One morning recently when the sun was coming up,there was a mist hanging over the woods out my back door. It was magical.

Foamhenge at Natural Bridge in Virginia

Who knew it was so close? The last time I saw it, it was in England!
This is an (exact?) replica of Stonehenge, except it's made of styrofoam. It's located near Natural Bridge in Virginia. The creator is Mark Cline. If you can stop giggling long enough, you can read about it here, in Roadside Attractions.

The Life of Flowers

I ran across this video that is really pleasing. Take a look.

Flower Pits and Their Uses

  In the South sixty years and more ago when home heating was done with a fireplace, elaborate preparations had to be made for winter for the plants. It was typically not possible to grow anything from year to hear that could not take at least a little cold. The kitchen/sitting room was heated , but warmth in the bedrooms was supplied by quilts, often to the point where turning over in bed was a problem. Since heated space was at a premium, most plants were not overwintered in the house.Very few houseplants as such graced the window sills. There were exceptions, like the Aspidistra (cast iron plant) which could even survive, if a little tattered, winter outdoors. Sometimes a pot of Aspidistra would grace an unheated room. Cuttings could also be taken and spend the winter in a jar of water near both a window and the stove, if possible. Impatience and wandering jew were good candidates for this.
  The usual solution was to have a" flower pit"about four or five feet deep dug. The bottom of the pit was sloped so that water ran off and collected in one end, and plants were often staged on buckets, blocks, and boards to keep them from sitting in water over the cold wet days. Boards were laid across the pit, and the whole thing was wished well and closed. If there were a few bright warm days the boards would be removed so that the plants could get sun and be watered if necessary.
 The combination of damp cold and lack of light meant that most of the plants looked pretty sorry in late February or early March when the boards over the pit began to be lifted in stages to let light in. The dead, dying, and fungal infected spots on the plants were pruned away, and they were repotted as needed or top dresses with fresh soil if the pots were large.
  In the warmer months, the flower pits served  as wonderful play places for children. Footholds were dug in the side of the pit for easier access than just jumping in. Jumping in did work though when the Indians were after you. I made playhouses in the flower pit and my brother made it into a box turtle cage.
   My brother's squirrel and bird hunting carried him over field and stream, far and wide, and he collected every box turtle he came upon. Sometimes he had upwards to 25 in the flower pit. Once he had so many that they climbed onto each other's backs and the last several were able to escape over the top. After that it was my job to check on the turtles several times a day and unstack any that seemed to have escape in mind. He feed them all kinds of vegetation, both wild and garden variety plus bugs, worms, and grubs. It seemed that tomatoes were a favorite, but they may have just enjoyed walking through the tomatoes and smashing them.
   In the fall, before the potted plants were put back in the pit, my brother scrounged up any paint he could and painted their backs or wrote his name in paint on the top of the shell. he released them in places where he thought they could find good winter hiding places. Now we are told that box turtles memorize their home territories, so release in unknown places was probably a problem for the turtles. There was always joy and celebration when one of the painted turtles was found and (unluckily for it) got to spend another summer in the pit. The whole enterprise came to an end when one of the turtles laid an egg. Daddy made us release the turtles right then. By the next year, my brother had moved on to other pursuits.

February Daffodils Are Early This Year

My daffodils are blooming like crazy this year and it seems about a week, maybe 2, early. After all, we have had no winter this year. A few little frosts is all, maybe no more than 5 or 6.  Daffodils are my favorites, especially this time of year. O wait, I love hyacinths, and crocus, and  well, I just love flowers. But I do have a special place in my heart for daffodils. I used to pick great handfuls for my mother and grandmother for the house. There were great swaths of the old timey ones, just flowing down the hills in back of my grandmother's house, and planted around the edges of the old garden, dripping off into the road ditches. My maternal grandmother had a yard full, too. There were lots of the small early type that have several all yellow flowers in each bud and smell so sweet. These are not the narcissus  type that smell so good when you pick them, then begin to reek when you bring them into the house. Mother had hers in neat rows, for the most part. Some had been planted by her sister-in-law before Mother and Daddy moved there. As the years have passed though, they have multiplied and been pushed around by digging in the borders, till the rows have largely disappeared. Rows seem a little stuffy for daffodils anyway. They are too wild, and strong, and joyful to be constrained. These pictures were made February 10, 2013 at my home in Gold Hill.

