Miscellaneous Monday

1.  I do not want roses for Valentine's Day.  Short lived blooms, often grown in far-away countries (high carbon footprint for transport), using pesticides, herbicides and too much fertilizer to achieve the perfect blooms at just the right time, regardless of growing conditinos.  Nope.  

I would much rather have a new plant.

No.  Not a rose bush.  I don't have a lot of full sun locations and I have too many other things I want.

So what would be appropriate for Valentine's Day?

I know.  A nice plant with (sort of, if you use your imagination) heart shaped flowers.  And, well [mom, look away] somewhat....  phallic.... parts sticking up.  An Anthurium.  But not just any Anthurium (I already have several) but the rare and elusive purple blooming cross.  I've found them available if I have them shipped from Hawaii.  

Probably costs about the same as a dozen roses.

2.  Am I the only Science Geek out there who watches The Big Bang Theory and argues with the title song lyrics?

"The Autotrophs began to droll" - I think not!  Chemotrophs came first.  Autotrophs evolved from them and they produce energy without the need for a mouth so how could they drool?

[key terms:  Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own energy, like PLANTS that photosynthesize.  Chemotrophs have to get their energy from the environment, like people who have to eat and have mouths that actually could drool.  Where are plants going to drool from?]

And then there's "Neanderthals developed tools"  ha!  The oldest stone tools predate Neanderthal by around 2 million years.

You'd think song writers could get their science facts straight.

Sheesh.

C.  This semester I'm teaching an introduction to human anatomy and physiology course.  I don't like a lot of the illustrations from the text so I've been finding images on Wikimedia Commons (they have the copyright information right there so you know if you can legally use the image, very convenient).

My question?  Why is it that nearly every search term I use brings up at least one picture of a penis?  Terms like thumb or muscle contraction or abnormal feet.

I guess it's a good example of Rule 34.

[Sorry, no picture to illustrate this point.  You want images?  There are plenty on Wikimedia Commons.]

Miscellaneous Monday

OK, so it's really Miscellaneous Tuesday but that isn't alliteration and I have a thing about alliteration.

1.  Big weekend project.  We had two very, very large Pieris japonica in front of our house.  They were planted as foundation plants but they weren't a petite variety.  Rather than prune them twice a year or allow them to block the windows we elected to attempt to move them.  Here they are in their new home.

We'll have to wait and see if they survive.  The Husband and I had a hard time lifting the larger one so if we didn't get a large enough root ball there is no way we could have.  (Piper, our dog, is overseeing my photography).

2.  I attended a work conference in Connecticut last week.  This meant that Logee's was on the way home.  Logee's is a complex of greenhouses that contain not-the-same-old house plants (they also have mail order).  I had a hard time restraining myself.  I limited myself to three new plants.

This Blue Sansevieria ehrenbergii (no common name).  It does have blue-gray overtones that are not obvious in this image.

A Philodendron called Prince of Orange where the new leaves come in, well, orange.  This is a bushy philodendron, not a vine.

And last, but not least, for The Husband, this Calathea lancifolia, also called a Rattlesnake Plant.  [This isn't the only plant called a rattlesnake plant which is why scientific names are so valuable.]  The leaves close up at night (they stick straight up), exposing their purple undersides.  

2b.  I also picked up this Dracena, probably Lemon-lime.  But I got this one at a Big-Box retailer when I was picking up something else.  I just couldn't resist!  I love pale, yellowy greens, especially in combinations.    And I like large leaves and strong lines.  This plant has them all.  So Sexy!

3.  May was a very rainy month for us.  And we all know what rain brings.  

4.  Back outside - all of my Aquilegia are blooming.  At this time of the year I can hardly get enough of these plants!  This one is Denver Gold.

E.  Lastly here is a new requisition for the outdoor garden.  I was just going to the Local Garden Center to buy some houseplant potting mix and I found this Centaurea monttana Black Sprite.  What a shocking color!  I hope the blooms stay easily visible.  It's in the light and I'll plant paler colors around it to accent it (I'm thinking Perovskia [Russian Sage]).  

I always like the odd and unusual.  You, know, Edgy stuff.

That's the wrap up for this Monday Tuesday at The Edge.  It's been a busy week.  The weather looks to be good this week as well so if you're trying to reach me I'll be in The Garden.

Miscellaneous Monday

One of my best friends is coming to town next weekend.  It will be her first visit to The Edge and I'm both excited and apprehensive.  Excited because I haven't seen her in two years (she lives in California), apprehensive because my garden does not look it's best at this time of the year.

Sure my Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) October Skies is in full bloom [note to self - buy more of these next year!].

I've got a beautiful pot of ornamental peppers waiting by the door.

And my hollies are full of berries already.

But my Solidago (goldenrod) is past it's prime and likely to go down hill this week.

