The Bee's Knees!

Though Pushing Daisies lovingly sowed these seeds a long time ago, today provided the circumstances necessary for those seeds to sprout into their full splendor - an intense desire to become an amateur beekeeper! Or as Chuck would say, and Urban Honey Pioneer :)

The guys that maintain Longwood's hives came by today and taught us all about bees. So cool. I was running a little late, and forgot my camera, but next time I will definitely be taking pictures.

Did you know the smoke that they use doesn't really slow the bees down at all? It interrupts their communication by masking pheromones, like the one that signals 'attack'. And the smoke also makes them think the hive is on fire, so they go into survival mode, filling up on honey for the time it may take them to find a new place. Once they're full of honey it's harder for them to sting you because they can't bend at the middle as easily! How crazy brilliant is that?

We learned tons more, but I don't remember all the technical terms. So cool though.

I also rescued some baby plants from under the greenhouse benches when we were weeding today:

This is some sort of succulent, not sure which one yet. . .

And another Christmas cactus! I'm not a huge fan
 of the full grown plants, but they're so cute when they're small. . .

Green Things Growing

It's funny, but even though I live only a short walk away from one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, I still prefer my own little garden plot, weeds and all. There's something to sitting on land you can call your own and enjoying a space you design and maintain. Enjoying the beauties of a professionally maintained garden is great, but this vegetable garden thing brings a deeper satisfaction.

And with that, I post pictures!

Product placement! Keens. That's the brand all the cool interns wear :)

It may not look like it. . . but the weed population has been greatly decreased.

The basil was looking lovely, but I'm going to
 need a lot of basil this summer,
 so I pinched it. Fresh pesto! Yes!  

 

And here's my first tomato
 'Brandywine something' I think

This Frankenstein scaffolding I've come up with is supposedly to aid my watermelons in going up instead of everywhere. Of course, this is my first time growing them, so all of this is improvisation.

Progress!

Isn't that what life is all about? Making progress? Here's my inventory of recent progress:

1. After three and a half weeks on the job I know how to:

•  pinch/deadhead anything
• tie standards
• trim standards
• clean standards
• re-tie standards
• water
• pot
• use hedge shears for hours
• make huge hanging baskets
• move full grown, huge hanging baskets
• safely operate industrial hair dryer
• install drip irrigation
2. After two and a half weeks of  gardening I have:

• several baby tomatoes
• a lot of weeds (some of which have been reduced to only roots)
• one baby watermelon, not yet pollinated
• several baby peppers, already gifted to neighbors
• one happily blooming yarrow
• one brilliantly blooming agastache
• four baby zucchini plants that resemble swish cheese because of:
• too many cucumber beetles
• one neighbor willing to take over the plot at the end of the summer :)
3. After a week and a half since re-committing to running I have:
• become tolerably conditioned to hills
• ran in the gardens 3 times
• learned to enjoy really cold showers
4. After a month and a week of blogging I have:
• completed a whopping 8 posts (now 9 :)
• learned how to wrestle semi-successfully with formatting
• started reading several other blogs
• begun to develop a desire to blog regularly. maybe. . .

Water + Sunshine + Time =

Weeds!

Lots of them. First they were little weeds, and they were almost kind of cute. . . and then they were medium weeds that put the "weed the garden" bullet point on my To Do List somewhere between "laundry" and "find name tag". And today, after a very lovely weekend devoid of any weed killing activities, they finally reached the my-garden-looks-really-weedy stage.

I had to move the bullet point up to the top of the list. It even bumped "make dinner" and "play ukulele" out of the way. So today I weeded my garden! Ok. I'm going to restate that - today I weeded some of my garden, and my new neighbors helped me weed the rest of it! There. That's better. Don't you just love neighbors? And social, productive activities? :) I was going to get a before and after picture, but then we all went to my place to eat avocado pie, and then I went running in the gardens, and then we had dinner, and then we talked and played ukulele, and now it's too dark. Sorry. Just imagine eyebrows that needed to be plucked. badly. and now they are! Never mind.  I'll just post the after picture tomorrow. That's probably more effective than making badly connected analogies. I just hope the weeds haven't grown back before I take the picture . . . I have this funny feeling they're working on it right now. . .

"I Start To Complain When There's No Rain. . . "

It hasn't rained in a while. But was rainy at one point a week or two ago - the wonderful, cats and dogs kind of rain that would drench you straight through if you were out in it :) So of course I dropped everything I was doing and sat on the porch to watch.

