A Day of Beauty

I have tried several times to get a Moonflower vine to grow here in Hawaii, and I've never had much success before. I've had several that never grew at all; and the last batch I planted* grew, bloomed, and went to seed during my six-week trip to the mainland last fall...less-than-stellar planning on my part, I admit. Not to be deterred, I gathered the seeds from my already-done-blooming plants and threw them into a pot in my front yard. Well, my persistence (and better timing) has finally paid off! Yesterday afternoon, this beautiful, all-white blossom surprised me with a mid-afternoon opening. I didn't think it would bloom until the night, but what do I know? It has been pretty cloudy and dreary here, so maybe it was just confused.

Later that night it got rained on...

This morning, it appears to be on it's way out.

No worries though; it looks like another one's on its way!

*Seeds used were Moonflower, Giant White from Burpee.

What I'm Reading Now-The Night Circus: A Novel

The Night Circus: A Novel by Erin Morgenstern-This book has recently been long-listed for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction, and I can see why. I loved it. I loved the world that was created within the book--beautiful, magical, visually evocative. I want to visit Le Cirque des Réves (The Circus of Dreams), this black and white circus that appears in the middle of the night with it's ever-burning cauldron of fire. I want to see the illusions that the magicians create, night after night, building upon each other's magic. I want to attend a Midnight Dinner at Chandresh Cristophe Lefèvre's mansion. I want to see all the impossible clockworks that Herr Thiessen creates. I want a dress like Celia's, that changes color to complement my nearest companion...I want to see the magic.

When I read the Harry Potter books as an adult, I was glad that they weren't around when I was a child, because I know I would have spent my entire life waiting for an owl to deliver my invitation to Hogwarts and my whole school experience would have been even more disappointing than it was. (I blame "Grease" and "Dirty Dancing" for an exceptionally disappointing high school experience.) Anyway, now that I have read The Night Circus, I'm pretty sure that I will always be on the lookout for the black-and-white striped tents that announce the mysterious arrival of Le Cirque des Réves. And if I ever find it, you can bet I'm goin' in!

What I'm Reading Now-Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (part II)

Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets--In my last post we watched this video

and I told you about my shudder-inducing incentive to post a review about a book I didn't finish reading a year ago. By the time I got done with that, the post had already gotten a bit lengthy, and I figured no one would stick around for the review, so I thought I'd give you all a break and put the review in a separate post.

So, back to the book: First of all, fungi, mushrooms, mycelium...what's the difference? Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi, and mycelium is the network of filaments that connect fungi (you can see an example at 00:55 in the video above).  Secondly, the book is dense, and it is not all easy reading.  There is a lot of really fascinating stuff in it about all the things that mycelium does, but it's also full of a lot of scientific jargon.  I didn't even get through half of the book, and I have three pages of notes from my reading.  The first page is mostly me just trying to keep my vocabulary straight, and the rest is all interesting facts or things that I want to know more about or questions that I came up with while reading. To me, that's often the sign of a good read.

Stamets talks about mycelium's ability to transfer nutrients between plants to help keep balance in an ecosystem, its water purification abilities and how it can help build good soil in no-till farming situations. Fungi has medicinal properties and potential as a natural pesticide against things like carpenter ants, fire ants, and many crop pests. Along with oil spills, there is good evidence that fungi might also be able to reclaim environments compromised by radiation and heavy metals. (This part left me with a lot of questions. The mushrooms seem to sequester and concentrate the undesireable material (for this reason, it's important to know where your mushrooms are coming from--just outside of Chernobyl or Fukushima? Mmmm...you might want to pass), but then what? Are the harmful materials somehow metabolized over several generations, or is the area always just full of toxic mushrooms? Stamets suggests harvesting the mushrooms and disposing of them at toxic waste sites, but then we're still left with the toxic sites.) Questions aside, the possibilities seem almost endless, and I think that Hawaii is a place that could benefit greatly from some of the solutions set forth by Stamets.       

Stamets' book is also a how-to guide for growing and using mushrooms.  This was mostly the part of the book that I didn't get to, so I can't really say much about it, but, just from flipping through it, it seems pretty exhaustive. 

I highly recommend this book. In my notes, I wrote that I thought this would be a good companion read to The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen (which I reviewed in 2008) and The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart (which I read and then didn't review last April). 

