Art in Bloom Field Trip, 2010

The Art in Bloom festival at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Celebrating its 27th year, the Art in Bloom exhibit takes over the museum with more than 150 floral arrangements standing alongside the pieces they interpret.

This year's theme is "Hello Tokyo!," and visitors are greeted by a number of large-scale, amazingly fragrant and beautiful, Japanese-inspired masterpieces surrounding the entrances to the MIA.

 You'll see examples of how the floral design was inspired by the art works at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

 Now we're talking! Chickens!!!

 A classic!

There are 6 newly hatched WILD Whooping Cranes this year in Wisc. They are trying to reintroduce a migratory population back into the United States. With this year's 6 chicks, there are now 7 total wild hatched chicks in the last 100 years. They were almost extinct.

 Simple, yet elegant.

This is a very good looking exhibit also!

June Meeting Highlights

PLEASE SCROLL THROUGH NOT ONLY THIS POST BUT A FEW OF THE PREVIOUS ONES ALSO! THANKS!

The June meeting had lots of interesting plants for the members to see. The first shot is of a Sinningia reitzii in bloom. This plant has been in bloom for the last three years! You can see a little damage on the leaves but this just shows you that the plant will bloom and continue to thrive even with conditions not always perfect. A great choice if you have some good bright light.

Here's a picture of the blooms up a little closer. It makes you wonder - with the cheerful red - color if humming birds wouldn't be attracted to this if it were out in the "wild".

 Look how big the Sinningia iarae babies have grow in the last month. A photo from last month is a couple of entries back for you to compare this photo with.

 This Sinningia leucotricha is doing something unusual. Note how the new leaves are growing up from the first whorl of leaves. This usually doesn't happen.

 This is a really nice small, humidity loving orchid from the CBS called Promenaea xanthina.

 Our program was about Niphea oblonga. These two lovely plants were grown by J. O. (I think she must spray her plants with steroids!)

Note how the flower is quite similar to a species violet flower. In this case you can really see the family resemblance.


Thanks to all who took the time to check out the blog this month!

SINNINGIA!

To track down our mystery plant, C. H. has given us this! Thank you!

"Looking at Mauro Peixoto's website page

http://www.brazilplants.com/gesneriaceae/sinningia/sinningia-conspicua.html
(Click on the link)

it looks like it is S. conspicua.  A very good plant and a popular one with gesneriad growers for years,the flowers are fragrant at times.  As it grows bigger, can send up multiple stems.  Saw one about ten years ago with at least three stems and ten flowers open at once.  You get one big flower from a leaf axil.

The name on the the pot was S. Iporanga reitzii, which are two different Sinningias.   S. hatschbachii 'Iporanga' and S. reitzii have very different flowers and leaves, see the photos on Mauro's website for these.  So the name is wrong on the pot.  This happens.  They are all good plants.  S. reitzii seedlings are growing, hopefully lots by fall sometime."

This was a "show and tell" plant brought by S. J. for the club to see. It was an exceptional plant with really pretty blooms.

June Meeting Minutes

The June 22nd meeting started with 10 members present. We started out the evening by talking about the Titan arum at the CBS greenhouses and the one at Gustavus. We hope to go visit Perry (they named the Gustavus Titan) for a field trip at some point in the coming year when it blooms. A side field trip to visit a very plant-based and related manufacturing plant in New Ulm was also discussed.

The show and tell portion of the meeting featured S. J.'s Sinningia with large yellow blooms. Some discussion as to just which Sinningia it was is still being considered. It was not reitzii but could be conspicua or another. C. H. had a S. reitzii in bloom (which has been in bloom for over three years), a S. Leucotricha with the auxiliary set of leaves growing, a S. iarae seedling cup with the babies growing nicely and orchids featuring the yellow Promenaea xanthina.

Ax Man had head mounted magnifiers for only $8.00. Those were cool. Out business meeting then started about 7:08 p.m.

Two hard copies of the minutes, which were also posted on the blog, were ok'ed. The treasurer stated the amount in the treasury (which is available to members and not posted on the internet.) There was some discussion about awards to be given out at shows for prize winning gesneriad entries. Although we haven't given a State Fair Show award in the past, we motioned and seconded an award of $25.00 this year because there will be no judged show at Northtown in October. The prize will be for a "Best Foliage" gesneriad.

There was an amendment to that award discussion. We will talk to J. N. and the executive committee will have the authority to amend or adjust the award as appropriate for that show. The amendment was approved, and then the original motion was approved.

As an affiliate we will have a "club table" at the Fair. It will be staffed by volunteers similar to past years. K. L. will have a light stand and directions for it's construction there also. Members are asked to bring along some plant material when they volunteer so that they have "hands-on" material to show the public. Volunteers can talk about whatever gesneriad related topic they like.

We had a thorough discussion about the need to have printed promotional material at the State Fair and other shows. We could use updated brochures and possibly business cards along with new signage and acrylic stands to display things at the shows. There was a motion and second to allocate up to $75.00 for new promotional materials such as printed material, the stands to display such material and other related expenses. The vote passed. Members volunteered to look into updating materials and preparing various needed signs etc.

