Cool Organism of the Month, June 2013: Puya chilensis

I've previously been doing Cool Animal of the Month, but this Summer it's a plant that takes the prize for the most amazing organism I've seen.  It's a fucking huge bromeliad - like a pineapple on steroids - and it traps and eats animals up to the size of a sheep!  A SHEEP-EATING PINEAPPLE!  The world is a strange and wonderful place.  I guess now I'm doing Cool Organism of the Month instead.

Awesome!

A bottle garden that has been sealed for forty years and still thrives!

Ambling around Kew again

More pics:

Striking

Bromeliad flowering

Passiflora coriacea - the Bat-Leaved Passion Flower

WILDLIFE

Goslings!  BABY GEESES!

Go near these two with a packet of crisps and they're fast on the cadge!

Albino Cichlid

Many bees on an Allium flower

Dendrobates leucomelas - poison dart frog

Pervy Names

Finally then, I've finished the long box: 

Alas, poor Mike!

  My bay tree has died.  I did all I could but the roots were too far gone.  I'm still determined to have a potted bay in my garden however, so my next Laurus project (next Spring) will be Stan.  Are you keeping up with the cinematic references here?  Stan will be a cluster of baby laurels in a large Dutch planter with a bunch of bamboo arranged in a cone.

Poor sod :(

  I love a functional garden, utility is a beautiful thing, but sometimes the beauty of a thing can extend beyond mere usefulness; a thing which has both aesthetic value and practical value is truly a joy in so small a garden.  I set out to use part of my garden to help feed my family while still providing recreational space - so far so good - but the more I look at it the more I think it'd be even better if I worked a few flourishes in.  So I'll add a frame of jasmine here, a dash of gravel or bark there.  Maybe work in some bright ground cover plants between the fruit, maybe plants that nourish the soil, some borage, some marigolds.

  So as part of the works on the house and grounds the housing association plan to change the front fence and rip out the buddleia stump and remaining brambles.  Grand, grand, but I grow Rosemary by the front gate, so I've dug it out and potted it for now.  That's Rosmarinus officinalis.  You gotta get the officinal stuff, made by kids in the officinal Indonesian sweatshop, else you could end up with any old crap that falls apart.  You might even be sold a baby Tarragon!  Never buy herbs in a poke.  Or I might possibly be thinking of trainers...

Lastly then, I'm starting work on the North border.  It'll take up the last foot of the lawn, but grass doesn't grow there anyway.  I'll be growing things like Tarragon, Bergamot and Jasmine, but also Ericas to encourage pollinators.  Maybe some Rosemary at the edges to shrub it out and gently discourage pets from legging it across the bed.  Ah well.  Here are the first nineteen plants to go in:

Yes, that's half a dozen Coleus in there.  They don't do anything but look pretty and cover ground, but this Summer I have a lot of time for things which look pretty and cover ground.  But for now, we dig!

Fighting the Ap-ocalypse

Tweet it, Facebook it, spread the word.

Well I shan't be growing those any time soon!

Casting around for what to do with the front garden, I decided on a pergola overgrown with climbing flowers and fruits.  Clematis and loganberries seems an ideal combination.  But then I can also plant flowers in the spaces between the legs of the pergola for ground cover and colour, so what to plant?

I was looking at blues and purples when I stumbled upon Hydrangeas.  They look lovely, but further research reveals that kids have started nicking the flowers to smoke 'em on the basis of a myth that they contain tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in cannabis.  They don't contain any THC but they do contain Hydrogen Cyanide, the famous Nazi death gas.  Now while there isn't enough HCN in a Hydrangea spliff to kill you there is enough to risk brain damage.

A combination of conscience and the fervent desire to not have my garden trashed (again) is why I'm not planting Hydrangeas until this idiocy dies a death.  A shame really, because they do look lovely!

The PLN

Here's the finalised layout for the arable side of the garden.  I've got the wood ready.  All I'm waiting on now is for my hand to heal up and the damn thing's as good as built.  This is just the right half; try to imagine that off to the left is the path and then the lawn.  All unmarked greenery is Rosemary whilst the purple is climbing flowers.

Rubus conclusions, pt 1

So the first three Rubus Experiments have concluded.  Link here.

