The passionate philanthropy  of  Lora M. Robins shines in a multitude of ways here at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.  She leaves a legacy at the Garden with contributions far and wide, spanning a lifetime.  Some of her many contributions are tangible — we walk across them, find a moment of reflection, or admire a work of art here at the Garden because of her. We invite you to take a look at the photos below of major features at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden that are a result of Mrs. Robin’s philanthropy. Her legacy, however, is much greater than what we can capture with a camera.  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is an on-going, living testament to her spirit and we celebrate Mrs. Robins’  life with respect, admiration and gratitude.

Especially, last year, the Garden’s 25th Anniversary, Mrs. Robins and the Robins Foundation had an incredibly positive influence over Lewis Ginter.  It was because of a Robins Foundation grant that we were able to host a year-long 25th anniversary celebration that included Butterflies LIVE!,  A Blooming Anniversary Weekend (now a new Garden tradition), and hosted 4 symposia that reinforced the role of the Garden as an important contributor in the Richmond community, while recommitting us our mission of educating the public and bringing to the forefront issues that are important to the Garden community. In addition, the Robins 25th Anniversary Grant provided the funding for the start of the Garden’s social media program, including this blog.  As the Garden moves into the 21st century, thanks to Lora Robins and the Robins Foundation, we are inspired and hopeful, as we look to the future.

The family will receive friends and colleagues tomorrow,  Friday, August 27th, at 2 p.m. in the Library of the Education Building at Lewis Ginter. Immediately afterward, there will be a memorial service at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of the Education Building. A reception will follow in the Robins Visitor Center at Lewis Ginter. Interment will be private.  Those planning to attend the memorial service are encouraged to carpool if at all possible. Mrs. Robins was well-loved in the community and a large crowd is expected.

The Lotus Bridge, 2009

Lora Robins Library, 2002

Alexandre Descubes collection of botanical drawings, 2001

E. Claiborne Robins Visitors Center, 1999

Asian Valley Garden, 1995

E. Claiborne and Lora Robins Tea House, 1993

It’s me!  I’m the new librarian.  Janet Woody reporting for duty.

I’ve worked in many kinds of libraries over the years, but not a special one.  And Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is very special.  I don’t know how people get any work done here, surrounded by beautiful and fascinating plants.  But I will do my best.

I’m honored to follow Maggie Southwick, whose accomplishments are numerous, not the least of which is her research on the artist Alexandre Descubes and the very fine collection of his botanical prints that we have here at Lewis Ginter.

If you haven’t been in the library before, come in and see the beautiful Frabel glass on display; and watch the Frabel video which runs continuously throughout the day (you can also view it on YouTube). The library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. on weekends.  We have lots of books and videos and some great magazines, such as Hosta Journal and Boxwood Bulletin.  I love it that certain plants have their own journal, all to themselves.  And we have a fine collection of children’s books too.

We’re located in the Education and Library Complex building.  We have comfortable chairs, great books, and fabulous air conditioning.  We’ve got it going on in the library, just for you.

Note: this article was originally published earlier this summer in the American Society of Botanical Artists magazine.  Thanks to Robin Jess, Executive Director of the American Society of Botanical Artists, and Libby Kyer, editor of The Botanical Artist Journal of the ASBA, for allowing us to reprint it.

The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (LGBG) holds some 2,500 original watercolor botanical drawings by artist/ cartographer Alexandre Descubes.  In January 1997, Lora Robins, LGBG benefactor, purchased 794 of Descubes’ watercolors with the purpose of providing the Garden with art appropriate to its mission. Nothing, not even a first name, was known bout the artist whose signature  “A. Descubes” appeared (in ink) on almost every one of the 17.5×10.5” sheets. Research on the collection and artist was undertaken at this time but very little could be found.

Very much the picture of a treasure chest, the little metal box that housed 1000 artworks of Descubes is part of the LGBG collection too.wn about the artist whose signature “A. Descubes” appeared (in ink) on almost every one of the 17.5x10.5” sheets. Research on the collection and artist was undertaken at this time but very little could be found.