Moonrise in New Zealand

I received this as an email fwd, and found it to be so magical I wanted to share it. Have you ever watched the Moon rise? The slow rise of a nearly full moon over a clear horizon can be an impressive sight. One impressive moonrise was imaged two nights ago over Mount VictoriaLookout in Wellington, New Zealand. With detailed planning, an industrious astrophotographer placed a camera about two kilometers away and pointed it across the lookout to where the Moon would surely soon be making its nightly debut. The above single shot sequence is unedited and shown in real time -- it is not a time lapse. People on Mount Victoria Lookout can be seen in silhouette themselves admiring the dawn of Earth's largest satellite. Seeing a moonrise yourself is not difficult: it happens every day, although only half the time at night. Each day the Moon rises about fifty minutes later than the previous day, with a full moon always rising at sunset. Click here to watch.

Sock on a Rock

You never know what strange things you may see, if you just notice.
 Leaves are lost from the trees and gather in huddles on the ground till the wind blows them away. The trees are bare and their skeletons stand unashamed against the sky. They know their strength and their place in the scheme of things. The leaves have their own purpose, and altho the two share life for a while, they must ultimately depart on their own journey.
Lichens that cover the rocks slowly, oh so slowly, dissolve it away, but the rocks are so deep-rooted, that it hardly matters. The minerals from the rocks will mix with the humus from the leaves, and  a myriad of creatures, some tiny , some microscopic, will consume these offerings as their just due. The spiders, the beetles, pill bugs, worms, grubs, nematodes, and fungi will go on their ways, feasting, warming in the sun, cooling in the soil, falling in love, marrying, multiplying, and dying, without any human taking notice.
It's a wonderful world.
Take care of it.

Lipstick Plant

Lipstick plant (Aeschynanthus) is a colorful long blooming plant that typically blooms for me in the winter. Their relatives are the other Gesneraids. Mine are in full bloom now. They do need lots of bright light to get a good bloom set, but this can be accomplished with a bright window. You don't need a greenhouse. The name lipstick plant comes from the shape of the buds as the flower develops. It should be kept moist all the time, but not wet. Dropping leaves is a sign the plant is too dry. Lipstick plants bloom best when they are pot bound. They root easily and do best in a hanging pot as the stems tend to droop. Pinching the stems as they grow will produce a fuller plant; otherwise the single stems just keep getting longer.

Germination of Coral Beans

I have used Coral beans as ornaments in terrariums where their bright red color provided some relief from all the green. The seeds never germinated in the terrarium, in spite of moisture and light. (To see a blooming coral bean plant, look here.)
When I received some seed from a fellow plant lover, I was skeptical of ever getting them to germinate. I read up on it and found out that the seed must be scarified before it will germinate. This meant I had to somehow make a nick in the tough red seed coat so water could get in for germination. I tried several things but it is pretty difficult to hold such a small seed and use sandpaper on it. I thought of something else that is very like sandpaper. Using a metal nail file alternating between the flat side and the edge, at length I was able to scrape away the red from a small spot to the white underneath. Then I soaked the seed (I only did about 4 or 5 because of the tediousness of the operation), starting in hot water and leaving them over night. Then I planted in soil and kept them moist till they germinated in about a week. Eventually I got 3 plants for my effort, so I would say germination is good once you get thru the seed coat.
 I have planted one of these in the ground and still have 2 others in pots, so I am waiting with anticipation to see what comes next.
All this leaves me to wonder how on earth germination occurs in the wild. Does the seed have to pass through the digestive track of some animal? What? What? What?

Dendrobium

This is one of the numerous species of Dendrobium orchids. The flowers are quite different from others I have grown. This one does not have a name tag (except for Dendrobium), so I have grown it using as near the same culture I use on other members of the species. Dendrobiums grow best on the dry side , which is difficult to do when they are potted in straight unmilled sphagnum moss. My policy with this one has been never to deliberately water it. In the greenhouse this means that sometimes it gets accidentally sprayed so it does get water. I had intended to repot it in a better mix, but it is apparently thriving as it is blooming now after several months of this treatment.
If you purchase an orchid that is in straight unmilled sphagnum, don't water it at all til after it finishes blooming . Then repot it into some better medium. I wonder how companies that grow them deal with the watering of plants that need to be dry but are potted in something that will stay soggy wet for weeks.
Other than a quick draining potting media, the plants need lots of bright light, Fertilize when other plants are fertilized, and warmth (best 75-85 degrees F and about 10 degrees cooler at night). However they are quite tolerant and will not die if your growing situation is warmer or cooler  than this range.