The next three will launch in 2014.

Rosie and Jim Go Outside

Finishing revisiting childhood in 3... 2... 1...

I'm back.

So we've got some new additions to the garden this morning.  Rosie and Jim are from Rubus 3 and they've taken up residence on the roof of the Strawbrary.

Bill is vaguely interested in the mysterious floating plant pot.  George is convinced that it's here to kill us all!  Meanwhile, the experiment's own page now comes up top on Google when you search for The Rubus Experiments, which is pretty awesome.

The Rubus Experiments, pt. 2

I'll be setting this one up tomorrow.  Broadly the same set-up as for Rubus 1, but with different variables:

Windowsill 'Tilly' (my bedroom)

• Hot
• Average humidity
• Maximum direct Sun

Windowsill 'Tom' (dining room)

• Hot
• Very dry
• High Sun

Windowsill 'Tiny' (living room)

• Warm
• Average humidity
• Minimum direct Sun

Windowsill 4 (Rubus 1 group)

• Coolest, though warm still
• Most humid
• Second-highest direct Sun

From Rubus 1, only Milo and Doodle will be involved in Rubus 2.

Further updates will now be found at rubusexperiments.blogspot.co.uk

The Rubus Experiments, pt 1

Note to secondary and FE biology teachers: feel free to use this as an example of a simple and practical botanical experiment.  The link presently comes up second on the first page of Google when searching for "The Rubus Experiments".  The Rubus tab across the top of the page will link to the site where I'm posting the experiments progress.  

  The ramp out front needs replacing as it is presently bridging the damp course.  Everyone finally admits it, so that'll likely happen a few months from now.  The ramp covers more than half the surface area of the front garden, so it'll mean something of a slash-and-burn of plantlife out there.  That Buddleia will go (TFFT!) but so will my brambles.  Those brambles have been there for over ten years and they're a brilliantly heavy cropper.  Every year in late Summer/early Autumn we have more blackberries than we know what to do with.  I didn't plant the bramble myself and nobody knows how many generations of Rubus have grown here.

  More important than sentiment is genetics.  Genes are like stories: they shift in the retelling.  The verses which suit the culture tend to be retained, to grow and to flourish, whilst those which don't will fade into obscurity.  That plant has a genetic heritage which enables it to hold its' own in that place, that soil, those conditions, in spite of competition from other plants.  That plant belongs to that garden, and a similar bramble bought from the garden centre might not suit the space in the same way.

  What to do, then?  Well, I intend to keep the bramble one way or another, but if the bulk of it must be chopped down then I might as well try some stuff out.  I'm not saying this'll work, so you shouldn't take this as a guide to action.  Still, here's what I'm getting up to:

The tools I'll need.  

I've filled the pots with soil from my garden, the same soil the parent plant is growing in.  Most would say to use potting compost, and I'd tend to agree.  My soil is crumbly, silty loam which successive gardeners since the 1930s have dug endless peaty compost into.  If I wanted a better medium for growing I'd have to invent it.

I took the soil from the beds.  Specifically from a point furthest from where my V. faba are growing.  No sense in depriving the beans at this time of year.  Once filled, I took cuttings from shooting tips of the Rubus. They're easily spotted by the claw-like, mitroid tips.  These are where new growth is happening most vigorously, so they should be most likely to take root.  The greenest shoots are best.  Prior to cutting the blades of the scissors were suspended in a pan of water as it boiled.

The growing end of a vine.  

The shoot cutting, size 7 hand for scale.  

I took only healthy shoots, avoiding any that had a problem with greenfly.  Heh, "problem", kinda makes it sound like "if you're not talking to your plants about greenfly..."  Aaanyways; once a shoot cutting was taken, it had to be rinsed under the tap.  A good soaking helps prepare the cuttings.  A hole was made in the centre of my potted soil using a skewer and the cut end put into the soil.  I then used my thumbs to press the soil down gently, just enough to close the hole without compressing the soil.  

I've made five of these - each of roughly the same length - and put them in the Nursery.  Mike has been relocated to my bedroom windowsill for the duration.  Mike seems to be recovering well from his infection.  Once there they each got a solution of 4:2:6 up to the yellow line on the saucer.  Now for the experiments.  I say experiment, but these are more akin to case studies than true lab experiments, albeit with certain controls in place.  

