Human Flower Project

Saturday, February 26, 2005

More Than a Burst of Yellow

Daffodil deliveries across North America will soon begin, a human flower project to fight disease.

If you don’t know someone with cancer, you need to get out more. Nearly all of us have experienced this disease—first hand or through a friend.

Maybe that’s why the Canadian Cancer Society decided to make the friendliest of flowers its emblem. Daffodil Days, the organization’s big spring fundraiser, begins at staggered spring times across North America (in July in Australia). It depends, of course, on when the daffodils come into bloom.

Boston’s chapter of the American Cancer Society has been taking orders for March 21 delivery. The project is estimated to raise $1.4 million this year in Massachusetts alone. Daffodil Days in the U.S. Midwest will make deliveries sooner. Bouquets start at $7 a bunch there. Since the custom began in the U.S., it’s raised $176 million “for research, education, advocacy, and patient service programs.”

The philanthropic flower custom began in Toronto in the 1950s.

“A group of Canadian Cancer Society volunteers organized a fundraising tea and decided to decorate the tables with daffodils. The bright, cheerful flowers created an atmosphere that seemed to radiate hope and faith that cancer could be beaten. Soon these gatherings came to be known as Daffodil Teas.

“Jackie Brockie, a volunteer who worked at Eaton’s (a large department store), supported the idea of Daffodil Teas and arranged for Lady Eaton to host a Tea in the store. Seven hundred women attended.

“Another volunteer, Lane Knight, arranged for restaurants to give part of their receipts to the Society on the opening day of the residential canvass in 1956. Canadian Cancer Society volunteers were on hand at local restaurants to give patrons a daffodil when they paid for their meals as a token of appreciation. The sight of so many daffodils being carried around the city created interest. When some recipients tried to pay for the flowers or make donations, the Society quickly realized that the sale of daffodils would generate additional revenue.”

Nothing like flowers to turn heads and, in this case, raise consciousness!

“Today the Canadian Cancer Society is the world’s largest purchaser of daffodils and the growers in British Columbia must arrange their plantings to accommodate the Society’s spring demand for live blooms.”

To order your daffodils and find out more contact the Canadian Cancer Society, or in the U.S. the American Cancer Society (for you phone-people: 1-800-ACS-2345). You may order flowers for yourself or for a friend, or arrange to have daffodils sent anonymously to a cancer patient in your vicinity. 

Friday, February 25, 2005

New Roses and the Zeitgeist

The 2005 roses have arrived at the supermarket.

You don’t hear people use the word Zeitgeist much anymore. It used to be tossed around to mean “the spirit of the times.” Maybe today’s times are too disjointed, or too dispirited to suggest a defining theme.

Tuscan Sun, 2005

At my local H.E.B. supermarket, the roses have arrived in stacks. And yesterday, this story
introduced the most promising new varieties. “Tuscan Sun, Jackson & Perkins’s Floribunda of the Year, bears generous clusters of apricot buds opening to high-centered, bronze-blushed blossoms that age to coppery pink.” And for more strictly pink-rose people, there’s “Aromatherapy” whose blossoms “exude their sweet fragrance for days in long-lasting arrangements.”

Zeitgeist or no, these are 2005 rose names to be sure.

Prosperity, 1919

The San Jose Heritage Rose Garden website includes a terrific year by year listing of the hybrid teas introduced over the past 100+plus years. 1919 featured “Prosperity,” and during the Roaring Twenties, “Pink Pearl” and “Shot Silk” came on the market.  By 1930, a more serious mood named roses “President Herbert Hoover,” “Vanguard” and “Thomas A. Edison.” There was “V for Victory” in 1941.

President Herbert Hoover, 1930

Looking for time-bound roses, my favorites debuted in the 1950s: “Chrysler Imperial,” “Flamingo,” “Grace de Monaco,” and “Hamburger Phoenix.” Does anyone if the Hamburger Phoenix rose is brown?

The Puff era brought us “Magic Dragon” and “Pied Piper” both in 1969. “Seiko” appeared in 1975, and “Hotline” in 1981.”

To know the spirit of an age, why not begin with its “new” roses, a good idea whether there’s a Zeigeist or not.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Dandelion—Follow the Italians and Bears

Familiarity has bred contempt for this delicious and beautiful wildflower.

Emily Green of the Los Angeles Times plays Atticus Finch, in defense of dandelions. Before spraying Ortho across this spring’s crop, read this article and open your mind.

