“…she also has the kind of full-blooming forcefulness that could get a century plant to reconsider its position and flower annually.”
–Joanne Kaufman, describing garden designer Lynden B. Miller in the article “She Creates Urban Edens,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/20/09
The best personality description ever
October 26, 2009 at 3:25 pm (Gardening quotes)
Sharon Stone’s New Turn-on: Gardening
October 16, 2009 at 3:44 pm (Gardening quotes)
Tags: quotes
From New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog, quoting from an interview with Sharon Stone at the Hamptons International Film Festival:
“What I am finding is that when you start to really clear old, dead things and really take that time to take away the old stuff and organize a garden and clear out and get in the dirt and weed things out and then see the new stuff that’s coming up and move things around, this time that you take that actually takes some labor and is meditative and organized with nature, you can get yourself in a harmonious place…It lines your body, mind, and spirit up in a way, particularly when you’re trying to get yourself in your creative work. It gets you in the right harmonious place.”
I guess it doesn’t ‘get you in the right succinct place,’ but you’ve still gotta love her sincerely “unscripted” description of the joy so many of us get from gardening.
Pure white bug w/baby
July 26, 2009 at 2:24 pm (Insects)
- Moving On Up
- Big Mama
- Hangin’ On
- Separate Ways
- Baby
Found on hibiscus stem, 7/24/09. Still there 2 days later.
Entomology key: http://tinyurl.com/kqzwx5
Picea abies, Norway spruce
July 19, 2009 at 6:50 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish))
Tags: Needle evergreen, tree
- tree
- Trunk
- Needles
- Descending branchlets
Identifying characteristics:
1. Tall conical evergreen tree with horizontal branches with pendulous branchlets
2. needles are stiff and pointed, 0.5″ to 1″ long; surround branch; leave petiole on stem when pulled off resulting in rough branchlets
3. long narrow cones
Thuja occidentalis, Eastern arborvitae
July 19, 2009 at 6:30 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish))
Tags: alternate, Needle evergreen, scale-like, Shrub
- Shrub
- Leaves
Identifying characteristics:
1. Small dark green scale-like leaves, densely packed in flat fan-like sprays
2. Conical shape large shrub/small tree
3. small brown to tan cones 0.33″ to 0.5″ longwith thin, overlapping scales, held pointing up
Betula populifolia, Gray Birch
July 19, 2009 at 5:11 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish))
Tags: Acuminate tip, alternate, deciduous, Distinctive fruit, serrate, simple leaf, tree
- tree
- Trunk
- Catkin
- Leaf
Identifying characteristics:
1. Long narrow pointed leaf
2.Smooth (not exfoliating) chalky white trunk with black trianguar patches at branch base
3. Fruit is small nutlets in cylindrical catkins ~ 1″ long
Juniperus chinensis ‘Aurea’, Old Gold Chinese juniper
July 19, 2009 at 3:42 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish))
Tags: awl-shape needles, Needle evergreen, scale-like, Shrub
- Shrub
- Juvenile leaf
Identifying characteristics:
1. Both awl-shaped (juvenile) and scale-like (mature) needles on same plant
2. Spreading habit
3. Bright yellow new growth (in full sun)
Rubus laciniatus Wildd., cutleaf blackberry
July 13, 2009 at 2:48 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish), Invasives)
Tags: deciduous, Invasives, lobed leaf, multiple fruit, Shrub, simple leaf, Thorny
- Shrub
- Berries
- Leaf
Identification characteristics:
1. Fast growing invasive shrub with thorny stems and arching habit
2. palmately lobed simple leave
3. edible black compound fruit
Campsis radicans, Trumpet creeper
July 13, 2009 at 2:20 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish), Invasives)
Tags: Invasives, Opposite, pinnately compound
- vine
- Flower
Identifying characteristics:
- root-like aerial holdfasts typically abundant
- opposite leaves
- pinnately compound leaves, coarsely toothed
- trumpet-shaped red/orange flowers
Cornus kousa ‘Wolf Eyes’, Wolf Eyes dogwood
July 13, 2009 at 1:57 pm (A Plant-a-Day(ish))
Tags: Opposite, simple leaf, tree, variegated
- Tree
- Leaves
- a small, vase-shaped tree with horizontal branching
- pointed bract tips in comparison to the rounded bract tips of C. florida
- blooms about 2 or 3 weeks after C. florida
- Variety ID: Variegated leaf with distinct white margin and prominent wavy margins
- flower buds pointed and shaped like and onion
