And I'm not a big fan of fall cleanup in the garden.  I like to leave certain plants to reseed like this Asclepias tuberosa.

Hopefully this Zinnia will reseed (who needs to buy annuals yearly?)

Other plants I leave the seed heads for the birds, like on this Rudbeckia Cappuccino.

Still others I leave the seed heads because they look interesting.  Have you ever seen anything like this Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum)?

But the California Girl is coming to see me.  And the fall foliage.

Like this Fothergillia.

She's never lived anywhere with a True Fall so we'll be driving around a lot, looking at trees.  Should be near peak fall color here.  It's not a great foliage year due to the dry summer but I'm sure we'll find something worth looking at.

In other news I finally got around to harvesting my carrots.  

I've only grown carrots once before and that was a dismal failure (in thick Carolina Clay soil) so I was very surprised to find these under ground.  I'll save some for you, California Girl!

I'm still procrastinating on the Basil harvest.  We haven't had a frost yet (knock wood) but we're over due so I'm really pushing it.  I need to harvest it, grind it up in some olive oil to make a pesto base and freeze it.  Better get to that soon or it will be too late!

So I have a lot to do both in the garden and in the house to get ready for company.  Besides mowing the lawn, dead heading what I'm willing to dead head, planting fall annuals like mums and pansies (if I can find any), and re-asphalting the driveway and sidewalk I also want to get the guest bedroom painted, the office painted, the houseplants trimmed up and a couple of them repotted, clean the house, train the dogs to be better behaved, renovate both bathrooms, lose twenty pounds...

Do you think I'll have time for all of that?

Miscellaneous Monday

Random flower picture.

My Buddleia Evil Ways (from Plant Delights) is doing good so far.  I love the combination of the yellowish-green leaves and the reddish purple flowers.  [I type yellowish-green because I'm not sure how to spell chartreuse.  Oh, wait, that's what spell check is for!  So I don't have to get up and go in the other room to get the dictionary if I want to use big words.]

Topic 2.

I've put in a bunch of Rudbeckias (from Bluestone) in one are of the Mad Garden.  I'm calling it Rudbeckia Row.  Part of the difference in plant size has to do with the Guerrilla Rabbit Invasion earlier this year.  They attacked the plants to the right in this images.  Hopefully next year we won't have such a large Invasion.

Here's a close-up of Rudbeckia hirta Cappuchino.

Here's Solar Eclipse.

Not pictured:  Prairie Sun.  Hopefully I'll have a nice bloom for next weekend's Garden Blogger Bloom Day.

Topic 3.

I also photographed some pollinators.  I have quite a variety of these small butterflies, called skippers.  I've been taking pictures to try to identify species.  These butterflies tend to skip around a lot so most pictures are not good enough to post.  These are on my Scabiosa Butterfly Blue.  Can you spot both of them?

I don't have a good guide to bees.  Too bad.  I have plenty.  These next shots are on my Mountain Mint (Pycnathemum virginianum).

Look closely at these Cappuchino flowers.  See the friend?

Topic D.  

The "big" project for The Husband this weekend was installing the patio for our grill.  Our deck is small and there just wasn't enough room.  [I had the exciting job of writing an exam for tomorrow.  The down side to working partly at home, if you procrastinate you end up loosing your weekend.]

Here's The Sweaty, Hard-Working Husband.

And here's the patio.  He actually dug down and laid a base of two types of material under the pavers.  [We still need to put down some sand to fill the cracks but we're out of sand and didn't want to drive to the Big Box store in a nearby town to pick up more.]  Way To Go Husband!

And here's the grill in it's new home.

That was my weekend.  Excluding the errand running, the bike ride, the house cleaning, the answering of frantic emails from my students, the....

Miscellaneous Monday

It's another Monday on the Edge.  It's almost the end of the semester so I'm really busy with my teaching duties.  The final will be next Monday and then - BREAK!  Woo-hoo.  Bet you didn't know teachers looked forward to the end of the semester nearly as much as the students do, did you?

Between the end of the semester busys and the high winds we've been having for the past week I haven't been keeping up with this blog so here's a few tidbits to tide you over until the semester ends and the winds die down so I can get back outside with my camera.

The most disturbing sound ever.  Sorry, I didn't record it but this little thing is the cause of a lot of trouble up here.

It's the caterpillar of the winter moth (Operophtera brumata).  It's a European species that has become a major invasive pest here in New England.  The numbers of these brats are astonishing.  They can defoliate a good sized tree in less than a week (my neighbors beautiful 20 year old weeping cherry.  She noticed the caterpillars on Friday, called a company to come spray the tree and by the time they arrived on Monday it was too late - the tree had no leaves left.  They don't go after most trees this bad but they do a lot of damage).  I found this one on the sidewalk.  Did I mention it's been windy?

