Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

'Allhallowsgiving'

~Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'~

An Afternoon in Mid to Late October (in Zone 8b)

~dancing sunflowers~

~~~~~

Aren't the aging flowers of the swamp sunflower (Helianthus augustifolius) delightful?  I always think that they look as if they are dancing - moving first this way, and then that way - swaying with the sound of the wind.

Now...what is the lingering question of the day?  Well, here it is:

Can a zombie be headless?

You see, my thought is yes.  But in a conversation with the eclair-baking postdoc, he said definitively NO - because they eat brains blahblahblah.

You see, these are the kinds of in-depth discussions that scientists have while avoiding asking themselves questions that they need to answer (and perhaps at the moment don't know how to answer, so must find other equally significant questions to distract themselves with).

According to this piece, there is evidence that zombies can indeed be headless.

(Required background information:  I was thinking today about what the focus of a headless scientist seminar would be - first, we know that headless scientists do not have the traditional brain.  So - once a zombie eats a humans brain, is there ever a chance that the human then survives...in a headless form?  And would it then be a...headless zombie?   So would the seminar possibly be about the sequencing of the Headless Human...or Headless Zombie...genome?   We already have the headless non-zombie scientists, for reference see 2006, 2007, and 2008.)

[Update:  "Being Headless in the Post-Cranial Era"] 

~~~~~

 

~autumn apple blossoms~

~~~~~

Camellia sasanqua 'Apple Blossom' - the new flowers start out with pink edges that fade as they age - it really is a pretty sasanqua.  My garden now has four sasanquas - two of which are now blooming.  Oh wait, it's five - I forgot about my tiny 'Fragrant Pink' that my favorite camellia grower gave me - it is still quite small and doesn't have any blooms.

In the recent Middle Georgia Camellia Society awards, 'Leslie Ann' won best sasanqua - just in case you're into that kinda thing.  I'm not terribly in to that kind of thing (I say this, but then I did go and look, didn't I?).

The other day I told the eclair-baking postdoc that I needed a herding dog to herd the Pointer Sisters.  Now, in some twisted way, that makes alot of sense, don't you think?  I could train the herder, and then give up on the next-to-impossible task of training the pointers.  Fortunately, as I type this, they are being well-behaved Airstream occupants.  No one believes me when I tell them how peaceful my Airstream evenings are...but it is true.   

~~~~~

  

~cotton candy~

Another sansaqua, Camellia sasanqua 'Cotton Candy'.  I've shown images of this one before.

 The suggestion was made yesterday that I should put two half slices of bread (to scale) on top of my Airstream for Halloween and call it a toaster.  Hilarious, don't you think?  However, like many good ideas - it's been done before.  Dang.  

~~~~~

~~

~~~~~

I'm thoroughly enjoying my perennial morning glory covering part of my front fence - the flowers are such a beautiful blue in the early morning, before they start to fade to pink - they really are stunning.  I'm beginning to experience their invasiveness however, as vines start creeping along the ground all around.  Thus far, I've been able to keep it from taking over...thus far.

Since I'm trying hard to be fiscally responsible these days due to my current job(less) situation (aka dysfunctional situation) - I've had several fellow plant-obsessed friends and colleagues provide a 'fix' for me every now and then.  Today a work colleague brought in a large bulb that is a lily of some kind, perhaps a crinum - all he told me was that it is summer blooming (I forgot to ask him the color).  It will be my weekend 'planting fix'...

In addition to these kind passalongs, I'm still taking care of my 'propagatees'.  Some of them are doing well, so well in fact that I might put them in the ground (instead of over-wintering them in a pot with some protection).  All of this propagating has made me want a greenhouse - something I don't normally wish for...now this greenhouse might be a bit too large, but one of these might be just right.  (Oh yeah, that whole dysfunctional job situation.  It just gets in the way with my gardening plans, doesn't it?)

~~~~~   

~shall we have a cup of hea my dea?~

~~~~~

I have fallen for the Cupheas.

There's the one above - which is, at present, the only one that I have in my garden.

But several of my propagatees are Cupheas, with delicious little orange and red blooms.  The hummingbirds are gonna love 'em.  I might even start a little bed just for Cupheas (but I doubt it - I think they'd be better mixed in with other things).  One was on my 'wish list' two years ago - and then I read this post over at Gators in the Garden (where are you guys?) which was a glowing review of the Genus, and well - now there is one in my garden and others are setting their roots down (quite literally in fact). 