I'm a huge fan of all the cool things that nature does. It has figured out solutions to things that we have been struggling with for years.  Fungi is one of those cool solutions, and it's neat to see how entwined it is with the rest of the natural world. If, like me, you think nature is cool, you might also enjoy these TED talks:

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry in action

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs

   

  

What I'm Reading Now-Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (part I)

Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets--Okay, so I have to start out with a couple disclaimers: 1) I started this book about a year ago and never finished it, BUT I've been dying to talk about it since I finished had to turn it back in to the library. I even went so far as to buy my own copy since the library only has three copies and the wait list for it was always ridiculous...but I never got around to picking it back up. The point is, don't let the fact that I didn't finish it make you think it's not worth picking up. It totally is! 2) This post is all mostly lead-up to the actual book review which is in a separate post. So if you just want to skip all the interesting weirdness that is this post, be my guest, but I think you'll be missing out.

So, why have I finally decided to talk about this book? Well, mostly because of the pile of ants that were swarming my hair clip on my bathroom counter tonight. "Eh?" you say? Oh, sorry, "Ew," you say? Well, yeah. This has actually happened a few times over the last several years now. The first time was when we owned an ice cream store and I thought perhaps I had accidentally gotten some ice cream on my hair clip while I was hunched up on the top shelf of our walk-in cooler trying to de-ice the back of our condenser unit with a blow torch. (Yeah, that happened...frequently.) Aaaanyway, the ant swarms continue to this day even though we sold the store several years ago, so I have discarded the ice-cream-on-my-hair-clip theory and moved toward the theory that the ants are mining the rubber that makes up the grippy surface on the inside of the hair clips because it's petroleum-based. Obvs.

*crickets*

OK, first, watch this TED talk by the author, Paul Stamets. This is what made me seek out the book in the first place. I know it's 18 minutes, but it's an interesting 18 minutes. Mushrooms can do amazing things! (If you really don't want to sit through all 18 minutes, then skip ahead to 7:32 and watch until 9:40). That was the part that intrigued me the most and made me want to learn more.

OK, so you saw how the mushrooms ate up the oil, right? You may also know that ants are somewhat famous for being fungi farmers.  So, what I'm thinking is that the ants have figured out that there is this petroleum-based product that they can harvest and use to grow some kind of fungus. Makes sense, right? By the way, they don't only go after my hair clips. I've also seen them tear up surgical tubing and various types of seals on containers. It doesn't happen slowly over time either; it's not like I have to shake a pile of ants off my hair clips every time I go to use them. (Ick!) They (my hair clips) will exist on my bathroom counter or my nightstand, in my purse or on the desk next to my keyboard, in and out of my hair, unmolested for months, maybe even years, and then one day, BOOM! Hair-clip-shaped pile of ants! The only thing I can figure is that the rubber breaks down to a certain point where it suddenly becomes the perfect fungus-starter and the ants move in to take advantage. 

So: Ants mining rubber to grow fungus. That wasn't in the book (at least not in the parts that I read), and I think I might be onto something here. Maybe Paul Stamets will do some studies on this and get back to me! 

OK, so feel free to take a break here, or move on to part II, wherein I actually talk a little bit about the book. 

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

Well, you may have noticed my lack of activity on here as of late. Believe me, it isn't because I've had a lack of material. In October I went home to Colorado because my little sister was about to have a baby, and I wanted to be there for both the baby shower and the birth, which were scheduled about a month apart. Long story short, I went to Colorado, endured some family drama, saw my sister showered with presents like I have never seen, took some time to go visit an old friend in Ohio, spent some time with my parents, and managed to be there when my beautiful sister gave birth to her first-born son, James. Things didn't go quite as planned-James wasn't on quite the same page as the rest of us-but in the end, everyone emerged slightly overwhelmed, but happy and healthy overall, and what more can you ask for?

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-January 2012

Happy New Year to all you Garden Bloggers out there (and to anyone else who stumbles upon this post)!
If you are paying any sort of attention at all (and thank you so much if you are) you may have noticed that I haven't garden blogged (or blogged at all for that matter) since September. I wasn't here during October and November, and I totally forgot about GBBD in December until the very end of the day. So, I did get out and get some pictures for my records, but I just wasn't up to putting together a post.

Well, it's a new year and time to get back in gear, right? OK!

