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Excitement in Bloom

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:55:34 +0000

Flower Barn co-owner spends a lifetime cultivating beauty

Lori Shontz
The Penn Stater magazine

— At first, all George Griffith wanted was a pond. Just a little one, somewhere in a corner of his family’s land in western Pennsylvania.

After getting permission to dig one, he saved his money to buy a couple of goldfish to live there.

After a couple of weeks, the fish died. So Griffith – only 8 years old – began studying to find out why, and within a couple of years he was not only breeding his own goldfish, but earning money by selling them to five-and-dime stores, including the one where he had purchased his first pair.

That was only the beginning. Goldfish led to guppies. Turtles. Canaries. Myna birds. Orchids. And water lilies. Griffith paid his Penn State tuition with profits from George’s Aquatic Gardens and Pet Supplies, which made him an important guy in some corners of campus.

The Daily Collegian noted in a 1956 article that Griffith, a 1956 PSU graduate, sold “30,000 goldfish a year” and added “The collegian pastime of swallowing goldfish by fraternity pledges has also boosted his sales.”

The goldfish paid the bills, but they were never his true love and focus.

That was the pond. Griffith has spent his life expanding on that original water garden, and he now has more than 30 lily ponds on his 80-acre property, a former potato farm along a mountain road outside of Ligonier.

“There’s just something magic about a water lily,” Griffith said.

“They’re the diamonds of the water.”

And he doesn’t have just any old water lilies; he develops his own.

Griffith has hybridized hundreds of them over the years and the dozen or so he has deemed worthy to propagate are part of his water garden. He also has a lotus that’s a direct descendent of a plant more than 2,000 years old.

No, Griffith never does anything halfway. “I love too many things,” he said. “I get too excited.”

Plenty of people are slowing down at his age, 77. But Griffith is still running The Flower Barn, the business in Westmont he owns with his partner, Thomas O’Brien.

That’s an uphill battle sometimes, he said, because of the increasingly popular phrase in death notices, “in lieu of flowers.”

That cuts into profits, but Griffith thinks there’s a bigger cost to society as a whole.

He explained, “Flowers forever have been an expression of all those things we cannot express as we would like to.”

Griffith has been expressing himself with flowers since he cornered the market on black orchids (which are white orchids dyed) when they were popular in the 1950s. He then moved on to designing flower arrangements for gala events all over western Pennsylvania and beyond

– even at the White House and about

17 states.

“He’s very precise – a perfectionist,” said Donald Miller, a former art and architecture critic for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

He has attended dozens of galas marked by Griffith’s distinctive style. “And frankly, that’s what they best do: Make every effort to do it right.”

O’Brien put it this way: “You cannot pull anything over his eyes. From the bookkeeper on down, he is one step ahead of everyone.”

Griffith was only a junior in college when he made his first botanical splash. When word came that President Dwight D. Eisenhower would give the Penn State commencement speech in 1955, Griffith was asked to put together a floral display.

He went big, floating 2,000 water lilies on the pond in front of the president’s home (now part of the Hintz Family Alumni Center). And because the blue and purple tropical water lilies he wanted didn’t bloom so early in Pennsylvania, he had them shipped from Florida.

Life magazine published a photo of Eisenhower and his brother, Penn State President Milton Eisenhower, posing by the flowers.

That’s how Griffith came to have a lotus plant with an ancient legacy. It came from a seed found at the bottom of a Manchurian lake; initial carbon dating showed it to be at least 2,000 years old, and he said it is among the oldest seeds to ever be germinated.

The lotus was growing in Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in a rough neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and Griffith learned that children were vandalizing the garden. So he asked Milton Eisenhower for help, and Eisenhower enabled him to get a “division” of the rare lotus, which he is still growing.

Griffith’s connection in D.C. grew. In 1981, he and O’Brien decorated the White House for a state dinner honoring the prime minister of Japan. Nancy Reagan, who was famous for requesting specific flowers, regardless of whether they were in season, wanted water lilies.

Those flowers were blooming, but there was still a problem – they bloom only during the day, and the dinner was at night.

Griffith solved the problem by injecting the floral equivalent of muscle relaxants into the stomata, or base, of the cut water lilies. (He still laughs at the fact that he was “drugging” the flowers as the White House mounted its “War on Drugs.”) But the flowers stayed open, the first lady was pleased, and Griffith and O’Brien have continued to do occasional displays for the White House ever since.

Closer to home, Griffith has specialized in creating spectacular spaces for parties and museums, including for the openings of Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall and the Hunt Botanical Library at Carnegie Mellon.

Miller particularily remembers a gala at the Carnegie Museum of Art for an exhibit of French decorative panels the museum obtained from the ocean liner Normandie.