Now, appropriate to the season, I'm lusting after Cuphea llavea - the 'Bat Face' Cuphea.  Isn't it exquisite?  It's listed as a zone 9-11, making me think that with a little protection, a little extra mulch, that perhaps I could make a go of it.  I believe that Annie (over at The Transplantable Rose) has mentioned this Cuphea before...and shown images of it in her garden.

Hmmm.  Perhaps I need to find one to propagate...

~~~~~  

~the early red of the late orange mexican sunflower~

~~~~~

I let them reseed every year, gladly - because here we are, late October, and they make me happy (and more importantly, they make the butterflies even happier).  I love the early red of 'Torch' - which mellows to a rich orange.  And that soft green - the foliage is such a beautiful shade of green.

Well, the Microbial Lab is still on it's mission (first mentioned here, and more recently updated here) - and another manuscript got submitted a few nights ago.

1. work describing a coral pathogen and the role of motility (led by our collaborators from Israel): Published (read abstract here).
2. work describing metabolites produced by a coral pathogen (led by local collaborators):   Published (read abstract here).
3. work describing genes involved in nutrient cycling in coral microbial communities: In press.
4. work describing the toxicity of Zn-containing nanoparticles to a much-loved bacterium: In review.
5. work describing the upper respiratory tract bacterial communities of bottlenose dolphins: Published. (read abstract here).
6. work describing the presence of a certain coral pathogen in the Caribbean:  In review.
7. work describing the proteome of a certain coral pathogen at two different temperatures:  In internal review.
8. work describing the genome of a certain coral pathogen:  Draft.
9. work describing the relationship of specific genes in a certain coral pathogen:  Accepted (with revisions).
10. working describing clinical isolates associated with the upper respiratory tract of bottlenose dolphins:  Through internal review and in revision prior to submission. 
11. Invited review on antibiotic resistance of a certain group of microorganisms...I'm working on it, okay?  Don't you know that I'm busy as hell?  What do you expect...huh?  Geez, give me a break wouldya???? 

  Oops.  I snapped there.  Yeah, time.  I need more time (but then, who doesn't). 

~~~~~ 

~rustic orange (huh?)~

~~~~~

Okay, this coleus' rustic orange is there, I promise.

I like coleus.

I used to hate, hate, hate coleus.

One mellows with age.

I will try to keep this one rooted throughout the winter, so that I have it for next season.

I'll try.

 I came across a new South Carolina gardening blog today - SC Gardener.  She kindly linked to me (and amazingly enough I noticed it - I'm not good with that stuff) - and so I went and took a look.  Her post on the american beautyberry made me laugh - most of us are familiar with the purple one, but she mentioned a white one - and then linked to Compost in my Shoe, another SC gardener, who recently showed images of a 'blush' one...it makes me smile to know that plant greed is a 'problem' we all have!

Another SC garden blog that I just came across is Natural Gardening.  Her garden looks beautiful (look along the right sidebar) - I'll look forward to taking a better look soon.

(All of this reminds me that I need to take some time this weekend to update/add/correct links on my site.)  

~~~~~

~I love marigolds~

~~~~~

Maybe it's their fragrance.  Maybe it's their reliability.  Maybe it's their color, flower, interest in literature or perhaps even their calming influence...

I just like them.

Do you?

Look at the lovely African marigold,  Tagetes erecta 'French Vanilla'.

I'm thinking I need some of the heirloom 'Harlequin' for next year.  They're quite festive little flowers, aren't they?

~~~~~

~Rosa 'Golden Showers~

This is one of those roses that you often see at Lowe's, or a similar type of store, and that - if you ask me - doesn't get alot of respect.  My garden has numerous heirloom roses, and I love them, but I've also grown fond of this happy rose.  I'd defend it's presence in anyone's garden.

Well, I need to stop typing - and perhaps think about sleep.  I'm looking forward to a weekend at home, a weekend to spend quite a bit of time in the garden (at least I hope).  I want to continue cleaning out the vegetable beds, plant my new crinum-like bulb, plant some carrot and lettuce seeds - and finishing mowing.  I want to think about bulbs (and what I might plant this fall myself) and move the Tibouchina urvilleana to a sunnier location.  There's much to do, but that's always the case, isn't it?

Sweet dreams.

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.
 

'...in the storm of roses'

I spent some time in the garden today - a quiet October Sunday with off and on clouds and a slight breeze.  There was the fragrance of re-blooming roses everywhere - roses responding to the cooler nights and less harsh days.

I love roses.

Most of my roses are heirloom roses - with names like Francis Dubreuil and Perle des Jardins and Souvenir de la Malmaison and Mrs. B. R. Cant and Marie Pavie...fragrant roses, each with an interesting history and story to tell.

Roses are pure poetry, aren't they?  

