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Denver Botanic Gardens Spring Burn
Feb. 17th, 2019 08:57 pm
2018 March 31
2018 March 31
Colorado Plants: Small-Leaf Pussytoes
Feb. 15th, 2019 05:56 pm
Antennaria parvifolia - small-leaf pussytoes
In the dry climate of Colorado this plant is an excellent groundcover. If you live in Colorado I can frequently give starts of this plant.
A Tumblr Conversation About Eating Plants
Feb. 15th, 2019 05:39 pmCuteDateSuggestions
cute date idea: we go to a botanical garden. you point out a flower and i immediately eat it
TheBashfulBotanist
As a botanist who works at a botanical garden, please don’t.
Kihaku-Gato
As a Horticulture Tech graduate who had a classmate that’d eat anything that our professor would point out in plant ID, I agree please seriously don’t
Afroman-Aquarium
As a horticultural Tech graduate who ATE anything my professor would point out in plant ID class. PLEASE DON'T.
Veni-Vidi-Vinca (a.k.a. Mishalak)
*pointing out the innocent looking white bloom of Toxicoscordion venenosum* “Isn’t that beautiful,” while grinning one of those Grinch-y grins of a wonderfully awful idea.
cute date idea: we go to a botanical garden. you point out a flower and i immediately eat it
TheBashfulBotanist
As a botanist who works at a botanical garden, please don’t.
Kihaku-Gato
As a Horticulture Tech graduate who had a classmate that’d eat anything that our professor would point out in plant ID, I agree please seriously don’t
Afroman-Aquarium
As a horticultural Tech graduate who ATE anything my professor would point out in plant ID class. PLEASE DON'T.
Veni-Vidi-Vinca (a.k.a. Mishalak)
*pointing out the innocent looking white bloom of Toxicoscordion venenosum* “Isn’t that beautiful,” while grinning one of those Grinch-y grins of a wonderfully awful idea.
The Gravel Barrier Experiment
Feb. 14th, 2019 05:59 pm
This is an experiment. I am trying to keep a very nice lilac bush from growing into my herb garden. I saw a recommendation to dig a trench, line it with barrier cloth, and then fill it with gravel. Roots encountering the barrier should grow down instead of across. It will take a couple years to evaluate this system, but it seems like it should work.
To be a bit more precise my trench is about 12cm/5in across and 20cm/8in deep. The barrier cloth is run longways in the trench and folded back on itself rather than cut down to fit the trench. The top is folded toward the plants to direct their roots down along the side. Bricks, being about 20cm/8in long cover the top almost completely except on curves. Knowing that UV light will break down the barrier cloth I put some leaves and sticks up against the bricks to keep some of the light off those edges.
When putting in the gravel I added in stages so that dirt could be added outside where I accidentally made the trench too wide. The extra bricks are to add places to step. The brick “knots” visible to the right in some pictures are also places to walk in the herb garden when weeding or picking plants.
The bricks are on top of the soil, rather than dug in, because this way there is room for leaves and sticks to form a mulch/compost layer about 6cm/2.5cm deep. Where the bricks needed to be angled or where it went through the fence the roll is topped with more gravel to protect the top of the roll.
Personally I think it looks better with curves rather than trying to make it perfectly straight. Also being practical that I cannot make bricks run in a straight line. All my garden paths look a bit “rustic”.
The Shortgrass Prairie Garden
Feb. 13th, 2019 11:20 am
(Do let me know if the image is too big or breaks things. I am just getting back into posting on Dreamwidth since Tumblr became too stupid to use. I shall eventually move this post to a date of 2018 when I took it. There is going to be a lot of back posting things here as I rejigger stuff from my Tumblr at http://veni-vidi-vinca.tumblr.com/ to this blog thingy.)
