Haworthia marxii, Curb Your Enthusiasm!

Before I get to my overexcited Haworthia marxii, I have a bit of business to tend to. An Alert Gardener wrote to me about the propagation of monstrose cacti. She wanted to know how it was done. I have not tried to grow further Ming Things from my very own Ming Thing, but Dave of Dave's Garden has a wonderful, extensive article on crested and monstrose cacti (mutant growth forms). Most of these cacti are propagated by grafting. They are trickier to grow than the parent species, as the mutations that give them their odd growth seem to make them more delicate.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3448/

Now back to my Haworthia. Though only 4cm in diameter, it loves flowering season and gets very excited about putting on a proper autumn show for all of us:

An enthusiastically blooming Haworthia.

Just how long is that inflorescence?? An amazing 64cm! This species from the Western Cape generally grows a solitary inflorescence of 40-60cm, so this one is truly remarkable. Sadly, the flowers are odorless.

A Gardener's Delight: The Scent Library

I feel like we gardeners can never have too much of the Plant Kingdom in our lives. In addition to actual plants, including many smelly plants, I keep a scent library of essential oils, absolutes, tinctures, and CO2 extracts.

A Page From My Smelly Library

I have about 350 of these bottles/vials in my collection at this point. And I love to tincture. Tinctures are made from the actual plants (generally dried), plant parts, or resins, soaked in perfumer's alcohol and aged. They are lighter cousins to essential oils, which are distillations, and absolutes, which are solvent-extracted in a multi-step process to yield a denser, more complex product. CO2 extracts use no solvents like hexane, only carbon dioxide under high pressure (where it becomes supercritical, something between a gas and a liquid).

I use these items for my hobby of perfumery, and also for health reasons. For example, if anyone in the house shows signs of developing a respiratory infection, they get a nice steaming with Oregon Peppermint and Austrian Silver Fir, with a little Red Thyme thrown in.

Basically, collecting these extractions helps me learn more about many plants that I grow, and many others I don't or can't. And playing with them, and sharing them with friends, is a never-ending delight.

So for this blog, I may, from time to time, extol the virtues of a particular extract, or give a recipe, or some such thing. Any other gardeners out there who do likewise? You are welcome to share!

Pensive Tuesday: Annual Verus Perennial

I've always had a strong bias toward pernnials in my garden. These plants are defined as having a life span of two or more years. If a plant lives a year or less, it's an annual. The somewhere-in-betweens are biennials.

Crassula, a Favored Perennial

Every once in a while, I get a hankering to grow an annual. Not because it's a short-lived plant, but because of some other quality I admire despite its short life. Sunflowers are a case in point:

In other words, they have to overcome, with their marvelous beauty or intriguing aspects, my aversion to annuals. Poor flowers!
Perennials, on the other hand, are the gifts that keep on giving, right? I mean, they can go on for decades with good care. That's a big plus! Bamboo can take over your whole garden if you give it just a little love (not that that is always a good thing).

Black Bamboo CU, MR 2013

But as I've grown older, I've begun to appreciate the fleeting beauty of annuals a whole lot more. I've been growing them more often, and I don't get as melancholy as I used to when I pull up the wizened husk of an exhausted annual, and toss it in the trash. It's become more of a Buddhist Moment for me, a brief meditation on impermanence-- from the trash grows the flower, and in time, the flower returns to the trash. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So now annuals are welcome in my garden. My closest analogy to growing both together is that perennials are like the basic ground of a painting. The fundamental shapes, the background colors, and so on. Annuals add that zip that can transform one painting into a series. Each one somewhat alike, each one different. I tried this approach with a series of photos I'd taken of some beach shells, so see if you agree with me....

Plate of Shells II, Marla Robb, 2013

Plate of Shells V, Marla Robb, 2013

Plate of Shells VI, Marla Robb, 2013

What are your thoughts on the short-lived versus the long-lived plants in your garden? Have you changed over time?

Thank You, Readers of the World!

