Pollenatrix

The Jolly Green Giant of Geraniums

We visited Madeira almost three years ago, a gorgeous little volcanic island off the coast of Africa. Madeira's year-round spring temperatures make it a gardener's paradise, and I brought home more than a few souvenirs, including orchids and some cuttings.

I also brought home a package of Geranium maderense seeds, also known as the Madeira cranesbill. I found the package in the bottom of my gardening bag last spring, threw the seeds into a pot of something already growing, and promptly forgot about it. I figured the seeds were old by then and wouldn't germinate. Well, a couple did, and when autumn came around I dug one up, put the seedling in its own pot, and brought it indoors for the winter.

When I bought the seeds I'd never actually seen a Geranium maderense, let alone one in bloom. I figured it was a just an ordinary geranium of some type, how exciting could that be? That is, until the thing started growing. And growing. It's a metre across now, and taking over my patio. No sign of flowers yet, and I'm wondering where I'm going to put this thing come winter since it's not cold hardy. I joked with my landlord that I'll just move all the furniture outdoors and bring all the plants indoors.

The leaves are quite pretty -- kind of fern-like. And despite what some of the sites I've found have said, my Geranium maderense is much happier in the shade. When the sun comes out the leaves wilt with a decided pout.

San Francisco Botanical Garden: Geranium maderense

Royal Horticultural Society: RHS Garden Rosemoor

 

Galleria Carnivora

Here's a lovely for my carnivorous-plant loving friends: A virtual art-gallery of carnivorous plant photography.

Making a big stink

12 year old Bucky the Titan Arum is about to bloom for the second time, and people are waiting for its parfum de roadkill with bated breath:

Big Bucky's back. The rare, big and extremely stinky flower that caused a sensation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when it last bloomed in 2001 could become the world's largest flower when it blooms again next week.

Extreme Houseplants

Another great find by the bloggers at UBC Botanical Gardens:

Nepenthes University

Nepenthes are carnivorous plants; they eat things, like bugs, and the odd bird or frog. And dentists.

Grow Your Own Bouttonieres

A new, low cost way to grow from seed: In yer bellybutton

Talk about indoor gardening!

Urban Gardening Essentials: Bustan

Hey, my resident apartment jungle has been honoured with a plug on the Bustan Website -- a hydroponics and indoor gardening supplies store here in Toronto.

Well, the admiration is mutual. Speaking as someone who has scoured the whole of the city and beyond to find supplies for my grow room, I can honestly say that I was thrilled the day I found this store. It not only had the grow lamp nobody else carried, it was conveniently located on Harbord near Spadina. I highly recommend the place. Everytime I go there I learn something new and interesting about indoor gardening -- Nurit and Harley are friendly, extremely well-informed, and very generous with their time and knowledge.

Ontario Carnivorous Plant Society

      Lovers of Venus Flytraps and other carnivorous plants, take note: The Ontario Carnivorous Plant Society will be launched in February. Membership is only $15, and they are currently looking for submissions to their first newsletter. Check it out!

Fun indoor activities

We’re having a bit of a bug problem – roaches, actually. Ugh. I’ve caught a couple around the kitchen sink in the mornings, a nice way to start the day. So, I decided to make the best of a bad situation, and squeeze some entertainment value out of it while waiting for the roach traps to work. I decided to catch one, and feed it to my Venus Flytrap.

At the earliest opportunity, I lightly squished one under a paper tower, and then picked it up to inspect for signs of life; the flytrap won’t close unless there’s at least a little squirming action. I saw several legs wave in the air. Holding the paper towel in one hand, I retrieved an old pair of tweezers from the bathroom, and as I passed through the living room, I said, “Laird! Come see me feed a bug to my plant”. Intrigued, he put the movie on pause, and left his chair in front of the TV to follow me into the grow room. I picked up the flytrap and held it close, then I opened the paper towel and applied tweezer to bug. Bug moved. I jumped. Bug and tweezers flew. Laird snorted in disgust and returned to his seat in the living room, muttering something unflattering about me and bugs.

I may be squeamish, but I’m not easily deterred. A little while later, while watering my plants, I discovered some aphids on the buds of my phal-type dendrobium. I never get excited about buds on that plant, they exist just to irritate me by drying up and falling off before they ever bloom. I digress. There were some sizeable specimens of aphids there, so I rooted around on the floor under the pots, and retrieved my tweezers. I tried to pick an aphid up with the tweezers, but it fell off. So I lined up the flytrap under the bud, and used one of the tongs to try to knock one into the jaws of the waiting plant. I assume the aphids must have had some awareness of the fate waiting for them below, because every one I nudged leaped off in a different direction, but never straight down. Finally, I got one in. A little one. I must have been heavy handed with the tweezer, ‘cause it was lifeless. The jaws stayed open. So I took the end of the tweezer, and tapped the pad a couple of times. It shut with a resounding clap. Well, it was soundless, really, but I’m sure it clapped. Applauding my efforts, maybe. I know I had no credibility with my audience in the living room.

Invicible summer

I woke up this morning to the sound of wet tires on a busy street, the road splashes that signal a rainy day. The sky looked grey through the blinds on the window, and my first thought was, “rats, I wasted a bright sunny day yesterday doing housework and laundry”.

I walked to the kitchen to feed the critters, and my spirits lifted at the sight out the back deck: snow. The first, bright, heavy snowfall of the year. The air was thick with white, clinging to the grey naked trees and covering the muddy schoolyard with a clean undisturbed layer of snow. I love the quiet mornings after a storm, before feet and cars and warmer daytime temperatures and maybe rain turn it all into a mucky slushy mess.

  It was almost a relief, really. Fall can be a trying time emotionally and physically while our bodies adapt to the cold and the long dark days, as we resign ourselves to winter. I have not been coping well this year -- it all seems to have happened so…fast. Wasn’t it just last week that I was out enjoying my deck garden in a t-shirt, battling raccoons and taking pictures of flowers? Well, the sight of snow snapped me out of denial, once and for all. Time to face facts: it’ll be another five months before the leaves on the trees come out again to play. Winter is a time to go inward. I’ll be in my grow room if you’re looking for me.

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."
Albert Camus

The first plant virus

A little cerebral -- but, if you've ever wondered if the ancients pulled their hair out over virus' in prize plants, or whether it's a modern phenomenon, you may be interested in this article about this possible early reference to plant virus, in a poem written by a Japanese Empress in 752 AD.

A.J. Hicks of the OGD writes, "flower break in tulips dating back to the early 1600's was discovered by Carolus Clusius, but the disease (tulip breaking potyvirus) wasn't pinned down until the 1930's. Before this was known, it was considered a valuable characteristic. Of course, in the middle of "tulip madness", just about everything tulipiferous was considered more valuable, the same way that unprofitable tech stocks were until a couple of years ago.