Human Flower Project

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Uncool- Flower Delivery’s Future?

Three Japanese companies develop a brave new way to send cut flowers.

Cold cathode tube
Photo: The Silicon Group

There’s a big surplus of cut flowers in the world. Harder to come by than blossoms are, first, the money to keep the dying blooms beautiful and, second, customers.

Matsushita Electric Works has been tinkering with the survival problem and now announces that, in collaboration with two other companies, it will introduce an ultra-new preservation method to the public next month.

The futuristic flower delivery system replaces refrigeration (a huge cost in transport) with snazzy lighting which the company claims “can keep flowers fresh during delivery even at room temperatures of up to 25C” (that’s 77F). Reporter Aki Tsukioka writes that with the new method “LEDs (DC24V 0.3A, 7.2W) and cold-cathode tubes (DC24V 0.2A, 4.8W), help maintain the quality and freshness of flowers through photosynthesis.” Matsushita claims the light system is cheaper than elaborate cold chains—the cases, trucks, and planes all kept at 10-15C (50-59F) chilling cut flowers until you take possession of them.

Those squeamish about plugging in table lamps should not try to explain this process, and thus far we haven’t found further information about it through Matsushita. The company is likely waiting to spring the details in late October, at the Third International Flower Expo in Tokyo. We’ll hope to provide specifics then. For the moment, this sounds like an exciting development, especially for countries of the Third World, where flower production is booming but transportation costs are hampering success. Too bright to be true? Maybe.

More to come....

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Sad for Glads

Scientists track killer fungus from Hawaii to a Florida flower farm, four generations old.

Gladiolus rust
Photo: USDA

Score one for the plant epidemiologists, and pity the Preston family, who’ve been growing gladiolus on Florida’s Gulf Coast since 1937.

After detecting Uromyces transversalis on plants in Hawaii, ag inspectors fanned out to track the culprit down. The fungus, which usually attacks hybrid gladiolus, seems to have originated in eastern and southern Africa, and has been “reported from Morocco, southern Europe (questionably from France and, Spain, possibly established in Italy, Malta, and Portugal), South America (Argentina, Brazil), Martinique, Australia, New Zealand and has recently been intercepted from Mexico.” That’s a wide swath of the world. The Hawaiian case of “gladiolus rust” sent scientists to California, and then Florida, to Manatee Floral.

Manatee red, pink and orange
Photo: Manatee Floral

Anthony Cormier reports the sad tale.

“A pathologist in Hawaii first saw the telltale signs of the rust: red pustules, blotchy spikes, a creeping fungus that attacks the leaves.” The infected glads were tracked to a shipment from the Preston family’s farm. “Weeks after their discovery, scientists confirmed the rust in Manatee and went flower-by-flower through 750 acres. Shipments were temporarily halted, and the company’s prized stock suffered a serious blow.” For not only were flowers destroyed: The farmers had “to kill numerous prized glad bulbs that form the basis of their annual crop,” bulbs developed over seventy years of work and care.

Investigators knocked on the doors of some 50 area gardeners, too, and found eight more cases of gladiolus rust. “"Fortunately, this was a small outbreak,” said Jennifer Sparks, the vice president of marketing at the Society of American Florists. “It’s been eradicated already, but there was no threat to the consumer. The problem is for the grower.”

And how.

The Prestons were pioneer nurserymen along the Gulf Coast in Florida, starting out with lemon orchards in 1892. We wish them a strong and swift recovery.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Cinquefoil: I’ve Got a Secret

A white rose is still mysteriously fresh after five centuries.

Rose (cinquefoil)
w/barbed vert, seeded gules
Image: The Heraldic Primer

At the Musee National du Moyen Age – what English speakers in Paris call “The Cluny Museum” – flowers bloom by the thousands, most of them five hundred years old. In tapestry, stone, gold, and now in the museum’s surrounding gardens, human flower projects endure, though their meanings mostly elude us.

