Nov. 3, 2018 Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton

birthday cake, candles removed

Today we are visiting a very different “native plant “ place.  An early celebration of my 90th birthday, my son Rich accompanied me to Edmonton, Alberta, northwest Canada, 200 miles north of Calgary, a place more people have heard of, where my son Billy and his family live. Edmonton, that is. My sweet nature suggested that by coming here I was saving them from either coming in January for this big number birthday or feeling guilty if not coming.

Yesterday we had five inches of snow. Maybe they despair about the snow this early, but moi, I love it. Too bad I don't have skis here. Temperature about zero F. but very pleasant. Always drier than the East coast.



Usually we just hung out with family on visits to Edmonton, but this time Trip Advisor suggested two featured attractions of Edmonton: Royal Alberta Museum and Muttart Conservatory. Aha, plants, that might make for a nature blog...

Being familiar with the NYBG,what could compare? The Royal Alberta Museum just opened this month which makes it modern and spacious and interesting, having First Nation memorabilia and exhibits comparable in subject matter to New York’s Museum of Natural History. 

But the Conservatory is fifty years old which means the plants are lush. The four “pyramids,” basically green houses, have different sections: Arid, Tropical, Temperate and Feature (which this time was celebrating Mexico's The Day of the Dead)

Mexican scene

I searched for plants we have at NYBG, but will import photos that appeal to me, hoping they will have some interest  for you.

My associations to some of the photos follow.   A Golden Chain tree was in my backyard when I moved to Teaneck 54 years ago, never having lived in a house with garden, and stupidly removed those Golden Chains.  Beautiful, delicate blooms but here gone for the season.
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Foxglove is from ?  I Iearned a few blogs ago, that it is not a native plant for us.  This one says from Canary Islands.

Foxglove

Ferns galore and if we can get our NY Fern Society going, which includes international interests, surely someone will know them.

Why Bromeliad? Because that was a plant that came in a thoughtful delivery when John died, is still sitting on the kitchen counter, and has its name attached because I usually can only come up with “It begins with a b".

Bromeliad, as the sign says

Dieffenbachia has populated my house for 50 years and you might say taking over most of the rooms. How can you throw away living pieces of stem, when they will root and grow....?  Here the sign says Dumb Cane, which refers to the "juice" causing one's mouth to get numb, and thus is also called "Mother-in-Law's Plant".  When my children were very young I fostered my plants at my mother's so the kids couldn't accidentally be injured, since these plants have been said to cause death.

One familiar friend from the NPG, or a close relative

some color

an imaginative layout