A Jewel in Dublin's Crown

If you're headed to Ireland anytime soon (weather be damned!), might as well indulge yourself in some seriously luscious flora. In which case, do I know a place for you: the Dublin haunt of one of the world's most celebrated gardeners, Helen Dillon.

If you time your visit right, you may get a chance to sample some of the irrepressible Dillon charm and wit.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

The Dillon Garden is just a bus ride from downtown Dublin, one brief block and a world away from the teeming masses on Sandford Road. The summer I was there (two, three four years ago? who can remember?), one of my favorite plant combinations was this percussive arrangement of masculine plants (yes, I jest).

Euphorbia, allium and two forms of eryngium at peak perfection in Helen Dillon's front garden.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

So how do you get in? Simple! All you gotta do is pay. The Dillon Garden is open Mon-Sat, 2-6pm during the summer, with more limited hours on Sunday. No guarantees you'll see what I did, she's too restless a gardener to just leave things alone, but I would imagine no matter how soggy the weather, you'll find yourself awash in color.

The ultimate use of a see-through Stipa gigantea dripping over a perennial jungle

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

And if it makes you feel any more comfortable about going, by all means tell Helen I sent you.

4:52 PM ET | 07-30-2007 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

The Most Dangerous Plant At A Nursery Nearest You

Here's hoping this is not the first you're hearing about the dangers of the beautiful, bold-leaved Ricinus communis, otherwise known as the castor bean plant. Its name might not ring a bell but perhaps you've seen its foliage.

Tough to find a plant that looks this good but, to be blunt, GET OVER IT!

photo credit: Valter Jacinto

 

The problem is those spiky, Sputnuk-like seedpods, or more exactly, the smooth pebbled seeds within. One of these mouth-watering, multi-colored beans is enough to kill a Jack Russell terrier, and I only single out the breed because that's what my friend's dog was. It took two years for the little guy's organs to finally fail, despite everything modern medicine had to pump him with.

The beautiful, glossy, and seemingly harmless beans inside a Ricinus seedpod

photo credit: Abigail Kelly

 

The list of plants that COULD hurt animals (and children, of course) is rather long. One of the better online sources is the ASPCA. But given the overall risks involved with most of them, the castor oil plant is where I draw the line.

Never mind that you can buy it everywhere as a summer annual. That does not make it safe. I'd like to see all the varities of Ricinus communis pulled from the market until such a time as a sterile hybrid comes down the pike.

If you must have this dangerous beauty - believe me, I understand the craving - there is one way to sidestop the danger: rip the plant out before it flowers.

1:45 AM ET | 07-26-2007 | permalink | comments (17) | e-mail post

Can You Name This Bard of Berries?

I picked up blueberries last night at an undisclosed farm market outside Pittsfield, MA. YUCH. Let this not be a harbinger of local berries to come. For today, then, I take solace in the visual beauty and poetic possibilities of the fruit.

When the market produce disappoints, there's always the macro lens.

photo credit: dklimke

 

And now for the poetic challenge. Without using Google (restrain yourself, please!), who wrote the poem about today's featured fruit that these lines are taken from?

"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really they're ebony skinned:
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned."

On-your-honor winner gets a Talking Plants keyring. On my honor.

2:04 PM ET | 07-23-2007 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

Face First into the Raspberries! Wanna Share Your Garden Pix?

Earlier this week, I made a promise I didn't keep — to explain the Talking Plants Flickr group and show you how to play. Much to my chagrin, even the Flickr folks noticed I hadn't followed through and sent me a crib sheet in case I was the one who needed the explaining.

But first let me get you up to speed.

As you may have noticed on the right side of this blog entry, I've set up a Talking Plants photo group on the Flickr Web site. I'm hoping those of you who are photographers will want to post your plant and garden pics to the group. (NOTE: All dogs and cats must be accompanied by something chlorophyllic.) That way, we can see what we love, hate, envy, can't identify, and wish we could dive right into.

Is there anything more enticing and legal than a Flickr group that posts such voluptuous eye candy?

photo credit: Barbara Galasso

 

As for what the Yahoo! company Flickr is — on a strictly need-to-know-basis — it's a free way to both store and share your photographs that is incredibly painless to use. All you need to do is sign up, create an account, and start uploading pix.

Lest you think that Talking Plants is a shill for Flickr, let me assure you that we are just users of the service. We don't have any special relationship with Flickr.

Most important — to me, anyway — is that you then join the Talking Plants Flickr Group. Then you can introduce yourself (or not; all curmudgeons welcome), and join the other kids who've been playing in our photo pool.

Stay tuned for weekly photo winners and other incredibly cheap thrills...

12:28 PM ET | 07-20-2007 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

Dog Saves Grapevine, Saving Mankind

OK, so I exaggerate. The real story is that golden retrievers are being used in Napa Valley to sniff out vine mealybugs, nasty pests that do $3-$5 million in crop damage annually. With any luck, this link will get you to a recent Wall Street Journal piece. The gist is this...

Trained to detect the scent of female mealybugs in heat, the dogs point and bark when they smell mealybugs on a grapevine. Workers can then cut away the infected vine limb before it contaminates the rest of the crop.

