Beyond Bones

It’s that time of year again: the long cold of winter is lifting, and we can see spring around the corner. Here at HMNS we ring in spring with a BLOOM — with our horticulture adult education classes. Kicking off the season on Mar. 8, we’re offering a class on growing orchids and other epiphytes! […]

In Part I, we talked about the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s Little Coffee Tree That Could, and how we grow, harvest, and dry coffee beans. But even after all this work, the beans are still not ready to consume. So let’s talk about how we get the dried (parchment) coffee to a state that can be enjoyed […]

When we think of coffee, we normally assume that the best quality coffee comes from Java, Colombia, Ethiopia, or Kona. But maybe it’s time to add Houston to the list! This year at the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Cockrell Butterfly Center, we were fortunate to have a large enough crop on our coffee tree […]

As the horticulturist for the Cockrell Butterfly Center conservatory, I get asked a plethora of gardening questions. The most frequently asked question (other than “How’s Lois?”) has got to be “How do you get your orchids to grow on trees?” I explain to visitors that most orchids are epiphytic, which means that they grow on […]

Our winner this month was Corrie Kennelly! She received 2 tickets to our Cockrell Butterfly Center for correctly giving us the scientific name of the plant pictured above, which happens to also be the national flower of Jamaica. The correct scientific name was Guaiacum officinale. Guaiacum officinale is a very slow growing flowering tree in the […]

This is a question I recently posed to my followers on twitter. Plant nerds do you know your stuff? One ticket to the butterfly center goes to 1st to give Latin name for this plant! http://t.co/3hJOWAb May 19, 2011 1:14 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite @hortzac Zac Stayton And here’s the photo: Can you name […]

A lot has happened since we last updated everyone on Corpse Flower Lois, Houston’s beloved Amorphophallus titanum. Repotting Lois Last time most of you saw her (August 19, 2010) she was being weighed, inspected, re-potted and finally left to go through her dormancy in peace in our greenhouses. We anticipated the dormancy to last about […]

Lois’ flower has died back, but the Cockrell Butterfly Center still has many amazing flowers blooming right now! Although not all as rare as the corpse flower, the rainforest in the butterfly center is made up of hundreds of hard-to-find tropical plant species, most of which (but not all) come from Central and South America. […]

See more photos from this morning’s evaluation of Lois on Flickr. It’s the question on everyone’s mind! And as you might be aware, Lois has still not opened. So, Soni Holliday, the greenhouse manager and I will be trying a few horticultural tricks that we have had up our sleeves to nudge Lois along on her […]

See a full set of photos of the Corpse Flower’s growth here. Today, Lois measures 63.5 inches. Her vertical growth has slowed to only 1.5 inches since yesterday, but at her base she has grown 4 inches in circumference. When we first measured her circumference last week, it was 14 inches; today, it’s 34 inches. […]