World Gardens in a Flash

Corpus Christi’s South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center were in a bit of a crisis when we visited last winter due to the browsings of wild pigs. This just goes to show how much care one must take when planning your gardens especially when pests can cause havoc. The Botanical Gardens were still quite a delight to visit and we immediately purchased a membership because doing so allowed us into many of Corpus Christi’s top attractions for free during the month of February. One thing I should say is don’t expect the usual botanical gardens, these are quite unique for a number of reasons. They are located on a property with a huge lake and visitors to the gardens can extend their visit and walk to take in the birding and wildlife in the natural part of the gardens. Other best bets include a greenhouse with orchids, a succulent cactus garden, surprising roses (they bloom early), a butterfly garden and some exotic trees. If you have the chance to visit you won’t be dismayed.

Succulent / Cactus Garden

Succulents and cactus have the advantage of being low water tolerant and will grow in the arid conditions with minimal care. Although the sajuaro is often viewed as being like a modern sign with spines, many other cacti have beautiful color and shapes. Succulents also have the advantage of having good shapes and contours.

Orchids

Most of the orchids were kept in a greenhouse at Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens. A walk through the greenhouse will net you many examples and will introduce you to some of the issues of care and styles of growth.

Butterfly Garden

The butterfly garden at Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens sometimes missed edges due to the wild pigs, but in February they were already well in bloom. Several of the species grown were local wildflowers that were quite beautiful.

Roses

Yes, roses do grow quite beautifully in Corpus Christi and are in full bloom in February. The botanical gardens has a lovely formal look and shade too.

Cost of Admission: $5.00 for adults, seniors and students $4, children under 12 $2

Address:  8545 SOUTH STAPLES, CORPUS CHRISTI, TX 78413

Phone: (351) 652-2100

When you visit Cairns, Australia, try to take several hours and visit the Flecker Botanical Gardens. Although you might not find any special plant for your garden and furthermore, might no be able to take any plants home through customs, you will probably learn something new about plants.

The Flecker Botanical Gardens is filled with lovely exotics that are beautiful to behold. Some of them you will have seen in other places like Hawaii. The fruit and flower shown above was a new one for me.

This native shelter is part of the exhibit at Flecker Botanical Gardens explaining the native way of life. Most of the plants in the native garden explained how they were used by the local population to fish, eat, and as medicines.

Nearby are two lakes that we wandered around looking for birds. We found many of our first Australian birds and were very pleased with our surroundings, including walking beneath huge trees.

While on a trip to the United Kingdom, I came upon this wall garden on a small cottage in the town of Ayr, Scotland. I found it cute and decorative. Then I pondered the reasons why this sort of garden would be the owner’s choice for growing colorful annuals.

Growing Annuals in Cold Winter Areas 

Annuals grow quickly from seed, can be started in a warmer are in the home or attached to the home and produce colorful blooms all season long. Many gardeners faced with a short growing season find growing seeds in a pot easy to do.  Some colorful and easy to grow annuals include pansies, poppies, calendula, and nasturtium. I often buy seedlings of other favorites like petunia and prefer annuals that hang down the edges of a pot planted around a bushy, taller annual like daisies or sage.

Reasons for Gardening in Flower Pots 

Gardening in pots is also easier for many senior citizens who have trouble bending, digging and crawling around the garden especially when the frosts leave late as in Ayr, Scotland. The picture shows space is quite tight. The flowers soften the otherwise harsh look of the driveway. Attaching hooks onto your house siding can be easy to do using a molley bolt or hook. The flat sided pots are good choices for a narrow area rather than a hanging basket. 

Maintaining Your Container Annuals

Most annuals will go to seed after blooming. Once a plant goes to seed, it will often bloom less. Cut or pull off dead blossoms to keep your annuals from going to seed and out of your driveway. Many use round up to kill weeds or plants growing in the driveway. I prefer to dig them out if possible. Keep your annuals well fertilized, once weekly of a liquid plant food will keep them happy. Water in stages, add a container of water and let it leach through the basket, then water thoroughly to verify the container is well saturated. Wait until the container feels light or the plants begin to wilt before watering again. 

