cyathea mater epiphiticorum

It all started in early November, when someone brought cuttings of basket plant (Callisia fragrans) to share with the garden club. I took two, though I had no idea what I would do with them. They sat on a brick ledge by the front door for several days, unplanted and unwatered but not entirely unloved. Just when I was thinking it was time to pot them or toss them, I noticed that they had not withered Obviously they were taking moisture and nutrition from the air. Suspecting that they might be epiphytes, I ventured upon an experiment I'd been planning for years.

Our front garden is graced with the six-foot trunk of a dead Australian tree fern, Cyathea cooperi. I have steadfastly refused to remove it because I thought it would make a natural support for a vine. In fact, an opportunistic asparagus fern (not sprengeri but the more delicate-looking variety with the wicked thorns) clung to it for months until I declared war on asparagus ferns and removed all but the slow-growing old meyeri.

I tore strips from a raggedy brown bath towel and used them to tie the basket plant to the top of the defunct tree fern trunk. There they have flourished for almost three months with naught but an occasional spritzing from a spray bottle. But they were not alone. Later in November, a neighbor shared some  epidendrum cuttings. Two went into a pot, and two were wired onto the base of the tree fern trunk.

Meanwhile, several potted epiphyllums had been languishing in the back yard for several years. In spite of gross neglect, some of them have continued to produce huge blossoms every spring. I took the smallest one out of its pot, trimmed back its dead leaves, and separated the plant into two main stems. These I tied to the tree fern trunk just below the basket plant, along with the epidendra I had previously planted at the base.

A couple of days ago, I returned from a walk around the block, and the refurbished tree fern caught my eye as soon as I rounded the corner. Recent rains had refreshed the guest foliage, and, with the top starting to fluff out, it looked like a plant that was meant to grow that way. All it needed was a name, and so Cyathea mater epiphiticorum -- tree fern mother of epiphytes -- was duly christened.

Eat your heart out, Joyce Kilmer! A gard'ner-poet re-made a tree.

stabat mater spuriosa

In January 2012, I posted cyathea mater epiphiticorum to describe how, during the previous November, I had started tying epiphitic plants to the trunk of a dead tree fern in our front garden. (Let's call the spurious tree "CME" for short.) Then in March 2012 I posted tree revision to celebrate the appearance of new growth on a cutting of basket plant (Callisia fragrans) which topped the dead trunk.

Since that time, the pastiche of plants has had its good times and its bad times. Dead epidendrums have been taken down, while live ones have been admired. One tillandsia has not only survived but also multiplied and produced a spray of tiny blossoms -- purple with touches of yellow and white at the tip. I don't think the Spanish moss was alive when I tied it on, so after almost two years of denial I am admitting that I had essentially draped the tree with tattered crepe.

Today, citing the 13th-century hymns Stabat Mater dolorosa (a Good Friday text) and Stabat Mater speciosa (a Christmas text), I celebrate the fact that my secular foster-mothering tree still stands in spite of recent affronts to her dignity. The drooping Spanish moss would not be appropriate even if it were healthy. I think of how religious statues periodically receive festive new garments, and resolve that CME shall wear a mantle of pale pink or white basket-plant blooms and a skirt embroidered with tiny orange or magenta orchids.

My faith in CME's future is based on her survival after being badly battered while a new roof was being put on our house. On each of three long workdays beginning two weeks ago, huge plastic tarps were spread all around the house to catch a sequence of off-fallings: old shingles and wood, new foil-coated plywood scraps, sawdust, and trimmings from new shingles. At the end of each day, the tarps were removed and the whole area was cleaned with heavy-duty blowers.

Initially, I thought that our bromeliads, which I had been in process of transplanting (a story for another day), had suffered the most damage, but then I noticed that CME's topmost tuft of basket plant was gone. Fortunately, I found this sprig of vegetation on the ground and stuck it back under a strip of the terrycloth toweling I had originally used to tie it to the tree.

Late yesterday afternoon, I decided to take some pictures of CME so that I could post them with a description of the devastation. First, however, I used a fluffy duster to remove some of the sawdust that clung to the remaining leaves, and thus inadvertently knocked off the same leaves I had recently put back in place, and, adding insult to injury, broke off yet another section.

While replacing CME's treetop once again, I was delighted to discover tiny new green leaves on the broken stem. This was a 'photo op' for sure, but it turned into a 'photo flop' because the sun had gone behind the house.

This morning, conditions for photography have been better, though I'm afraid a picture is not worth a thousand words when it must be explained to the viewer. From the perspective below, the basket plant's stem looks like the trunk of a palm tree, but in fact the assertive green buds at the top are less than a quarter inch in height. I like the way they stand out against our dark red soffit, however. The arching of the mature, red-tinged leaves contrasts nicely with the straight lines of chimney and roof, while patches of "blue skies up above" promise a fine summer day ahead.

