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.

One Heck of a Hibiscus

Hibiscus sinensis "Creole Lady" had had a tightly furled reddish bud for about a week. I couldn't get down to the greenhouse for a day, but it was drizzly and cool and I knew things would be fine in there. Well, Lady was gettin' busy in the greenhouse. If only I'd known!! 

The next day I opened the door and walked in to find this. What is different about this picture?

It might be the huge sunset-hued flower that has opened. She'd been open for a day, and I missed it!!

I made a noise like OOP! The kind of noise you'd make when you were a little kid and the Jack-in-the-box popped out.

I never got used to that; they still scare the crap out of me. Clowns and all that.

But this was a happy OOP, a wordless expression of utter amazement, shock and awe.

How do they breed a flower like this, that looks like a Daytona sunset? How can every color I adore be combined so gracefully in a single flower? And with a red-orange stigma floating above the whole creation?

Come here. Let me look into your face.

I have completely quit using photo filters like Snapseed or any of those offered in Instagram. In my opinion, nothing can compare to what the iPhone 6 is able to see. It sees what I see, pure unadulterated beauty. You'd swear I'd messed with this, filtered it, but no. This is Hibiscus "Creole Lady," just as God and man made her. Swoon. 

For make no mistake, she is a creation of man, and man's creations can be pretty darned wonderful. 

Not sure why they call these "Cajun" hibiscus--perhaps they were first bred in Louisiana? But I love the names..."Voodoo Queen" is another one I have my eye on...She changes color from day to day! Aggh! I'd never leave the greenhouse!

I moved her closer to her big sister "The Path."

I had to leave for town in a few minutes. Man, I hated to leave that flower. I wanted to brew a cup of orange spice herbal tea, add honey, and sit down and gaze into her face, then into The Path's, then into hers, for a couple of hours. I wanted to write poems about hibiscus flowers. I wanted to do a watercolor, right there on the spot, see if I could somehow make Cobalt Violet and Winsor Yellow and Permanent Red with a touch of Chinese White swirl and blend and behave impeccably, the way her colors do. I knew I couldn't, but I wanted to try. But I had to go.

And when I came back it was dark, and the next morning she looked like this. If I hadn't seen her the day before I'd still have been enchanted. 

The paler colors made the stigma even better.

Yes, I'm goin' all Georgia O'Keeffe on you. I'm in LOVE.

And the next day, Lady was folding in on herself, and a verse from Maurice Sendak came to me. 

Oh no! Please don't go! We'll eat you up, we love you so!

But Creole Lady had to go. Waving her orange stigma all the way.

She has plenty more fabulous flowers up her sleeve. Buds a poppin' all over. And bonus! She's a three-day hibiscus, like her sister. More joy for all. (Most common hibiscus flowers last but one day, then fall). 

I'm incredibly grateful to my dear friend Donna Quinn for having Logee's Greenhouse send me The Path after everything in

my greenhouse froze on November 23, 2013. 

(Warning: That Post is a Downer.) 

Everything about Donna's gesture was perfect. The name, the brilliant, rousing color of the flower, the plant itself. Big, bold, strong, a party girl! She helped pull me up out of the depths of despair after every plant I loved died so cruelly that night. 

It wasn't instant. But it worked. I have kept and loved many hibiscus plants over the decades. But these are works of art, another level of horticulture altogether. I'll never be able to go back to plain single hibiscus. Spoiled.

I deserved such a plant, and Donna showed me that. 

I laugh when I see "The Path" yelling out the back window of the greenhouse.

HEY BEES AND PEOPLE COME OVER HERE 

THERE'S AN AWESOME PARTY GOING ON IN HERE!!

WOOT WOOT!!

She makes me grin real big. In two years, she's grown to be as tall as I am. It's nothing for her to throw six flowers at once now. Aggghhhh the joy.

I'm not the only one who loves her. There's a bumblebee who has been sleeping in my greenhouse on cold nights.

This morning I woke her up taking photos, and she did a little set of bee yoga.

Upward bee! Stretch those legs!

She visits all the flowers in the greenhouse, then flies out to forage when it warms up and I open the door. 

It's good to know a bee, to offer her safe harbor in cold weather. It's good for both of us to have this place for our retreat. It's good to have The Path and Creole Lady to talk to.  

It's good to have friends.

Garden Weasel At Work

It's a thing, going from a grayish green house to a bright barn-red house. I never thought much about what color flowers I'd put up against the old dull siding. I really have to think about what I'm using this year, and I'm loving every minute of it.

The old gray siding is still on the garage. Sigh. We ran out of money. I can't believe our house was ever this color. But I picked it. It seemed safe. Yawn.