At the request of a great many people (one) I shall be showing off pictures and explaining my villainous theory of gardening. One of the qualities of a villain is having a huge burst of enthusiasm for a project and eventually tapering off to laziness and/or boredom. Semi-natural plantings are perfect for this since once established they do a lot of caring for themselves. In my shortgrass prairie garden, for example, the buffalo grass stays under about 10 cm of height so it requires no mowing, hurah! It does only look that perfect green in the spring and fades a bit even with adequate summer moisture, but it needs much less than grasses from climates wetter than Colorado's front range. If I were trying for a planting like this much east of Kansas City this probably would not work for a lazy gardener unless the soil drained much more freely than even the sandy loam in my bit of earth.
The very impressive flowers are shell leaf penstemons (Penstemon grandiflorus). They are native to only the far eastern bits of Colorado, but they do well with no more care than moving the few that seed themselves in inconvenient locations. Like many penstemons they are short lived, but reseed themselves very freely and will come up through the buffalo grass to an adequate degree.
Scattershot
Feb. 11th, 2019 03:48 pmWhen I went for a walk today I scattered wildflower seeds on a recently turned up bit of ground. Penstemon, wild rose, dwarf rabbit brush, false goldenaster, Rocky Mountain beeplant, purple tansyaster, and smooth white aster. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If I worked and lived in a perfect world with perfect ability to get stuff done I might have put the seeds into little balls of soil before scattering. Still, better planted than getting old in my large stock of seeds. Good luck to them. I am still on the look out for some spots to plant some desert scrub oak (Quercus turbinella) and red hesperaloe (Hesperaloe parviflora).
I have also noted a spot near the sign for my neighborhood that is mostly growing weeds. I think I will try planting some buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides) there. My garden supply is relatively abundant and I can spare five or so pieces and a little weeding time. The rest of my starts will be going to my back yard to start a new prairie lawn since my front yard is nearly finished. I had different plans for a more formal garden, but I think I do not have enough enthusiasm to do laid out beds and everything needed for that. Instead I want to just get it under control, most of the weeds dead, and start planting grass at one edge. More of what I have already had success with instead of trying to do something totally different. Though I may start planting some cultivated plants with the grass instead of only letting wildflowers grow as I do in my front yard. Or perhaps the reverse. Create another pure wildflower display and break the theme of my front yard to being xeric instead of native to my region only.
I have also noted a spot near the sign for my neighborhood that is mostly growing weeds. I think I will try planting some buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides) there. My garden supply is relatively abundant and I can spare five or so pieces and a little weeding time. The rest of my starts will be going to my back yard to start a new prairie lawn since my front yard is nearly finished. I had different plans for a more formal garden, but I think I do not have enough enthusiasm to do laid out beds and everything needed for that. Instead I want to just get it under control, most of the weeds dead, and start planting grass at one edge. More of what I have already had success with instead of trying to do something totally different. Though I may start planting some cultivated plants with the grass instead of only letting wildflowers grow as I do in my front yard. Or perhaps the reverse. Create another pure wildflower display and break the theme of my front yard to being xeric instead of native to my region only.
Almost a Review: The Sword in the Stone
Feb. 11th, 2019 12:35 pmThe Disney version of The Sword in the Stone really is a children's movie. The the sense that it is an adequate work with cute moments, good art, fun songs, and no real plot. It is a series of scenes only barely held together and an ending that is abrupt and not particularly satisfying now that I am an adult. It is not bad, but it is sort of a "cut every corner" this thing is only for kids sort of product. Still, the song about packing and the other one about being evil are quite fun. I mildly would like to add them to my music collection.
Almost a Review: Buzz by Thor Hanson
Jan. 30th, 2019 01:48 pmA great non-expert book about the natural history, history, and current state of bees. It mostly focuses on all the other bees. The ones other than the honeybee that do most of the world's pollinating, but get much less attention. Realistic in the assessment of what is wrong and what is being done to figure it out or fix the problems. A good read.