Correspondence from the period mentions a 1982 Sotheby’s catalog of a sale of some works by A. Descubes and an album assembled by Lady E. T. Bourne around 1912 in Ootacamund, India in which a “Mons. Descubes” was listed as artist of two watercolors. Perhaps a small clue?
The collection was regularly used with botanical art classes but no further progress was made in discovering the artist’s background until late 2003. Then, a Garden board member noticed botanical watercolors by “A. Descubes” in a gallery window in California. This dealer had over 1,000 pieces for sale along with the metal trunk in which they had been stored. Mrs. Robins generously agreed to purchase the entire group. The addition of so many new pieces made defining the Descubes collection a priority.

In 2001 I was pursuing a Master’s in Art History, and the Descubes collection presented an intriguing puzzle. I had many questions and few clues. Was “A. Descubes” a man or a woman? Several volunteers were hoping for an intrepid Victorian adventuress as artist. What nationality was Descubes? Where was the artist born and when? The dated pieces were all late 19th or early 20th C, indicating a mid-19th century birth date. Why were these plants depicted? The work represents 164 families, and 1127 Genera suggesting a Flora, or an existing plant collection.

How many pieces were actually completed? Although LGBG owns 2,500 drawings, the numbers in the collection range from 3 to 5001. Were the plants drawn from live plants or from pressed specimens? Some of the work is aesthetically lovely and so dynamic that it seems certain the artist worked from nature while others seem pallid and lifeless, yet all are signed by Descubes. Could we find a death date? The most recently dated piece is 1919, raising the possibility that our artist died in the influenza pandemic of the early 20th century. The dearth of any published information about the artist and the collection required that we let the work speak. I designed a database to store the extensive botanical information that appeared on each drawing including: species identification with description of plant, plant distribution locales, vernacular names, and literature references.  It quickly became apparent that the plants depicted were either natives of, or cultivated on, the Indian subcontinent: India (including specific regional names), Pakistan, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, the Himalayas, and the Malayan Peninsula.

Cucumis, paint and graphite on paper, Alexandre Descubes c 1875.

Only 38 of the works were dated, with dates ranging from 1875 to1919. Eight of the dated pieces listed Ootacamund, India, as a location, and six were dated 1912. It seemed plausible that the artist in Lady Bourne’s album (Mons. Descubes) was the same Descubes who signed the LGBG pieces. It was at least circumstantial evidence that our artist was a man!
In late 2004, I turned up a reference to a Forest Survey map done by A. Descubes, located at the University of Pennsylvania. Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers had a single line reference to A. Descubes: “Descubes, A. Mauritius 1880-(1).” Mauritius, an island east of Africa, had piqued our interest. Twenty of our images listing Mauritius were dated, including the earliest date, 1875. The drawings from Mauritius tended to be among the more finished, more aesthetically pleasing.
Further evidence that Descubes was a cartographer and employee of the Survey of India was obtained from a search of map collections in the UK and Australia. The St. Pancras Map Library, The Edinburgh University catalog, and the National Library of Australia’s catalog all listed Descubes maps. The signature “A. Descubes” is clearly identical to the signatures on LGBG works.

Further research led us to Raymond d’Unienville one of the authors of Dictionnaire de Biographie Mauricienne (Dictionary of Mauritian Biography), who suggested that our artist was likely Alexandre Descubes, a cartographer who started his career as a draughtsman in the public works department in 1874. Descubes’ 1880 map of Mauritius is a masterpiece still used by land surveyors. There are about a dozen maps he signed, all well known.
In 2006, review of Mauritius Blue Book 1881 to 1885, states he was born in Mauritius in July 1850, May 23, 1874, he was appointed as draughtsman in the Public Works Department and in 1882 he resigned. Scans of the relevant pages of the Colonial Blue Book of Mauritius were obtained from The British Library. The High Commissioner of India in Mauritius gave Descubes’ birth date as July 17, 1854, and his date of “Commencement of Service for Pension” as January 18, 1887. And so, it is likely that our artist was of French colonial descent. His piece No.4403  Saccharum officinarum gives plausibility to this speculation. It is a portrait of sugar cane, with the notation on the back: “List of the different varieties of sugar cane growing in the Mauritius.” Eighty-three different variety names follow.