We are the Twin Cities Chapter of the Gesneriad Society. The meeting was done at 7:52 p.m.

Mauro's seeds were ordererd and we have some Sinningia coming, as well as N. gregarius, Streptocarpus lilliputiana, and a Gesneria of some sort. We thanked D. for the delicious dessert!!!

Our program featured Niphea oblonga. We had supurb examples brought by J. O. and C. H. from the greenhouse. J. O. grows them in very high light, close to the fluorescent bulbs with lights on at least 12 hours a day. The plants can be a little brittle and should be staked, if the grower wants an upright growth habit, when the plants are young. They bloom with a nice white blossom that is very reminiscent of an African violet.

Episcias were discussed. To get the most bloom remove the stolons and grow as a single crown plant. These can be staked also. 'Pink Panther' was shown and to get the pink colored flowers a blue E. lilacina type and a red cupreata are crossed.

Episcias need fresh soil to thrive. They like moisture but with a LIGHT mix or sphagnum and nothing that packs down tightly. They have delicate and long roots. They need to be grown warm, over 55 deg. F. and some types prefer very high humidity.

Fantasy Flowers

 Ok, we have a particularly good crop of fantasy flowers going at the  home of S. J. The color on this one is even MORE vivid in person, but this gives you a pretty good idea anyway. this is Neil's Jammin'.

 Another cool photo.... This one is one of my favorites. How about Neil's Wam Bam???

 Yet another fabulous flower.... these three are hybridized by Neil's Streps. Here's Neil's Masquerade, a nice yellow throat with this one!

 Here is one of Frozen Flamingo Farms hybrids..... it's even a little more than three inches across. I am not quite sure if it's actually a large flowering strep, or if S. J. puts something in the water. I think it's probably the later. What this photo doesn't quite capture is the orange tone to this one. We're starting to see some "interesting colors" being created.

This is hybridizing itself???? The pod shouldn't be forming when the flower is still this fresh. Something weird is always in the plant room just waiting for a curious "plant geek" to find it.

Thanks to S. J. for letting my photograph the flowers.

Next Meeting Notice

Here's a little meetin' notice for ya'all.

May 25th Meeting Minutes

The meeting of the Twin City chapter of the Gesneriad club was a stunning success as usual. We had 12 folks drop by with one guest whom we would love to invite to come and join us as a member!

We had some fun show and tell plants brought in. One was a "whisk" fern which is a very old type plant - older than the ferns. We had a "Snake Skin" Kohleria from Janice which, as always, was perfectly grown. Clay had two streps that he hybridized. One was a kin to Showy Lady which has a fragrance and pink flowers... see blog photo from previous post. One was a purple flower with a delicate striping in the throat. Also, see blog photo.

Charles had a couple of fun things as usual! One was a species Episcia cupreata which comes from Central America. We had a succulent that I can't come up with the name of but whose photo is on the blog also. We had a Lycaste orchid which was large and wonderful. Check photo on the previous blog post.


The official meeting started at 6:55 pm and lasted till 7:15 pm. The treasury was noted and will be available to members offline. The checking now only has two names associated with it.

We motioned and seconded a plan to renew our affiliate membership with AVSM. A check will go to their treasurer (T.K.) We also made the motion and second to send the Gesneriad Society 2010 convention award like we have done in the past. Forty dollars will go to their treasurer J.M..

Old business included discussion of the fact that we donated to the church for use of the meeting space at Christmas time. ($50.00) We also talked about the plan to buy the 2006 convention CD for the club. It has at least three programs worth of information for our use. It's $15.00 which was motioned and seconded and passed.

There were nominations for officers. C. H. is nominated for president. No one is willing at this time to take the vice president's spot which means all will have to share with the planning of programs for the coming year. Secretary and treasurer will potentially stay the same next year. It was moved and seconded for a white paper vote for the positions.

Mark A. of Linder's emailed with a request for our club's information and membership contact material to be sent to their web resources site. We would be among other groups listed showing different community plant clubs and information sources. We were trying to track down a pamphlet to use to send material to Mark. ( As a side note, Mark was contacted, but hasn't responded to the email yet.)

Treats for June will be brought by Bob. Thank you Bob.

May Highlights!

It was supposed to be a typical Tuesday.... but it was a dark and stormy night! The clouds were ominous, what would the evening bring?

Well, now that you ask, people brought a bunch of interesting things...... Clay brought some of the seedling crosses from a strep whose parent features a scent.










This is like it's parent, same flowers but a much larger habit and a stronger scent. This poor plant had it's largest leaves broken so it doesn't appear gigantic, but it gets generously sized!

 The evening brought us more....This is another pretty seedling from Clay's crosses.

 We had species Episcias  for show and tell and ...

 exotic looking "things" from the collections and ...

baby Sinningias! Babies both large and much, much smaller.

Her are baby Sinningias just getting their start in life.

Now don't you wish you were at the meetings more often?









A monster-sized fanciful orchid covered in blooms covered it's friend.

An then after some snacks.... what else did the evening bring? The night gave us pollination by lions and tigers and bears.... No, strike those...... bugs and bats and birds, OH MY.  Here's a little humming bird.








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