Friday, October 28, 2011
Potted plants too tender to spend the winter in Bonnefont garden are trucked inside and brought up to Cuxa cloister, which is??glazed in mid-October. Mediterranean plants such as bitter orange, myrtle, and bay laurel spend the cold season in the sunny arcades and??are brought back out to the herb garden when the glass comes down in mid-April. Left:??A wagonload of maidenhair fern in the arcade of Bonnefont garden. Right:??oranges and pomegranates en route to Cuxa cloister.?? Photographs by Carly Still
While the medieval plant collection at The Cloisters includes a good number of northern European species, a great many of the plants grown in the Bonnefont Cloister herb garden are Mediterranean in origin. Not all of these southern European plants are hardy for us here in New York City. The garden is a sheltered U.S.D.A. Hardiness Zone 7, and the fig tree (Ficus carica), poet’s jasmine (Jasminum officinale), and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) do just fine outdoors, but more tender species like bitter orange (Citrus aurantium), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), and dittany of Crete (Origanum dictamnus) must be brought inside and protected from the cold. Read more »
Tags: Albertus Magnus, bay, Citrus aurantium, cucumber, cucurbit, dittany, fern, ficus carica, fig, jasmine, Jasminum officinale, laurel, Laurus nobilis, Lavandula angustifolia, Lavender, maidenhair, myrtle, orange, Origanum dictamnus, rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis, santolina, winter
Posted in Food and Beverage Plants, Fragrant Plants, Gardening at The Cloisters, Introduction, Magical Plants, Medicinal Plants, Medieval Agriculture, Plants in Medieval Art | Comments (2)
Friday, August 6, 2010
Above: The left and center image show the true or “right dittany” of Crete (Origanum dictamnus), a tender Mediterranean species grown in pots in Bonnefont garden. This pretty relative of the culinary oreganos is endemic to the island, and is found growing wild only in the mountains there. The small, purplish-pink flowers are borne on long-lasting bracts in late summer and fall. The image on the right shows Dictamnus albus, known as white dittany or fraxinella, which is a botanically unrelated species. Medieval herbalists seem to have transferred both the name and the??marvelous properties that the ancients ascribed to true dittany to this herb.
Origanum dictamnus, with its round, woolly gray leaves,??rosy??bracts and delicate purplish-pink flowers, is the prettiest of the tender medieval species grown in pots in Bonnefont garden, and the most difficult for us to grow. One of a number of species endemic to the mountains of Crete, the wild plant is only found growing in the crevices of limestone gorges and ravines (see image). Known as diktamnon in Greek, it is said to be named after Mount Dikti. Read more »
Tags: Aeneas, antidote, Aristotle, artemidon, Artemis, Bonnefont Garden, Cos, Crete, diktamnon, Dioscorides, Hellmut Baumann, Hippocrates, Mount Ida, Origanum dictamnus, snake, snakebite, Theophrastus, venom, Venus, Virgil, William Turner
Posted in Fragrant Plants, Gardening at The Cloisters, Medicinal Plants | Comments (1)