Okay. So I saw the Starz American Gods TV series on DVD over at the library and I have given it a try. The musical choices are mostly pretty good and interesting. The show.. It is not bad. It just is not as interesting as it should be. It is about half a very interesting and atmospheric show and half what wants to be entrancing and feels more like filler to me. Long stretches of dialogue that go around and around on the same point without being as profound as they want to be. Then there are long slow lyrical scenes that are just achingly beautiful.
On the whole I think I overpaid very slightly by getting it for free. Not hugely, but it is a hot, beautiful mess rather than must see TV. If the second season comes out on DVD I won't be impatiently waiting for it.
My most specific criticism: Watching a guy repeatedly deny what is going on is dead boring when the whole point of the show is "gods". And he does it for most of the first 7/8 episodes.
On the whole I think I overpaid very slightly by getting it for free. Not hugely, but it is a hot, beautiful mess rather than must see TV. If the second season comes out on DVD I won't be impatiently waiting for it.
My most specific criticism: Watching a guy repeatedly deny what is going on is dead boring when the whole point of the show is "gods". And he does it for most of the first 7/8 episodes.
Appropirate Music at a Convention
Jan. 6th, 2019 07:20 pmWelp, the theme for Karval Kon this year is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Why? Because it is the 42nd convention. I have, of course, gotten the HHGG movie soundtrack, but what other music should I put in a playlist for the convention?
Nerd News Makes Me Happy
Jan. 1st, 2019 12:26 pmAnd the New Horizons spacecraft did not die. Indeed it kept its promise to the New Year and was as good an explorer, as good a robot, as any ever built.
New Horizons at NASA
New Horizons at NASA
A Song for the Start of 2019
Jan. 1st, 2019 12:38 amJanuary Hymn by The Decemberists (YouTube link)
On a winter Sunday I go
To clear away the snow
And green the ground below
April all an ocean away
Is this the better way to spend the day?
Keeping the winter at bay
What were the words I meant to say before you left?
When I could see your breath lead where you were going to
Maybe I should just "let it be"
And maybe it will all come back to me
Sing oh January oh!
How I lived a childhood in snow
And all my teens in tow
Stuffed in strata of glow
Hail the winter days after dark
Wandering the gray memorial park
A fleeting beating of hearts
What were the words I meant to say before she left?
When I could see her breath lead where she was going to
Maybe I should just "let it be"
And maybe it will all come back to me
Sing oh Janu...
Oh January oh
On a winter Sunday I go
To clear away the snow
And green the ground below
April all an ocean away
Is this the better way to spend the day?
Keeping the winter at bay
What were the words I meant to say before you left?
When I could see your breath lead where you were going to
Maybe I should just "let it be"
And maybe it will all come back to me
Sing oh January oh!
How I lived a childhood in snow
And all my teens in tow
Stuffed in strata of glow
Hail the winter days after dark
Wandering the gray memorial park
A fleeting beating of hearts
What were the words I meant to say before she left?
When I could see her breath lead where she was going to
Maybe I should just "let it be"
And maybe it will all come back to me
Sing oh Janu...
Oh January oh
This animated film is worth watching if you can stand to watch a film in French with English subtitles. If I had to watch the dubbed version I would have quit 10 minutes in because I did not like the English voice acting. The plot is completely ridiculous steampunk alternate history nonsense, but it is pretty with enjoyable moments.
Home for the Holidays
Dec. 23rd, 2018 08:47 pmI just heard Perry Como singing "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" and I heard the line "From Pennsylvania, folks are travelin'
Down to Dixie's sunny shore" as "From Transylvania" and now I am imagining a movie where a vampire is going home to Georgia for Christmas. I am imagining it as a mostly lighthearted comedy of manners roadtrip for the first third, then family stuff, and true love in a very goth/gay way. Big Addams Family finish. What do you think?
Down to Dixie's sunny shore" as "From Transylvania" and now I am imagining a movie where a vampire is going home to Georgia for Christmas. I am imagining it as a mostly lighthearted comedy of manners roadtrip for the first third, then family stuff, and true love in a very goth/gay way. Big Addams Family finish. What do you think?