The tables were adorned with cornstalks sprayed with gilt paint to resemble huge candelabras, and the unadorned walls were bathed in a bright, Carribbean blue. “Man, was that spectacular,” Miller said. “It was out of this world.”

But Griffith’s finest work might be a private one – his roughly 30 lily ponds. He and O’Brien have built the ponds themselves during the past 25 years and many of the colorful lilies are Griffith’s own. There are hardy lilies (which overwinter in the ponds) such as “Lemon Chiffon,” which is light yellow, and “Rachel Hunt,” which is very large and white. The tropical lilies, which must spend the winter in greenhouses, include the blue-purple ones he has named “Blue Skys” and “Elsie” (as in his friend Elsie Hillman, the Pittsburgh philanthropist). Griffith’s peach-colored lily, created about a decade ago, is named “Tom O’Brien.”

Some of those same flowers will be blooming at his alma mater. He has donated about 100 of his plants to The Arboretum at Penn State, which has a 30-foot lotus pond in the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. Among those are water lilies that he has developed (they are unnamed for now) and another division of the rare lotus from Manchuria.

Those are varieties that have taken decades to hybridize, but Griffith thinks in terms not of time, but of beauty. “It’s joyful and it’s a love,” he said. “You just hope for the excitement of crossing two plants to come up with a wonderment.”

Meet me in St. Charles…

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:18:30 +0000

In a few days we will be heading west to St. Charles for the annual symposium. This years 5 day tour will feature Mr. Pairat Songpanich from Thailand. A special auction, local garden tours, a tour of the aquascapes building and facility, a Biotope Tour at Elgin Community College. And much more. Early registration is past however you can still sign up for the entire event for $599 per person and split a hotel room at a special even rate of $120 per night. Split your hotel room with a friend or spouse and split that cost. This is most likely the worlds largest annual international water lily and lotus event.

Thailand Symposium, named water lotus tanks. See more photos at IWGS.org

Lotus and Lilies are sacred in many cultures...This made the Thailand symposium ever more interesting to experience, I did not make it.

The Aquascape Company and Building tour and talk I believe is going to focus heavily on building amidst the green movement. Collecting rainwater to use in your garden and other new features.

Aquascapes is known across the united states for professional installation services and exclusive contractor certified installations of good equipment. My hope is that in the future they focus one year on education of the complete ecosystem of the ponds with plants instead of product and chemical solutions. Perhaps this will be the year?

I will try live posting from the days and events. We will see how that works. Plenty more coming up including some really interesting information later this month!

2010 Aquatic Plants!

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:10:45 +0000

What I mean to say is I want to know over the next 6 weeks or so what additional species you would like to see from our nurseries. We offer more aquatic species than any other retail supplier in the world thanks to our superior Florida growers who are constantly creating new impressive species but they also can grow common or native species. In 2008 we brought out the striped dazzler bog lily and hope to get more in production. This year Brad and Brandon gave us the Giant Star Grass, Orange Sedge, and Taro Plumbae which I am enjoying growing for the first time.

They also introduced the orange snowflake which is much larger than I had imagined. In fact when they shipped some to a friend of mine my first thought was surley I did not request this many lilies. Then I saw the orange buds and realized, oh my this is the orange snowflake! Much larger than the small white and yellow varieties.

This season with their help we added Lemon Bacopa, Rotala, Moneywort, dwarf sagitaria, jungle vallisineria, and my favorite Red Star Ludwigia. Why my favorite? I planted this in Greg and Marcia’s pond in mid May and as a bog plant not a submerged plant. Some creeping jenny is in the bog with it that came back from last year and the two look amazing next to one another. They have variegated society garlic (society flowers) standing above them and the contrast is amazing.

Along with and abundance of new lilies, tropicals are my favorite. Jack Wood, Purple Zanzibar, and others like Southern Charm were instant hits. The tropical night blooming lilies Jennifer Rebecca and Texas Shell Pink have sold to untold numbers of people.

I want to hear from you. I need to know by mid July what plants you want to see. Send your questions to pondmegastore@yahoo.com. Thank you – Zac

2 Important Resources a water gardener should have. . .

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:01:11 +0000

There are several excellent books we use for resource information, two of the books we highly recommend are Encyclopedia of Water Gardensby Greg Speichert and Sue Speichert and the other book is Waterlilies and Lotuses by Perry D. Slocum. We hope you can curl up in a chair or hammock beside your pond or water garden and enjoy these excellent resource books.

There are so many subjects you can learn about regarding water lilies, lotuses, species and cultivars, habitats and zones and hardiness. You can learn about the hybridizing of some of your favorite lilies and lotus. Learn about the Tropicals, day and night bloomers and other genera in the water lily family.

