Pardon If You’ve Seen This Before…

But it still makes me smile.

First published in December 2005, it’s still up at Red Shirt Knitting.  Seattle yarn artist Erika’s story is posted, as is a chronological progression of photos and events since the original “fitting”. 

She actually got some pretty funny tree questions/comments about potential girdling, the possibility of damage from moisture buildup (I like her response “What are YOUR sweaters made from…neoprene?”), etc.

Tortured urban tree examples abound: poorly planted, pitifully pruned, and other horrors. … Continue reading this article “Pardon If You’ve Seen This Before…”

Organic or local?

I grew up on a small farm (30 or so acres) near Tacoma, Washington. We raised our own Herefords, I gathered eggs from my frizzle chickens, and we all enjoyed apples, plums and cherries from our fruit trees.  Neither of my parents were farmers by profession, though my grandfather owned a dairy farm in Oregon.  Eventually, my husband and I hope to move back to the family farm, if for no other reason than preserve it from the surrounding encroachment of houses.… Continue reading this article “Organic or local?”

Friday puzzle revealed

And we have a winner!  As Karen guessed, these are lichens on decomposing granite:

This photo is from the Fortynine Palms oasis area in Joshua Tree National Monument.  These lichens (symbiotic amalgams of fungi and algae) could be decades or centuries old – they are very slow spreading. 

Most creative answer goes to TT, who thought it looked like sweet potato casserole!  The quartz does look like marshmallows.

Friday mystery photo

Another close-up photo for you to analyze and identify:

A more inclusive photo on Monday will solve the mystery.  (Sorry for the brevity – I’m on the road and internet access is variable.  I’m taking what I can get!)

Enjoy your spring weekend!

Disney and Japanese Beetles

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at Epcot Center in Florida.  It was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my career so far.  I spoke 6 times over the course of 3 days.  The focus of my talk was garden remedies.  I started by talking about Paris Green (a good story for next week), then made fun of some of Jerry Baker’s, Myles Bader’s and Joey Green’s recommendations, and then proceeded to talk about which homemade cures do and don’t work and why. … Continue reading this article “Disney and Japanese Beetles”

Another fine product…

I’m spending this week in Palm Desert, CA for a little R&R in the sun.  In the morning, with my pot o’ Earl Grey, I read the local paper (The Desert Sun).  Last Sunday’s paper provided me with an article about an “intelligent water incubator” (all material in quotes was taken from the article).  Pieter Hoff, a “Dutch scientist, author, and major exporter of lilies and flower bulbs” has invented the Waterboxx, which “produces and captures water from the air through condensation and rain.” … Continue reading this article “Another fine product…”

Baffling Daffs

It is daffodil season in the Northern Hemisphere, hurrah!  May their blooms shoo away the gray of winter! It is also the season where everybody and their mother writes something about the wonders of the genus Narcissus, so figured I’d join the fray, but with a bit of a chip on my shoulder…


Miss ‘Barrett Browning’ in the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech

I recently read YET ANOTHER article warning against mixing daffodil stems in with other cut flowers due to “harmful effects from the sap”.… Continue reading this article “Baffling Daffs”

Love in Broom

Recently, Rebecca Finneran, an MSU Extension Educator from the Grand Rapids area sent me a cool photo.  The tree is a large Norway spruce near the Kent country Extension office.


This is a great example of witch’s broom.  Witch’s brooms are growth anomalies that occur on various trees, most commonly conifers,   Brooms can be caused be a variety of factors including diseases, aphids, environmental stress and random mutations.  In some cases the growth defect is only present when the casual agent, say, a pathogen is present.  … Continue reading this article “Love in Broom”

Friday puzzle answer

So many interesting answers to Friday’s puzzle – thanks to all of you for putting out the effort!  It most certainly is an abiotic problem – but was it temperature, suggested by Deb?  Water, suggested by Foy, Gayle and Ed?  Light, suggested by Nancy?  My plan was to have an extensive soil test run to address the possibility of pollution (suggested by Jim, Heather and Paul), except we discovered the source of the problem last summer when we finished digging our pond:

 

As you can see in this photo, we have solid clay about 12″ below the surface. … Continue reading this article “Friday puzzle answer”

Friday quiz time!

Now I could have sworn I’d posted this puzzle before, but after searching through all the previous postings I can’t find it.  Here it is.

I planted this Cornus kousa in 1999 (removing the burlap, clay, etc. prior to installing).  We removed the turf (still attached to the $(%&$ plastic mesh) and planted the tree in the existing soil.  The first photo was taken in 2004, and the second was taken in 2007:

 

Here are some specifics about what was done to the landscape during this period: we replaced all the turf with wood chips and put in the fence as shown.  … Continue reading this article “Friday quiz time!”