GWA: Citrus and Dates

After arriving in Tucson for the Garden Writers Association Symposium, I was ready to see new gardens and new plants.  I participated in a panel Saturday morning after breakfast and a wonderful keynote from Petey Mesquitey.  The panel was great.  Kirk Brown, who played the part of Merlin the wizard, moderated our session on the future of sustainability for consumers.  He placed me with Rosalind Creasy and Casey Sclar.  Ros is undoubtedly the foremost expert in edible landscaping and Casey has lead the vanguard of the sustainability movement at public gardens.  I was really flattered to be able to speak with them.  By all accounts it was a success. 

After picking up a box lunch, we set off for our first tour.  The first stop was the Benedictine Sisters Monastery.  The Sisters have several cottage industries and they cultivate citrus and dates.  The citrus trunks are painted white to help them avoid sunscald.  We all wanted to buy date products, but the dates are not yet ripe. 

The clusters of ripening fruits against the deep blue sky was enchanting.  I'd love to have a taste when they are ripe.  I know that dates are typically pollinated by hand.  I wonder if the Sisters do the pollinating.  

Boxwood Society Meets at Arboretum

It's been 10 years or so since the American Boxwood Society has met at the Arboretum.  Even though we didn't have newly refurbished meeting space available as we had hoped we would, we couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to host.  We had planned to spend a good deal of time in the National Boxwood Collection, and the weather cooperated.  Curator Lynn Batdorf provided a tour, highlighting the latest developments.  He's been working steadily on removing old layers that have rooted and grown into neighboring plants.  In the process he unearthed this wonderful prostrate form of boxwood.  It's a wonderfully irregular octopus of a boxwood that is quite old and no taller than eight inches. 

Dr. Richard Olsen was there also.  He's been working on Catalpa, and they obliged by displaying some fine fall foliage.  He was there to talk about the work he has just started to try to find resistance to boxwood blight caused by Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum and breed new boxwood with resistance to the disease.  He'll continue to work on Catalpa, too.  This tree is interesting because of the large burl on the trunk, and it has a witches broom on it that Richard has propagated.