Human Flower Project

Monday, July 31, 2006

Erosion v. Eruption: Lupine in Iceland

Is Lupinus nootkatensis a panacea or peril?

Nookta Lupines in Iceland
Photo: Jorgen Aabech

Grain by grain, Iceland is blowing away. Soil erosion is a huge problem on this treeless, windy island, and the harsh climate discourages most plants from taking hold.

In 1945, someone (we’ve yet to discover who) had the brilliant blue idea of introducing Lupinus nootkatensis, Nootka lupine. This Alaskan native (most definitely a majestic relative of our Texas bluebonnet) flourished. Lupine plants anchored the soil and enriched it too; the flowers are stunning!

But Iceland may have too much of a good thing. Tina Butler reports that Nootka lupine’s success has meant the demise of many native plants. In some regions, she writes, lupine fields have degenerated after 15-20 years, leaving richer soil behind, but in many other locations, “the comparatively tall lupine creates a canopy over the previously dominant lichens, mosses, and low shrubs, causing these species to decline in the newly formed shade. Ultimately, species diversity among plants declines as the lupine spreads.”

Borgthor Magnusson, of Reykjavik’s Agricultural Research Institute, writes, “Once the lupine has become established, it is very difficult to control its spread. Efforts to do so, for example, in the Skaftafell National Park in southeast Iceland, have proven ineffective. Grazing sheep prevent the spread of the lupine by eating the seedlings, but the overall decline in sheep farming in Iceland has left many large lowland areas free of grazing.”

If only we could go back 1100 years. That’s when Iceland’s trees were all cut down, creating the erosion problem in the first place. If only someone had introduced a different, less aggressive form of lupine...if only Iceland could recruit a few thousand more sheep-herders....

Tina Butler writes, “The cause to reforest Iceland may be a noble one for some, but others believe it is too late to try and restore the country’s original ecosystem, believing it is better to let the sand, sea and wind lay their claim to the land.” Butler’s fine article shows how, as rivers find the sea, ecological questions flow into aesthetics and ethics.

For lots more about the complexities of plant ecology, check out Jennifer Forman Orth’s Invasive Species Weblog.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Here’s Comes the Bouquet, er uh, Bride

Johannesburg’s fashion crowd swoons for Franz Grabe.

Wedding dress by Julian & Franz Grabe
South Africa Fashion Week, July 2006
Photo: iAfrica

We always suspected that flowers figured so prominently at weddings to distract everyone from the bride’s imperfections. In our own wedding pictures, a bad haircut, tired eyes, tension, and a thrift shop ensemble are nearly blotted out by the biggest handful of July zinnias Louisville gardens could produce.

Now South African floral designer Franz Grabe, noted for his all-organic-flower couture, proves the point. On Day One of South Africa Fashion Week Grabe, ever a crowd favorite, received ah-mens for his all blossom bridal gown. Working with designer Julian, Grabe’s couture ”stole the show,” according to Lize de Kock. And that’s just what the bride is entitled to, right?

Franz Grabe Flower Couture, 2003
Photo: South African Fashion Designers

We found not nearly enough about Grabe, who apparently has been designing floral clothing for a number of years now. This site shows a few outfits for Him, also, including a smoking jacket with shiny frond lapels.

A few years back, Grabe collaborated with Coenie Hattingh on a 17-piece collection. “The garments, which Hattingh refers to as ‘disposable fashion,’ cost as much as R10,000 ($1456 USD) and last up to two days depending on the flowers and plants used.”

“Disposable,” actually isn’t right for either flowers or fashion. “Ephemeral,” maybe, or how about “recyclable,” since fashion is the only world we know where ever few years white (or green or pink...) will be new-new-new.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Scan That Sunflower

Barcodes may be the breakthrough method for cataloguing the Earth’s 10 million plants and animals.

Yellow Flowers Barcoded
Paitning by Dion Laurent

Despite centuries of work by plant taxonomists, only a fifth of the world’s species has been accurately catalogued.  Meanwhile, pollution, deforestation, and zealous land development are killing off tree and flower species (animals, too) with each passing day. There’s a sense of urgency about stepping up the process of identification, but how?