Aeranthus, Alexandre Descubes, c 1875

We have yet to determine why Alexandre Descubes created these works. Because the pieces have extensive writing on them, they were clearly not intended to be engraved, or published. The connection with Lady Bourne suggested to us that Descubes might have been illustrating the Bourne’s collection. However, in January of 2009, it was disappointing to discover that the Descubes ID numbers did not match the Bourne accession numbers.  Now that our database is searchable on the internet, I’m hoping that someone will find us, and be able to answer our lingering questions.
Due to space constraints, many details of this fascinating search for an artist’s origins were edited. To find out more, or if you have clues or questions about this treasure trove of botanical art, please contact  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden or  Email:  library[at]lewisginter[dot]org or call (804) 262-9887, extension 332.

Mother Nature seems to have opened a spa in Richmond this summer, and a glance at a weather map suggests she has extended it to most of the country. Every few days she throws another dipper or two of water on the stones to add extra humidity. Dedicated staff and volunteers have been working diligently to keep the Garden as beautiful as ever; the unusual weather providing a learning opportunity, a chance to learn how plants work to survive. I wonder, does evaporating sweat add to the humidity level?  Sorry  ’bout that… I think the heat is getting to me.

How is your garden growing? Have the plants and seeds you ordered and put in your garden performed as promised? I recently read a fun article by Roy Blount, Jr. who has found that you can’t always rely on the descriptions provided for those items you planted with such hope and anticipation.

Have you ever wondered why plants have such complicated Latin botanical names?  Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener has a fun answer for you. The Garden Helper has a great answer too! and for the more serious gardener, the library has several books with more in depth information including: Gardener’s Latin by Bill Neal, A Gardener’s Guide to Plant Names by B. J. Healey, and Botanical Latin by William T. Stearn.

Another favorite resource, kept at the library desk and available for reference is  Flora’s Plant Names is a dictionary of common plant names (i.e. Hydrangea macrophylla is commonly called the florist’s hydrangea).

Knowing the Latin name for a plant helps insure that you get the exact plant you’re looking for.

On a side note, our librarian, Maggie Southwick, has decided to grow something of her own… a retirement. If you’ve ever called the library Hort Helpline with a question (ie. What in the world is this thing that’s growing in my garden?!), you probably have benefited from her knowledge and expertise.  If you visit the Garden before August 20th, you can take a moment or two to cool off in the library and wish Maggie well.  And be sure to visit and welcome the new librarian, Janet Woody, who has also been a horticulture volunteer at the Garden since February. Janet has a deep interest in plants and an extensive library background (over 30 years of library management experience)  if your in the neighborhood, stop by and welcome her.

In the heat of August, It’s hard to imagine, that  the annual Fall Plant Sale is just around the corner, on Sept. 17 &18.  This is an event that many avid gardeners look forward to all summer.  Our volunteers have been working hard planning the sale and growing plants to sell.  Part of our mission here at the Garden is to educate visitors when we can about plants, and I’m happy to say that this year, we’ll be expanding that effort with the help of the Master Gardeners from Henrico Co. Extention.   In addition to the many tents we have for independent vendors selling plants and our own volunteers running the Bloemendaal tent for the Garden, we’ll also have volunteers from the   Master Gardeners from Henrico Co. Extension office offering demonstrations for both adults and children!  All day long, both days, we’ll have free educational sessions on everything from perennials to composting to pruning.  If you are like me, and can’t seem to get enough of this sort of information, you may be tempted to stay all day!

Here’s what we’ve got planned for the kiddos:

~ Pine Cone bird feeders

~Leaf rubbings

~Planting ‘hair’ (wheat grass) in cups with faces drawn on them  all sponsored by the Junior Master Gardener Committee.

Adult drop-in sessions include:

Friday Class Schedule (Plant Sale Time – 10 a.m. -6 p.m.)

10:30 a.m.  Perennials - Are you thinking of adding perennials to your landscape? Perennials can provide you with a year-round season of bloom and interest in your garden. This session will cover considerations of preparing for a perennial planting as well as a selection of tried and true perennials for your garden.