Looking at CME from the other side, against a backdrop of Chinese evergreen elms (the straight line is a downspout), we can see three tiny new buds along with a better shot of mature leaves, plus the speckled terrycloth along with the fibrous tree fern trunk at its very tip.

"Fall rains heal all," I wrote years ago to close a poem about getting through a dry and difficult year. In the meantime, frequent spraying and perhaps a foliar fertilizer should speed the process and let the new growth know how welcome it is in spite of fractured Latin and a barrage of building materials.

tree revision

In Cyathea mater epiphiticorum, I wrote about tying a variety of epiphytic plants to the trunk of a dead tree fern that has stood in our front garden for years. I had started this experiment late last fall with two cuttings of basket plant (Callisia fragrans).

With almost daily misting from a spray bottle, the basket plant regularly produced new green leaves at its tips, while its older leaves turned a purplish red and then brown. The redness was caused by exposure to sun, while the crispy brown leaves were simply dead. As new growth slightly outpaced losses, I not only rejoiced in having remade a tree, but also added epiphyllums and epidendrums to the mix and  gave my creation its outrageous Latin name..

A couple of weeks ago, while cutting off dead leaves,  I noticed something sticking out of one of the basket plant stems. Curving to a sharp point, it looked like a parrot's beak, but in fact it was a whole new shoot of tightly furled leaves. Looking more closely, I saw that it was growing on a short piece of stem that had no other leaves. Evidently this stem had broken off one of the two original cuttings.

Delighted with the new growth, I looked critically at the tree as a whole and decided that the clumpy epiphyllums had to go. They had made absolutely no progress, and even if they had, they didn't seem compatible with the feathery basket plant. And so I untied several strips of the raggedy brown towel I'd used to tie the epiphytes to the tree fern trunk, removed and discarded the epiphyllums, and moved a sad epidendrum to a less obvious position.

Two delicate tillandsias of different sizes took the place of the rejected epiphyllums. Finally I added some strands of Spanish moss (actually a type of tillandsia) at the top of the trunk and the bottom of the basket plant stems.

Potentially, my recycled tree fern could bear five different colors of blossoms. I have never seen a basket plant in bloom, and would bet on the common epidendrum to be the first if not the only flower. But it's time for me to step back and let nature surprise me with whatever new growth my efforts may have fostered. Meanwhile, nasturtiums are creeping toward the base of the tree and will create their dependable bright orange accents.

Balanced between control and chance in this fascinating project, I feel uniquely ready for the equinox.

a bromeliad by any other name

It struck me the other day that bromeliads don't have a common name. Steve said, "Bromeliad IS their common name," and I was somewhat convinced. Everyone calls them bromeliads. Of course the edible variety is called pineapple and the smallest is called Spanish moss. These names are as common as can be, but the rest are Bromeliaceae -- graeco-roman and prickly.

For many years, I treated bromeliads as the fussiest of potted plants. I would faithfully keep their little 'vases' of inner leaves wet while waiting years for the showy blossoms to appear. Potted bromeliads lined up indoors in a sunny window or outdoors along the edge of the porch. My friend Jerri lived up the street and had a similar, hopeful array. Periodically we would top a healthy-looking plant with a ripe apple, and cover it with a paper bag. Seriously. This was the recommended way to induce blossoming.*

One day while walking in the neighborhood, I picked a large geranium blossom from someone's garden and stuck it in the 'vase' of one of Jerri's barren bromeliads. Then I went home, called her on the phone, and said, "Hey, Jerri, I see your bromeliad is finally blooming. It looks fabulous!" She made a mad dash to her front porch, and then we dissolved in the giggles we shared almost daily.

It seems a bit silly to be preoccupied with getting bromeliads to bloom. Of course it's the kind of challenge a gardener loves, but most bromeliads have such stunning leaves that the blossoms might seem a bit excessive to those of us who share the midwestern WASP orientation. As Garrison Keillor would say: "We can get along without it."

Last winter, Steve and I visited the San Diego Botanic Gardens (formerly Quail Gardens) and were astounded by the number of bromeliads growing in the ground there. I resolved to come home and give it a try. Now eight or ten bromeliads of different colors and sizes are growing around the base of my delightfully spurious mater epiphiticorum tree, which sports a small healthy tillandsia and a fringe of Spanish moss. This part of the garden has become a square yard of tropical splendor, backed by a tall row of flowering ginger and a lush Meyer asparagus fern as well as the little collection of epiphytes. In a couple of months the calla lilies will come back to provide their stately contrast.

Meanwhile, I've finally googled common names for bromeliad. There's Earth Star, Urn Plant, and Flaming Sword listed under Common Bromeliad House Plants -- a misnomer if you ask me. I'll try calling them Earth Stars and see if they, or my garden club friends, respond.
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*An apple-and-bag regimen is still prescribed for bromeliad enthusiasts, using a plastic bag -- presumably transparent -- instead of paper these days. Flowering should begin within six to fourteen weeks [!!!] after the two-or-three-day treatment.