Molecular biologist Kenneth Cameron and others are hoping to perfect a barcoding system that, with the swipe of a scanner, could distinguish closely related species and give every plant on earth an instant ID. In yesterday’s Wall St. Journal, Sharon Begley profiled Cameron and his work. “DNA bar coding depends on analyzing part of just one gene, the same gene in all cases, for every species. If and when a DNA bar code database of all terrestrial plant and animal species is established, a field biologist could take a tiny piece of tissue, like a scale or hair or leaf, from the unknown specimen, and feed it into a hand-held device for analysis.” The process works on tissues up to 20 years old.

The New York Times ran a piece in December 2004 that focused on successful barcoding of animals, with “the first 648 DNA units of a gene called CO1 (for cytochrome c oxidase 1).” The method has been tougher to apply among plants since plant species have more similar DNA and hybridize so much more easily. Cameron and others have been closing in on several promising strands of plant DNA that might offer a unique “thumbprint” but thus far none can entirely single out every species. Some scientists even doubt whether such a strand of DNA exists in the plant world.

For you hard scientists, here’s a scholarly paper on the subject. Have at it and let us know what you think.

Those of us who still look for price tags on the peanut butter jar may be asking, Why bother? At the current rate of traditional taxonomic research, Dr. Quentin Wheeler of Cornell University, says, “We will need 1,196 years to complete the job,” of identifying all bugs, critters, trees, and flowers:  too late for the many thousands of species already scudding toward extinction. Begley writes that successful barcoding also could “make life easier for customs inspectors trying to catch trade in endangered species, not to mention for mushroom hunters unsure whether a specimen is a luscious morel or a toxic amanita. Slip a pinch into your bar coder and live to forage another day.”

Thanks and love to for alerting us to this story.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Botanical Brindle-Fly

Addled by the summer heat? So are we. Here are some ”Plantimals” for your delectation, best observed after a hatless hour in the Texas sun.

Flawingo by Savagedi
via Worth 1000

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Another Lebanon

A doctor in Northern Lebanon shares the glory of his country with an unreliable world.

Gina Ghanem El Nabbout, and roses
Photo: Sassine El Nabbout

Did you think Lebanon was a country of dusty roads and Jeeps?

Sassine Michel El Nabbout, a doctor in Northern Lebanon, knows a very different land, and now we do too. Sassine’s portfolio at Webshots is a trove of Lebanese landscapes, people and flowers, all conveyed with a light, energetic touch. One collection shows nothing but roses, another wildflowers and another the landscape of Aadbel, pearl-pink with blooming almond trees. For you gardeners, there is also an album of flowers from Sassine’s own village: “Each one of them means something to me,” he writes, “& I know each one of them separately. I love them as people, so enjoy this love with me.”

We can’t recall hearing a physician speak or write like that.

Spring wildflowers, Lebanon
Photo: Sassine El Nabbout

Flowers abound at a cousin’s recent wedding. Country trails sparkle, and in the Becharri we see the giant old cedars that inspired the Lebanese flag.

How does he manage all this, and see patients, too? Sassine also has a blog, which in the past week mixes sunsets and demonstrations, parables and videos.

“From Me to U” in the Gebrayal Forest, Lebanon
Photo: Sassine El Nabbout

Perhaps Dr. EL Nabbout’s most overt Human Flower Project is his group of blossom-pictures each dedicated to someone elsewhere in the world. “To The Memory Of Lebanon In Canada, Cyboura Akl “..."For The Eye Of Slovenia, Stanko"..."To The Friend Who Shares With Me The Love Of Peace, Uriah Yaniv.”

Thank you, Sassine, photographer and healer.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Pernambuco: Play On!

Bowmakers, environmentalists and now musicians too are orchestrating conservation of the pau brasil tree.

Pernambuco nursery
Photo: IPCI

Thank you, Margaret Adie, for introducing us to the most melodious of flowering plants: Caesalpinia echinata, the pernambuco tree of Brazil’s Atlantic forest.

