also did Bryant Park and numerous other urban spaces), the gardens were completely renovated and reopened in 1987.

At the north end is the French garden….

French Garden-Conservatory Garden

.. with its low broderie parterres….

French Garden Planting-Conservatory Garden

… and the Untermyer Fountain, “Three Dancing Maidens”, a 1947 donation to Central Park from the children of famed New York lawyer Samuel Untermyer, whose Yonkers estate is now a conservancy open to the public.

Untermyer Fountain-Conservatory Garden

But as a plant-lover, I was interested in revisiting the southernmost section, the English Garden. To get there I walked past the perimeter of the French garden, with its crabapple allées. A few visitors took shelter from the last raindrops under their umbrella.

Rainy Allee-Conservatory Garden

I passed a raised garden filled with a tapestry-like assortment of luscious tropicals.

Tropical plants-Conservatory Garden

Then I was walking into the English Garden under a magnificent sourwood tree (Oxydendrum arboreum), its tiny, pendulous, white blossoms alive with bumble bees. Trees, shrubs and various perennials act as leafy enclosure in the outer beds in the concentric arrangement of hedge-backed plantings in Lynden Miller’s original design. The current curator of the English garden is Diane Schaub, whose talent is very much on display here. (See note at bottom of my blog).

Conservatory garden-Sourwood tree

Below is one of Lynden Miller’s favourite shrubs: oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia), as the big panicles take on their tawny autumn hues.

Conservatory Garden-Oakleaf Hydrangea

The outer bed below features Japanese anemones (Anemone x hybrida), an August mainstay, with cascading Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) in the foreground.  Mid-border is another Lynden Miller trademark: a clipped purple barberry globe (Berberis thunbergii), adding a sculpted architectural note.  (One of my favourite photos from a visit here in the 1990s was one of these globes graced with deep-violet Clematis durandii.)

Conservatory Garden-Borders1

Here is a closeup of Japanese anemone with the delicate flowers of Thalictrum rochebrunianum.

Conservatory Garden-Thalictrum & Anemone

White coneflowers (Echinacea) brighten the shade-dappled outer bed under the trees. There’s a lovely colour echo of the cones with the dark foliage of the black bugbane beside it (Actaea racemosa Atropurpurea Group).

Conservatory Garden-Echinacea & Hostas

Post-rain, the subtle baby-powder fragrance of summer phlox (Phlox paniculata) and  the perfume of hosta flowers wafted in the enclosed spaces in the garden.

Conservatory Garden-Phlox & Hosta

But as lovely as the mixed perennial-shrub beds were in the outer rings, it was the inner hedged beds in the English Garden that beckoned me. They offered a master class in the use of annuals and tropicals to create exquisite designs that can be changed every year.  But these aren’t your grandma’s annuals; there are no impatiens, geraniums or petunias in the garden. Instead, you see statuesque plants in lovely colour combinations that rival any perennial border. The bed below offered fabulous ideas for combining chartreuse foliage with oranges and bronzes.

Conservatory Garden-Red flowers

Here’s a closer look at the inspired pairing of Cuphea ‘David Verity’ — one of many ‘zing’ plants — with a charteuse colocasia.

Conservatory Garden-Colocasia & Cuphea 'David Verity'

Who could dislike stiff, old canna lilies when they do THIS in the late afternoon sun? (Especially when paired with bronze fennel flowers and a luscious azure-blue Salvia guaranitica.)

Conservatory Garden-Canna
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Tender grasses add a punch of colour, too. Below is Pennisetum setaceum ‘Fireworks’.  Conservatory Garden-Pennisetum 'Fireworks'

Hedges of Japanese holly (Ilex crenata) and euonymus act as a permanent framework in the inner rings, and both sides are planted with annuals in classic colour combinations. The bed below…….

Conservatory Garden-Verbena-Coleus

…..featured a lovely pairing of chartreuse ‘Gay’s Delight’ coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides) and purple Verbena bonariensis — another good ‘zing’ plant.

Conservatory Garden-Coleus 'Gay's Delight'

Deep burgundy-blacks — like Dahlia ‘Mystic Illusion’, front, and the grass Pennisetum ‘Vertigo’, below —  added depth to a dark-foliage border.

Conservatory Garden-Dark Foliage

Exploring all the inner beds was a challenge. Just when I thought I’d seen them all, I’d turn a corner and spot something entirely new!  I loved the way this heuchera (maybe ‘Black Taffeta’?) anchored the design below.

Conservatory Garden-Black Heuchera

In some hands, pink flowers can be just too cotton-candy sweet. But Diane Schaub used a deft touch, below, to incorporate the pink spires of Agastache cana ‘Heather Queen’ and the zingy pom-poms of Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ and purple Verbena bonariensis into a pale-green matrix of tropical plants, including variegated Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta’, centre, and variegated plectranthus (P. forsteri ‘Green on Green’), right.

Conservatory Garden-Pink scheme

Stronger pinks like the verbena, below, were partnered with darker greens, like Colocasia esculenta ‘Blue Hawaii’.

Conservatory Garden-Colocasia

I loved the combination, below, of Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ and blue pitcher sage (Salvia azurea). Such good clear colours.

Gomphrena 'Fireworks' & Salvia azurea

Sometimes horns would honk nearby and I would be reminded that I was in a leafy enclave a stone’s throw from one of the most famous streets in the world: Fifth Avenue!

Conservatory Garden-Fifth Avenue Building

Unusual annual pairings were everywhere. Below is Perilla frutescens with airy Ammi majus.

Conservatory Garden-Coleus & Ammi

And I adored this vignette of magenta-pink Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ with lacy centaurea, a deep-red salvia and coleus.

Conservatory Garden-Gomphrena-Centaurea-Salvia-Coleus

I was very impressed with the way tropical shrub Tibouchina urvilleana, below, was used in the purple border. It looked perfectly at home with magenta Gomphrena globosa and dark pink zinnias.

Conservatory Garden-Tibouchina

Finally, that concentric maze of flowery beds led me to the intimate centre of the English Garden, with its enclosing borders and a pink-flowered crepe myrtle (Lagerstromeia indica). Benches were arranged so visitors could…….

Conservatory Garden-Crape Myrtle

…. relax and enjoy an intimate view of the Burnett Memorial Fountain, the centrepiece of the English Garden. Sculpted in 1936-7 by Bessie Vonnoh (1872-1955), it honours children’s book author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) and depicts the children Mary and Dickons from her classic Secret Garden.

Conservatory Garden-Burnett Fountain-Bessie Potter Vonnoh

I paused for a moment in the secret garden, but towering storm clouds were building in the sky to the west and it was time to head back to my hotel.

Conservatory Garden-Stormy Sky

I bade farewell to this lovely secret garden and strolled out to catch a southbound bus to midtown. What a lovely first evening for my short New York stay.

Conservatory Garden-Red Hydrangea flowers

** Thanks to my online friend Marie Viljoen (66 Square Feet) for her 2015 Gardenista article on the English Garden, which provided a few of the plant names for my photos above.