Leading that charge are my little tomatoes. I don't know what variety they are, but they grow wild out here, and they are teeny tiny, about 1/2" in diameter when ripe. Left unchecked, these plants will sprawl in a most unruly manner. Maybe the pot will contain this one a little.

One of my favorite blues, Lobelia.

One of my most reliable volunteers, snapdragons.

Hardy Ice Plant (Delosperma) always adds a nice splash of color.

This little guy made a surprise appearance the other day. I planted this Gazania sometime last April or May, and since then it has been hanging on, but just barely. It puts out a few sad, spindly leaves here and there, but I wasn't sure if it was going to bloom again. I didn't even see the bud sneak up, just walked out one day and, lo and behold, there it was! 

When I got back home in November, after a 6-week absence, this lavender was looking a little...mostly dead. I wasn't sure if it was going to make a comeback or not, but a little pruning and a little water, and it has made a spectacular comeback.

My Alyssum are flourishing in the pot with my lemon tree.

For sentimental reasons, this Clerodendrum quadriloculare is one of my favorite plants. The leaves are a dark green on top and purple on the bottom, and it grows like a weed. Literally. I have to pull up runners from all over my yard, but I wouldn't dream of getting rid of it. 

I have two smallish pots out on my back lanai, under our awning. One drains, one doesn't-I can only assume this means that one pot has a crack in it and the other one doesn't. Anyway, the non-draining pot gets a little swampy in the winter months, and the miniature roses that I've always keep in those pots don't always fare so well. Finding myself in need of yet another miniature rose, I spied these Fiesta Olé ™ Purple Stripe Double Impatiens. They have the same general look and feel of miniature roses, but they are good in the shade and need lots of water. Perfect! So far (2 months?) they are proving to be pretty hardy.  

My Euphorbia leucocephala-this plant is on my back lanai as well, getting more shade than the ones in my front yard, and is in the prime of its winter white.

This one is in my front yard and starting to fade a little. Amazing how much difference location can make.

Although not my favorite plant, I do love the flowers on my Lantana. There's something whimsical about them that I find charming. 

Chive flowers are understated but kind of pretty in their own right. 

Even with all the things blooming in my yard, sometimes I break down and buy flowers at the store. When I discovered this composition on my counter today, it made me laugh. It seems the people in the house are not the only ones who like wine!

Another store purchase to brighten up the powder room.

Thanks to everyone who went on this garden tour with me, and thank you, as always, to our Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day host, Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Head on over there and see what else is blooming today! 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-September 2011

Well, it appears that I have, officially, missed GBBD which is hosted on the 15th of every month over at May Dreams Gardens.  I am not going to let that stop me though!

As it turns out, one extra day was all that my rose needed to open up all the way, so I think it was meant to be.

"Mardi Gras (Jacfrain)"

This is not necessarily the best picture that I got of my plumeria, but it is the best picture that I got with Mocha lounging stealthily in the background.

My Ice Blue plumbago blooms all the time, and so the poor thing hardly ever gets a shout-out here, but these are the first blooms that it has put on since the severe pruning that it got last month, so I figured I would show them off here.

I still have one tiny patch of lobelia that is hanging in there.

My Hardy Ice Plant is shrugging off this hot end-of-summer weather we've been having without even breaking a sweat.

My snap dragons look like they're having to put forth a little more effort, but they still have a few blooms hanging on as well.

My recently-planted lavender is showing itself to be quite hardy so far.  It survived the transplant and subsequent heat wave/lack of rain/poor watering skills of its owner to come back with a whole new blush of flowers in the last few days.  I almost clipped all the stalks off after they bloomed, but I'm glad I didn't. As you can see on the middle flower, the new growth appears at the tips, on top of the spent blooms.

My golden shrimp plant, whom I have dubbed Bob Fosse (see last month's post and comments).  Jazz haaaands!

My red ginger has gone from one big bloom to several smaller ones. I am following its development for an upcoming Progression Obsession post. 

Of the 15 spider lilies that I have in my yard, this is the only one blooming right now.

My rosemary is blooming more than usual.

My orchid has taken a little time off, but it's getting ready to come back to work.

And, as always, my Blue Daze could be counted on to make an appearance, even if this was the ONLY bloom it had to show today.

As always, thanks to Carol for providing an excuse for all of us gardeners to get out into our gardens and show off our prized possessions companions.