One of the most stunning is a panel of stained glass made around 1467 in the workshop of master glazier Peter Hemmel of Strasbourg. It’s displayed in a dark room, backlit, the better to savor its color and detail. At the risk of sounding like a rube, we thought Sainte Chapelle – St. Louis’s giant jewel-box on the Ile de la Cite – was a squandering of splendor. Its stained glass miracles, too far off even for adolescent eyes to make out, dissolved into a huge, heavy kaleidoscope. (Being a secularist many centuries after the fact, perhaps we miss the point, though….)

In any case it was thrilling to see the art of Hemmel’s atelier up close. This piece, so we learned, shows the Mullenheim family coat-of-arms. We haven’t been able to discover much about the Mullenheims, just that they were powerful in Alsace in the 14-15th centuries. One site says that they took over the Ortenbourg Castle (presumably that took arm twisting) in 1314 and hung onto the place until 1469, just after this stained glass tribute was made. They reclaimed the castle in 1475 but by 1563 had abandoned it to robbers.

Glass panel by the Atelier of Peter Hemmel, c. 1467
at the Musee National du Moyen Age, Paris
Photo: Bill Bishop

The white flower so prominent here, on both the shield and the figure’s breast, is a stylized, wild rose, usually called a cinquefoil. (Cinquefoil also refers to a species of strawberry flower, likewise with five-petals.) Along with the fleur de lis, thistle and trefoil (shamrock), it is the most prevalent flower of heraldry. But what does the cinquefoil mean? Medieval artists were geniuses of ornament yet their imagery was more than decorative. Hemmel’s workshop could produce only about 15 glass panels per year. So one can be sure that every form on every piece, as well as being beautiful, bore a message.

One clue, from a site all about the first families of Alsace, says, “the rose was often used in Germanic courts of the middle ages as a symbol of discretion, and it was not therefore surprising that the magistrates of the town chose it as their ‘sceau secret’” (a seal marking certain documents “top secret").

The association of roses and secrecy goes back to classical mythology, Aphrodite giving the rose to her son Eros, god of Love. “Eros gave the rose to Harpocrates, the God of silence, to induce him not to gossip about his Mother’s indiscretions. Thus the rose became the emblem of silence and secrecy. In the middle ages a rose was suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber, pledging all present to secrecy, or sub Rosa, ‘under the Rose.’” (We had thought this was a Roman custom, as perhaps it had been.)

So can we take Herr Mullenheim, emblazoned with the cinquefoil, for a tight-lipped judge or a CIA agent of the 15th century (as well as the edgy inheritor of a stolen castle)? For now, the secret appears to be safe with Peter Hemmel and his 15th century associates.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Oh, What a Lovely Coup

The military takeover of Thailand decorates with forced smiles and flowers.

An armoured vehicle is softened with flowers in Bangkok
Photo: Mike Clarke, for AFP

Taking its cue, perhaps, from the red rose revolutionaries of Georgia (2003), leaders of this past week’s military overthrow of the Thailand government have ordered smiles all around. “Army radio broadcasts are reminding soldiers to be friendly and courteous, especially to children and anyone who wants to take pictures with them.”

Tanks rolled into Bangkok Tuesday night, deposing populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. By Wednesday morning, we were seeing pictures of citizens handing roses to soldiers and pots of chrysanthemums stationed atop artillery. “Many Thais have described this as the friendliest coup this country has ever seen,” says one report, “the last one in 1991 ended with at least 50 pro-democracy demonstrators gunned down in Bangkok.” Thailand has experienced 18 coups since 1932, when its constitutional monarchy began.

One poll shows more than 80 percent of Thai citizens support the military. The all-smiles overthrow has been bloodless so far, and army leaders have promised to restore democratic rule soon. Not good enough, say some.

Several news accounts suggest there really is broad support for the military action, something hard for us in the US to imagine. Though Thaksin Shinawatra is popular in the countryside, middle-class and urban Thais had generally denounced him, and boycotted elections this past spring.

