What’s in Bloom

Ginkgo biloba, often called the maidenhair tree, is a living fossil and the last surviving member of a plant lineage that dates back over 200 million years. Native to China, where it’s long been cultivated around temples and sacred sites, the ginkgo has since found homes in cities around the world thanks to its resilience to pollution and pests. Its fan-shaped leaves turn a brilliant gold in autumn, drawing admirers even to quiet cemeteries where some of the oldest specimens can be found. The tree’s fruit, actually a seed with a fleshy outer coating gives off an infamously pungent odor when ripe, but inside lies an edible nut valued in East Asian cuisine. Extracts from the ginkgo’s leaves are also widely used in modern herbal medicine, often promoted for supporting memory and cognitive health. Ancient yet enduringly adaptable, the ginkgo remains a striking reminder of nature’s ability to survive and thrive across the ages.

Now on display in the Potting Shed, a charming collection of chrysanthemum bonsai forms, skillfully created by our staff, students, and interns. Be sure to stop by as we get closer to the return of our upcoming Chrysanthemum Festival, on view October 24–November 16!

Dawn redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, similar in appearance to bald-cypress, is a living fossil, having existed as long as 50,000,000 years ago. Fossil records show its presence on both the North American and Asian landmasses, and it was thought to be extinct until the early 1940s when a Chinese official found an unidentified cypress-like tree in a remote village in central China. The opposite leaves are deciduous, a rare feature among conifers. They emerge bright green in spring, mature to deep green in summer, and turn a foxy, red-brown in fall. The excellent foliage colors, ornamental bark, and straight trunks have made them popular ornamental plants in gardens.

This class of blooms features long tubular petals that curl or hook at their tips. Their texture can range from very fine to coarse. The chrysanthemums in our collection are not your everyday garden varieties. Our collection features more than 180 cultivars representing all 13 chrysanthemum classes recognized by the National Chrysanthemum Society. To ensure the continuation of this collection, our research staff maintains more than 1,500 test tubes holding virus-free mum stock.

The bald cypress is a remarkable tree native to the southeastern United States, especially thriving in the swampy bayous and river floodplains of the Gulf Coast. Despite being a conifer, it is a deciduous tree meaning it drops its soft, feathery needles each fall, earning it the name “bald” cypress. In autumn, its foliage transforms into a stunning rusty orange, Its famous “knees” or woody projections that rise from its roots help the tree survive in waterlogged soils. The bald cypress provides vital habitat for herons, wood ducks, owls, and turtles, offering nesting sites and shelter among its trunks. Both ancient and resilient, it’s a true icon of America’s wetlands!  The elegant bald cypress allée (aka Flower Garden Drive), stretches in parallel rows, originally planted by the Peirce brothers in the 19th century and later enhanced and preserved by Pierre S. du Pont in the early 20th century. Today, the towering trees frame a tranquil vista that is ablaze of fall color each year,  a living legacy of vision, history, and natural beauty.  Be sure to check out the bonsai specimen in the Bonsai Courtyard!  

The final chrysanthemum flower class, class 13, is the exotic class.  These blooms can’t be classified in any of the other 12 classes and often are a combination of two or more classes.  ‘Lili Gallon’ has ray florets that are a bright magenta on the front side and white on the back.  They twist and swirl around the flower head creating a distinctive appearance.

Euryops pectinatus is a compact, perennial, evergreen shrub in the daisy family, native to the rocky slopes of the South African Cape and is the only place where this plant occurs naturally. It has finely divided gray-green leaves that provide a great backdrop to the cheery yellow, 2-inch flowers that appear almost year-round in mild climates and are attractive to pollinators. The genus name comes from the Greek word for "large eye," referring to the showy flowers. The species name comes from the Latin term for something with narrow divisions, like a comb, referring to the divided leaves.

 

Oakleaf hydrangea is an all season native, deciduous shrub, with deep green foliage during the growing season turning wine-colored in the autumn.  The panicles of white flowers bloom through June and into July fading to pink and finally a handsome russet in the fall.  

Chrysanthemums, a member of the aster family, have blooms which are composed of many tiny flowers known as florets.  There are 13 classes of chrysanthemums, defined by the National Chrysanthemum Society, which categorize the plant by bloom shapes.  Anemone mums have prominent, raised, cushion-like centers, made up of disk florets, and petal-like ray florets which surround the center.

Now on display, the traditional 1000 Bloom Chrysanthemum, yellow flowering form 'Susono-no-Hikari'.  This ancient technique, known in Japan as Ozukuri, originated hundreds of years ago in Asia and is the most exacting and challenging of all Chrysanthemum training styles!  It takes 17 months and more than 2,000 staff hours to nurture and train this single plant into a perfect blooming dome with one central stem. Each large flower is evenly spaced apart from each other using a supporting frame. Disbudding plants to allow just one flower per individual stem to develop creates a larger bloom. Flowers all are similar in size and bloom at the same time. Fun Fact: Two of the large 1000 Bloom mum plants are grown to maturity, and the strongest plant is selected in October for final display.