~~~~~

In The Storm Of Roses by Ingeborg Bachmann

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.

~~~~~

 
~~~~~

Red Roses by Anne Sexton

Tommy is three and when he's bad
his mother dances with him.
She puts on the record,
"Red Roses for a Blue Lady"
and throws him across the room.
Mind you,
she never laid a hand on him.
He gets red roses in different places,
the head, that time he was as sleepy as a river,
the back, that time he was a broken scarecrow,
the arm like a diamond had bitten it,
the leg, twisted like a licorice stick,
all the dance they did together,
Blue Lady and Tommy.
You fell, she said, just remember you fell.
I fell, is all he told the doctors
in the big hospital. A nice lady came
and asked him questions but because
he didn't want to be sent away he said, I fell.
He never said anything else although he could talk fine.
He never told about the music
or how she'd sing and shout
holding him up and throwing him.

He pretends he is her ball.
He tries to fold up and bounce
but he squashes like fruit.
For he loves Blue Lady and the spots
of red roses he gives her

~~~~~

 
~~~~~

a woman had placed by Anne Blonstein

after jorge luis borges

a yellow rose
in a hotel glass
the man had kissed her
on the neck
had kissed her
on the mouth

but these kisses belonged to yesterday
there would be no moment
of revernalization

yellow roses came from china
open in may before our hybrids
unfold pink rugosities and baroque scent
expose dusty fissured yellow pearls.

~~~~~

~~~~~

To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses by John Keats

As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spelled:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Asking for Roses by Robert Frost

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.

'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'

We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks by Jane Kenyon

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

~~~~~

~~~~~

lily has a rose by E. E. Cummings

lily has a rose
(i have none)
"don't cry dear violet
you may take mine"

"o how how how
could i ever wear it now
when the boy who gave it to
you is the tallest of the boys"

"he'll give me another
if i let him kiss me twice
but my lover has a brother
who is good and kind to all"

"o no no no
let the roses come and go
for kindness and goodness do
not make a fellow tall"

lily has a rose
no rose i've
and losing's less than winning(but
love is more than love)

~~~~~

~~~~~

Throw Roses by Carl Sandburg

THROW roses on the sea where the dead went down.
The roses speak to the sea,
And the sea to the dead.
Throw roses, O lovers—
Let the leaves wash on the salt in the sun.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Nobody knows this little Rose by Emily Dickinson

Nobody knows this little Rose --
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it --
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey --
On its breast to lie --
Only a Bird will wonder --
Only a Breeze will sigh --
Ah Little Rose -- how easy
For such as thee to die!

~a native, minor edits, and a tomato-eating pointer~

~Coralberry, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus~

~~~~~

Last October I added this US native to my garden - it's called coralberry, I've also seen it called Indian currant.  The leaves and berries are small, much smaller than beautyberry - but it's still quite pretty.  I might move where I have mine - I think it would look better in another part of my yard (where I have some yellow anise, native azaleas, and camellias), and not in a perennial border.  Yes, I'll definitely move it this fall.