Not Living With Roomates
May. 3rd, 2018 08:50 amIt would probably have been good for me to get used to living with other people. It is a useful skill. As it is I have lived by myself for almost half my life now and have become very odd and slovenly as a result. It is just too darn easy to leave problems to sit if there is no one else to complain or silently judge about them. It is very nice to live in a clean house with nothing cluttering the floor, but that also requires either an attention span longer than than it takes a muon to decay or actual effort.
It is very easy to get used to doing anything you want whenever you want. Playing music loud enough to rattle your soul? No one on the other side of a wall to mind, so why not? Awake in the middle of the night? Put on a podcast without worry that you might wake other sleepers. Want to alter the layout of the garden paths and kill everything in your way? The committee of one approves the plan and authorizes work to proceed without delay. I am the dictator of my patch of earth and answerable to no one! Muhahahahahah!
People with roommates or partners might be less lonely, but by gosh it is very easy to live as solitary as a puma.
It is very easy to get used to doing anything you want whenever you want. Playing music loud enough to rattle your soul? No one on the other side of a wall to mind, so why not? Awake in the middle of the night? Put on a podcast without worry that you might wake other sleepers. Want to alter the layout of the garden paths and kill everything in your way? The committee of one approves the plan and authorizes work to proceed without delay. I am the dictator of my patch of earth and answerable to no one! Muhahahahahah!
People with roommates or partners might be less lonely, but by gosh it is very easy to live as solitary as a puma.
Silver Lupin in the Rain
Apr. 27th, 2018 08:46 pm
2018 on April 27th. This is a silvery lupin (Lupinus argenteus) a common western plant. I have had mixed success with them in my yard so far. I have transplanted a few, but mostly they do not care for such treatment. I have also gathered seeds and had some come up, but many of them have not survived beyond their first season. This one was two years old in 2018 and living with the previous year's spent plant stalks and leaves. I call this technique composting in place. Instead of trying to make a perfectly neat yard by hauling stuff away I just let it break down where it falls. This is not because I am a lazy villain, but because it creates a natural healthy soil.
Honest.
I can identify old elm leaves and black-eyed-susan seed heads in the browns. The living plants around the palmate leaves of the lupin are some nice green and fuzzy black-eyed-susan leaves and the slightly toothed oblanceolate leaves of smooth white aster.
The Denver Area SF Association
Mar. 15th, 2018 10:16 amFrom about 1999 until 2014 I was a member of DASFA. With three years to look back on I am overall happy that I left.
Making any group work can be like pushing a rope uphill. The trouble with special interests groups (as opposed to groups like old line churches or rotary clubs with a more general membership) is that they often attract extreme personalities. A club for rose lovers is a grand idea, but the people who are going to be members are probably people who have the fewest other social outlets, want to use the club as a way to promote their rose business, have the loudest opinions, and the like. A person who has a couple roses and knows quite a bit about them is not going to show up to meetings. Even the otherwise well rounded and stable rose fancier is likely to drop out because hanging with the users and the extremists is not going to be fun.
So it is with science fiction/fantasy clubs. In the modern era due to competition from online resources, the lack of inexpensive meeting space, and lack of free time on the part of potential members they are much more in danger of dying out. New members are turned off by the old guard who are 50% people who have no other social outlet because they are such assholes that no other group will take. There are definitely some good people who I like on an individual basis in the club and who I see at other events, others who I like well enough but we do not have much to socialize over, and then a small group of people I cannot stand.
Yes, I would liked to have been a member of an ongoing club. The thing is that to make that happen I would have needed to be a bad guy who either worked with reforming behavior or threw out troublesome members. That was not what I wanted to do and I think even the members I like would not have gone along with or supported that kind of plan. I think it is healthier for me to not be a member of a somewhat more general group of secular/agnostics/atheists/humanists. There are still people I do not get along with, but there is a general enough attraction to the group that I can make plenty of friends.
