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Take a Class! 

Don't forget that members receive a 10% discount.

Success with Succulents
with Kat McCullough

DATE: Saturday, June 12
9:00 AM to 12 Noon
FEE: $63 Garden pass member, $70 non-member

Succulents offer interesting shapes, textures, and colors, and can give your home and garden year-round interest. Since succulents have the ability to store water in their leaves or stems, they are ideal for low maintenance and water-conscious gardens. First, you’ll learn about the many different types of non-hardy succulents to use in your container gardens, and then we’ll get our hands dirty and create beautiful succulent gardens for you to take home. Plants and containers will be supplied. Bring gardening gloves if you’d like to use them.

Not Your Mother’s Container
with Kari Getchonis

DATE: Saturday, June 19
9:00 AM to 12 Noon
FEE: $63 Garden pass member, $70 non-member

Come and bring your dad to discover the variety of carnivorous plants that are native to the United States, such as pitcher plants, sundews, and venus fly traps. Few plants are as fascinating as those that catch insects and digest them for nutrients. Learn about where they grow in the wild, as well as many plants that grow with them in their natural habitats, and then learn how to grow them in containers for long-term enjoyment! Choosing containers, creating the correct planting mix, selecting appropriate plants, and maintaining the containers will be discussed. Participants will plant a bog container to take home with several kinds of carnivorous plants and companion plants. Flies beware!

Need a quick arrangement or hostess gift for the weekend? Try our Floral Fun classes. They are quick, fun, and designed for everyone, regardless of experience. Each month participants will create a themed design, perfect for weekend entertaining, to give as a gift, or just to enjoy at home.
June: A Garden Party
with Nancy Gingrich Shenk

DATE: Thursday, June 17
TIME: 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
FEE: $ 45 Garden pass member, $ 50 non-member

Roses everywhere! We’ll feature these fragrant harbingers of summer in a pretty arrangement for an outdoor fete.

In the Field:  Embryo Rescue

In their quest to develop an ever-blooming, cold-tolerant Camellia, Research Horticulturist Dr. Matt Taylor and his team use cutting-edge breeding strategies including “embryo rescue and somatic embryogenesis,” which Taylor describes as a kind of neonatal intensive care unit for seeds.

The team crosses a hardy Camellia with the rare Camellia azalea. “Many times the seeds we get are not viable,” Taylor says. “They wouldn’t germinate, but they are still living tissue. We put them into a culture with optimal light, temperature, water, fertilizer, hormones, and sugar. That’s called embryo rescue.”

If the seed germinates and grows, it is brought out of culture and planted. But what happens to seeds that don’t germinate normally?

“The seed is composed of many millions of cells,” explains Taylor. “Some can revert to an embryonic state, like stem cells. For example, leaf cells can change back and begin to divide—but instead of making a leaf, they make a new embryo, which is exactly what is in the center of a seed. This technique is called somatic embryogenesis. One seed in culture can produce an infinite number of somatic embryos, since cells will forever continue to divide.”

The goal is to produce morphologically and developmentally normal embryos. Hormones in the culture can manipulate undifferentiated cells. Cytokinin, for example, promotes cell division; other compounds influence whether the plant will use its energy to produce roots or shoots.

“We have a lot of success producing somatic embryos, but not a lot getting them to germinate into a full plant,” Taylor says. “We are the first people to do it with this particular plant species, and there’s a lot of experimentation with concentrations of hormones and nutrients in the culture media. Right now we have several hundred embryos. Our next hurdle is getting them out of culture and into the greenhouse environment.” Once they’re no longer protected in the lab, plants are exposed to insects, disease, water stress, and temperature fluctuations.

Taylor describes the challenges and importance of his work. “Camellia azalea is an endangered species. It is not known to self-pollinate, cuttings do not survive, you can barely graft it, and it’s native to the nearly tropical or sub-tropical Zone 10. Our long-term goal is to produce a Camellia for our zone, 6B, that would bloom all summer long and would be evergreen in the winter.”
 
Some of the 2008 batch of embryos now have six or seven true leaves. It may take another year or two to flower, and another few years to see what the adult plant would look like. But Taylor, who holds a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. in horticulture, is patient—and optimistic. “I’m hopeful,” he says.

Click here to take a special "Insider Tour" of Longwood's Research and Production Facility.