The
professionals said it could not be done. They had never tried it, and
they didn’t know any public garden that had tried it, and they wouldn’t
recommend anyone else give it a try.
This
was not the response I expected when I called a few plant people and
asked how to design a type of flower bed that has been around since the
mid-18th century. It’s called a Horologium Florae: a flower clock. (No
relation to the Apple Watch.)
“Please
don’t show this to my bosses,” said Marc Hachadourian, the director of
the Nolen Greenhouses, a 43,000-square-foot grow facility at the New
York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. What Mr. Hachadourian, 41, meant
was, Don’t give management any ideas.
He
was joking. Mostly. Because once you hear it, the idea behind the
flower clock is irresistible. First, identify a selection of a few dozen
flowers that open and close at regular hours. They can be old friends
like lilies, marigolds and primroses. Next, plant them in an organized
fashion — perhaps in the segmented shape of a dial or clock face.
At
this point, clock-watchers may want to skip ahead to the useful
flowering timetable in the second half of this article. The seeds and
plants for growing a flower clock may already be tick-tick-ticking in
the stack of garden catalogs on the mail table.
Here’s
how the timepiece works. During a stroll in the summer garden, you
notice that the sow thistle petals are open while the adjacent pumpkin
blossoms remain shut. The first plant, according to your records, blooms
reliably at 5 a.m.; the second at 6 a.m.
Who needs a watch when the flowers know the time?
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