11:00 a.m.  Gardening Greener - Reduce negative impacts on the environment by making greener choices in your own landscape. Utilizing mulch to conserve moisture and reduce weeds, composting kitchen scraps and landscape “waste”, monitoring soil pH and nutrients, improving your soil by adding organic matter and selecting the right plant for the right place help to reduce non-organic inputs into your garden.

11:30 a.m.  Fall Lawn Care – This talk reviews all the steps necessary this fall to have your lawn survive the winter and look great next spring.

12:00 Noon Weed ID/Organic Controls - Are you unsure of what to do about those pesky weeds in your lawn or landscape beds? This session will cover some of the basic weeds you find in your landscape as well as organic ways to rid your garden of them!

1:00 p.m. Pruning Trees and Shrubs - Are you unsure of how to bring that wild plant in your garden back into control? Sit in on this session so you may learn when, where and how to prune trees and shrubs to correctly improve the appearance and health of your plants. Pruning Calendars produced by Virginia Cooperative Extension will be a great take-home resource!

1:30 p.m.  Backyard Composting - Compost is a valuable resource for beautifying your landscape, and it is virtually free! Learn the good keys to good composting and how to use it on your lawn, in the garden and around trees and shrubs.

2:00 p.m.  Roses for the Virginia Garden - Become familiar with all facets of selecting, planting and maintaining roses in the Richmond area. Topics may include favorite varieties, pruning techniques and managing disease and insects.

2:30 p.m. How to Plant a Tree – After proper selection, nothing is more important to the successful growth of a young tree than how it is planted and cared for its first few years. Factors to consider include watering, fertilizing, mulching, pruning, and protecting from insects, diseases and other stresses.

3:00 p.m.  Sustainable Landscaping/Xeriscaping – Learn how to really get to know your own landscape so that you can select the right plant for the right place. Topics will include the characteristics to analyze in your landscape from sun and shade, slope, microclimates, soil drainage, and more! Sustainable landscapes are designed to provide long-lasting, attractive solutions to your landscape problems.

3:30 p.m.  Vermicomposting – Let Worms Recycle Your Garbage! Composting is a natural process that converts organic material such as kitchen scraps and yard waste into a dark nutrient-rich soil amendment called humus. However, if you don’t have adequate space, or don’t relish tramping back and forth from kitchen to yard, you might consider vermicomposting instead. Vermicomposting is simply composting with worms. Worms speed up the composting process, produce a richer end product, and allow the process to occur indoors, making it more convenient than traditional composting. Attend this session if you want to learn how to start your own bin!

4:00 p.m.  Four-Season Gardening – This session will cover plants for your landscape that will provide you with year-round interest – from flowers to foliage to showy bark. Learn those plants you can add to your landscape so you can enjoy your garden even in the winter!

Saturday Class Schedule (Plant Sale Time – 9:00-3:00)

9:30 Right Tree/Right Place – Putting the “right tree in the right place for the right reason” optimizes tree health and longevity. Being knowledgeable about tree species common to Virginia and their specific cultural needs is critical to the selection process and ultimate success of your landscape.

10:00 Perennials – Are you thinking of adding perennials to your landscape? Perennials can provide you with a year-round season of bloom and interest in your garden. This session will cover considerations of preparing for a perennial planting as well as a selection of tried and true perennials for your garden.

10:30 4-Season Gardening – This session will cover plants for your landscape that will provide you with year-round interest – from flowers to foliage to showy bark. Learn those plants you can add to your landscape so you can enjoy your garden even in the winter!

11:00 Backyard Composting – Compost is a valuable resource for beautifying your landscape, and it is virtually free! Learn the good keys to good composting and how to use it on your lawn, in the garden and around trees and shrubs.

11:30 Renovating a Lawn – A Master Gardener examines how to establish a new lawn from “scratch” or how to rejuvenate and re-energize an existing one to make it look great for the next spring. This talk covers tilling, pre-emergence weed killers for next spring and incorporating essentials into a poor soil.

12:00 Weed ID/Organic Controls – Are you unsure of what to do about those pesky weeds in your lawn or landscape beds? This session will cover some of the basic weeds you find in your landscape as well as organic ways to rid your garden of them! 12:30 Container Gardening – Container gardens offer multiple possibilities in your landscape. If space is limited or you are trying to dress up the entrance to your home, try gardening in a container! This session is for you if you want to know about selecting containers and different types of planting media. Plant selection, watering and fertilization will be discussed.