Autumn is out to bust mating mealybugs before their progeny destroy grapevines

photo: Dani Vernon

This ain't breaking news; the intent to use dogs in this way was first reported back in February, '06. But as heard on KQED's California Report , the bug-sniffing dogs have now taken to the fields, much to the dismay of many a mealy.

In reading between the lines, it seems the effort may require breeding "high-drive, high-initiative" retrievers to do the job. Which leads me to pray, Please Lord, please make everybody STOP breeding dogs until we have homes for all the rest. Amen.

11:40 PM ET | 07-16-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Jump in the Talking Plants Photo Pool!

A sublime moment in the life of an ordinary sunflower

photo: Jesse78

Thanks to you guys, we've been cavorting for weeks in the Talking Plants Flickr photo pool, where fellow plant fiends have been posting garden pix and showing off their sublime sense of aesthetics. I'll explain what Flickr is in my next post so you, too, can bring your toys and jump in the pool.

Right now, for inspiration, enjoy the above delicious moment in the life of a sunflower captured by Talking Plants Flickr member Jesse78. Any little entertaining story you'd like to add about your pix will be most welcome (e.g., "I hate this sunflower because it's tall, rank and boring but I grow it for this one moment of glory" - no, Jesse did NOT say this!)

10:29 AM ET | 07-16-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Lady Bird Johnson In Flower

I saw this quintessential "Lady Bird" Johnson quote in John Burnett's remembrance of the First Lady . With these two sentences she sets out an agenda with which she will transform the American landscape.

"I want Texas to look like Texas, and Vermont to look like Vermont," she once said. "I just hate to see the land homogenized."

"Lady Bird" Johnson amidst Gaillardia pulchella or blanket flower in a 1990 portrait taken in the Texas Hill Country

photo: LBJ Library photo by Frank Wolfe

 

If you're feeling as moved as I am by her death, and as grateful for her influence and priorities, consider a donation to your local native plant society in her memory. And now you've another reason to visit the Texas hill country in the spring: the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. The first reason is to see her agenda in bloom.

12:50 AM ET | 07-12-2007 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

Strong, Stiff or Spiky: Flowers For Men

I'm not giving up gardening for bloggening just yet, but I am dipping into a few fertile sites. No doubt we will talk further about the myriad of gender issues in horticulture (e.g., why don't my gay friends grow food? why don't my lesbian friends grow flowers?) but I'm not sure I have enough cred with my editors to get anything along these lines past them.

Yet.

In the meantime, I might direct your attention to an entry from The Human Flower Project exposing a few myths about men and flowers.

Consider this manly boutonniere:

"...many florist and gift-giving websites caution readers that men may only respond positively IF they receive particular kinds of flowers, for example (a) a blooming cactus; (b) dark-colored flowers; (c) tall and sturdy flowers; or (d) flowers surrounded by strong, stiff, or spiky foliage...."

Better stock up on that Eryngium, girls. Plant any and all species in this architectural genus in full sun and fast-draining soil. I admit, they're hardly unusual. But like a good man they are surprisingly uncommon.

1:23 AM ET | 07-11-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Fragrant Homecomings

If you traveled someplace gorgeous even for a day during this past 4th of July weekend, coming home might have been a drag. Ocean sand swapped for sweaty asphalt; mountain air morphed into the smell of grilling meat (my own personal vegetarian hell). So wasn't I full of gratitude today when, on returning from a shady park, I got out of a hot car onto the hot pavement to be greeted by the sweetest of scents blooming by my back door.

Yes indeed, sweet enough to get a strong whiff all the way in the front garden (admittedly, I do have a small house). Anyway, you get the point; subtle this vine isn't. But when faced with bucolic deprivation, make mine Trachylospermum jasminoides (rhymes with with "whack a low STERNum, sass man BOY tease").

Zoe Mae scoffs at the fragrant vine by our back door, Trachylospermum jasminoides. After all, what's the smell of a Chinese star jasmine compared with the redolence of a rotting mole?

photo by Ketzel

Now here comes the big DUH, particularly if you live in the Southeast or Northwest. I'm talking about the common Chinese star jasmine (doesn't ring a bell? OK, how 'bout Confederate jasmine?). Don't let the plant's common name fool you, though. It may be jasmine-like, but it's not a true jasmine.

And now for the big sigh. This lovely, glossy and well-behaved evergreen vine does not like single-digit temperatures. Perhaps you know better (of course you do, what was I thinking? Please advise). I've noticed that the cultivar 'Madison' is supposed to be hardier, but as we all know, plants don't read. (I crib that line with thanks to Tony Avent.

Caveat: IT'S NOT NATIVE! (once bitten, twice shy) but I've yet to read it's invasive. Just keep it off your trees if you live in Florida, OK?

So, your idea of a plant worth coming home to?

10:10 PM ET | 07- 8-2007 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

Iris bubbles

If this is the first you're reading of Beverly Sills' death and you find yourself a bit stunned, I might suggest you ease into the news by listening to NPR host Robert Siegel's poignant interview with actress Carol Burnett, one of Ms. Sills' best friends.

