Tag: plantlbr

Do you have any garden blogs you’d recommend here? I love yours and I’m looking for some inspiration.

Thank you I’m glad you love my blog but-

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I must confess that this question often stumps me whenever I get it. Not cause there aren’t any other gardening/plant/nature ish blogs, but because there’re so many, I hate to forget other bloggers (which are a lot, and there are a lot of new ones this past year that still haven’t stuck to my memorybank yet), and also some of the bloggers that still stick to my memory have long come and gone and are technically inactive/out-of-action for the past few years.

That’s not even factoring in that there are so many kinds both in location as well as blogging/gardening style; the diversity is amazing but also daunting.

[EDITOR’S NOTE- despite the list that I’ve made, I HIGHLY recommend you search the #plantblr and #gardeners of tumblr / #gardeners on tumblr tags, a lot of active gardening bloggers use those tags- unless that’s changed since the last time I’ve browsed those tags personally]

Rambling aside, I’ll try to do just what you asked; recommending plant/gardening blogs. My apologies my fellow gardening mutuals if somehow you slip the list (I am but a very forgetful airhead), mention yourselves onto this post if you wish, and we can hopefully use that to get you in view despite me not writing you down here.

Gardening/Plant Blog Reccomendations

I’d add a lot more but since I’ve gotten halfway through this list tumblr’s been freezing up on me sooooo this’ll have to do for your list of ones to check out.

I’ll probably sign up for the Woody Plants Seed Workshop at Guelph Arbortetum again this year….. JUST HOPE THEY DONT CANCEL DUE TO NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE SIGNING UP AGAIN!!!!!!!

Ya’ll Ontarian nerds sign up; meet your disaster tumblrblogger (god let’s never use those set of words ever again) while also getting to do a neat seed workshop!- *bricked*

I’M SO UPSET THAT SO FEW PEOPLE I KNOW (outside of tumblr, which I thank you nerds for spreading the word which lead to it hitting my end of the grapevine~) ARE EXCITED ABOUT THE NITROGEN FIXING SNOT CORN.

ITS BOTANICALLY FASCINATING AND HORTICULTURALLY HUGE!!!!

I agree with Sarah Taber’s point on how this landrace of corn won’t likely become that big in short-summer temperate regions like the northly parts of North America (4 months is often cutting it close in our canadian region when it comes to growing corn), however there are some definite things it could change that would be huge;

  • other tropical farms; as it is now many of them are growing modern day commercial corn, which in the long-run is not as productive as it is in the temperate regions due to the heavy nutrient/fertilizer requirements. They could possibly afford to grow the slower nitrogen fixing corn in exchange for the potentially larger yield when it comes to their longer growing season.
  • it could still change temperate farms, just not as majorly; the snot corn landrace is too slow for such farms and will probably always be too slow, however an intermediate form (so more aerial roots than modern corn, but less than the snot corn) might still be beneficial, though, it will still take time/experiments to truly confirm.

Another point I’ve just realized is that corn may still be a fertilizer hog (as in, it may still deplete the soil in the long run, as with modern corn)

even with the nitrogen fixing bacteria, it’s just that it’d make it less of a fertilizer hog. Other agricultural methods may still have to be used or improved upon (crop rotation, green manure, unfortunately fertilizer too just hopefully less so). We also don’t know what factors are required for the mucus (and bacteria) that make it appear or not appear; as it only is produced some times of the year, the question is why? What environmental/developmental factors are in play to make it have mucus some times of the year and not at other times of the year?

IM STILL UPSET NO ONE IN MY AGRICULTURAL FAMILY IS EXCITED ABOUT THIS AMAZING SCIENCE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!  I haven’t felt such an excited science rush since my younger days of reading about the rediscovery of corn’s wild ancestor the tesonite.

@geopsych replied to your post “I love stories of plant cultivars lost to history only to be refound….”

When I was much younger I met a man who grew only really old cultivars in the gardens around his house. Of course I didn’t appreciate it then.

Lol we all have those moments in our lives where we look back and go “wtf me, you don’t know what you had before you.”

geopsych
replied to your post “I love stories of plant cultivars lost to history only to be refound….”

Slightly different but I always loved the story of Franklinia. Bartram brought one back from the south, I forget where, and then the entire rest of the species was wiped out in a hurricane. Every garden Franklinia (named for Benjamin Franklin) is descended from that one Bartram brought north.

“John Bartram was appointed Royal Botanist for North America by King George III in 1765. In that same year, John Bartram and his son William discovered franklinia growing in a 2-3 acre tract along the banks of the Altamaha River in southeastern Georgia. Franklinia has never been observed growing in any other place than along the Altamaha River.“

“In a return trip in 1773, William Bartram collected seed from this site and brought it back to the Bartram’s garden in Philadelphia where the tree was successfully grown. This tree has been extinct in the wild since 1803.“

“

It is not known why this tree disappeared in the wild. Land along the Altamaha River was cleared for cotton plantations leading to one theory that a cotton pathogen found in the soil (carried downstream through erosion) was the main cause of the extinction of the colony. Other extinction theories include decline from climate change, destruction by man, single colony of plants was not genetically diverse enough to withstand pathogens or changing conditions, or a local disaster (flood or fire).“

[quoted from the Missouri Botanical Garden’s profile on the tree]

Wow that’s a story, but yeah it’s slightly different but a similarly appealing story even if it’s semisad. Extinct in wild plants like Chocolate Cosmos, [a species of cycad icr the name for], and even that resurrected palm tree seeds, those stories are amazing too!

91, 94!

91. Favourite leaf shape?

Cordate (heart shaped) leaves and fear-like leaves. I can’t say as to why for the former but for the latter I like the primeval/tropical/prehistoric appeal from the leaf form.

94. Favourite leaf texture?

Fuzzy leaves and coarse/rugose leaves. Fuzzy feel nice and therapeutic whereas coarse leaves are both visually appeal and to a degree practical (most insects prefer to eat smooth leaves over coarse leaves).