I was so pleased to see the list of countries/territories/protectorates that my readers hail from. 76 countries, to be precise! In not-so-alphabetical order, they are:

Argentina, Australia, and Albania; Brazil, Belgium, Belarus, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Botswana, and Barbados; Canada, China, Chile, Croatia, Cayman Islands, Czech Republic, Colombia, and Chile; Denmark; Ecuador and Estonia; France and Finland; Germany, Greece, Georgia, and Guatemala; Hungary; Italy, Israel, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Iceland, Isle of Man, and India; Japan, Jordan, and Jamaica; Lebanon, Latvia, and Lithuania; Mexico, Malaysia, and Morocco; Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Norway; Puerto Rico, Poland, Philippines, Portugal, and Pakistan; Russia and Romania; Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, South Korea, Switzerland, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, and Somalia; Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, and Trinidad & Tobago; United States, United Kingdom, and the US Virgin Islands, Venezuela and Vietnam. I hope I got everyone. If you hail from a country that's not on this list, drop me a comment!

I'm so pleased and happy to see that people from all of these countries have an interest in, and may even be growing, the wonderful plants I love to write about. Carry on, gardeners of the world!

Pensive Tuesday: My Vanity Protea

About 6 months ago, I bought some Protea seeds, thinking I might try to grow them on my sand dune. The time to plant them is autumn, so I'm ready to roll. I really love these flowers and, though my chances of successfully growing a Protea to adulthood are slim, I'm willing to give it a go.

Proteas grow mainly in South Africa and are known there as "sugarbushes". They were named after Proteus, the ancient Greek shapeshifter god, because there are so many varied types. They are a bit like Euphorbias in that sense. Proteas are a particularly ancient flower; their ancestors flourished in the southern supercontinent of Gondwana, 300 million years ago.

Protea neriifolia from Wikimedia

The seeds need a pre-sowing treatment with a Smoke Germination Stimulant. You can see this clever device in the lower left corner of my instruction sheet. So why am I calling this my "Vanity Protea"? Well, Proteas are threatened in their native habitat. According to National Geographic in 2010:
"The Cape floristic region was given international recognition as South Africa's sixth UN World Heritage site in June last year. More than 9,000 plant species make up the region, 6,000 of which are found nowhere else on Earth." Ironically, I am attempting to grow a Protea far from its native land at the same time the latest IPCC report is published. Our climate is undergoing drastic change, much of the change is human-induced, and many unique botanical treasures will be leaving us in the coming decades. Will my New World Protea thrive here? Is it a waste of time to grow them ex situ? Would it be better to spend my money on something that will directly curtail climate change where Proteas grow naturally? Should I spend my time lobbying instead of gardening? I don't know. But it's sure got me pensive....

 

 

Smelly Plant of the Month: Thai Basil

I've been growing Thai basil (Ocimum basilicum var. thyrsiflora) from seed for two years now. It's similar to sweet basil, the usual kind we can buy in pots in grocery stores, but it has a delicious, minty-licorice kick. It's a native of SE Asia and is used in many Asian cuisines, not just Thai. Here's some hiding in my garden next to much showier gold dust plants and vinca:

Thai basil on the lower right, looking modest.

And here you can see the difference between the usual Sweet basil of Western cuisine, and Thai basil:

Left: Sweet basil, Right: Thai basil (Wikimedia Commons, but it looks like my yard!)

Thai basil has purple stems and smaller leaves. At first, I used it only in Asian dishes. Then I didn't have enough mint for a Middle Eastern dish. Thai basil worked! Then I tried it with a traditional mojito (the unsweet kind) because we have no yerba buena up here, and, yes, everyone loved it. Then I tried it in a traditional Italian pasta recipe with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Delizioso! Then it went straight into salads, onto sandwiches, you name it, it's become somewhat ubiquitous around here....

Thai basil is very easy to grow from seed. It germinates within a few days, and is very tough and resistant to pests and fungi (unlike Sweet basil, which is attacked by everything, it seems). I start mine in the late spring, harvest through summer, and then, by late fall, it's gone. Annuals make me sad when they leave after a few short months, but I save seed from the flower heads and start again the next spring. It's worth a spot in an herb garden whether the cook likes Thai food or not.

More Beautiful Lithops Stamps

As if collecting Lithops wasn't eccentric enough, now I'm collecting stamps of Lithops. Good grief....

These lovely stamps hail from Benin. They were issued August 30, 1997, and are part of a set of six. I cannot find the name of the artist. From the left, we have Lithops fulviceps, Lithops helmutii, and Lithops aucampiae, all in bloom.

The other three in the set show a Stapelia, a Faucaria, and a Conophytum. If you know more about the history of the set, or who created the lithographs, leave a comment!