Taraxacum officinale
Photo: Missouri Botanical Garden

Long before the 17th century, dandelion had been cultivated in Europe “the greens for salads and frying, the root as a medicinal herb, the flower for wine.” Green’s article reports that there may be as many as 2000 species in the world.

Though the greens are a delicious source of iron, copper, potassium, calcium and magnesium, “outside a select band of salad lovers, we Americans stubbornly refuse to partake. For the salad gardener, it is almost unbearable. If only we were as smart as Italians. If only we had the taste of grizzly bears.”

Each yellow flower “is actually a cluster of more than 100 tiny flowers called ‘ray florets.’ As the florets mature, they drop away, leaving the parachute-like seeds poised on puffballs, waiting for a child’s breath or spring breeze to set a new crop.” Blooming dandelions wilt too fast to pose in a vase but, with sugar and fruit juice, can be made into golden wine. “Be sure,” Green advises, “to clip off all the green, keep just the florets and make sure the area hasn’t been sprayed with a pesticide.”

In astrology, dandelion belongs to Pisces, 12th and last sign of the solar year. Happy birthday to Jacque, and all our fellow fish.

Queer Etiquette

Are flowers appropriate on a first date?

The staff of Plantetout.com, an online news and entertainment site aimed at gays and lesbians, includes etiquette advisor Social Grace. Yesterday’s question:

Dear Social Grace,

When I was younger (and pseudo-straight), it was customary to bring flowers to the door, or some type of florally thing, when I showed up at a woman’s house for a date.

What do I bring a guy? Is this even necessary? I would feel good if it were done to me, but I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to schmooze the guy too much, and I think flowers for a man is a little too much.....

I’m no Miss Manners, but S.G.’s advice strikes me as sound for daters of all orientations.

“...With most first dates (unless you already know the person well), showing up at the door with a gift is not strictly necessary—a first date is often a ‘compatibility test.’ And an informal poll I conducted suggests that a majority of single people would, indeed, find first-date flowers a bit over the top.”

That said, there are, of course, people of all persuasions who LIKE “over the top.” Please send us your views.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Leonardo’s Floral Fingerprints

A painting in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, may now be attributed to Leonardo due, in part, to the appearance of two signature floral symbols.

The Adoration of the Christ Child, c. 1499
Galleria Borghese, Rome

This painting, tentatively attributed to Fra Bartolomeo, has been recently cleaned by conservators in Rome. “Once it was restored, a kind of yellowish halo could be seen in the sky in the upper left,” said chief restorer Elisabetta Zatti.  Leonardo da Vinci sometimes left such “digital imprints on work as a kind of signature.”

The painting will be flown to Krakow, Poland, next month for comparison with da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine,” which definitely bears his fingerprint.

In cleaning the Adoration painting, restorers also uncovered flowers that had been obscured by five centuries of varnish and dust. Zatti’s team found “Leonardo’s typical symbolism, such as wild primrose, which represents resurrection, and the blue veronica flower, symbol of the eyes of the Virgin Mary.” These floral discoveries serve as “fingerprints” too, and are helping build a case for the attribution to da Vinci.

Madonna of the Carnation (Detail), 1478-80
Leonardo, da Vinci,
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

We look forward to seeing those floral details, once art historians have pursued this mystery further. Meantime, through this marvelous website of masterworks, you can feast for the rest of the day on Fra Bartolomeo, Leonardo, and hundreds more artists’ masterworks. (Presumably the tiny flowers in the foreground of the Adoration here aren’t those that excited conservators, though they’re lovely.)

I went looking for veronica and wild primrose in other works by Leonardo, but can’t be sure what I’m looking for. For your viewing pleasure, though, here are a few da Vinci blossoms. Perhaps you can identify them. If so, write us, and contact the Galleria Borghese, too.

Madonna of the Flowers (The Benoit Madonna), Detail, 1478
Leonardo da Vinci
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Garden Shows: Grab the Calendar

For the next six weeks especially, there will be a profusion of flower shows across the world. Get on your traveling shoes.

The huge Northwest Flower and Garden Show ended a week ago in Seattle. Even with concern over several cases meningococcemia, Panagbenga—the flower extravaganza in Baguio, the Philippines—has begun on schedule. Early spring is the awakening season for gardens and gardeners alike, whose spring rituals include listening to lectures, shopping for plants and loads of festive ogling.