1. I've taken four cuttings of thin, green shoots.  One of a thicker, purpling shoot.  Which will fare better?
2. Two of my shoots curve.  I've pointed the tips of these away from the Sun, where normally plants bend toward the Sun.  Will the phototropic action of auxins cause the whole shoot to straighten up as it brings itself sunward or will the tip kink towards the Sun instead?  

Basic exercises in botanical study, but interesting for all that.  I'll observe the cuttings over the coming months and report on their progress.  Here's the five as they stand today:

Mike got sick :(

Mike - my Laurus nobilis - has come down with a case of powdery mildew; a common disease of bay trees.  The treatment was severe.  Mike has two parts to him, a long one and a short one.  I don't know if the shorter part is a second trunk or if it's a branch of the main trunk which budded below the soil.  Whatever it is, the affected leaves were all on that part, that branch, so I took the entire branch.  Effectively I took a third of him.  By isolating the infected part from the healthy plant I should've prevented further deterioration; fingers crossed.  Mike looks sad now.

I've gotten photos, of course.  The classic grey patches of powdery mildew are visible, as are the brown leaf margins which suggest the mildew has damaged the leaves internally.

Hopefully this'll put a stop to it. Poor Mike :(

Thyme and Space

  I picked up some Thyme yesterday.  By this point I've run out of space in the herb nursery so I'm keeping the thyme on my bedroom windowsill.  They'll go out in Spring in a trough beneath the landing window.  From the centre radiating outwards I have:

1x Common Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)
2x Red Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum)
2x Lilac Thyme (Thymus lilac thyme, apparently)

  I give it a week before my room starts to smell like a roast.  That windowsill gets full Sun so they should grow like stink.  They'll be pretty when they're in full flower too.  I'm growing most of my herbs in the garden or in pots on windowsills but I'd be mad to pass up fitting windowboxes.  I'm gonna check out that Thymus lilac thyme, because that does not sound like a thing.  Even if the name of a new species isn't Latin per se, it does at least need to be Latinised - possibly by bolting an us on the end of it - lest some important botanist somewhere go berserk and shit a kidney.

  While I was out I picked up a suet feeder and some mealworm suet blocks.  Robins do love their mealworms.  I've hung that on the same nail as a clay birdhouse that I dug up last week and have since repurposed as my fat cake feeder.  Hanging them from the back wall rather than from a tree should make it harder for squirrels to get at it.  Maybe I'll bring the ladder out at some point and move the feeders up higher onto the pipework.

  Pinky and Perky have recovered beautifully in the 26 days they've been sat in the herb nursery.  So much so that today I put them outside in the Strawbrary.  I actually didn't rate them.  Everyone says Alpine strawberries have a kick but these tasted very watered down to me.  Maybe because nursing involves a fair bit of water in the initial stages, I don't know.  I put them in the outer bit rather than the inner bit so that wildlife can get at the berries.  They'll still cross-pollinate with the others so hopefully I'll end up one day with big, juicy Cambridge strawberries that crop over an extended period like Alpines do.  We live in hope.  

  Pinky's on the right, Perky's on the left.  I had to get more straw to mulch these two, so most of the remainder from the new bag has gone into the Strawbrary, while a good few handfuls have gone onto the roof for birds to take for nesting, perhaps save them from picking it off my plants.  I'll get some copper tape for the edges eventually, but of course there's a million other things to do.  

  Lastly then, a plea for sanity, a plea that people learn from my fail.  The ends of fingers have no muscle, no meat to speak of; just skin, fat, two tendon-ends and a bone.  It doesn't take much for something to go deep.  Please, when storing tools in a place where they cannot readily be seen - such as the bottom of a toolbox, drawer or bucket - ensure that all knives and saws are sheathed.

That could've been nasty.  Thankfully it caught the pinky on my swearing hand - so-called because the ring finger and the pinky are both dull and half-palsied - and even then it only got down to the fat.  I've since checked my toolbox incredibly thoroughly, as infections such as tetanus can be picked up from cuts by muddy tools.  My jab's in date again from last year, so it's all good.