Learn about hundreds of water garden plants, from submerged, floating to marginals along with information about planting, potting, pots, soils, fertilizers, propagation, pests and plant diseases. Bloom times, hardiness, growth and habitat are all discussed. These books will become great resources for years to come.

You can order these books at Amazon.com or Call Pond Megastore and add them to any plant, fish, or product you might already be ordering. 330-488-2115

SAVE US TO YOUR FAVORITE PLACES!

What’s in a name?

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:57:50 +0000

Bog Plant Ponds and floating plant ponds

How are the water garden plants you get in the mail or FedEx to your home grown? Where are they grown? Well it depends on where you purchase them. There are many growers in the United States. The safest place to look for water plants would be anyone listed in the international water garden society “Truly Named” participants. Some growers over the last few years have begun importing water lilies and other plants from countries like Thailand and other parts of the South-Asia Pacific. This can be problematic for a number of reasons. First off the water in these countries is not likely drinkable out of a faucet rather than the fields the water lilies and aquatic plants are grown.

MIAMI ROSE WATER LILY POND

The risk of infectious diseases and parasites is very high and once a grower imports these plants the rest of the ponds could become contaminated with disease or parasites quickly as planters have their hands in ponds all day all over the facility. Another poor condition is that plants in other countries may not be taken care of in quite the same condition. In a conversation I had last year with award winning Water Lily grower Brad McLane of Florida Aquatics, he noted that every third day for decades now his team has cut the flowering heads off of the water lilies at the Florida Aquatic growing facilities. Why? To prevent cross pollination and growing unnamed species. This kind of dedication is not seen in other facilities. Brad took the time to gather actual proper plant specimens from botanical gardens and other resources of truly named varieties. As he collected these he cultivated them by tuber separation and now tissue culture as well. This is the proper way to carbon copy the species. If the plants are cross pollinated and go to seed new unnamed varieties will grow. Perhaps the same color (or close) but not an identical plant. This dedication has lead to probably the largest collection of truly named plants anywhere. All the lilies grown for Pond Megastore are grown from Brad and Brandon McLane as of 2009 and future years and we are truly proud to provide homeowners with the absolute best quality plants even seen in backyard ornamental water gardens.

Bog Plants, Pink Aquatic Canna Blooming, Rushes & Reeds Nicely Grown

There is a link to the Truly Named organization here. We provide more species to the homeowner than anyone else but we do not provide every species available so I want you to take a look around and order from anyone on this list. You will note your plants are safe from foreign pests and truly named.

Water Hyacinths #1 Selling Pond Plant in America! (Eichhornia crassipes)

pondplants — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:06:55 +0000

Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) are truely an amazing species. They are extremely easy to grow. I have talked to a few people who have managed to let these plants not perform well or die, but it’s rare. They grow so well and so quickly that they cannot be shipped to 11 states. You can still have these plants in many of these states, just keep them in private waters. The trouble comes when plant loving people take the extras to waterways and release their excess into no native waterways. The good news, in more than 90% of the united states gets a hard freeze each year, one hard freeze zaps these wonderful plants and they will no longer be a problem. This means they are annuals and must be replaced each year. Not a problem for most as they cost about $2-$3 and if you buy in quantity, can be as low as $1.50 each.

These plants are amazing filters of the water, in Europe in fact huge vats and greenhouses of Hyacinths are used as primary water treatment tanks. They grow and multiply so quickly and absorb almost all nutrients in the water.

Water Hyacinths Growing, To Flower let them grow in clucsters, fertilize with miracle grow, and they like sun and heat 85*+

These plants like still water, they like to grow in clusters, do not break old foliage apart only new if you must. They enjoy sunshine but will do well in shade. Add them only after wether is warm, cold night will prohibit growth for up to 6 weeks and cause yellowing! They love nutrients, you can add a granular fertilizer like regular old miracle grow to a pond. Fish wont notice anything and plants will thrive. Add a few tablespoons per week anywhere in the pond, THERE IS “NOTHING” SPECIAL ABOUT POND PLANT FERTILIZER. (it will contain no iron but thats it, most fertilizers dont contain iron which is a cause of algae).

Below is how a water hyacinth looks normally upon arrive. If too tall it may lay on its side for a few days but all new growth will be upright.

Water Hyacinth at arrival when ordered or bought from store. Buy in quantity for quicker blooming.

KEEP AWAY FROM SPLASHING WATERFALLS AND FOUNTAINS! A wet plant is an unhappy plant, they need to exchange oxygen through the leaves and water inhibits this process.

Water Hyacinth Farm

This plant will prevent algae and keepwater crystal clear once 30-40% of the pond has coverage by plants (lilies, lettuce, or hyacinth).

The roots are a great place to hide from herons and raccoons. An all around wonderful plant.