Late-Day Logee's Orgy

I haven't stopped at Logee's Greenhouses in Danielson, Connecticut, for many years. Some things had changed, like the size of the place--the number of greenhouses has been reduced. 

Some things hadn't changed, though--the incredible beauty and quality of the plants. I have to say the display greenhouses are even more beautiful than I remember their being. With less to care for, the staff can doubtless spend more time grooming the plants. I was bowled over by their health and beauty. 

For a phytophile like me, it doesn't get any better than this...descending from the civilized entryway into the humid green heaven of Logee's first display greenhouse.  The chalked sign over the vine-draped entry reads, 

"Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."   Luther Burbank

No kidding. Some people medicate with booze and pills. I prefer sunshine and flowers. Humidity and the smell of wet soil helps, too. And then there are miles...checking my Fitbit, it shows 7 plus today. No wonder I feel better.

It was afternoon by the time I left White Memorial Conservation Center, though I'd meant to leave in the morning. I just couldn't tear myself away from Gerri and the snow buntings. By the time I made Danielson, the sun was sinking fast. I knew I'd have to race through the greenhouses.

I was stunned by the walls of greenery and flowers.  I couldn't even see how they got in there to water everything. It was a seamless mass of beauty. Their Dichorisandra (Weeping Blue Ginger) looks a whole lot happier than mine. 

Begonia "Looking Glass." I used to grow that one. Loved it.

Saw their new trademarked begonia "Autumn Ember" and plan to get it. Woweee!!

I recognized some things I'd seen in Costa Rica (orange) and South Africa (blue) but I couldn't stop to read tags, if there were any. I was passing through at high speed, racing the dying light.

Turns out this is Blue Skyflower Thunbergia grandiflora. Why, I grow a Thunbergia called Black-eyed Susan Vine every summer! 

I do want to grow this Abutilon "Red Tiger" someday. What a gorgeous little blossom, on a big lanky plant.

Pycnostachys urticifolia Woweee!!! What a blue! It's called "Blue Witches Hat."

Looks like a mint to me. Fabooo!!

Lookit all them baby cacti! I wondered--these must be grown from seed. Amazing.

I was just in time for the big bloom of their Christmas cacti, in early December. I swooned. Look at those colors, those glorious plants. I think I need to start mine over; they used to be nice and shiny green like this but now they're sort of limp and reddish.
They bloom, but they don't look happy at all. I think I'll root some pieces and start over. I want mine to look like these beauties!

As you might imagine, by now the plant collector in me was twitching. I saw so many beautiful plants I wanted. But I was a gypsy, just at the beginning of a ten-day swing through New England, with temperatures predicted in the teens at night. There was absolutely no way I could travel with plants, even if I had had an inch of room in my car. I was going to pick up all my Baby Birds paintings in Canton, MA, and the car would be crammed past capacity. 

So I looked, but didn't touch.

I took equal joy in the things that had been planted 

and the adventitious seedlings that were making their way up the frosted plastic windows of the greenhouses. How cool! This little tropical waif was making a beautiful pattern as its leaves hugged the  bright wall.

I'd seen Showy Medinilla Medinilla magnifica from the Philippines in the Logee's catalogue and wondered if it were as elegant in person as it was in photos. Answer: Oh yes. Show-stopper. Someday...gack. Someday.

Someday, too, on this cheery cherry-red trumpet of a Streptocarpus. I think it's "Full Moon," though it looks a lot bluer in the catalogue. How cuuuute!!! I'd grown the blue ones but oh! and that solid red, I'll take that too, someday. It was truly wonderful to have a chance to ground-truth the catalogues I drool over. To find the plants even more beautiful in real life (IRL for you slang-slingers out there).

Some kind of ginger? Maybe. Weird, cool, think I've seen it in Costa Rica...

Monkey cups! I'd seen a photo of an orang sipping from one in National Geographic when I was a kid. Now I know it was probably a set-up with a zoo animal, but at the time I thought it marvelous. 

It's a carnivorous plant, from the looks of it a wetland species. And look at those lovely anthuriums pointing fingers at the sky behind it. Arrgh. This was almost painful, not to be able to take anything home. But that's OK. I have no business increasing the amount of stuff I need to care for right now.