1:00 Pruning – Are you unsure of how to bring that wild plant in your garden back into control? Sit in on this session so you may learn when, where and how to prune trees and shrubs to correctly improve the appearance and health of your plants. Pruning Calendars produced by Virginia Cooperative Extension will be a great take-home resource!

1:30 Vermicomposting – Let Worms Recycle Your Garbage! Composting is a natural process that converts organic material such as kitchen scraps and yard waste into a dark nutrient-rich soil amendment called humus. However, if you don’t have adequate space, or don’t relish tramping back and forth from kitchen to yard, you might consider vermicomposting instead. Vermicomposting is simply composting with worms. Worms speed up the composting process, produce a richer end product, and allow the process to occur indoors, making it more convenient than traditional composting. Attend this session if you want to learn how to start your own bin!

If you love the  Hans Godo Frabel’s Glorious Glass in the Garden exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden — you may be interested in seeing some of the glass-working process actually take place here at the Garden.

Local glass artist, Brad Pearson, will be here at the Garden leading several  flame-work glass demonstrations  in the North Wing of the Conservatory, on Saturday August 21, and September 11, at both 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.   The glass work demonstration will allow you to learn more about how this delicate sculpture  is created.

Brad Pearson demonstrates flamework glass technique at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Brad Pearson, a professional lamp-work glass artist, is a graduate of VCU, and teaches intermediate and advanced glass classes around the country, including at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Like Frabel, Brad first developed his love of precision and detail through work with a scientific glass blowing firm.  For the past decade, he has refined his lamp working skills and pushed the boundaries of design and small-scale hot glass work.

Rachel Cooper, who writes for About.com, was here for his first demonstration in July:

“The cool thing that we learned was how he blends glass colors together using powdered glass and melts it onto the surface. This creates a unique swirling color pattern.  It was fascinating to watch,” she says.

Last week, Richard Nunnally and Virginia Home Grown on PBS broadcast some interesting videos about Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.  The first video, on sacred lotus, really gives homeowners who want to start a lotus garden some  basic information on how to do it.   As I walked through the Garden yesterday, I saw one lovely lone lotus, still showing its beautiful blooms, but for the most part, the lotus are gone — at least for this year. What you can see is hundreds of incredibly beautiful seed pods that look like cartoon-drawn shower heads! To see the lotus at their peak, watch the video below — or watch our blooming lotus time lapse video.

Virginia Home Grown July 2010: Lotus Garden from Community Idea Stations on Vimeo.

The second one, also shot here at the Garden, gives some good tips on how to photograph plants at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I especially like the pointers on how to photograph moving water (with a slow shutter speed & tripod) and a few more tricks, watch the video and see!

Virginia Home Grown July 2010: Garden Photography from Community Idea Stations on Vimeo.

I recently had the privilege of visiting the Botanical Garden and the Technical University at Delft, (TU for short), in the Netherlands.  TU has one of the world’s leading initiatives in applied botanical research with a focus on solving modern-day problems. The Delft Botanical Garden has research partnerships with the TU Schools of energy, construction, environmental pollution, insulation, aerospace and architecture.
This model of partnership between a great research university and an active botanical garden that we see at Delft is exactly the model I dream about for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. It uses the best resources and expertise of both organizations; it pushes boundaries, breaks new ground, and makes impact.  Plants are fundamental to our survival and quality of life.

Maybe the pendulum is swinging back to recognize the amazing properties of plants and their applicability to solve our present-day challenges in every sector of our lives.
We already have an opportunity of this type “on the drawing board” in our comprehensive Water Management Plan. It has the potential to have long-term influence on regional water conservation, long-term supply, comprehensive management and quality — ultimately impacting the James River and Chesapeake Bay through its replicability. The Garden will become the public demonstration, interpretive and educational site for scientific research on river ecology, up-stream management and regenerative design. The plan has the potential to establish a national model for the integration of environmental science, landscape design, botany and horticulture.
I hope you will be inspired to read about the following fascinating initiatives currently underway in Delft.

