What’s in Bloom

Time to say goodbye to the long days of summer and make the adjustment to the shorter days of fall. Clear sunny days and crisp clear nights lead to gorgeous leaf colors; we decorate with pumpkins in various hues and fragrant chrysanthemums in a variety of bright shades, as seen in the Longwood Gardens arrangements below. We begin to put our gardens to bed for the winter and start looking ahead to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The winter months are spent making plans for next year’s garden, pouring through seed catalogs and dreaming of the first green shoots to break ground, crocuses, daffodils, etc. But before that, we’ll have snowdrops, hellebores and witch hazel to look forward to. The garden may be resting, but we are making plans!

Our bus trip to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA was last Wednesday. An enthusiastic group of travelers boarded the bus at the Arboretum and by 10:00 AM we were on our way, looking forward to a day visiting the lovely grounds at Longwood Gardens. We had some rain, but didn’t let that “dampen” our spirits; the gardens were at their peak, the fountain shows were lively, the new West Conservatory (an innovative, exuberant masterpiece celebrating the world’s Mediterranean landscapes), the Roberto Burle Marx Cascade Garden, the Bonsai Courtyard and the Idea Garden didn’t disappoint. After some last minute shopping, we boarded the bus, a tired but happy bunch, looking forward to the relaxing trip back to New Jersey.

Thanks to Judy Snow for the group photograph, the photo of the Italian Water Garden and a photo of a giant sunflower in the Idea Garden, with a couple of travelers for scale! My photos show part of the New West Conservatory, an elaborate grouping of potted plants, mostly annuals, and a photo of a yellow and purple flower border, including salvia, coleus and marigold.

== Margery Ennist

Among the many beautiful trees on the grounds of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, there is a very nice example of Taxodium ascendens ‘Nutans’ (Pond Cypress) at the end of a planting strip in one of the parking bays. This tree is native to the coastal plain from Virginia to Florida to Louisiana. A deciduous conifer growing to between 30-70 feet, its foliage turns orange brown in fall and its bark is gray/brown to red/brown.

The seed pods on Magnolia grandiflora cv. Victoria (Southern Magnolia) are an architectural marvel resembling pine cones but are actually an aggregate of many smaller follicles, or seed casings. In this photo the follicles have not begun to open exposing the bright red fruits that provide high fat, high energy food for many birds and mammals.

Last, but not least, a bright spot in the garden provided by a large red Coleus (sadly I don’t know this one’s name); note the much smaller Fishnet Stockings Coleus in the upper left hand corner of this photo. Members of the mint family, Coleus plants come in many colors, from deep reds to pinks to chartreuse and forms, from mounded, trailing to upright. We know them as shade lovers, but newer varieties can tolerate full sun.