Floral barricade in Bangkok Wednesday required armed guards, too
Photo: Ed Wray, for AP

Jonathan Head’s story for the BBC, with lingering questions, offers some background. He writes that Thaksin “meddled with the simmering conflict in the Muslim south, putting it under the authority of the police, instead of the army. The result was a disaster and five years later more than 1,500 have died and the central government has lost control of the region. Mr. Thaksin declared a war on drugs, giving police-led death squads licence to kill any suspected dealers. An estimated 2,000 died in that operation. But worst of all, he ignored pleas from the king to moderate his policies. Instead he re-shuffled key military and civil service positions to try to eclipse the old royalist elite.”

Harmony, many commentators have stressed, is prized in Thailand. It’s not just a matter of appeasing tourists, who—outside Bangkok anyway—seem to be oblivious to the coup, but of a deeper cultural ethic, embodied in the nation’s gentle flower-loving king.

We are intently curious to know who supplied the blooms for Thailand’s coup. Did they indeed pour out of a grateful citizenry or, like the army’s mandated smiles, were they presented on command, to soften the hard fact of a totalitarian maneuver?  Are they Thailand’s version of the GW Bush team’s ludicrous banner: “Mission Accomplished”?

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Last Minute Knots

On the eve of Ramadan, couples need to wed now or wait until next year.

Wedding car in Kandahar
Photo: Rodney Cocks, via Lonely Planet

It’s the 11th hour of wedding season in Afghanistan; actually, it’s more like 11:55. The holy month of fasting begins tomorrow. 

”Ramadan is no time for marriage. Muslims cannot eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. Evenings are given over to prayer. Then it is early to bed so everyone can get up around 4:00 am for a quick bite before the sun rises.

“The holy month ends with the three-day Eid al-Fitr celebration. But in Afghanistan the period between this holiday and the Eid al-Adha festival two months later is viewed as an inauspicious one for marriage.”

Afghan marriages, traditionally arranged by the couple’s parents, involve many sorts of rituals—of dance, henna-dyed hands, and dowries. The big floral element of these affairs seems to be the decorated wedding car (these days, usually a Toyota Corolla), festooned with flowers and ribbon.

Headed for the groom’s house
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Photo: Rodney Cocks, via Lonely Planet

“A gaudy rainbow of ribbons, plastic flowers and streamers adorn the vehicles, painstakingly affixed with miles of sticky tape by the numerous wedding shops that have sprung up in the downtown area. Accidents regularly occur with wedding cars as they are so heavily decorated the drivers can barely see out of the windscreen.”

After the vows and a long reception, the couple drives to the groom’s parents’ house in this cake on wheels. Once they arrive, the bride will ceremonially refuse to leave the vehicle.

“Everyone will insist and would ask her to get off the car but she won’t listen to them until she is promised some property by the groom’s father.” Once that’s done, she’ll emerge.  “When she steps on the ground, a chicken or a sheep is sacrificed under her foot, and a little blood is rubbed on the bride’s shoe. A number of girls take the bride to her bedroom to take her wedding gown off and dress her up with her night suit.”

At Gul-e-Maryam flower shop, Kabul
Photo: ICRC

Of course, this has been the busy season for hall-owners, chauffeurs, musicians, and florists. A report featuring one of the hundreds of flower shop owners in Kabul disclosed that today most wedding flowers are artificial ones, made in China. And “the cost for decorating the bridal car can vary between 500 and 1,000 Afghanis, (10-20 US dollars). Floral decorations for the hall, tables, and bridal suite cost, on average, another 1,000 Afghanis, although orders can sometimes run as high as 100 US dollars.”

Whether your gladioli are real or silk, best be taping them to that Toyota in a hurry. All good wishes to the newlyweds in Afghanistan.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Peonies, Through an Alaskan Window

Now, when peonies have vanished from the rest of the globe, Alaska is sitting pretty.

An English cottage garden, in Alaska
Photo: David Goodgame

Where are the harpoons and polar bears? This is Alaska??