~~~~~

It was another beautiful day along this part of the coastline - the kind of day that makes you want to just stand in the middle of the garden, arms spread out, feeling the breeze.  It was a good day around the Microbial Lab too - reviews came back on a student's manuscript, and the edits were extremely minor.  It's a manuscript that I'll be excited to have published - it's a solid contribution to what we know about nutrient cycling by coral-associated microbial communities.  And minor edits are always a relief!

~~~~~

I also learned something very important today.

The new old dog, Annabelle Lee, has been eating my cherry and paste tomatoes.  Right off the vines.  I have one 'Big Mama' and one 'Sungold' in pots - and I just had a second flush of Sungold cherries on the vine.  They were just starting to get ripe...and then they were gone.  I was blaming just about every animal I could think of but my dogs.  Damn those squirrels!  And the racoons...OUT!!  Yet this afternoon, there she was, carefully biting each tomato from a cluster right off the vine.  Damn that Annabelle Lee!  Not my tomatoes!!!!

~tomorrow is a BIG day~

~Camellia sasanqua 'Apple Blossom'~

~~~~~

I was surprised today to see that one of my sasanquas was in bloom - it was one that I got in Virginia last December, no - actually my father got it to neighbors as a gift, who a few days before he was going to give it to them said that they hadn't had any luck with camellias...and had given up.  Lucky me!  I read somewhere that this one could bloom in late summer/early fall - but I guess I was thinking late October/early November.  What a treat to find a sasanqua in bloom in September!

~~~~~

Tomorrow is a big day around the Microbial Lab.  It's senior graduate student, Ben, defends his dissertation.  His seminar is at 10 am - it is open to anyone who wants to attend, and the defense will begin at 11 am - it is a closed defense, with only members of his doctoral committee present.  Last week we worked on his talk - the difficult thing about a defense seminar is that suddenly the student has to condense all of that work into a 50 minute or so presentation.  It isn't easy.  But it's also the time when a student can say 'Hey!  Look at this!  Do you realize how HARD this was to do??  Do you know how interesting this is?'.  A good seminar is usually a passionate one - organized passion.

They grow up - scientifically-speaking - so fast. 

~self-explanatory~

~weeds, weeds, and more weeds~

~finally, some time spent in the garden~

In my self-imposed, poorly orchestrated attempt at reducing my plant budget (you know, the whole life during wartime thing), I've been on a propagating rampage.

My latest round of propagatees - lovely little cuttings - have been remarkably successful.

I would share with you what they are - that is, if I had a clue.  All I know is that I snipped them from lovely plants that were new to me - either because of interesting flowers or foliage, and I suppose my hope is that most of them are perennials.

I enjoy propagating plants - it's quite rewarding.  I think I had forgotten that.  Silly me.

~~~~~

Finally, this afternoon, I forced myself into one of my vegetable beds - after promising myself that I was going to have a productive fall vegetable garden...come hell or high water.

(It's hurricane season - so the whole 'high water' thing isn't one of those long-range possibilities).

There were weeds, more weeds - and still more weeds.  I'm a 'no-till' fan, so I was out there with my pitch fork, turning over the soil - picking out the weeds as I went.  Long strings of white dollar weed roots, secret stashes of Florida betony, and wild morning glory winding around stalks of grass.  The bed was quite a mess.

Anyway, my plan is to plant alot from seed - but I did purchase a pot filled with cilantro - that today I divided into three and planted.  Then I mulched around them with a bale of hay that I had sitting around for a long while (all the better!).

What else did I plant?  Six beautiful little chinese cabbages (aka bok choy) - also from one pot and divided.  Then asian greens and brocolli and brussel sprouts (mostly from seed) - other lettuces too.  I want to also get onions in too - and garlic in a few weeks.

I feel good, knowing that my fall vegetable garden is started.

~~~~~ 

I also put my foxglove in the ground - grown from seed, started by a colleague and given to me in a few small soil plugs.  I separated them - and placed them into individual small pots - and had good success with them. 

I still need to mulch them - but I did get them in the ground and watered.  I'll try and remember to mulch them tomorrow.

I wish I had planned ahead, and started more seedlings - but this little patch of them will have to do - at least this year.   

We've been having rain in the forecast for several days now - but no rain is falling on my garden.  We're having a dry late summer.

~~~~~

Bergenia cordifolia 'Autumn Glory'

Planted right into an area of grass - more weeds than grass - and tomorrow I'll mulch them (back to the whole no-till thing).  It was one pot and I divided them into three small clumps, and planted them at the edge of a larger bed, adjacent to a mulched path surrounding a vegetable bed.

I've not grown Bergenia before -- and must admit I'm a bit confused.  According to the 'Proven Winners' tag that came with the plant, it's a zone 4-11 perennial.  However if you go to the Proven Winners page for this plant, it's zone 4-9.  The Dave's Garden page for 'Autumn Glory' says it's zone 4a-7b.   