I've seen birds with beaks full of these guys, carrying them back to feed nestlings but I guess the caterpillars beat most birds.  We're only now getting Warblers (most of whom eat insects) coming through and it's still early in the nesting season so not too many baby birds to be fed.

The sound?  Oh, yeah.  There are so many of these guys that when I walked back into the woods last week I could HEAR them chewing.  Very disturbing.

Three dollar orchid.  This is the bloom from an orchid I bought at a big box store for $3.  It had quit blooming and was on sale.  The flash washes the color out of bit but if you look at the flower to the left you can see a bit of greenish color.  That's the color of the petals.  Very cool looking.

I noticed that both this Phalenopsis and another one I have blooming seem to have little sparkles on the petals.  I'm not sure what causes this but it's pretty cool looking.  I guess this is the effect they're trying to replicate when they spray glitter onto the bracts of Poinsettias at Christmas.

Not a plant thing but....  The Husband has a cousin who left this 120 gallon fish tank at his parents' house for years and years.  Finally (ok, so it only took asking) we convinced him to let me have it and voila!  Yes, it's dirty and yes the stand is showing some wear and tear but after some work it's a free (well, it cost us about $100 to rent a truck to move the tank -it's four feet by two feet by two feet - and the stand) large tank.  I will put plants in it.  Probably not till next winter, after outdoor gardening season is over for the year.  This will make a nice indoor water garden.

And now for some pretty pictures.  Just because.

Tulip is Tinka (from Brent and Becky) and the shrub is a Blue Mist Fothergilla gardenii

Cute little rabbit under the Epimediums. Excuse the soaker hose.

Remember the conjoined tulip buds?  They formed two normal sized and normal shaped blooms that share a stem.  This is Hollandia and is from Messelaar's

This tulip was advertised as a 55-mph tulip.  I prefer the close up where you can see all the different colors.  This is called El Nino and is from Brent and Becky's Bulbs

This is just a nice red tulip.  I think it's called Cum Laude (unless the purple one is Cum Laude in which case this one is Hollandia.  I didn't label them.  Bad Gardener, no compost!) and it came from Messelaar's (which is just up the road from me.  So much fun to wander in and select my own bulbs.  So easy to go overboard doing it).

I like the detail inside tulip blooms.  Too bad I haven't been able to get inside the purple blooms (did I mention the winds up here, it's very hard to photograph long stemmed flowers in the wind).  The inside of those has blues and greens.  Very neat.

Wish me luck on the final exam.  Writing and grading it, I mean.  I give it next Monday.

Miscellaneous Monday

I have three mini-posts backing up in my head so I decided to lump them together for today's post.

The Mystery Spot.  We noticed last year (the first year in our current house) that an area of the back yard thawed earlier than the rest of the yard.  Then we noticed a bit of a depression in the same area.  Not much of one, it's noticeable if you look for it or if you're mowing.  This year, it's back.

 

We're not sure what is causing this.  Is this where there used to be a septic system?  Why would that warm up before the rest of the ground?  Maybe a tree used to stand there and the roots rotting away are generating heat, like in the compost bin.  Can that happen?  My latest thought is that the sump pump in the basement might be draining to an underground spot right here.  A dry well?  I don't know where our sump pump drains to so this is a definite possibility.  Or it could where the aliens land (you know, like a crop circle.)  I've always suspected The Husband might be an alien.  Nothing seems to faze him.

Shoe Pond.  In town there is a series of ponds known as Shoe Pond.  The Upper Shoe Pond is a freshwater body.  Below a dam is the Lower Shoe Pond which is brackish water.  Then there is an arm of the harbor, which is salt water.  As Spring approaches I've been watching the thaw.  The brackish water Lower Shoe Pond is now thawed and this week the Upper Shoe Pond is starting to show cracks in the ice and an area of open water where a creek drains into the pond.  AND the ducks have been returning.  It started with Canada Geese when the brackish area was only partly thawed but now we've got Mallards and I think I saw something else on the water this week but I was driving past and didn't get a good look.  Something smaller than a Mallard.  You know what this means?  That's right.  The beginning of Spring Migration - the birds are headed back North for the Summer Breeding Season.  Woo and Hoo!

Salvia elegans.  Last fall I let my Pineapple Sage die back and then I hauled the pot into the basement and left it there, watering only when I remembered it.  Last week I hauled the pot up into our Mud Room/ Plant Room and it's starting to come back.  I'm really pleased.  I didn't know if it would survive my treatment.  This plant is hard to do without come late summer when it really starts to bloom.  And the fragrance when you brush the leaves is wonderful.  One of my favorite annuals.

And since this is one of the first signs of spring for me - a Salvia elegans close up.