I may or may not have mentioned that I’m doing the Master Gardener Volunteer program this year through the OSU extension office. There are 9 Tuesdays worth of classroom instruction that started in early February. I’ve missed some mornings of class because of work, but I’ve been to most of the classes (regrettably, plant pathology, soil, and trees have been morning sessions that I missed). I have loved almost all of it. I want to re-take botany and take botany illustration and horticulture and all sorts of other classes that I won’t be able to find suitable options for.
This past Tuesday afternoon, we went on a field trip to the Toledo Zoo. Of course it was still cold and not very spring-like here, so we didn’t get to see any of the outside plants or gardens. We listened to a woman talk about plant propagation at the Zoo. They plant something like 13,000 plants a season, and almost all of them are propagated at the Zoo. There are some plants that they buy, but most are grown from seeds or cuttings. This time of year is very busy and crowded in the Zoo’s greenhouse.
After that, our group divided into two parts, and each part went with one of the Zoo’s horticulturists for tours of the Conservatory and the greenhouse.
In the Conservatory, we saw this papaya tree:
It was grown from seed a few years ago. They papayas are given to Zoo animals for enrichment.
They have lots of bromeliads in the Conservatory and in the greenhouse. My grandma loved bromeliads:
Here’s a cool Staghorn Fern. There are two in the conservatory. Staghorn Ferns have two different kind of fronds: fertile and basal. The fertile fronds are the “leafier” ones. They bear spores like “normal” fern fronds. The basal fronds are the rounded or kidney-shaped ones that grow around the base of the fern. They protect the roots of the plant and provide structure. They will pretty much envelop whatever you put the fern in…you can see in this picture that they are starting to creep on the upper left of the pot the fern is in:
Here are some random cool plants from the greenhouse:
The greenhouse conditions were all regulated by a computer system – the vents opened and closed and the shade cloth was pulled and retracted to maintain the conditions the horticulturists specified. Super cool!
Additionally, and unrelated of course, here’s a picture of my cat kneading the soft blanket I bought in Indianapolis:
