Echinacea Fantasia

I stopped by the Toronto Botanical Garden on my way out of town yesterday, because I knew if I left it until I returned to the city in 10 days I’d miss the echinacea show.  The TBG has incorporated into its various gardens the “regular” (pinkish) purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), like these ‘Rubinstern’ flowers in the entry border…..

Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern'

……and many of the beautiful colour variations that have permeated the market over the past few decades, including white, yellow, orange and red hybrids.  The varieties below are featured in the President’s Choice Show Garden.  Many are the fruit of the echinacea breeding program at Portland’s Terra Nova Nurseries.

Echinacea array

And, of course, they were all ravishingly beautiful, for their moment to shine is mid-July.  ‘Amazing Dream’ from Terra Nova is a dramatic, glowing, crimson-pink.

Echinacea 'Glowing Dream'

Orange ‘Tangerine Dream’ and double gold ‘Secret Glow’, both from Terra Nova, make fine bedmates.

Echinacea 'Secret Glow' & 'Tangerine Dream'

Reproductively, echinacea is self-infertile, meaning it must be cross-pollinated to make seed.  It does that in an interesting way.  Each inflorescence (capitulum) is composed of ligulate or ray florets (the colourful petals) on the outside and an inner cone made up of roughly 276 tiny, whorled, bisexual disk flowers, each subtended by a tough bract that lends the plant its Latin name, echina, meaning hedgehog.  Each whorl of disk florets, starting from the outside and working towards the centre during the bloom period, goes first through a staminate stage, in which the stamens elongate and release pollen on the first day, then a pistillate stage on the second day, in which the ovary becomes receptive – but only after the flower’s own pollen supply has been disseminated. This sexual strategy of separating the male and female phases on one inflorescence to facilitate cross-pollination is called protandry,  Nectar production is not left to chance, but is carefully controlled by the plant to ensure pollinators visit at the appropriate time to effect cross-pollination.  This tiny sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens) got the message, and was carefully probing each tiny disk floret for sweet nectar.

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And not just the little sweat bee, but the bumble bees, too, like this Bombus impatiens on ‘Amazing Dream’..

Bumble bee on Echinacaea 'Glowing Dream'

And this one on ‘Meteor Red’ (which made me happy, because though it’s a semi-double, some of those nectar-rich flowers are accessible to insects).

Bumble bee on Echinacea 'Meteor Red'

The butterflies got the nectar memo as well, like this American painted lady. We were all there for the sweet echinacea fantasia festival!

Painted lady on Echinacea 'Tangerine Dream'

 

 

The High Line in June – Part 1

I spent 3+ very hot, sunny hours on the High Line this week, along with several thousand other New Yorkers and visitors. In fact there were so many people walking the city’s unique linear park between 14th and 30th Streets, that when I stopped to photograph a fetching plant or a beautiful scene, I felt like a boulder in a rushing river.  But despite the terrible light conditions, I did stop every now and again to photograph Piet Oudolf’s beautiful plants.  Because who could resist these lovely and unusual partners: copper iris (Iris fulva) and twisted-leafed garlic (A. obliquum).  Oh, and that pointy building in the background isn’t too shabby either!

Empire State Building

The honey bees just loved the copper iris.  Normally an ornithophilous (bird-pollinated) plant in its native habitat in the central-south U.S., moisture-loving Iris fulva was nevertheless a great hit with the honey bees, which climbed right into the style arm to nectar.

Honey bee on copper iris - I. fulva

And all kinds of bees were visiting the twisted-leafed garlic (Allium obliquum), which made a pretty neighbour to a light-pink form of Knautia macedonica, bottom right.

Bees on Allium obliquum & Knautia

White wild indigo (Baptisia alba) and creamy-white oxtail lily (Eremurus himalaicus )made charming partners, too.

Baptisia alba & Eremurus himalaicus

I love watching bees nectar on foxtail lilies – such a lot of tiny flowers to explore in this beautiful foraging ground!

Honey bee on -Eremurus himalaicus

One of the more statuesque alliums is the white Allium nigrum, here with Bradbury’s eastern beebalm (Monarda bradburiana), a low-growing native of the central-south U.S.

Allium 'Mount Everest' & Monarda bradburiana

Like all alliums, A. nigrum is a great bee lure.

Bees on Allium 'Mount Everest'

Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’ nestled its compact, beautiful self into the crevices abutting the High Line’s popular walkways.
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Amsonia 'Blue Ice'

While Lonicera sempervirens ‘Major Wheeler’ flung itself luxuriantly across its high, mesh trellis a stone’s throw from Frank Gehry’s bold building.

'Major Wheeler' coral honeysuckle

Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) was in full, glorious flower, the female inflorescences held separate from the male ones.

Sumac & the East River

And the honey bees were making sure those flowers would turn into fuzzy red fruits later.

Honey bees on sumac

Clusters of ripe Allegheny serviceberries (Amelanchier laevis) dangled like rubies over the street below.

Allegheny serviceberry - A.laevis

And they were being eaten by hungry birds that knew just which berries would be the sweetest.

Bird eating serviceberry

Ensuring there would be red berries, a honey bee patiently nectared from the tiny flowers of the ‘Red Sprite’ winterberry (Ilex verticillata), below.  In fact, the entire High Line was buzzing with bees and alive with bird song – the sign of a well-designed, holistic garden with intrinsic value not just for humans, but for the small creatures that visit it for food and shelter.  Ready to join me for Part 2 of the High Line in June?

Bee on female winterberry flower