My Hope is Green

| Flower Roberts

I had to take myself outside today.

I was feeling too much like a human. (No offense.)

I have been reading about politics and watching the television.

I don’t understand people. (No offense.)

I don’t believe I am human.   I think a mistake was made.

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Cardoon

I had to get outside on this dark, wet day to find some hope.

I found it.

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Tulip

I came back in with muddy shoes, pants, hands and camera.(Sorry Honey.)

My hope comes from the ground,

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Sedum

Not from my family, friends, books or the television.(I love you but…No offense.)

My hope is green.

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Snowdrops

I had to see that things were still growing and pushing up out of the earth.

Even in cold. Even in darkness.

If a little plant can do it, so can I.

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Delosperma

FLOWER

 

A Dish In a Bowl of Fish

| Flower Roberts

I have to bring my Shubunkins in for the winter.

They live in a small pond that I made years ago as “Maiden Stone Garden Art” concrete artist.

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It is too small to leave water in it during a freeze.   Plants nor fish would survive.

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The three Shubunkins come into the foyer to greet guests with noises and splashing.

It has been difficult to keep this bowl looking good and keep the water clean .

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After much experimentation, I have found a way to keep the water clearer.

First, I use a turkey baster to gobble up the debris from the bottom.

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This removes concentrated detritus without stirring up the water.

I purchased a foam filter and placed it in a dish, weighted down by rocks.

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Now, I can lift out the dish full of waste while mixing less into the remaining water.

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Always clean and dry used equipment. Also label it. No one wants to eat a turkey basted with your fish bowl sucker-upper.

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Fish waste is like manna to microbes.

Now, I can actually see my little friends.

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FLOWER and her fish.

Seeds in Sand

| Flower Roberts

I am ashamed to admit that I usually don’t mix my small seeds with sand.

It can be seen on my hand how this mix would better space the seeds.

Poppy seeds are also tiny and tend to blow while sown.

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This leads to over-crowding and the need to thin seedlings.

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Sometimes I wait too late to thin, which disrupts the roots of the plants left.

Last week I mixed my poppy seeds with sand before sowing them.

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I liked that I could see where I had sown the seeds.

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Hopefully, this year’s poppies will be less crowded than last year’s crop.

If I have given you my red, double “Bill Troutman” poppy seeds; you need to sow them soon.   They are early risers.

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FLOWER

The Real McCoy

| Flower Roberts

In America, we use this saying “the real McCoy” to mean the real thing. This means that whatever is being described is the genuine article; not an imitation or fake.

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This saying has several possible origins including an oil-drip can, rum during prohibition or the famous feuding families, the Hatfields and McCoys.

I am using it here with McCoy pottery, which was made in Ohio from roughly 1929 to 1967.  The company started alone, consolidated as ACPC, split apart and then regrouped again.

The marks McCoy and USA on the bottom mean it was made after about 1933.

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These two pieces are from my dear maternal grandmother and maternal great grandmother who were both from Ohio.

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The Turtle Sprinkler sat on a table in a corner window with my great  grandmother’s African Violets.

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The planter held some of my grandmother’s favorite plants.  I wanted to photograph this before planting one of her plants back into it.

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McCoy is a highly collected form of pottery, but don’t rush to e-bay just yet.

The Turtle sells for about $45 and the planter for only $20.

These two are worth way more to me in memories than money.

FLOWER

Cleaned and Quarantined

| Flower Roberts

I was excited to spot some orange on the kalanchoe buds.

Upon closer inspection, the color came from bugs not blooms.

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Aphids had stowed away and were happily sucking sap from the young stems.

I pulled out my mean weapons from my arsenal to do battle.   Q-tips, along with a dish of alcohol.

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The aphid army was soon obliterated and floating in the dish-of-death.

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Do not pity these parasites. They are itty bitty, yet ugly and vicious.

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The plant is now recovering nicely in the plant hospital, along side the sick Lemon Button Fern.

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FLOWER the Warrior

Reading Snow

| Flower Roberts

I set out to discover different tracks in the snow.

I did locate several sets of interest.

My regret is not including something to reference scale.  I tried a dime, but it sunk in the powdery snow.

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bird
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Mouse hang-out under shrub.
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mouse
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deer

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beagle

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squirrel
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Mr. Flower

 

 

 

 

 

My Hero, Marianne North

| Flower Roberts

My dreams are to be an artist and a plant hunter.

So, it is only fitting that I stumbled across this book in the middle of the night.

When I can’t sleep I do one of two things.

I play the app game, “Name That Bird” or I search through sample books on my Nook.

Who could resist this cover page?

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After reading a sample of Marianne’s adventures, I was hooked.

She was an artistic, female version of Charles Darwin, another hero of mine.   The two knew each other!

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I then ordered the Nook book Abundant Beauty.   No hard copies available on-line.

Her earlier book, Recollections of a Happy Life, is free as an e-book.

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The paperback book, Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter, by Michelle Payne can be purchased.

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Marianne traveled around the world in the 1800’s painting exotic plants, flowers, fruits, insects, birds and animals.

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She also painted landscapes.

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When she returned home, she donated a building in Kew Gardens to house all her paintings.

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She wanted to include a snack bar (tea room) but they wouldn’t allow that.

What an adventurous and talented woman, who was way ahead of her time.

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FLOWER

 

 

 

 

Out with the Old, NOW!

| Flower Roberts

My Christmas tree flocked itself!

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If you don’t know what “flocking” is, it is a method of spraying fake snow on a tree.

My tree took on a flocked appearance overnight, due to our ramping up the heat.

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At first I thought the little white specks were moving.  Mealy bugs?

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Upon closer inspection, I saw the specks were actually tiny fibers blowing due to the fan.

I snipped of some whitened shoots and popped the pieces under the microscope.

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There was a fungus among us.

The tree was unceremoniously stripped of its ornaments in record time.

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We hauled it out on the deck with the lights still on.

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No need to spread the spores.

Out with the Old.

Happy New Year from the FLOWER and her fungus.