The Milking of Taxol: Taxol is a powerful anti-cancer agent used to treat breast, ovarian and lung cancers, and Kaposi’s sarcoma. Its source is the Pacific Yew, Taxus brevifolia, and secondarily, the English Yew, Taxus baccata. However, it takes thousands of pounds of bark and needles to produce a single dose of Taxol, and the process is fatal to the trees. Taxus brevifolia, (native to the NW U.S. and Western Canada), is listed as endangered, and is one of the slowest growing woody plants we know. There is aggressive research going on to synthetically produce Taxol, but its major source has continued to be living plants, which has kept supply limited and its cost very high.

At TU, research has demonstrated that a strong electrostatic field will induce the release of taxol-containing liquids through the stomata (pores) of Taxus needles.  Once “milked” electronically, the Taxus tree requires a rest period to restore potency, but the process is otherwise undamaging to the trees. It is possible we may one day see Yew plantations, like rubber plantations, where this cancer-fighting breakthrough will be produced in large quantities through this “milking” process.

This image shows the chemical structure of Taxol superimposed over the Taxus tree.

Green Walls: There has been a movement afoot in European cities, led by Paris, to create buildings with “green walls” – vertical facades which support plants for both beauty and environmental benefits.  TU is studying the composition of building materials which will support and encourage plants to grow on their surface.

Vertical walls have the potential to cool, clean and soften our cities. The plants they support absorb CO2, heat and noise pollution, while giving off oxygen and cooling water vapor, as well as beautifying and softening urban streetscapes.  They also provide habitat and food sources for urban insects and birds. Green walls, like green roofs, may well mark our healthy cities of the future.

mixed media slabs with varied plant combinations, held at various angles and exposures at TU to test “best” potential combinations for green walls

Green walls obviously will have impact on structural engineering, requiring foundations and above ground structural systems that will support the weight and other requirements for durability.
Additional architectural engineering research focuses on the inclusion of long-and-strong plant fibers in concrete and other building products to create structural strength with highly renewable, durable materials, with less weight. Think of the difference between constructing with steel reinforcing rods versus threads of bamboo, and the impact of less mining, manufacturing and transportation costs.  And, consider the potential to increase structural integrity and safety for buildings in poor, earthquake-prone areas like Haiti and rural China, if native plant fibers could be incorporated into building materials at minimal costs.
Bamboo, banana, flax, sisal, and hemp are all fast-growing and highly renewable sources of long-and-strong fibers.  In addition to research into architectural systems, these fibers are being studied as less expensive and more environmentally friendly alternatives to petrochemical-based fibers like polyester.  High grade interior fabrics for automobiles and flexible containers for the aerospace industry are already in use through TU’s research.

Pinus mugo

UV Absorbing Wax: TU scientists have discovered that the Mugo Pine, Pinus mugo, (a much-loved, common garden plant), native to high altitudes of Central Europe, has a surface wax protecting its needles which absorbs ultra-violet (UV) rays, converts the radiation  to blue light, while avoiding being broken down by the UV energy as it does so.

Most UV filters are decomposed by the very UV radiation they absorb, and thus are relatively short lived. You know this first-hand by having to re-apply your sun-screen every few hours, or suffer getting sunburned.

The use of sustainable UV bio-filters could mean much longer-lived plastics, latex paints, asphalt, solar panels, and healthier cosmetics! Beyond the convenience and financial impact of such improvements, (less frequent painting of your house), our sunscreen used in future days at the beach will be much more sustained and safe.  Potentially the incidence of skin cancer could be reduced due to this unique characteristic of the “common” Mugo Pine.

Vetiver roots system

Erosion and Flood Protection: The Netherlands is located in one of Europe’s major river deltas, and 60 percent of the country is under sea level, (parts of Amsterdam are 16 feet below sea level!).  It should not surprise us that TU is studying ways to protect dykes and levees, as well as stabilize river banks.

A native grass from Southeast Asia known as Vetiver, Vetiveria zizanoides, has amazing properties to stabilize and protect banks, dykes and dams. Vetiver grows to a height of 6 feet, and its above-ground foliage has been demonstrated to absorb 75 percent of the erosive energy of natural waves and wakes caused by boats. Perhaps more importantly, its roots descend to a depth of 12 feet, creating a complex matrix of resilient fibrous organic material which greatly reinforces soil.