Our friend and my hero Marilyn Ortt gave me a start of her Missouri primrose about 22 years ago as a housewarming gift. It's never been more beautiful than this spring, the spring when we lost her. She did more for Marietta than almost anyone I can think of. Started and maintained our recycling program way back before it was cool. Served on the Tree Commission. Started, with my MIL Elsa Thompson, the Marietta Natural History Society. Fought for open spaces and nature preserves and clean air and water...she was amazing. I think of her every time I look at these primroses. Treasured plants are like that. You remember the people who gave them to you.

They say that redheads shouldn't wear pink. Hmm. I disagree. I'm diggin' this magenta and green petunia, with white heliotrope, pink Cape mallow, red Cuphea, pink verbena, and yellow and rose-throated petunias. I don't put pink right up against the siding, but it's fine a ways out.

 I ventured a little red in geranium "Wilhelm Langguth," then swung over to my favorite petunia, "Papaya." I think it looks fine against the siding. Maybe not the red geranium. Still tinkering.

A better shot, in shade. An astute observer will note Kalanchoe or Paddle Plant "Fantastic" in the rear basket. I love those things.

Cobalt blue, as in my beloved lobelias, is the PERFECT accent color for barn red. Yum!!

I'm learning...

Here's my favorite tangerine hibiscus, frozen to the soil, representing with her first blossom since November 23, 2013. It  took a LONG time for her to pick herself up by her bootstraps and send up some shoots. Man, that was a long wait. But she's coming back at last. Her two cutting kids are, too.

While the single orange hibiscus hasn't been replaced in my heart, I have to admit that my ultrafancy hibiscus "The Path," a Logee's Greenhouse specialty which was a gift from my dear friend Donna Quinn, is coming into her own...

TA-DAAAAA!! That's a six-inch blossom there. I like big buds and I cannot lie.

Not only that, but each one lasts two entire days! I've never had a hibiscus last more than one day in warm weather. She's extrasexyspecial. That pink throat kills me. Everything about this plant kills me. She tried to die three whole times in the greenhouse--hated the cold nights. But she hung in there and so did I. She doesn't much like winter, but loves summer. Hey, me too. 

Here's that awesome green and pink petunia again, paired with New Guinea impatiens and lobelia. I'd love to slip a Persian shield plant in there, come to think of it...

A bit of a plant collector...a crazy monkey plant collector. Lori, there's the beautiful variegated agave you sent me!

And the Ruby Red grapefruit tree is in the bottom blue pot. The two grapefruits it's bearing are the size of navel oranges now!! Phoebe has threatened me with harm if I dare eat one without her. Maybe Christmas break they'll be ready? I don't know how long it takes. Anyone? Months? A year? They set fruit sometime in February.

Another planter in the making, with Fuchsia "Betty," Abutilon "Blushing Belle" and Rex begonias "Ring of Fire" and "China Curl." Very pretty combo.

If I have one complaint about the abutilon, it's that it makes too darn many flowers. Imagine that. But really, it gets in the way of its growth pattern! Weighed down by its own blossoms.

Logee's. This one is a bit overbred, if you ask me.

A new discovery for me, also from Logee's, is a tropical spiderwort (Dichorisandra pendula) they call "Weeping Blue Ginger." Well, it's not a ginger, but I adore the growth habit. So very elegant and Oriental. It's covered in blue three-petaled buds that are taking their own sweet time opening. I just dig the shiny dark green leaves and its angular habit. It's going to be awesome when it blooms. I think this is going to be a huge plant. Already two feet tall and reaching for the stars.

Phoebe has developed a penchant for cutting flowers, so I'm planting 40 Blue Point florist's zinnia plants for her. Our little nascent cutting garden, soon to be set out in the beds.

I lost so many perennials to cold (ALL of my beautiful cardinal flower that the hummingbirds loved so much) that I'm going to have to fill in a lot of holes with zinnias, which they also love. Must look for some good cardinalflower. I will miss it so in July. 

The view out the kitchen window. Garden Weasel paradise. Adore my mini Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis orchids inside on the windowsill.  If you wonder why so many are in pots, it's because the rabbits eat pretty much every annual I try to plant in the ground. They leave most of my perennials alone, though they devoured my creeping phlox and Virginia bluebells this year, dammit!  They'll reduce a geranium to a pile of leaves overnight. Eat it to the ground. Lobelias, same deal. Impatiens, forget it. We have a LOT of rabbits. Chet, get on that. Little dude goes on bunneh and chipmunk runs about a dozen times a day. No effect.

Yep, looks like somebody lives here, somebody who, after the worst winter ever, can't get enough flowers, sunlight, color and June.

When June comes...

Spread them shadders anywhere.

I'll get down and waller there!

Rench my throat in wild honey 

and whoop out loud!

Part of the James Whitcomb Riley poem my father loved to recite. He'd trail off there, having forgotten the rest. Like father, like daughter...

Being Iowa born, he generally didn't have much good to say about Hoosiers, but he loved JWR's poetry. Me, too. The poetry. Got no beef with Hoosiers.