Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

better!

Thanks to a suggestion from Christopher C. of Outside Clyde, the front gate wreath no longer looks like it's infected with a blob of gold.  Yay!  (It still needs a little tweaking, but it started raining again, so I ran for the Airstream).

~morning glories in December~

~front gate Christmas wreath and...morning glories in bloom~

~~~~~

There is definitely something terribly wrong with this picture.

(And it's not just that the gold bow is god-awful ugly.  It's too big for the wreath, and much, much too gold.  It was an old bow that I still had in the house, and from what I don't know.  I'm trying to reuse, recycle, you know - be frugal).

I think the wreath would look better without the bow.  (I'm sure you are thinking 'thank god she's come to her senses').

I wasn't putting a wreath up on my front gate this year (as I have in season's past, and in considerably better taste) until a freeze.  Then I'd clean the front gate of the morning glory vines and put up the wreath.  But since it looks like a freeze isn't going to happen anytime soon (it's already 60 degrees out there this morning), I realized that I might have to wait until January.  The extended forecast has a few nights in the upper 30s, but that's it.

~quote of the day~

~the first Autumn cauliflower~

~~~~~

It's lovely, isn't it?  Earlier this fall I had purchased several cauliflower plants, unusual ones, and I wish I had remembered to save their tags.  This one is close to 'plucking' time - it's not very large, but is a gorgeous shade of creamy white.

I need to work on my fall garden.  There is still garlic to be planted - and onions and leeks.  I'm behind.

~~~~~

The eclair-baking postdoc drove out to the Airstream and Pointer Ranch (a name that I just made up at this very moment) and we sat and went through a draft of his current manuscript - one line at a time, more or less.  Hopefully tomorrow we will have our final edits completed, and we will email the manuscript off to our co-authors at other institutions.  We're excited about getting this work published.

The manuscript was good - it was my second time going through it, and all went well until I came to the concluding paragraph.  I started reading it - and gave up after awhile.  It was...bad...and that kind of silly-bad that made me laugh more than get frustrated or upset or disappointed.  Even the eclair-baker himself laughed outloud when we got to the following line (and I quote, with permission from the eclair-baking first author):   

Similarly, the presence of collagenase equips this pathogen to invade organisms composed of collagen, which includes all animals.

The silliness of this line cracked us both up.

(It's just a really bad line.)

I was so worn out from going through the manuscript by this point, that although the concluding paragraph was kinda rotten, the only thing I could suggest was to 'tighten it up and make it not suck'.  The funny thing was that the eclair-baking postdoc knew what I meant.

I love science.  

~~~~~

~a moment in the garden~

~Autumn in the front garden~

~~~~~

This morning I was out with the dogs, in between rain showers, and there was a gray-sky moment when the yellow of the falling birch leaves and the rust of the bald cypresses and the red of the savannah holly berries looked just magical.  

The front right garden is a tangle of trees - three bald cypresses that I planted as two foot twigs when I first moved here, a beautiful river birch, a large southern magnolia and a growing-like-crazy lowquat - several deciduous spring-flowering magnolias and a tea olive that is over fifteen feet tall.

It was beautiful, a moment when at least to my eyes, my coastal southern garden was transformed into a Seurat painting with pieces of color flying all over the place, refusing to be defined, refusing to settle on the ordinary.  Is this perhaps why we do it?  Why we plant and weed and water and obsess?  If it is, it's most definitely worth it - the fleeting moment of flying color was worth every minute of it.    

'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~