It's A Girl!

The tropical food plants of the Heartland Harvest Garden are safely tucked away for the winter in the greenhouses....

Papayas (Carica papaya) are palm-shaped perennials that become tree-like over time. Seed planted last spring are producing some handsome plants that have begun to flower profusely.
It's a girl! For some reason most of our papaya seed has produced only male plants, but finally our first FEMALE papaya! The female papaya flowers are larger and hug the stem so that the large fruit can be held sturdy against the "trunk" of the plant. You can already see a fruit forming on the right side.

Male papayas have clusters of yellow flowers that are quite handsome. All these papayas are scheduled to be planted in the Fun Food Section of the Heartland Harvest Garden next spring -- look for them near the large corn crib.

The Pineapples (Ananas comosus) had a good year and grew profusely. They are a species of bromeliad that originated in Southern Brazil and Paraguay but are extensively grown in Hawaii.

Our Pineapples are setting flower buds to produce real pineapples next summer. These too will be planted in the Fun Food section of the Heartland Harvest Garden.

Key Lime (Citrus aurantifolia) is in bloom along with many of our citrus. I can't wait to have fresh limes next year but key lime blooms are NOT fragrant like other citrus blossoms.

Our Banana collection (these are all different types of bananas!) keeps growing and next season should really put on quite a show in the Heartland Harvest Garden. HHG Horticulturist Matt Bunch has designed some really interesting themes for next summer's displays: food plants will be grouped into the four major regions of the world where they originated: Southeast Asia (where the bananas will be along with citrus), Americas (potatoes, tomatoes, corn, avocados, chocolate...), Mediterranean and Northern Eurasian themes.

All the above images were taken in our greenhouse complex which is not open to the public but you can see some of our major tropical plants (bananas, cacao/chocolate, oranges, coffee, black pepper, cinnamon, etc.) on display in the Seed to Plate Greenhouse in the Heartland Harvest Garden.

Hot Plants for an Exuberant Garden

The last of summer (we are still officially in summer!) is the time to see the full size of many tropicals and summer annuals. These HOT seasonal plants around the Powell Gardens Visitor Center are exuberant this year! Come quick to see them because they will gradually be replaced in the next month or so with cool season fall plantings. We try to keep some of them out until Jack Frost pays his autumnal visit (usually in mid-late October).

The bananas are blooming! The banana flower is magnificent with the young banana fruit forming above as the flower opens from top to bottom.

The bananas are along the south side of Cafe Thyme. Bananas are NOT trees but huge tender perennials (there is no wood in their "trunks"). If you save the pseudostem "trunk" through the winter it will bloom next year. We cut off all the leaves before frost and save the trunks indoors, dormant in the greenhouse complex. We pot them up in spring and plant them outdoors after danger of frost has passed (usually by May 1). We do not have a long enough season to ripen bananas outdoors here.


The castor beans have reached tree-like proportions too! Hard to believe most of our plants are self-sown seedlings from this spring! This is the beautiful 'Sanguineus' or purple-leaved cultivar. It dwarfs the large Mexican sunflowers blooming in front of it.


On the north side of the Visitor Center you can see this "bed of fire." It is a fiery display of warm colors with ornamental peppers in the foreground, Profusion Orange zinnias in the middle and Cannas as a backdrop. This is not a composition for a place where you want to relax but it is invigorating.


The giant purple leaf Crinum has a nice color echo with flower of the Flowering Maple (Abutilon). Diamond Frost Euphorbia provides a sparkle of dainty white flowers.


This morning glory seedling has added some summer color to the Lacebark Pine on the north side of the Visitor Center. This little bit of vine does not harm the pine but if this plant filled in thickly we would have to remove it.


Lime Zinger elephant ears is in full size and here with a crown of 'Northwind' switchgrass is a great combination of a tropical and a native plant.

A mix of hot annual 'Buddy' globe amaranth (Gomphrena) with Missouri native Savanna Blazingstar (Liatris scariosa) sets off the beauty of both. Look for this combination in the Butterfly Garden, which envelops the Fountain Garden north of the Visitor Center.

Make your notes now for ideas of how to use tropicals and warm season annuals for next year. The catalogs for Spring 2009 will be arriving in the mail before you know it!

Containers in Color

We are a month past the Summer Solstice and the summer annuals and tropical plants are full sized and exuberant at Powell Gardens! Here's a brief show of some of our containers and plantings...

This container in the Perennial Garden (by former Senior Gardener Jay Priddy) is one of my favorite. It contains the three "classic" elements of container design: thriller, filler, and spiller. The thriller is hare's tail grass (Lagurus), the filler is a cultivar of black-eyed-susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and the spiller is Margarita Sweet Potato (Ipomoea battatus). The use of a grass and a cultivar of a native wildflower really speaks to our region of native grasslands.

The Chapungu Sales tent covers part of our terrace beds outside the Visitor Center but the remaining corner functions as a container. The dramatic use of a Variegated Fucrea (Fucrea)"thriller" and shocking 'Crystal Palace' red geraniums makes quite a composition. The crisp stone edging to the bed makes use of a "spiller" obsolete here. This design is by Horticulturist Anne Wildebor.

This container by Anne Wildebor has a mix of harmonious foliage plants with just a splash of contrasting pink flowers. The dramatic foliage is Canna 'Sunburst' on either side with a Black Elephant Ear (Colocasia) in the center. Coleus 'Fishnet Stockings' and Alternanthera 'Red Thread' are fillers all being set off by the pink angelonia in bloom. Again the low crisp container would be muddied up by a spiller.

This container by Anne Wildebor is about texture and the wonderful color we take for granted: GREEN. A spectacular 'Macho' Boston fern is perfectly punctuated by a white Caladium. This container only gets morning sun under the east overhangs of the Visitor Center.

This dramatic Leopard-Palm (Amorphaphallus konjac) has a pink caladium to help set off the subtle pink in the print of its stem. A spiller would "muck up" the elegant container. This design is by Anne Wildebor.

Even Edible Landscaping can be unique: this container near the entrance to the Heartland Harvest Garden has a dramatic fig (Ficus carica) with a base of curly parsley for contrast. It's all green but the drastic change between coarse dramatic leaves of the fig and fine detail of the parsley leaves make it work. This design is by Matt Bunch and Barbara Fetchenhier: look for their containers of edibles at the entrance plaza to the Heartland Harvest Garden north of the Visitor Center.

The seasonal display beds around the Visitor Center are reaching maturity with this wonderful planting (designed by Tracy Flowers - now gardener at the Kauffman Memorial Garden) outside the north side of the Conservatory: huge Castor Beans, sword-like Purple Majesty Millet, purple and white Kahuna Petunias and an edging of trailing Blackie Sweet Potato all make for a stunning, tropical-esque composition.