Indeed it is, and ag scientists—following in the footsteps of several seasoned flower gardeners—see a business opportunity in that blooming incongruity, namely peonies. Some of the most adored flowers in all the world, they have a short bloom season. “Most peonies come from Israel in April, Southern Europe in May, and Great Britain in June. After that, there’s none available until October, when New Zealand and Australia start to export their crop.” Meaning there are three months of every year when peony-lovers have gone without.

Except for some savvy Alaskan gardeners. Judith Wilmarth of Anchorage has been growing peonies since 1985; she’s provided this online primer for producing these luscious flowers. And David Goodgame, focusing on delphiniums, roses and lilies, will melt your igloo with his amazing gardening successes—peonies included.

Yellow Itoh ‘Garden Treasure’
Photo: Alaska Master Gardeners

In Rosie Milligan’s report, UAF researcher Patricia Holloway says she’s been offered “$1.25 a stem for fresh peonies during the seasonal dead time”—a window of opportunity that’s open from July to late September.  “She has concluded that it is possible to grow 100,000 stems per acre with the buyer paying for shipping. That’s $125,000 for an acre worth of peonies.”

One of the reasons peonies do so well up here is that they actually thrive under an insulation blanket of snow. “In 2005, Fairbanks received snowfall late in the year. Many perennials were lost.” But those ingenous ag scientists have been experimenting with “fake snow” —to see if it might protect the plants in case of late precipitation. Another hitch: peony farming requires only 3-4 weeks of intensive work a year. One farmer says she plans on hiring “14-year-olds, who have a hard time getting a summer job, and schoolteachers, who have the summer off.” Or did, until now.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hanging Gardens of Paris

It’s not Babylon, but better—Two wonders of vertical gardening in the City of Light.

Le mur végétal, at Musée du Quai Branly
Photo: Julie Ardery

You’d know us for tourists, what with the pointing, the constant unfolding of a plastic map, and the very unsexy problems with masculin et feminin. We are also the ones unabashedly looking up, the better to see two marvelous Parisian gardens that hang in the sky.

One covers a part of the new and controversial Musée du Quai Branly, the house Chirac built for $293 million. The museum, which opened in June, brings together objects once called “primitive art”—African drums, Northwest Indian totem poles, embroidery from Thailand, Mesoamerican stone carvings—all those things that are neat to look at but for reasons yet unclear can’t make the cut into the Louvre. (More on this later.)

Patrick Blanc’s Vegetal Wall
at Le Musée du Quai Branly
Photo: Bill Bishop

The Quai Branly museum buildings, designed by Jean Nouvel, are stunning, no matter what one may think of what goes on inside. A commentator writes, “Geometric shapes meet flowing curves; plate glass meets natural wood; concrete meets vegetation. Detractors lament the architectural medley. But the overall result is oddly harmonious, perhaps because of the linking theme of nature. Once the trees planted on it mature, the site will be shaded and woodlike. There is even an extraordinary 800-square-metre ‘vegetation wall’: a vertical garden in which 150 different plant species have taken root on polyamide felt, stapled to waterproof PVC slabs and fed by automatic hosepipes.”

Le mur végétal covers the north facade of the museum’s offices. We learned that botanist Patrick Blanc, who was called in for the project, has created other growing walls, in Japan and the United Arab Emirates. For the Musée du Quai Branly he chose 15,000 plants from China, the U.S., Central Europe, and Japan, and like a tapestry artist, has woven them together: a tall green, cool, and fuzzy “garden” suspended next to brown metals, gray stone, and pavement. Blanc found inspiration in woodland plants that grow on rocks and tree trunks, and as you’d guess, many of the specimens in his upright garden are of the mossy and ferny sort, though we did see a few red blooms. Springtime may be another story.