Here are just some of the many floral events coming up. Please let us know which you attend and what you see there:

Baguio Flower Festival (Panagbenga), the Philippines, Feb. 1-28

Garden Tourism Festival, Delhi, India, Feb. 21-23

Southeastern Flower Show, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2-6

Philadelphia Flower Show, March 6-13

Hong Kong Flower Show, March 11-20

New England Spring Flower Show, Boston, March 12-20

Chicago Flower and Garden Show, March 12-20

Melbourne (Australia) International Flower & Garden Show, April 6-10

Cincinnati Flower Show, April 20-24

Chelsea Flower Show, London, May 24-28
(Here’s a complete list of all Royal Horticultural Society garden shows for 2005)

Van Dusen Garden Show, Vancouver, Canada, June 9-12

Monday, February 21, 2005

With Flowers for Language

February 21st is International Mother Language Day. The people of Bangladesh, with flowers in abundance, know what that means.

The mother of one of Bangladesh’s
Language Martyrs, c. 1972.
Photo: Anwar Hossain

Today, “tens of thousands of barefooted Bangladeshis carrying flowers” crowded to remember the nation’s Language Martyrs. On this day in 1952, police near Dhaka University killed protestors as they spoke out against Islamabad’s law making Urdu the state language. Bangladesh was then part of Pakistan.

This incident inspired the Bengali-speaking citizens of “East Pakistan” to organize a movement for independence. Bangladesh separated from Pakistan in 1971.

Shahid Minar Monument
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Photo: White Hell

A permanent floral memorial to Bengali nationalism, the Shahid Minar, was installed near Dhaka University. This is where Bangladesh’s president, prime minister and opposition leader laid wreaths last night and where huge crowds came, with flowers, to pay homage today.

In 1999 The United Nations established February 21 as International Mother Language Day to promote cultural diversity and multilingualism. “Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage,” UNESCO writes. Recognizing linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world will “inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue” and lessen our need for martyrs.

UNESCO estimates that half of the world’s 6000-7000 languages are dying out.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Pruning

When to cut back roses, and how?

(l-r) Sprung hand shears 50BC; 20th C. equivalents; tool Diderot’s Encyclopédie, 1762; c.1800; Ladies’ shears, Follows and Bates catalogue, c.1900.
Photo: Museum of Garden History

“Do I have to?”

That’s how I approach pruning. Removing dead twigs and branches makes sense but—a braid down my back—I cringe to slice through healthy stems. The promise of more rose blooms, and only that, forces my hand.

The Greenville, Mississippi, Delta Democrat Times published this instructive article on pruning several few weeks ago – fortifying.

“February and early March is the best time to do major or severe pruning because plants will recover faster with the spring flush of growth.” Azaleas, camellias and gardenias are pruned later on, even as late as July, after they’ve finished blooming, but “February is the time to prune roses; actually, George Washington’s birthday has been known as the benchmark.”

Here in Texas, everyone prunes on Valentine’s Day. As February 14th approached this year, I felt a cringe coming on. On February 9th, John Levett a.k.a. Joseph Beuys Hat announced he’d begun pruning his back garden. Since John lives in England, this seemed perilously early to me, so I wrote him asking how he knew it was time.

Ballerina
Photo (and rose): Antique Rose Emporium

“There’s no voodoo about this. It’s always been the rule of thumb that you don’t prune so early that emerging shoots are going to be nipped by late frosts. I’m prepared to go out on a limb & say that Winters & early Springs in this part (East) of the UK ain’t what they used to be—they’re noticeably milder....

“When I first started growing roses some 30 years ago I usually left it until late February & expected to be completed by the first couple of weeks in March. The roses I have now will be in only their second year of flowering so if I’m too early then the vigour of them is going to compensate.”

Ah yes, compensating vigor. So February 13, a bright mild day here in Central Texas, I pulled out my clippers and went at it. This site gave me further instructions on rose pruning. It recommends waiting to prune until the “second week of March around south Puget Sound.”