Additional Resources for Winter Gardening

How to Winterize Your Garden

One of the best ways to learn about gardening is to visit some of the best in the world. The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden is a somewhat expensive outing at $15 per person for entry, it does provide many hours of delightful experiences and many, many colorful tropical shrubs, plants, ground covers and trees.

This picture taken at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden shows some of the amazing combinations of tropical flower, tropical leaves, tropical ground cover, tropical upper story trees, and tropical shrubs that are placed dramatically throughout the gardens. Note how the varigation on the shrub leaves matches the nearby tropical flowers. Note how the blooming tropical flowers at the top of the plant look airy and light pink while the tropical ground cover is in muted purples.

The use of space in the Hawaii Tropical Botanical garden is also amazing. When the gardeners planted the tropical shrubs they left spacing that entices the eye to the background tropical bushes and draws the eye up to the upper story tropical trees. Note how the play of sun on the tropical shrubs show that space above was allowed and maybe even pruned to help the understory shrubs grow to their best color and size.

Besides providing a shady escape from the Tropical Hawaiian sun, Hawaiian Tropical Botanical gardens provides an uphill and downhill walk, interludes to sit and relax beside lily pad filled ponds, trickling streams, glimpses of seashore, and many glorious plants.

The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden is open from 9am to 5pm everyday, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, with Garden admissions ending at 4pm. This self-guided tour takes an average of about an hour and a half. The walking distance is just over a mile, round trip.

Admission for a day is $15 for adults, children ages 6 - 16 are $5. Children under 6 are free

If you visit the website, expect to find many more pictures and the chance to buy tropical plants online. See Care Tips for the Winter Gardener of Tropical Plants if you’d like to create a tropical have in your home using a greenhouse.

[1] Big Island of Hawai’i by Robert Nilson, Moon Handbooks

Red Twig Dogwood and Yellow Twig Dogwood are two of the most colorful water loving native plants used in Northwest Gardens.

This picture shows the rich color that turns a garden or waterfront aflame in late autumn. Taken in late November, the red and yellow color in the native plant shrubs contrasts nicely with the blue of a sunny day and the water along the beach.

Red twig and yellow twig dogwood tend to be inexpensive to buy at local Garden Nurseries. Red and yellow twig dogwood share the same habitat, the marshy areas that are native to the Black River, Duwamish River flood plain through the Renton, Kent, Auburn, Sumner, Puyallup valley. The plants will flower if local deer don’t eat the blossoms off. The red and yellow color is more intense if the branches are pruned down as if eaten. The branches of red twig dogwood and yellow twig dogwood green up in spring with the first leaves. Flowers mostly show up in small clusters on the ends of branches. The red twig dogwood and yellow twig dogwood grow about 6-8′ high if left unpruned and about 3-6 feet wide with arching branches. Red twig dogwood and yellow twig dogwood don’t mind wet roots and can tolerate drought and poor soils, needing very little fertilizer.

Thanksgiving morning, I joined friends for a walk from Stanley Sayres Memorial Park in Seattle, WA to Seward Park, a lovely hilly park on Lake Washington. I grew up downtown Seattle so my parents often took us to Seward Park to play and to watch the Blue Angels fly overhead during the Hydrofoil Races during Seafair every year. The walk from Stanley Sayres Memorial Park to Seward park is about 4 miles round trip along the shore of Lake Washington. The trail passes several marinas, some marsh land and then follows along the edge of Seward Park. Seward Park is a hilly park filled with grassy areas and lined with trees. Views of Mt. Rainer over the lake are terrific. Walkers may spy various ducks and an otter or beaver. This is a very natural park and the gardening is minimal except for examples of lovely trees that you might want for your garden.

Note the many plants that line the shore. This is a terrific way to find out what plants grow naturally and use them in planting a pond garden.