Nepenthes hybrid "Lady Luck," a Tropical Pitcher Plant, a cross between N. ventricosa and N. ampullaria.

I had two pilgrimages to make. First, I wanted to see the famous Meyer lemon tree I'd admired when I last visited maybe 25 years ago. I figured it'd be even more amazing. The tree grows right up out of Connecticut soil in the floor of the greenhouse. From Logee's website: 

"Logee’s Greenhouses was started by William D. Logee in 1892 in Danielson, Connecticut. He started as a cut flower business and soon became interested in tropical and unusual plants. In 1900, he bought a small Ponderosa Lemon tree from a grower in Philadelphia. It was known as the “American Wonder Lemon” due to the size of the fruit, which could get as large as 5 pounds. The tree was a must for the Logee collection. It was shipped via train, then picked up by horse and buggy and directly planted into the ground in the original greenhouse. The same tree in the same greenhouse (appropriately called the Lemon Tree House) still stands today, and is reliably producing 5-pound lemons every year. Hundreds of thousands of propagations have been harvested from this original tree.”

And there it was. Bigger by far than I remembered it being. It's impossible to get a good photo of this tree because in the cramped confines of the greenhouse, you can't get far enough away from it even to appreciate it properly. But oh. So wonderful. It grows down to the ground, up to the ceiling, and down to the ground umpteen times, and it makes a carefully-pruned Wall o' Lemons along both walkways on either side. They are still propagating from it. So you can buy a clone of this tree. See why I love plant propagation so much? You can grow a piece of history!

Logee's is still owned by the same family who started it. That in itself is a small miracle. Maybe the same highly intelligent magic that has kept Logee's thriving keeps its plants immaculate and pest-free. I believe in magic, especially when driven by the indomitable human spirit.  

My hand and a huge Meyer lemon from this amazing tree. Signs ask that visitors not pick them; they are selling the fruit in the front of the store. So cool.

As one who has tried to grow citrus over the years, and who has harvested exactly two delicious Ruby Red grapefruit from a 1' tall "tree" in my Ohio "greenhouse" before it succumbed to scale and chlorosis and God knows what else, I am most hopelessly, grovellingly impressed that this tree was apparently scale free. I. Do. Not. Understand. How. You. Do. This. For. 116. Years. (much less two or three.)

I had one more pilgrimage to make, and that was to find the hibiscus section, so I could see where my darling hib "The Path" came from.

Healthy cuttings for sale, around a sign touting the many virtues of this great hibiscus. Mine, two days ago:

This is the Understudy I mentioned in my post, "That Which No Longer Serves." I spray her and Creole Lady every day. Every. Day. Now given, I'm using a pretty innocuous homemade soap spray, but still. HOW DO YOU DO IT, LOGEE'S???

I stopped a young woman who works there and asked her just that. I just cannot understand it, and her answer put me no closer. "We find that when the plants are healthy, they're resistant to pests."

Oh. Does my plant look unhealthy?

I mean, there HAS to be a secret here. Seeing the look on my face, she added, "We release beneficial insects..."

Hmmm. But how do you keep scale off a Meyer lemon that's 116 years old and the size of a master bedroom? HOW? HOW.  How. How???

  

I guess that will have to be a mystery. A nice, happy mystery. Logee's has beautiful, no, exquisite plants, and that is something to celebrate. I can't remember walking through a greenhouse with more beautiful plants. Huzzah!!

I just ran down to the greenhouse and sure enough, the bud Creole Lady was unfurling at dusk had burst open. Is there any better way to answer a 26 degree snowy day? Well, going for a walk in it works, too. Planning that.

Creole Lady is never more beautiful than when she first opens. Like a cinnamon roll, best when hot out of the oven. Another Logee's specialty. What beauty you bring to my world, Logee's!!

As the last light of a winter day faded, I raced through the camellia house, found a pale pink one that was fragrant (swoon!) and photographed a fruiting kumquat in Connecticut. 

This one's for Floridacracker.

And it was over. It was dark. It was time for me to go. I found my way back out the door and stopped for a last look at this little piece of Paradise, plopped in a sweet little otherwise sort of ordinary town in wintry Connecticut. I hadn't bought a thing. And that was OK. 

I'd made a pilgrimage to Logee's, and that was enough.