Woodbine resident’s yard is a fascinating landscape of rare and exotic plants
WOODBINE – It’s sometimes funny how a hobby can take a different direction than originally intended.
Woodbine resident Peter Bosak set out to create an aviary in a Quonset hut-style structure outside his home. Unfortunately, being located in the wooded community he is, snakes were invading his aviary and decimating his flock.
Bosak, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and plant science, turned his efforts to growing often rare, sometimes exotic plants. Most of the lawn area around his home is now a botanical garden, with the featured exhibit being the greenhouse that was the former aviary.
Bosak grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and growing plants was in his blood. His father, he said, came from a farming family in Nebraska and was a very good gardener. He also had a grandmother and an aunt who were plant growers. Bosak said he lived near a wooded area, which was where he spent most of his time growing up.
“I lived in the woods, spending my time learning about anything I could find or catch,” he said. “My mom didn’t know how many snakes got loose in the house.”
When he was 10 or 12 he was very focused on plants and wildlife and wanted very much to be a veterinarian. However, he hated school and did not go to college immediately after high school. He finally entered community college in 1983.
“Once I started community college, I thought I would go to the end,” he said.
The end for Bosak was a doctorate in entomology, the study of insects, which he did without earning a master’s degree; he said doing so is difficult but obviously not impossible. He said earning a degree is not simply a matter of how intelligent you are, but of focus, perseverance and jumping through all the hoops.
“Once I earned my bachelor’s degree, I was laser-focused on earning my Ph.D.,” he said.
Bosak entered Rutgers University, which he said is a world-class center for mosquito study and a top center for entomology. His professor, Wayne Crans, was a “mosquito guy,” as Bosak put it.
At one point, the Cape May County Mosquito Commission, now the Department of Mosquito Control, lost its entomologist, and then-director Judy Hansen spoke to Crans about hiring Bosak while he finished his doctorate. As it turns out, Bosak was a doctoral student when West Nile Virus came on the scene in New Jersey.
Bosak moved to Cape May County in 1999 and in 2005 bought 3.2 acres in Woodbine, finding the property appealed both to his personality as something of a loner and to his appreciation for nature.
“I just started digging gardens and felt like I had to have one of each,” he said, referring to plants. “Every cool or weird thing, I wanted to have.”
Bosak does not know exactly how many different plants are on his property but says the number is in the hundreds.
He is hard-pressed to name a favorite. He has different varieties of day lilies, some of which are common to the area, and others, such as red-hot pokers, which are not.
He has marigolds and butterfly bushes, oak leaf hydrangeas and a hardy orange tree, which produces a small, very sour fruit.
He knows all of his plants either by their common name or, in a few cases, only by their Latin name.
Inside his greenhouse there are elk horn and stag horn ferns and several varieties of pitcher plants. There’s also a variety of “air plants,” epiphytes, meaning they attach themselves to other plants but don’t feed off them. They get their nutrients from the air, water and debris around them.
One common epiphyte is Spanish moss, which is very common in the South. Bosak said Spanish moss does not attach to a tree but hangs on it.
The greenhouse, he said, is too humid for cacti or succulents.
Outside, Bosak does not grow vegetables, but does have a variety of garlic that grows a very long stem. He has a yard that is home to hummingbirds and multitudes of dragonflies.
And frogs.
“I am something of a frog whisperer,” he said. “Whenever they hear me speak, they respond.”
He has created ponds that have become the home to the frogs and monster koi, or brocaded carp, that are the only wildlife invited onto his property.
Now that he has finished his career as an entomologist, Bosak is planning to move his hobby elsewhere, leaving behind a one-of-a-kind garden that carries with it a semblance of Longwood Gardens outside Philadelphia. Despite not really enjoying hot, humid weather, he is considering relocating to Florida, where he will be able to grow tropical plants outdoors without using a greenhouse.
Woodbine and Cape May County’s loss will be Florida’s gain.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