A bowmaker by trade, Margaret extols the strength, flexibility and beauty of pernambuco (A.K.A. pau brazil). Its slow growing heartwood has been favored for “fiddlesticks” since the 19th century, with a top quality new bow of the native Brazilian tree starting at about $2000. Margaret tells us that a fine old bow “can sell for up to
$50,000.”

Viola bow, pernambuco wood with silver mountings
Photo: Lynn Armour Hannings

It may not be long, however, before one won’t be able to find a pernambuco bow at any price. 90% of the Mata Atlantica, or Brazilian Atlantic forest, has been cut. For three hundred years, beginning in the 16th century, pernambuco trees were harvested and shipped east for the European dye trade. Then in the mid 19th century, the Tourte brothers of France discovered that pernambuco was heaven-sent material for violin, viola and cello bows. Ever since, bowmakers in Brazil and across the world have scrambled to get their hands on the precious orangey heartwood.

In the past ten years, with increased deforestation of the Mata Atlantic, craftspeople have faced the music. Bowmakers and musicians from eighteen countries have become ecologists through the International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative. With the real possibility of pernambuco’s extinction within earshot, they’re coming together to promote sustainable use of this precious resource and generate stands of pau brasil for the future. 

Caesalpinia echinata in bloom
Photo: Ad Naturam

Living on Earth aired a good radio piece on this subject. Brazilian bloggers have sounded the alarm. Check out bowmaker Lynn Armour Hanning’s site with beautiful cards of pernambuco blossoms for sale, as well as pointers on how to go about choosing a bow.

We are, of course, drawn by the lovely pernambuco blossoms, fragrant and bright yellow “with a blood red blotch.” It takes 3-4 years before pau brasil plants begin blooming, the blossoms lasting only a day or two. Pernambuco trees not only produce flowers, they wear them, hosting orchids and other epiphytes.

Again, thank you, Margaret, for information and inspiration. May the pernambuco play on.

Monday, July 24, 2006

‘I Grow the White Rose’

From Jose Marti, Cuban poet and fighter for democracy, “the warrior who never took a life.”

Jose’ Marti and friend
Photo: Free Cuba Foundation

Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca

Cultivo una rosa blanca
En julio como en enero,
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazon con que vivo,
Cardo ni ortiga cultivo,
Cultivo una rosa blanca.

Jose Marti (1853-1895)

I Grow the White Rose

I grow the white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his frank hand

And for the cruel one who tears out
The heart with which I live.
Neither thorn nor thistle do I grow;
I grow the white rose.

Jose Marti (1853-1895)

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Flowers in Purgatory

Note: Today we’re honored to post John Williams’ superb report on gardening and floristry projects in several North American prisons. Williams, based in Greater Chicago, is a “flower-lover” and business writer whose clients include 1-800-FLORALS.  Rehabilitation, aesthetics, nutrition, productivity, magic—gardening’s rewards are the same on both sides of the razor wire.

Thank you, John!

Garden at Purgatory Correctional Facility
Photo: The Hurricane Journal

By John Williams

It’s not surprising that Tony Perez enjoys his time in the garden.  “It’s wonderful—to watch it grow from nothing to something,” said Perez. “It allows you to get your mind thinking about what’s next in life.” But Perez’s garden spot is surprising: he works the soil in Utah’s Purgatory Correctional Facility, where he is an inmate.

What used to be a guard-dog training area in the prison is now an oasis of shade tarps, vegetables, fruit trees and vines.  According to the Hurricane Valley Journal, “The garden began with just growing flowers and other plants that could be used to beautify county and public buildings. With a lot of hard work and effort, the garden has expanded to not only include flowers, but several varieties of vegetable plants and plans for a greenhouse.”

The garden is part of the prison’s inmate-management program, a hands-on approach that involves washing cars, construction, road clean-up, and work release opportunities too.  Lt. Bob Cannon and Sgt. Tim Wiegert oversee the program.  With the help of inmates and volunteers, Wiegert spent two weeks tilling the soil and preparing the plot. Most of the plants, irrigation equipment, fertilizer, shade covers, and concrete have been donated, and a state university extension agent has guided the project along.