Now that it's been several days since precipitation, I'm starting to get antsy. And today as I was walking along in Philly, contemplating all the lovely things about rain ( the smell, not needing to wrestle with the hose to water my garden, cooler temperatures, a chance to use the word "petrichor", etc) I remembered I'd taken pictures so I could post about how happy I was that it was raining! So here they are. From my front/back porch to you:

That tree in the middle ( the big awesome one) is my favorite. It's big and green, and looks like the perfect climbing tree. As soon as I get over my fear of ticks I may just climb it :) It's a Castanea sativa, or chestnut tree. The edible kind, if I'm correct. Not Aesculus hippocastanum, or horse chestnut. That one's definitely not edible.

Just look at how beautifully green and cool everything seems. . . *sigh*. I suppose this is good for me, learning to live in a hot place. . . not that I'll be in a desert place for Fall semester or anything crazy like that. . . ;)

So until this (above) happens again, I'll be depending on this (below),

It was rescued from our closet by my roommate - yay for finding and using old stuff and not paying lots of money! It makes me think of the Brave Little Toaster. . . which is only minimally creepy. . . not creepy enough for me  not to use it :)

Just Walkin'

So I had a lovely stroll through the conservatory on Saturday  - plants are so cool. . .

I walked into the main conservatory, 

to the left of the main conservatory,



                                    

                                       into the silver room,

     past really tall cacti,

 through the orchids. . . (the best smelling room in the whole conservatory)

And into this place, which you may recognize from the last post. . .

                

Then I took a lovely detour. . . so many lily pads! . . . no frogs, and no frog princes, but I prefer the flowers anyway :)

I saw a photo of someone standing on one of these. . . they're pretty small right now though, I'll have to take pictures of them again at the end of the summer.

Then I walked through the North Passage, where they keep the BONSAI! I missed Longwood's bonsai class by a week. I nearly cried when I realized it. But don't you worry, I will someday become a bonsai master. Just like someday I will own/ride a Kawasaki Ninja 600R. It will happen.

This stand is as old as me :) It's also the youngest on display. . .

And finally my walk took me home. This is my commute to and from work :)

 I walk a lot. It tends to happen when you don't have a car, but even then I think there's something to using your own two feet to get you to where you're going. I mean, boots were made for walking, but so were feet! And though my feet may protest a bit after 8-9 hours of use, I am a more capable individual because of it. What if aliens trying to take over the world destroy all the cars and bikes and (sniff sniff) motorcycles, then what would we do!?! Being able to walk long distances is a basic galactic survival skill. Now if only I could find the motivation/time/place to go running. . . :)

C.A.T. #2

Arbutus 'marina'. In fact, we could really just make it the whole lot of Arbutus species. . . but before I get ahead of myself, here's the story.

My interest was sparked by the lovely specimens they have in the Mediterranean garden in the conservatory here at Longwood.

(on the left in both)

 I was wheeling a 5' hanging basket of begonias to the Acacia Passage when the red bark caught my eye. On the way back I found the label and committed it to memory for googling after work ( I knew it sounded/looked familiar. . . I just couldn't quite place it. . . )

6 1/2 hours later I had made an important discovery. Arbutus 'marina' (strawberry madrone) is cousin (more like great nephew) to Arbutus menziesii, or more commonly, Pacific madrone!

My love of madrones is the heart and soul of my deep obsession with the native plants of the Pacific Northwest. They don't grow up near the Cascades where I live, but drive 20 minutes west and they're everywhere, and I love it.

5 more minutes of effective googling and I came upon an even better discovery. Both pacific madrones and strawberry madrones are related to Arbutus unedo, or the strawberry tree, which happens to get fruit that looks like this:   

Did you know I've been wanting to ID this plant since I saw it at the Woodland Park Zoo nearly 9 years ago!?! Granted I haven't been combing through tree books, or googling "round red fruit, evergreen tree", or racking the brains of the brightest and best in tree ID. . . but it's been at the back of my mind all this time. And now I know it! (that is one of the most satisfying feelings a plant enthusiast can have, for all of you who are wondering "why is she using so many "!'s". . ? ").   I think that the fruit is pretty similar between the three of them, but I'm not sure.








 And just in case you were also wondering (because I know you were) the bark is even better than the fruit! Not to eat though. I don't think either is very palatable. . .

So here's to the lovely genus 'Arbutus', with all it's beautiful bark and fascinating fruit. May it someday thrive in my garden!

Arbutus 'marina' (strawberry madrone), C.A.T. #2