From the category archives:

plants

orchid keiki: my phalaenopsis had a baby!

February 2, 2011

Though it is nothing to brag about apparently. I thought it was a good thing until I read that it was the orchid’s response to stress. I also read some orchids just do it, stress or no, as a way to propagate. I also read more than one expert recommend cutting it and tossing it [...]

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winter garden

September 16, 2010

I accumulated so many tropical plants this year that I couldn’t fit them all next to the big front window, which is north-facing anyway. Plus the tot and his adventuresomeness. So I bought a 1000-watt metal-halide grow light and fixed up the closet in the basement, and stuffed as many pots in there as would [...]

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nutmeg and mace: myristica fragrans

September 9, 2010

I just learned what fresh nutmeg looks like. Here are some visuals to aid in blowing your mind: What you buy in the store – if it isn’t ground – is the dried seed (which is inside the brown part inside the red web). But I don’t care about the spice any more. I just [...]

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sorry toots, me and cornus kousa got a little thing going.

September 3, 2010

Mercy child, the geometry of these fruits has got me all sortsa intuned to a spilling-seed-into-the-soil, last-month-of-the-summer last-ditch effort at monoecious reproduction. So hot and yet so smart: so warm and curved and beckoning and still so cold and sharp and hard. Gracious y’all, the intensity of the ambiguity that this fruit pops and locks [...]

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the impossible mangosteen (garcinia mangostana)

September 3, 2010

My two new mangosteen trees arrived from Hawaii today, looking wonderful. I had pretty low expectations for the size and health of the plants after all my searching and researching. Not only are they nigh-impossible to grow in the US, it seems they’re also pretty hard to come by. Most of the tropical fruit tree [...]

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pay-per-view

May 16, 2010

More flagrant than ever before, the garden this spring has been one raucous and debauched carnival of lawless bacchanalian flower sex. Someone asked me how the yard was doing a couple of weeks ago, and the only adjective I could think of to describe it was pay-per-view. That the bees are back doesn’t hurt: there [...]

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braggart proclaims “no need to smack your mothers,” puts foot in mouth

May 9, 2010

Remember last fall when I promised the 500 bulbs I planted on either side of my walk would make you want to smack you mama? Well, in honor of our mothers on this very special day, I am happy to report that there will be no call for smacking, no call whatsoever. For what was [...]

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jumping on the visual bandwagon

May 9, 2010

I’ve spent a lot of free time this week looking at page after page of a few new (to me) sites devoted solely to images (ffffound and dethjunkie and yimmys yayo) and while I’ve got my complaints (yawn, steve, when do you not?), I have been so inspired that I started to wonder late last [...]

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foxy fritillaria michailovskyi

April 24, 2010

Someone told me yesterday that they say that fritillaria michailovskyi smells foxy. I got what he meant. He wanted to make sure. You know, like sex. First of all, major props to a working man for recognizing the flower, knowing its pain in the arse name, and for retaining this erotic bit of esoterica (or [...]

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the only narcissus worth half a hoot

April 16, 2010

I can’t even bring myself to say daffodil, the word too much like a contraction of daffy and dildo . The great majority of narcissus you find in civilians’ yards right now are yellow. We all know how yellow makes you crazy, not to mention nauseous. It’s a crappy color: the color of pus; of [...]

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