Plant of the Month
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Reflecting on my time so far as the curatorial intern (I just finished my second month here), I would say one of my favorite parts of the job is my daily interaction with Scott staff, volunteers, and visitors. Inquisitive visitors often stop to chat and ask me questions; if I were to tally all these questions, the top three would probably be:
1) “Excuse me - Could you please tell me how to get to the admissions office (Parrish Hall)?”
2) “Wow! What is that plant?” (Referring to Musa sikkimensis, our resident banana plant that we planted about 3 years ago and…
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Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Next time you walk along College Ave. past the Scott Arboretum office, be sure to notice the beautiful display of Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’. This relatively new purple coneflower is an improved cultivar of E. purpurea ‘Magnus’, the 1998 Perennial Plant of the Year, awarded by the Perennial Plant Association. Breeding efforts in the development of ‘Rubinstern’ have resulted in more uniformly-sized plants and larger, darker flowers. ‘Rubinstern’ will produce intense carmine-red blossoms from July through September and, like other E. purpurea cultivars, takes full sun and is a wonderful bee and butterfly attractor!
The roots and rhizomes of Echinacea plants have long been…
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Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Since I am one of the new summer interns, I walked around campus the other afternoon to familiarize myself with the various gardens and collections that make up the Scott Arboretum. I made a point to head to the north side of campus where the hydrangea collection is sited. When I left my home state of Tennessee, our bigleaf hydrangea, Hydrangea macrophylla and the more delicate H. serrata were just coming into bloom. Visiting the collection would give me a sense of how far along their Pennsylvanian counterparts were. As I expected, none were in full bloom. However, many were beginning to…
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