Right, I'm off.  That porridge ain't going to eat itself.  Bye xx

V. faba, A. italicum and endless R. fruticosus

  Since last night I've had Zombie by The Cranberries stuck in my head.  I like the song but it makes a brutal earworm.  Been listening to a lot of Lyndsey Stirling of late as I do so love string music.

Today I brushed back the leaves off the beds and lo!  My Vicia faba are coming in.  They're titchy, bud-headed shoots just now but they'll grow.  I've included a tuppence for scale:

Seven more or less parallel rows, though some shoots are isolated within the row whilst others are quite clustered.  

The random Arum italicum from the beds I've dug out and potted with a little 4:2:6.  Ultimately it's going to the windowsill of the Biology lab at my old college.  They're lovely plants but I can't ask a vegetable bed to bear the cost in nitrogen and potassium of an ornamental species whilst still giving me a decent yield.  The exception of course is for useful species such as marigolds and borage, which I don't eat, but which make themselves useful.  Marigolds discourage pests whilst borage frees up potassium and calcium in the soil.

Here the A. italicum is keeping Pinky and Perky company while I watch it for any signs of transplant shock.

Those alpines have grown like stink since I got them, and their leaves look far less symptomatic than they did.  Symptomatic isn't really the right word, but there isn't really an equivalent word that has to do with signs.  They'll want to go outside soon, I reckon.  I'll need to get some more straw first so that they can be properly mulched.  

Lastly then, I've given up pruning my brambles (Rubus fruticosus).  If I cut them back they only grow into the same space again and faster than before.  Instead I've taken to tying them onto the buddleia.  The ladder is about 4'6" to the shelf.  

Give it a few years and those brambles will be twenty feet high, the way they've grown.  I pity the poor sod who parks their car under it when the upper reaches are bearing fruit, as it's already a bird magnet.  Bee magnet too, which when you consider that something like a third of edible crop species are bee pollinated, a bee magnet is a nice thing to have around.  Bees freak me out, but their biological utility is undeniable.  

I have a show to light now so I'd best get off the comp.  Until next time xx

Autumn Maple

  So it's Autumn, for the originators my 62 British pageviews this past month.  30 might call it Fall while 152 would call it Herbst (according to Google, at any rate).  It's bloody cold after what weather reporters called "Freezing Friday", which to me just conjures an epic yet PG-rated quest being undertaken by a polar bear, a puffin, and one very lost penguin.  All of them singing jaunty songs about snow and things that rhyme with snow, which thirty years later prompts heated (but largely esoteric and thus widely ignored) debates as to whether the word "Eskimo" is racist.

But I digress...

  The big maple growing through the roof of the Strawbrary is having its annual shed.  I've not yet managed to get a photo which includes the entire tree - Google Earth notwithstanding - so suffice it to say the thing puts down enough leaves each Autumn that the garden becomes effectively cushioned.  Any deeper and I'd have the cast of Jackass wanting to fling Wee Man off the roof in a Superman cape.  Ordinarily I'd just leave them to rot over the Winter, but this year is different:  this year I'm getting a brew on!

The fallen leaves thus far - and it's only the start of the shedding - are scraped up into a plastic bin.  

Once it's filled, pressed down and filled again (because leaves trap a lot of air!) I poured three litres of water over the top of the leaves, replaced the lid and weighted it on with a stone.  

That'll rot down over the coming year.  The resultant liquid - known as leaf tea - can be diluted to one cup of the tea into a watering can of water for use as a high nitrogen feed for the lawn and other nitrogen-hungry plants.  The leaves which wouldn't fit into the bin can be mulched directly onto the lawn.  

In other decomposition news, the compost is coming along nicely.  Some berk put bread in it though, which is doing nothing so much as turn blue.  I must remember to pop round to Nathan's house for some horse manure.  

And I found this leaf in my bean patch.  It's not the Vicia faba that I planted, and nor is it anything that I've seen in this garden before.  It's of a firm, rubbery texture.  My hand is in the shot, and for scale I wear size 7 gloves.

If anybody knows what in Earth that is, please comment below.  Ta muchly :)