1. Take out all dead wood.
2. Take out all crossed or twiggy growth.
3. Keep the center open for good air circulation.
4. Cut all canes to white or pale green pith. Any brown coloration in the pith indicates a dead or dying cane, in which case the cane should be pruned to a lower bud eye, clear to the crown if necessary, in order to find live pith.
5. Cut approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inch above a bud, on a downward slant, away from the bud.  Cut to an outside bud to make the plants grow wider. Cut to an inside bud for more upright growth on a plant that has a tendency to sprawl.
6. Use sharp tools for cutting. Use a keyhole saw or lopper to cut thick, woody, old canes.
7. Cut canes at uneven heights for a longer blooming period and better appearance.
8. Select from 3 to 6 strong basal shoots from previous year’s growth. Remove all other growth. Then prune those canes left.
9. Accomplish as many chores as possible just after pruning before the bushes have sprouted. Remove mulch from the bud union, weed, and clean up the rose garden. This prevents breaking off the new shoots when doing these things later.

This guide from the University of Illinois Extension Service includes some useful diagrams for all you visual learners.

I may have been a little light-handed (Sombreuil and Mary Daly still look a bit scraggly), but it’s all I had the heart for. Let April judge. To those who contend that flowers “like” to be pruned, please do the honors with my “Ballerina” next February. This dainty vixen was fighting back.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Carrying a Torch for Malaysian Cooking

The petals of torch ginger, flavoring seafood dishes all over Southeast Asia, are key to making Penang Laksa, a staple of Malaysian home-cooking.

Penang Laksa, with torch ginger buds at right
Photo: Cyber Kuali

If you’d care to spend this afternoon in an Asian market and concocting a tangy alternative to roast chicken for dinner, consider this Malaysian favorite—Penang Laksa. It’s a fish and noodle dish, literally souped up with chilies and the petals of a stunning tropical beauty: torch ginger.

Known as bunga kantan in Malaysia, kaalaa in Thailand, torch ginger stumped the botanists.

“In the 1980s, Rosemary Margaret Smith of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh tackled the gingers and determined this plant belonged to Etlingera, a genus first described in 1792 by Paul Dietrich Giseke. Since then, Axel Dalberg Poulsen of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands has dedicated his studies to these glorious plants. He has discovered there are at least 70 species, many not yet described, spread from India to the Pacific Islands.”

Torch ginger
Photo: Dustin P. Roebere
Killer Plants

Apparently this gorgeous flower, which blossoms 2 to 3 feet in the air, must be tasted to be believed, since descriptions I’ve found are all over a very fuzzy palate-map: “aromatic,” “spicy” “sweet” “tangy” and vaguest of all “intriguing.” Best try it yourself. So here’s a recipe for Penang Laksa, with translations for some ingredients uncommon to Westerners taken from this handy glossary of Malay cooking terms. Londoners too lazy to cook may order Penang Laksa and other Penang specialties from the menu at this restaurant in Notting Hill.

All you cooks, read on....

Continue Reading

Friday, February 18, 2005

Endangered Flower Anchors the Dune

Call it an ecological two-for-one: A rare morning glory planted along Delray Beach may reclaim the area’s disappearing dunes.

Jacquemontia reclinata
Beach cluster vine
Photo: Cynthia Lane
Center for Plant Conservation

Hurricanes last year stripped the beaches of South Florida; hootie-wild development here is killing off native plants. But conservationists and city planners are wrestling back with a brilliant strategy to save a native wildflower and the dunes with one stroke.

Mireidy Fernandez of the Sun-Sentinel reported that biologists from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, a non-profit group, received $100,000 from the state department of agriculture to study the hurricane-scarred coastline and choose a site where beach cluster vine would stand the best chance to survive. On Wednesday biologists and volunteers planted 100 of these native morning glories along the north end of Delray’s city beach.

Samuel Wright of Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden and
others plant rare Jacquemontia vines at Delray Beach, Florida.
Photo: Andres Gonzalez, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Jacquemontia reclinata was declared an endangered species in 1993. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Beach jacquemontia is presently known to occur at 12 sites” only, a casualty of “beach erosion, shade from Australian pines (Casuarina spp.), and manicured landscaping.” The federal wildlife service estimates that the number of cluster vine plants remaining “in the wild may total no more than a few hundred.”

But research biologists noted that hurricane damage might actually create hospitable conditions for cluster vine’s revival. “The Virginia Key population thrived” after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The Fairchild/Delray effort with Jacquemontia shows how good ecology is compounded. If this white flower takes hold, a vanishing native plant will be fortified, the Delray Beach conserved, and a biological experiment conducted in one swoop. A case of noon, night and morning “glory.”