Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~a persimmon~

 

~gardenias in late November~

~gardenias...in the wild~

~~~~~

On 6 June 2009, I uploaded this image here, gave it a caption - and never returned to finish whatever train of thought I had...and here I am, nearly two and a half years later - at my Father's for Thanksgiving, thinking that I'd like to post something here, since this space has been neglected for a long time - and what do I find?

Gardenias.

A photograph of gardenias taken in my garden on a warm South Carolina day.

As much as I'm trying to be all grown-up about it (since I am a grown-up after all) - I'm homesick for my southern garden.  I'm thankful for my position in northern Virginia, and truly, experiencing a real Autumn was pretty spectacular - I had forgotten how everything changes and, literally, glows.  But it's obvious that my muse for these pages was my garden - and last Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, I looked out into my rental home's yard, and there wasn't a bloom to be found.

How sad is that?

But I have decided that in a small strip of soil, adjacent to a brick wall by the drive, that this spring I will plant flowers (perhaps all from seed) and I will plant, interspersed in the bed, vegetables.  Lettuces, squashes, peppers.

(The deer are one complication - here I find myself, inside the beltway around DC, and there are deer that come out at night and eat just about everything).

But on this unusually warm late November evening, instead of worrying about deer, or missing my garden, or longing for the sweet fragrance of a gardenia, I'll think about a little temporary garden that will feed me in ways that I desperately need.

(And, I think I need to start writing more here too). 

Happy Thanksgiving - to any of you that still happen to drop by.  Hope it was a good one.

~air layering camellias~

 

It makes me smile to think that someone who has rented this place (in northern Virginia) in the past started air layering the large camellia at the front corner of the house.  There are three branches being propagated, and I haven't checked them yet - but am thinking about doing so before I head back to South Carolina for a week in October.  If roots have formed, then I'll take them with me and ask my favorite camellia grower to care for them while I'm in Virginia. 

The American Camellia Society describe the process of air layering camellias here.

I'm curious about what camellias I have in my yard here - there are several, and they are decent sized for being this far north.  They've probably been here for a good long while.  They're definitely japonicas, and if I had to guess, they are older varieties - not the more recent cold hardy introductions.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were all the same variety.

I'm glad they're in my yard here.

~a coneflower, starting to open~

computer crashes... and a daylily.

 
So... my office computer got a virus.  Within seconds everything went crazy.  Work IT guru retrieved my files, the hard drive was wiped, and reformated.  The day after it crashed, my yahoo email account was compromised.  Resolved everything with yahoo on the phone, then my Blackberry froze - the IT guru had transferred ~5,000 emails into my INBOX (the ones he had successfully retrieved) at once, and my Blackberry went into shock.  Off to the Verizon store, and after an hour of waiting and an hour of fiddling with my phone, it worked again.  The next morning my home computer - within a period of about two minutes - crashed.  The blue screen of death appeared.  Had it diagnosed - bad mother board, not worth replacing.  Thankfully, all files were again retrieved.

Computer crashes are life-altering events.

The daylilies are still blooming.

The garden is parched and unhappy - about a half inch of rain last night at least moved the dust around.  Less than one inch of recorded precipitation since 22 April - we are in a drought.

Off to Virginia tomorrow to visit my Dad for Father's Day.

~growing potatoes~

~red pontiacs~

~~~~~

The definitive list of reasons why you should plant potatoes:

1. The smart ass reason:  because you can.
2. The practical reason:  because they're easy to grow.
3. The trendy locavore reason:  because then they'll be in your backyard and a truck won't have to travel down the highway to a grocery store where you will drive to purchase them.
4. The environmental health reason:  because you'll know for sure that they're organic and haven't been treated with herbicides or grown in metal-laden soils.
5. The reason that trumps all of the previous four reasons:  because after you dig them up, wash them well, and roast them right away - and then use the roasted potatoes to make potato salad, you'll discover that fresh does indeed taste better.  Hands down.
6. The boy scout reason: So you will know how to grow them when the economy falls apart. Storable root crops will become very important. *contributed by Christopher C., Outside Clyde.

~~~~~

(This post was prompted by all of the people that ask 'why do you grow potatoes in your garden when they're so cheap to buy in the store?').

~short-toothed mountain mint~

Short-toothed mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)

LOVE this stuff.

Got it along the road side during this little trip to Beech Island in 2009.

It's really beautiful in the garden - with it's silvery green foliage (and thankfully, it's drought tolerant - since it appears that it will never rain ever again here. Something like .4 inches of rain received in all of May and June thus far... we're now in the first stage of a drought).

Gloriosa Lily and NoVa rental home shopping hell...

~Gloriosa superba, Gloriosa Lily - a fading flower~

~~~~~

 It's late, and I'm tired.

Some of you might have remembered reading that I was taking a one-year visiting scientist position up in the Northern Virginia area... after a challenging period of unemployment (while still maintaining a lab and working - nuts, I know).  Anyway, what this means is that I'm currently 'shopping' for a rental home in NoVa that allows three dogs, almost a whole cat... and me.  To say this is a challenge is an understatement:  one home I inquired about yesterday was on the market for only three hours.  THREE HOURS.  Fortunately last night I became acquainted with a realtor who actually seems helpful and responsive - because the market is so robust for rentals, realtors and management folks don't have to be all that responsive - they don't have to work very hard to get a place rented.  My priorities:  a fenced-in backyard for the acrobatic Pointer Sisters and Stan, and a reasonable commute to Arlington.  Right now I'm looking at a place in Oakton on 2.5 acres that is not too terribly far from the Vienna Metro - the Orange Line would take me right into the Ballston station.

Life is all about change, right?

(Ugh.)

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha'

~an "Ed Brown"~

This is one of my "Ed Browns" - and it's currently in a spot that has become too shaded and it needs to be moved.  I've been slowly relocating my daylilies into the sunny side garden - after this one finishes blooming, it'll get moved.  It'll be much happier in the sunshine.