The garden helps brighten up a dismal place.  And its zucchini and tomatoes supplement the more than 80 pounds of vegetables served each mealtime at the institution. Just as important, the program teaches inmates responsibility and skills.  Three inmates, including Perez, were initially assigned to the garden crew, and others have chipped in, expressing interest in joining the regular group. Perez has already been offered a job at a local nursery.

Plans for the fall include growing pumpkins to donate to local elementary schools for carving and decoration, an idea that came from one of the prisoners.  “I’m very impressed to see the inmates get involved,” said Wiegert.

Purgatory is not the only prison to implement such a program. As far back as World War I, gardens have been documented in prisoner of war camps, such as the P.O.W. camp at Ruhleben, Germany, where British prisoners formed their own gardening club and were accepted into Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society.

June Strandberg
founder of the Beginnings program
Photo: Robert Karpa

Even so, it wasn’t easy for June Strandberg, the owner of Bayside School of Floral Design, when she decided she wanted to teach floral design to inmates at a women’s correctional facility in Vancouver, Canada. Inspired by two parolees who enrolled in her school and excelled under her tutelage, Strandberg campaigned for the idea after gaining support from Beverly Roest, the program director for the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women. After a yearlong battle, the program “Beginnings” was launched in 1991 and met with astounding success. For the next 13 years, Beginnings crafted floral arrangements for more than 1,600 weddings, hosted annual floral shows, and created a number of award winning pieces, enabling many women to find their way back to free society.

More recently, gardening and floral programs have begun in correctional institutions across the U.S., meeting with surprising success. Not only do the programs brighten the atmosphere and provide inmates with productive work, they often – as at Purgatory—help cut food costs. Others, as at Beginnings, generate florist revenue through collaboration with local flower shops or more directly, with an operation based at the prison itself.

Gardening behind walls
Elmore County, Alabama
Photo: Alabama Dept. of Corrections

Today, at the state corrections facility in Elmore County, Alabama, inmates are cultivating a new garden behind walls.  They plan to send the flowers they grow to local nursing homes and services for the elderly, reports the Montgomery Advertiser. “I’ve never really started something and carried it all the way through,” said William Kizziah, one of several inmates who works in the garden.  Thanks to a local ministry known as the Order of St. Dismas, another garden has already sprouted up at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, and a third is being planned for Alabama’s nearby Staton Correctional Facility.

In Ohio, the Mansfield Correctional Institution’s horticultural program helps inmates grow plants to beautify the institution and surrounding community.  The prison, local schools, and Ohio State Patrol Grounds are all decorated with the results.

In Massachusetts, nine hot houses and a farm are operated by the Barnstable County Jail, where inmates grow and sell some 40,000 annuals each year.  The program was developed 12 years ago to teach flower growing and business basics. The farm grows vegetables, trees and hay.  Food grown on the farm is used for inmates or donated to food pantries. According to the Barnstable Patriot, “Any profit from the sale of products is plowed into the programs for the inmates, such as hiring additional drug and alcohol counselors, buying computers and paying for educational programs.”

Illinois has an especially well developed program. Since 1994, when the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) began collaborating with the state’s Department of Agriculture, IDOC inmates have helped cultivate more than 230 flowerbeds and 300 other floral baskets and containers at the 360-acre Illinois Fairgrounds. “Such programs not only benefit our communities and help inmates return to society but also serve as a valuable asset to the taxpayer,” says IDOC Director Roger E. Walker Jr. “The agency’s work camps serve… by giving inmates a structured, specialized agenda that develops responsibility, self discipline, self-respect and the importance of a good work ethic.”

With the help of local volunteers, horticultural experts, and civic support, green prison programs are making a difference for inmates and communities. According to Sgt. Wiegert, “We want to show people what we are doing and how they can benefit.” J.R. Phillip, a sixty-year veteran of the floral business, couldn’t agree more.  “Not only do flowers and plants brighten up our everyday lives,” said Phillip, “but in some cases they give life a whole new beginning.”