Coricancha (Qorikancha) is the site of the former Inca center in Cusco and is now the base of the Santo Domingo church. This is a typical result when someone has previously done the laborous stonework or for the stones to be stolen and used in other buildings. A walk through Coricancha is educational about the Inca especially in terms of their stone building capabilities.

Most people leave by way of the formal gardens which are seen from above.

In this part of the garden, the three major Inka symbols are carved into plants so viewers can see the serpent, the jaguar and the condor from above. Other plants include some of the largest tree-sized fuscias I’ve seen.

Coricancha’s temples, according to Lonely Planet, one to the sun and one to the moon, were covered with solid sheets of gold and silver respectively. The museum documents some of the astrology used by the Inca, including two gorgeous modern astronomy paintings of the Milky Way.

The rose garden at Pt. Defiance Zoo in Tacoma in summer time offers gorgeous colorful blooms and wonderful scents. Rose gardens are a great way to discover which rose to plant in your garden.

What to Look for in a Rose?

A rose that has lush green leaves, seems devoid of disease such as black spot or rust, has well shaped flower buds and blooms in a public garden like the one at Pt. Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, is likely to be a good selection for your own garden. My experience with roses has been instructive. Roses with heavy blooms like the Austin roses will likely retain rain water and mold unless they are protected under a shelter. Roses that get black spot or rust easily often won’t survive for another year meaning you’re going to waste your money.

My favorite roses for the Renton area are the bush roses or the floribunda. Floribunda means many flowering and I typically find they bloom repeatedly throughout the summer, are relatively disease free and have long stems with the flowers showing many stages of bloom at the same time. This makes floribunda roses wonderful for flower arrangements. Look for floribunda varieties with scent if you usually tend to shop for tea roses.

Things to Look for in Public Rose Gardens Like the Pt. Defiance Zoo in Tacoma

Notice the pergola in the back of the picture. Look for how structure is used to make roses look their best. Pt. Defiance Zoo uses a variety of trellis, stakes, and other structures to make their garden really attractive. One of the nice things about this small garden at Pt. Defiance Zoo is you get a taste of beauty on your way to visiting the zoo.

See more pictures at TacomaMama.com

A stroll through Kubota Gardens will introduce any visitor to Seattle, WA, or local the basics of Northwest garden design plants and Japanese garden features. Started in 1927 by Fujitaro Kubota as part of his gardening company, the garden was donated and turned into a public feature in 1923.

What should visitors to Kubota Garden’s look for? Northwest plants such as colorful spring blooming azaleas and rhodedendrons are a special treat in terms of color. Japanese maples with their delicate leaves, changing foliage and delicate flowers and seeds. Giant 50-ft tall trees that form a backdrop for garden spaces including native doug fir, big leave maple, elm, and cedar. Lush green lawns beg you to lie in the shade if dry enough and mosses a plenty. Whichever way you turn, Kubota gardens will provide many beautiful plants to enjoy. To see more pictures, see Mid Beacon Hill blog.

The picture I’ve included from Kubota Gardens, shows one of the primary five styles of Japanese gardens talked about in “Creating Japanese Gardens” by Ortho Books. The essence of a stroll garden is to provide an expansive place filled with beautiful scenery to look at including ponds and changing color. Reflections add to the broad appeal of a Japanese stroll garden which provides the chance to stretch ones legs and mind. Look for variations in the walkway and the openness of the foliage and test how it alters your mood from point of discovery that begs for a photograph to places where the walk speeds you up to the next view point.

Stroll gardens are meditative, make the visitor respond to nature and provide many of the best plants to be seen in a Japanese Northwest garden. I hope a visit to Kubota Gardens will bring you much pleasure and a chance to understand the Japanese garden style, the stroll garden.

Welcome to Gardens in a Flash, my new blog about everything to do with gardens world wide. Let me know what you think about it, I love to visit other blogs and write about what I see in this blog.