This is the same Vetiver known for its fragrant oil used in perfumes, soaps and medicines. It has been cultivated in Asia for centuries, spreads little by seed, and is not considered invasive.

Vetiver — and future hardy hybrids — has the potential to stabilize the banks of our great commercial rivers, reducing erosion and particulate pollution of estuaries, like the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It also may not only protect the low-lying parts of The Netherlands, but in the future prevent levee failure and flooding, as we have seen in our own city of New Orleans and most recently in Iowa.

With the threat of melting polar ice caps and the rise of sea levels, Vetiver might well be a first-line defense for the globe’s barrier islands and coastal cities – green, clean, carbon neutral, and readily propagated.

Vetiver has many other commercial and cultural applications.

Self-healing Concrete: Now if that doesn’t draw your attention!  Deteriorating forces on concrete present some of the greatest challenges for our global “infrastructure” — roads, bridges and buildings. It is one of our fundamental building products –- used by the ancient Egyptians, and after the great fire of Rome in 64 A.D., required by Emperor Nero for the rebuilding of the city.  Time, chemicals, freeze-thaw action, shrinkage, vibration, mechanical stressors, earth movement, etc., all take their toll, and concrete ultimately begins to fall apart.

TU structural engineers are studying the opportunity to embed living bacteria in concrete, which have the unique ability to constantly precipitate calcite, which would give concrete the ability to “repair itself”.  There is a common soil bacterium, Bacillus pasteurii, which continuously exudes calcite. If scientists could induce proliferation of this bacterium within concrete, cracks and pores would self-repair, vastly increasing concrete’s longevity and usefulness.
The challenge is to understand the life cycle and conditions for sustaining Bacillus pasteurii: to know what it requires to thrive in the soil, and to determine if those conditions can be introduced within concrete itself without compromising its structural properties. As the bacterium lives in common garden soils, and plays an important role in the breakdown of urea into nitrogen (making nitrogen available to plant root systems), no doubt its life cycle includes green plants, organic detritus, association with other bacteria or fungi, the presence of certain minerals, moisture, etc.
The potential economic impact for the future of our “built environments” is monumental, and could save the world trillions of dollars in long-term maintenance and replacement costs, thanks to a microscopic bacterium that lives around us every day.

Medicine, urban ecology, structural and civil engineering, macro-economics -– the research taking place between the Delft Botanical Garden and the Technical University will be broad in its impact on future generations and the world we humans live in.  The work underway at Delft is both intriguing and exciting!  I hope we will have the opportunity to follow suit in the years ahead.

I write the following to document and interpret the impact of our weather on the Garden, but more so to commend the horticultural, operations, maintenance and volunteer staff for the superb job you have done under really difficult conditions in recent weeks, with special thanks to Jay, Danny, Mike, John and Karen for their efforts to ensure we have adequate water to get through the next month!  Thank you! Thank you!

You may have noticed in the last few weeks  evidence of extreme stress on trees in the landscape. I mention this for two reasons — the dramatic nature of the change, and the various ways in which these plants respond to extreme environmental stress.

You may think trees can die from drought alone, but in truth, when we have prolonged drought and no intervening rain to reduce both air and soil temperatures, trees (and other plants) actually die from root systems shutting down from soils that are too warm.  Both lack of water and soil temperatures reduce root metabolism, but once soils reach temperatures beyond 95 degrees F, root respiration slows to a stop, and the trees virtually suffocate.

Oak species tend to have the greatest fragility levels, literally reaching a stress point and sometimes “die over night,” including very mature specimens.

Other species cope by defoliation or segmental death of the plant – individual branches or certain segments (top half) of the tree dying to reduce the amount of strain on the plant’s attempts to support foliage, flowers and fruit through the uptake of water and nutrients.

Urban trees suffer the most under these conditions. The greater the soil mass, ability of soils to hold water, quantity of understory plants which help to shade and cools soils, mulch and accumulated organic materials covering root zones, etc. all impact a tree’s ability to survive these extremes.