Huh?

My garden is definitely an 8b warming to a 9 - so 7b isn't gonna work.

So please allow me to end with the lyrics from a song perfect for the ocassion:

Does anybody really know what zone it is?
Does anybody really care??
If so, I can't imagine why...

La, la, lalalalaaaaaaaaaaa...

~~~~~

~a grasshopper~

~a grasshopper on a variegated flowering maple leaf~

~~~~~

Today, for lunch, I was invited to the home of a fellow gardener - she's the spouse of a colleague, and from time-to-time, she has a few of us over for a wonderfully british lunch - complete with freshly made scones, topped with whipped cream and raspberry jam.  She knows my work situation, and I had laughed over lunch about how I had put myself on a 'plant purchasing diet' and she looked horrified at the thought of such a thing. 

Before I left, she and I were walking through her beautiful garden - and at some point she stopped, disappeared for a minute, and came back with a pot and a trowel - and dug up a small clump of toad lilies.  She then handed the pot to me and asked 'Will this get you through the weekend?'

I love gardeners.  They just understand these things.

Now, the upside of this 'plant purchasing diet' is that it's made me think about seeds, and my substantial stash of seeds that I've ignored for a few years.  The reality is that I love growing things, I love watching plants grow and learning about how a plant grows - so I think all of this is a good thing, and right now the table outside of the Airstream is covered with a flat of foxglove seedlings that will be ready to transplant into the garden in the fall.  Also, two begonias, with wonderful leaf shapes, are being propagated - and there is mountain mint in a pot and crinum seedlings just taking off. 

And tomorrow I will add my friend's toad lilies into my garden.

A Morning in Mid-August (in Zone 8b)

~Vernonia gigantea, giant ironweed~

~~~~~

The ironweed might be the highlight of my mid-August southern garden - it's 6-7 feet tall, reaching up to the arching leaves of the banana tree, as if they were in an unspoken race to the sky.  Yesterday I enjoyed stopping the mania for awhile and taking my camera out into the garden:  a few days ago was Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens, and I missed July (my last Bloom Day post was in June).  I was determined to not let the weekend go by without a good walk through my own garden.

~~~~~

~a lab during wartime...with poetry~

 

~Rudbeckia laciniata L., greenheaded/cutleaf coneflower~

~~~~~

At a garden show last October at Magnolia Gardens, I got a tiny little greenheaded coneflower - and it is blooming now in my dog-days-of-summer garden.  It's a sweet thing, perfect really - there's something about yellow in the hot August garden, perhaps it's a gentle plea to accept the warmth instead of fighting it?

~~~~~

Yesterday evening, a few members of the lab met Katherine and her husband for beers at a favorite watering hole.  Katherine had just finished up her first week at her new job downtown - and she was desperate to see everyone - and we quickly caught her up on various aspects of the lab's new 'wartime' life.  Everyone decided to meet every other week at this spot on Friday evening - consider it our new 'ground zero' for coping.

No matter how difficult the war, poetry always makes things a little brighter.  With six of us sitting around the table, Katherine read a wonderful poem to us by a poet that was definitely new to me (and most likely the rest of us at the table, except for Katherine's husband).  Here is a bit of the bio from the poet's website:

With degrees in physics from U.C. Berkeley and Stanford University, Weisburd has worked as a policy analyst for Congress, a science journalist at Science News Magazine and an outreach coordinator for a nanotechnology program at the University of New Mexico. 

Now how fun is that?  (The Microbial Lab has an affinity for poet-scientists...or is it scientist-poets?)

~~~~~

Little God Origami by Stefi Weisburd

The number of corners in the soul can't
compare with the universe's dimensions folded
neatly into swans. In the soul's
space, one word on a thousand pieces
of paper the size of cookie fortunes falls
from the heavens. At last, the oracular
answer, you cry, pawing at the scraps that twirl
like seed-pod helicopters. Alas, the window
to your soul needs a good scrubbing, so
the letters doodle into indecipherables just
like every answer that has rained
down through history, and you realize, in
your little smog of thought, that death
will simply be the cessation of asking, a thousand
cranes unfolding themselves and returning to the trees.

 

~~~~~