My melancholy hit hard when I saw this a week ago.
Maybe it's not the most upbeat title to my newsletter, but its been hot and my brain is just now recovering from being a mushy mess. It’s a bit beyond prime summer time and most sane folks are continuing to relax poolside, take vacations to beachside places, and if you have young children, counting the days until school starts, (or maybe that was just me back in the day?) When 80 degrees feels cool, with shorter days already imperceptibly making an appearance (today it’s 13:06:38 hours of daylight), I’m alright with a little sweater weather.
Japanese Black Sticky Corn developing
It’s also that time of season when crops like hard squash, tomatoes, and of course corn, which can take 70+ days to mature, matures!
My observation for this growing season is that despite a mild winter and a dry-ish spring we are having a “meh” growing year. Okay yes, it was spectacular to experience the first flowering of the Davidia involucrata, aka the Dove or Handkerchief tree after being planted 10 years ago! A stunner of a tree which is considered endangered in China where it is from. A great article in the Arnoldia goes into some background about the tree and about its bracts.
The Dove tree’s two white, paperlike bracts each flower head (capitulum).
And of course 2024 was the year of the Hydrangeas which were all so AMAZEBALLS…
Two different Hydrangea macrophyllas.
But so many other dependable plants that flower reliably year after year were paltry or lackluster at best. Take our Stewartias for instance. We have over a dozen different species and cultivars and altogether we probably had three flowers from all our trees. It was so not happening, so I have no pictures from this year to show!
Stewartia pseudocamellia v. koreana & S. rostrata flowers 2023
Save the Dates!
8/18 - Hortus is closed for a private event.
8/24 (My birthday) - August 24th - Introduction to Eco Printing with Bonnee Pecquex - Eco-printing, is an artistic technique that uses plant materials to create unique and intricate patterns on fabric. - 12:30 - 3 pm - $75 (includes a material fee for a silk scarf) ~ Buy tickets here. This will be a great class where you can bring your own plant material or use stuff from the arboretum, or both!
Bonnee Pecquex and a sample work being assembled.
9/1 - A Guided Garden Tour - 2pm-4pm - $20 - reserve here. Join Allyson co-founder of the arboretum to learn about some of her very favorite plants as you walk around the gardens together.
9/7 - Garden Conservancy: Digging Deeper - Ulster County ~ Two good friends are offering Digging Deeper events. Go to one of these classes (or both!) and then come visit the arboretum for free.
**Dave Nyzio has a class on Dynamic Successional Mosaic Landscape. Dave is a lifelong birder (although he still calls himself an amateur, he will go to South America to see birds among other places). See his beautiful gardens and how he plants for attracting all different types of wildlife.
**Glenerie Farm has a class on Diversity on a Cut Flower Farm. Karin & Dennis have been growing a cut-flower farm over the years and are an amazing resource for bulbs and flowers for the Hudson Valley.
The Fall Artist Residency application process is open to all visual artists working in nature through September 1st. For more information and to apply click here.
Sha Luo the 2024 Summer Art Resident will be the juror for the Fall residency.
photo courtesy of Sha Luo
Hortus Gardens is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
The past several newsletters I have allowed both free & paid subscribers to read it in its entirety. I will occasionally continue to do that, but not today. The reason is as a small nonprofit garden we rely on YOUR continued support to keep us growing. Whether it’s through becoming a member; or by contributing to the Fencing Fundraiser campaign, donations, or as a paid subscribers to this substack writing.
We cannot thank you enough for your support in helping to grow the gardens.
We now garden on 21-acres of land, with six distinct gardens and a continued goal to choose plants to grow for the greatest amount of diversity, while pushing the zonal climate of what can be planted at the arboretum (geographically we are rated for zone 6b or -5 degrees F). Over the last five years we have turned our focus on growing rare and endangered plants as well as collecting woody genera that we don’t have growing (yet).
Our goal is to make this Ulster County’s 1st Botanical Garden and Arboretum. Please help support this.
I am often asked how did this all begin??
We started “officially” 24 years ago. My husband & co-founder Scott Serrano and I are both visual artists who work in the botanical realm. Originally it was on 3-acres of land and we first started planting both fruiting and ornamental trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals for our artworks. Both as materials and as inspiration.
A few of these works in the “Sextiles” series will be in an upcoming exhibit called “Understories” at the Carrie Haddad Gallery. For those of you in the Hudson Valley please come and say hi to me at the artist reception on Saturday, August 17th from 5-7pm.
The work will be on exhibit from 8/17-10/6.
Hortus Gardens is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
I’ve spent time researching the below content that I know you will enjoy, especially if you like insects and sunflowers…
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