Friday, July 21, 2006

Tara Wears Size 3500

Announcing the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest flower show, a supermodel puts on petals.

Model Tara Moss walks the talk
Photo: ABC

It’s the oldest and the most irresistible come on of all time: a big, beautiful female body plus flowers, bright red ones in this case.

Floriade, the monster springtime flower and garden show in Canberra, Australia, is nearly a month off, but the attention seeking has begun. Yesterday, Canadian model Tara Moss put on, rather uncomfortably it appears, a rose petal dress and vogued for publicity shots to announce the 2006 event.

That’s quite a lure, and of course we’re biting.

Floriade will run September 16 through October 15 and is expected to bring about 300,000 visitors to Canberra’s Commonwealth Park. This year’s event highlights internationalism, with 16 special garden beds for nations with outstanding floral festivals of their own, among them Colombia, Turkey, Spain, and Japan.

Tara Moss holds up well
Photo: Canberra Times

It took floral designer Susie Dunn 12 hours to assemble Moss’s dress, perhaps longer than anticipated. Moss, 6’1”, noted, “They originally had two thousand rose petals [on the dress] but then they realised how tall I was - we now have 3 thousand rose petals that make up this dress.” Ah, Tara, we’re all prone to a bit of subtraction under these circumstances; the Floriade press office says 3500 petals went into your costume.

An experienced fashion model (also a crime fiction writer, we learn), Moss put on a big smile but seemed a bit uneasy in her all-floral garb. In several photos, she’s wrapped one arm strategically about her waist. It’s been awhile, but we recognize that pose: from the first time we wore a strapless bra. 

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Peach and Flowers for Myanmar’s Martyrs

Barred from the nation’s sacred mausoleum, young activists mourn in the street behind a floral barricade.

Members of the National Democratic League
in Yangon, Myanmar, paid respects to the
country’s martyrs from afar yesterday after
police blocked them from the national shrine.
Photo: Associated Press

July 19 in Myanmar, formerly Burma, is Martyrs’ Day. On this day in 1947 General Aung Sang and eight supporters were murdered in Rangoon as they met to further the Burmese movement for independence from British rule. The Martyrs Mausoleum near the foot of Shwedegon Pagoda Hill in Yangon (as Rangoon has been renamed) is a sacred nexus, where historical memory, national pride, ancestry, and power converge.

The mausoleum itself was bombed by North Korea in 1983, when South Korean officials visited Burma. Twenty-one people died and 47 more were injured in that attack. In other words, this is no ordinary memorial. Rather it’s a cultural and political proving ground, just the sort of place where one finds flowers opening in civic demonstration.

General Aung Sang died just six months before Burma gained its independence. His daughter is 61-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been intermittently under house arrest since she returned in 1988. Eight years ago, less repressive times, she was permitted to bring three wreaths to the mausoleum on Martyrs Day, but not this year. Though physically restrained by the Myanmar government, Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement and the National League for Democracy party continue to pulse and act, florally and otherwise.

This year young supporters of the NLD wearing their distinctive peach attire were not permitted to approach the shrine. According to the Associated Press, about 200 NLD supporters were repulsed by authorities in Yangon yesterday. “After nearly 20 minutes stand-off between authorities stationed at the road-block, the NLD members placed four flower baskets in the middle of the street facing the Martyr’s mausoleum and paid tribute to the slain leaders, in an act of defiance.”

Once again, the right to lay memorial flowers becomes an international sign of popular legitimacy. Whoever brings a wreath or basket says, “The legacy is mine. I claim it with my presence and my offering of living beauty. See for yourself!” (Sidenote: Readers from 154 countries have visited the Human Flower Project but, so far as we can tell, not one from Myanmar. Yet.)

We’re awed by the courageous young people of the NLD who tried to exercise their right yesterday. May blossoms shield them and vivid non-violence prevail.