Here at Talking Plants, we'd like to offer you a moment of incomparable beauty, a photograph of the young Beverly Sills.

A 37 year old Beverly Sills during a recording session

AP

 

Not surprisingly, her iris namesake ( Iris 'Beverly Sills') pales by comparison, but does suggest the sheer sweetness and exuberance of a woman who preferred to be called "Bubbles".

The tall bearded iris, 'Beverly Sills', with pale coral-pink petals and a light apricot "beard"

Photo by E A Curley, courtesy of DavesGarden.com, used with permission

 

I won't pretend this German iris will mingle quite as amiably as the diva once did; after all, it's tough to just work in a statement like this if you're not already growing irrepressibly tarty flowers. But if this plant does nothing more than remind you that such as woman once walked and sang among us, order a bunch of bulbs now and plant them in full sun in the fall.

3:28 PM ET | 07- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

It's Your Plant Again. Pick Up The Phone!

As promised, here's a Q&A with the co-founder of Botanicalls, a not-yet-ready-for-primtime product that enables houseplants to call you on the phone when they need attention. Of course they can't really call you, but four NYU grad students - among them, Kati London - have concocted a way to simulate a call.

Wake Up! Pay Attention! FEED ME!

photo by Sai Sriskandarajah

KL: Kati London, welcome to TP. Mind explaining how and your co-horts, hahaha, have gone about giving plants a voice?

Kati: We wanted to do things as cheaply as possible, so we created a simple circuit. We start with rudimentary sensors that determine soil moisture levels in a given plant. We add little photocells to determine the plant's light levels. We connect those sensors to a little chip set with thresholds.

KL: Oy. Thresholds?

Kati: Yeah, like "I need water but it's not urgent". Or, "Hi, I'm desperately in need of a drink". Or, "Thanks for watering me but now there's water left in my dish. Could you empty it?"

KL: A pain-in-the-ass plant. I love it. Go on.

Kati: OK. The little chip is connected to a wireless radio, which is connected to a master radio, which is hooked up to the internet via an ethernet cable. Now the plant's communicating directly with a webpage. The webpage is Asterisk, an open-source phone system, which launches a call based on the info it receives from the plant, in a voice that's been pre-recorded.

KL: Pre-recorded by what, or whom?

Kati: Friends, actors, folks who we thought reflected the biography of each plant.

KL: So the scotch moss is represented by someone with a Scots accent, that kind of thing?

Kati: Yeah. The scotch moss is hysterical. We wanted to be playful and give people who are afraid to stick their fingers in dirt a way in to the plant world.

KL: I was gonna ask, isn't observation enough to see that a plant's dying for a drink?

Kati: People will flat ignore plants in their space. They're on their blackberries, their cellphones, they're online. We wanted to give the plants a similar platform in which they could communicate.

KL: So basically you're seducing people with technology to make them look at what's right in front of them.

Kati: And being funny at the same time.

KL: So what phase of development is Botanicalls in now?

Kati: Two things. We're working on a DIY model which could be ready this fall, and we're fine-tuning codes for plants in the same room so they can talk to each other. Let's say I'm a fiddle-leaf fig and I need light and I can't get it. I can ask the other plants in the same room with me if THEY have light. If no one else has light, I can deduce that it's either nighttime or cloudy. But if I notice that the spider plant has LOTS of light, I can call and say, "Move me next to the spider plant!"

KL: So where do you think this former graduate school project will take you guys?

Kati: We're interested in creating a sustainable brave new world - not only ecologically, but financially. We'd like to make these DIY kits so we can get feedback and make them lucrative.

Ultimately, though, in all my work, I'm looking for ways to give living creatures a voice that is not otherwise heard.

11:59 AM ET | 07- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

Phone's For You. It's Your Plant.

Today, Talking Plants is all about talking plants.

Hi. It's the ivy. I'm desperately in need of a drink. Do you think you could find it in your heart to maybe water me, a little? Thanks.

I kid you not. An ivy at NYU has learned to talk. Or should I say kvetch. And he has emboldened a chorus of plants to line up and call home.

Hello. This is the lithops? # 002? I'm really thirsty and I don't feel good. Could you please water me and do it enough so that my soil is soaked? Thank you!

Introducing Botanicalls, giving voice to the houseplants you continue NOT to see. As if limp, shriveled leaves didn't scream loud enough, four very clever NYU graduate students have given several plant genera a way to tell you exactly what they need.

Hi. This is sweet basil. I've been getting a lot of light recently. Too much! Could you move me away from the window a bit? Maybe some other plant can take my place for a while?

A cute gimmick? My first thought, too, until I spoke at length just yesterday with one of the Botanicall's very thoughtful and sincere founders about the hows and whys of the project. Meet Kati London in tomorrow's Talking Plants post.

In the meantime, why not call a lonely NYU plant yourself? By dialing 212.202.8348, you can meet the lithops, among other plants, and find out about its attitude and anatomy in its "own" words.

11:47 AM ET | 07- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post