Across town in the Jussieu neighborhood, we happened upon another hanging garden, less celebrated, but to our eye just as beautiful. Someone has affixed an armature subtly below the Ecole Polytechnique (perhaps fulfilling an assignment for Introductory Engineering). All around a carved niche, greenery cascades and petunias, geraniums, begonias, and other popular annuals bloom. Above a little park where children knocked a soccer ball and sweethearts embraced on benches, this hanging garden made a shady glen. On closer inspection, we could see that each plant grew from a tiny pot (which as any gardener knows means daily or twice daily watering in June, July, August). Parisians don’t wear hats but we do and will doff ours to the anonymous gardener who nursed this garden through the summer heat wave, so that it could reach such dense splendor with fall coming on.

Hanging garden, outside the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris
Photo: Julie Ardery

Some proto-Frommer called the Hanging Gardens of Babylon one of the Seven Wonders of the World. That’s only hearsay, though: no contemporary ever described them.  It’s a bigger world now.

Ergo, we keep on gawking.

Friday, September 15, 2006

On the Trail of the Wild Cardabelle

A thistle—now endangered—was the trusted weatherman of the Mejean.

Cardabelle—in plaster—at Pezenas
Photo: Julie Ardery

We rubbernecked all the way to Olargues, hoping to spot the cardabelle, legendary wildflower of the limey “causses” of Languedoc.  These thistles, we had heard, were nailed to the doors of farmhouses and barns as simple barometers here. The points of the plant’s star, we were told, curl inward when foul weather is on the way.

As we drove up into the mountains, the skies got darker, lower, until one needed cardabelles less and umbrellas more. A baker in Olargues sold us a fine loaf of olive bread, but when we asked after the cardabelle, she pointed us skeptically toward the high road, into the storm.

Only farther east, in Pezenas, did we find the elusive flowers, these made out of chalk and for sale at the pottery shops and a boutique in this artesan town. Today, the cardabelle (also known as Chardousse and Pinchinelle) is an endangered species. Cutting them, even for the purpose of weather forecasting, is forbidden.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Luc’s Violet Ice Cream

Dessert has arrived in Montolieu, and it’s purple and floral.

Figs and violet ice cream
by Luc Lemeur, chef of Le Marque Page
Photo: Bill Bishop

Montolieu, France, has more bookstores than schools, more bookstores than restaurants—maybe more bookstores per capita than any city in the world. The French government nursed this old town in the Aude region north of Carcassonne back to vitality by helping book dealers move here and rehabilitate the beautiful old (and empty) buildings around town. Now the “ville des livres” is home to 15 book shops—a secular shrine for a certain humanist pilgrims.

After a long, happy day of snooping and page-turning, we recommend, as kind hotelier Heidi Miller of Les Anges au Plafond recommended to us, Le Marque Page (The Bookmark), a wonderful restaurant right on the tiny town’s square. Imagine our elation when for dessert we found ourselves looking into a white bowl of fresh figs and violet ice cream. (Violets have been a specialty “crop” of Toulouse, one hour to the west, for more than a hundred years.)

Chef Luc Lemeur has quite a number of tasty tricks up his sleeve, but this Human Flower Project, as well as delicious, was telepathic. A cold scoop of purple violets turned this bookworm into a butterfly.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Flowers—Making an Impression

The huge collection of Impressionist art at the Musee d’Orsay encompasses flowers in every phase.

Chemin Montant dans les Hautes Herbes, c. 1875
Pierre Auguste Renoir

Silly to play favorites, maybe, but ours among all the floral works of art at the Musee d’Orsay today was this wonderful painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir, “Chemin Montant Dans les Hautes Herbes” (Path through High Grass).

With the interest in portraying “low” subjects – like women washing their feet and folks dancing at an outdoor bar – the Impressionists were naturally drawn to flowers as subjects. Their domestic interiors usually have a vase with some blooms casually spilling out the top, or a ballet dancer may have just received a bouquet of gratitude from the audience. Their fascination with the ephemeral qualities of light gave them also a real feeling for flowers—Manet’s clematis bloom that’s already fading, or these red wildflowers -– the gift of one afternoon.