Human Flower Project
Gardening & Landscape
New Haven, Connecticut USA
Philadelphia, PA USA
Kodiak Island, Alaska, USA
Friday, April 06, 2012
Under the Lash of Beauty
Our rose failures outnumber our successes, but it’s spring. Who’s counting?
View from inside Wanda’s house, Smithville, Texas 4/5/12
Photo: Human Flower Project
Roses we have killed:
Lafter
Ballerina
Crepuscule
Great Western
Sombrueil
Coquette des Blanches
Zepherine Drouhin
Mme Isaac Perriere
Ducher
Is that enough? Considering that memory’s not all that thorough, especially where failures are concerned, we’ve likely underreported.
Fantasies we have entertained, with varying degrees of persistence:
the Texas State Domino championship
daily meditation
landing an academic job in the Sociology of Culture at middle age
an up-do
learning Czech
expecting a thank-you note from anyone under 30 (make that 35)
getting a feature story in the NY Times Magazine
good posture
starting to play the accordion at age 58
(Definite under-reporting here.)
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
The Pollination Racket
A new study of birds finds that human noise is tough on pines but a boon to skyrocket flowers.
Will earplugs be the next trendy gardening accessory, this year’s Crocs?
New research by Clinton D. Francis and his colleagues suggest that in some environments anyway, noise may actually improve flower pollination. It’s a finding that will much dismay those of us who think of puttering outside as a respite from racket.
Francis and his team examined the effects of noise on plant pollination by setting up experimental stations at two spots within the Rattlesnake Canyon Wildlife Area in northwestern New Mexico. One location was relatively quiet, but the other was adjacent to a natural gas well operation, with big machinery and compressors at work around the clock.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Profligacy Is the Best Policy
Not one to be “designed,” poppies have a field day this March in Texas.
The March poppy crop, Austin, TX, more on the way
Photo: Human Flower Project
“I cannot get too many Renoirs,” Albert Barnes confided to friend and fellow art collector Leo Stein, 1913.
We know the feeling, except our greediness grasps in other directions – accordions, Triscuits, poppies.
It started out innocently enough, with seed from Ellen Zimmermann – the salmon colored and fluffy Shirley poppy she called ‘Dorothy Cavenaugh’ for her friend, the former president of Austin’s herb society. Those beauties performed so well in the side yard, we tried some red papaver somniferum. (We understand why the Afghan farmers go for this crop – it’s a cinch.)
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Garden Inspiration: Yin or Yang
Allen Bush, just back from a major conference of plantsmen, remembers two impossibilities and several mentors that sealed his gardening fate.
Agastache ‘Tango’
Photo: Jelitto Seed
By Allen Bush
I’d barely shoved-off from the hotel curbside when the cab driver asked abruptly, “What’s your name?” I hadn’t swept the sleep from my eyes but I knew where this was going. It’s not commonplace anymore, but the Bush on my nametag still draws the occasional question: “Are you related to George Bush?” (I always feel like I’m being lobbed a soft one. )
“He’s my father.”
“You’re kidding?!”
My father’s name was George. When Bush the elder was President, besotted bar flies would occasionally get the fool idea to call the commander in chief in the middle of the night. My father was the only George Bush listed in the Louisville directory. (It must have been much too complicated to call Washington-D.C. directory assistance in the wee hours to get the White House switchboard.) Dad hung-up three or four times before he had his name taken out of the phone book. Listening to a slurred Pledge of Allegiance at 2:00 a.m was not his patriotic duty.
Moses, the Nigerian cab driver, talked non-stop for 15 minutes from downtown all the way up North Charles Street to the Sheppard Pratt Conference Center. I got an earful about politicians (none were to be trusted) and the Bushes. I wanted only a little quiet.