Irrigation provides both water and soil cooling, and can make the difference between life and death, but water alone can’t overcome the impact of hot soils – 100-degree wet soil and 100-degree dry soil are equally fatal. Trees living in small soil volumes, with large tree-to-soil ratios, in compacted soils, with limited root systems, without the benefit of other “communities” of plants to mitigate their environment, etc. really suffer in this kind of weather.

There are ethical discussions about irrigation and whether it should be used during water stress. Luckily, the vast majority of Lewis Ginter’s irrigation water comes from rain we collect in our lakes from surface run-off, roofs and clean paving. The issue of using treated water from public utilities gets more complex (and that is subject for another discussion), but I believe trees do so much good for our environment, the use of water to sustain them is inarguable.

We had a very wet winter and spring, and ideal pollination conditions for many spring flowering trees. This is now seen in particularly heavy fruit set, as seen in our venerable female Ginkgo at Bloemendaal House. Maples (Acer species) and Redbuds (Cercis species) also had very heavy fruit set this year. Plants invest the majority of their energy into their flowers and fruits – their next generation. Sadly, our Ginkgo has invested so much nutrient in its fruit that the accumulated weight has resulted in the spontaneous loss of several major branches in the past month. This is highly uncommon, but in this case, it is too much of a good thing. Trees currently in flower or fruit are subject to especially high stress as they attempt to survive in order to reproduce.

Not all trees within similar conditions respond the same. There could be multiple factors involved, (disease, insect infestation, etc.), but under these extreme conditions, the genetics of a plant have huge influence. In truth, we have limited clones in most landscape plantings, and genetic variation is an important factor in a tree’s longevity. As in all of nature, it is the survival of the fittest. So, if you see one tree thriving in a landscape and another in stress, it could well be its genetic make up – just as some of us humans live to a ripe old age, and others do not.

It has long been my contention that the entire Botanical Garden is one big research project – that so many plants in so many conditions have never been assembled in Central Virginia before. As they mature, grow into communities, impact one another with shade, root competition, etc., adapt to micro-climates, and are tested by time, weather, disease, insects and cultivation, our accumulated learning will be rich indeed.

In spite of many weeks of record-breaking temperatures and drought, we have very few plants which are “at risk” or which have been damaged by the conditions. Those few which are struggling will teach us all more about nature in general, and the plants species, varieties and cultivars specifically.

I want to commend the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden horticultural and maintenance staff and volunteers for an outstanding job of keeping the Garden’s collections healthy and strong through this period. Their steadfast dedication seven-days-a-week keeps this “research project” an oasis of beauty and a center of education which benefits the entire region.

Trees often have a special place in childhood memories. For me, it was a dogwood I loved to climb in my parents’ backyard. About five feet up, the branches made a “V” providing a perfect perch to view the world.

Hopefully the mulberry in our Children’s Garden will provide the same kind of memories for our young visitors. We find it wonderfully ironic that with all of the well-planned features in the Children’s Garden, one of the favorite activities is climbing the mulberry.

Davey Tree professional pruning mulberry in Children's Garden

As you might expect, this affection has taken a toll. After all, we estimate the tree is more than 100 years old! Trees, unfortunately, do not live forever, but the Garden is doing what it can to extend the life of the mulberry. Yesterday, professionals from Davey Tree visited and carefully removed dead or compromised branches. “Mulberries are very tough trees,” explains Mark Bennett, manager of Davey’s Richmond office. ”The work done should help keep the tree available for people to enjoy for years to come. “

The next step will be placing “tree props” beneath it. If you’re familiar with the mulberry, you know low-lying, sprawling branches are part of its great appeal. The tree props will be placed strategically under the branches to take the weight of the climbers and to preserve the integrity of the tree. The Garden’s Geezers, a group of “well-seasoned” volunteers, are building the tree props, so look for them to appear soon.

Pieces of the mulberry tree removed yesterday will continue to play an important role in the Children’s Garden. They’ll be used for educational programs and also in Woodland Pointe, where children create fairy houses and other structures crafted from found objects. Chosen as one of the Remarkable Trees of Virginia , the beloved mulberry in the Children’s Garden continues to provide gifts to us all.