Making any group work can be like pushing a rope uphill. The trouble with special interests groups (as opposed to groups like old line churches or rotary clubs with a more general membership) is that they often attract extreme personalities. A club for rose lovers is a grand idea, but the people who are going to be members are probably people who have the fewest other social outlets, want to use the club as a way to promote their rose business, have the loudest opinions, and the like. A person who has a couple roses and knows quite a bit about them is not going to show up to meetings. Even the otherwise well rounded and stable rose fancier is likely to drop out because hanging with the users and the extremists is not going to be fun.
So it is with science fiction/fantasy clubs. In the modern era due to competition from online resources, the lack of inexpensive meeting space, and lack of free time on the part of potential members they are much more in danger of dying out. New members are turned off by the old guard who are 50% people who have no other social outlet because they are such assholes that no other group will take. There are definitely some good people who I like on an individual basis in the club and who I see at other events, others who I like well enough but we do not have much to socialize over, and then a small group of people I cannot stand.
Yes, I would liked to have been a member of an ongoing club. The thing is that to make that happen I would have needed to be a bad guy who either worked with reforming behavior or threw out troublesome members. That was not what I wanted to do and I think even the members I like would not have gone along with or supported that kind of plan. I think it is healthier for me to not be a member of a somewhat more general group of secular/agnostics/atheists/humanists. There are still people I do not get along with, but there is a general enough attraction to the group that I can make plenty of friends.
First Basil Update
Mar. 6th, 2018 04:26 pmThe seeds are up. Less than 20% of them, but considering that they are eight years old that is not so bad. The first ones were showing at 5 days and it seems probable that all the ones that were going to sprout have now sprouted. So far there does not seem to be a difference between the ones planted in Miracle-Grow seed-starting potting mix and those in Miracle-Grow organic choice potting mix.
Because there were at least 36 seeds in each pot there are plenty of seedlings. One pot was a total failure and has more planted in it as of yesterday and another pot has seven. There is still some of the seed left and I will plant it again next year to see if about the same number of seeds are viable or if there is a continued decline.
Because there were at least 36 seeds in each pot there are plenty of seedlings. One pot was a total failure and has more planted in it as of yesterday and another pot has seven. There is still some of the seed left and I will plant it again next year to see if about the same number of seeds are viable or if there is a continued decline.
Basil Seeds Planted
Feb. 24th, 2018 04:15 pm14 pots. 6 large, 8 small. This should yield around 24 plants when put out in the garden. I am going to plant another 6 pots sometime in the next week.
My basil seed is on the old side so I over planted significantly. Three to five seeds per spot and three spots in each small pot and nine in each large pot. There will be (tasty) thinning as winter fades. The seeds were soaked for six hours befroe being planted in potting mix or seed sprouting mix. As always the variety of pots and mixes are to test if there are real differences between cheap and expensive potting mixes. All of them are in my south window right now.
If I do not see any results in a week I will try again with fresh seed.
My basil seed is on the old side so I over planted significantly. Three to five seeds per spot and three spots in each small pot and nine in each large pot. There will be (tasty) thinning as winter fades. The seeds were soaked for six hours befroe being planted in potting mix or seed sprouting mix. As always the variety of pots and mixes are to test if there are real differences between cheap and expensive potting mixes. All of them are in my south window right now.
If I do not see any results in a week I will try again with fresh seed.
The amount and variety of wildlife living in cities is really quite extraordinary. Yesterday I went for a long walk down by the South Platte River and not more than 200 meters from the still operating power plant there there two kingfishers calling at each other. As there are no trees on that stretch of the river one of them was using a wire strung across the river as a perch to call and hunt from. I only recently learned what the "rattle" call of the belted kingfisher sounds like and now I am hearing and seeing them every time I go near water.
