Monday, October 03, 2016 – Elephant Ear Plant, Persimmon Fruit & Woolly Worms

This morning as we watered all of the greenhouses, Richard, our boss, told us that all of the beautiful and colorful Coleus plants in the greenhouses will be thrown out next week. What!!! There are benches full of the most beautiful and colorful plants you’ve ever seen and they must all go to the compost pile. It turns out that for the past several months Richard has been harvesting small cuttings from all of the 100+ varieties of Coleus plants. He’s propagated thousands of plants off of the “Old Stock” but they are too old and root bound. They have to go. The new crop will be big and full by next spring when it’s time to replant all of the flower beds again.

Today we continued last week’s project of hauling away the big beautiful planters and tearing apart more of the lush and gorgeous flower beds. It is really heart braking to see them go. One plant that has been particularly impressive is the “Elephant Ear” plant. It was huge, about 15 feet tall and the leaves are six feet long. Fortunately Richard has saved the two biggest Elephant Ear plants for next year.

Next we removed and hauled away the last of the flower beds in the Women’s Garden by the visitor’s center. Here, Richard only saved one plant; it was a 15 foot tall banana tree. If left outdoors, the first frost would not kill the plant, only the foliage would die. It would return next year but Richard wants it in a new location next year so it was dug up and moved. 

As we cleaned and hauled today we came across a big “Woolly Worm” in the garden. The “Old Farmer’s Almanac” says you can tell what kind of winter we will have based on the width of the red-brown (orange) band of the woolly worm. Folks here in the Mid-west put a lot of credence in the “Old Farmer’s Almanac.” They swear by it.

People who believe woolly worms can predict the weather think that a narrow red-brown (orange) band in the center means a harsh winter. The wider the red-brown (orange) band is, the milder the coming winter is supposed to be.

Next, Richard picked a persimmon fruit from one of the trees and said you can tell the kind of winter we will have based on the shape of the seeds. If the kernel is spoon-shaped, lots of heavy, wet snow will fall. Well, the seeds were spoon-shaped which means lots of heavy, wet snow. But the Woolly worm had a very wide red-brown (orange) band so we are supposed to have a very, very mild winter. So, “Old Farmers Almanac” which one is it? Lots of wet snow or a very mild winter?