For Guys Who Like to Get Dirty Canadian Press Think of "garden clubs" and you might imagine genteel women in hats and gloves, or suburban housewives meeting at the local church. What you probably don't see is guys in a dusty warehouse filled with hammers and saws, making a racket as they eat coffee and doughnuts grabbed from a back room with dirt-stained chairs. The Men's Garden Club of Philadelphia will tell you - quite vocally - that they're not into the hoity-toity aspects of women's garden clubs.
Palmetto Weevils Destroy Planst Florida Times-Union Several palms are susceptible to the palmetto weevils: cabbage palms, saw palms, Canary Island date palms, Washingtonia palms and sabal palms. The adult insect lays eggs on the plant, and then feeds on the outside of the palm.
Agencies Sharing Water Information Fayetteville Observer The Cumberland County Health Department has received 15 to 20 calls a day from people wanting to get their water tested since The Fayetteville Observer began a five-part series on groundwater contamination Sunday.
Luscious Fruit, No Matter What Size Your Yard Pocono Record Fruits splashed all over the pages of nursery catalogs look as enticing now as they could taste in summer, so long as you don't bite off more than you can chew. When planning what fruits to grow, make sure every plant has enough elbow room.
It comes only once every four years, but there are a lot of ways to celebrate Leap Day.
March 01, 2008
By Stan Sesser
The Wall Street Journal
The vistas here in this land of desert and rock feature deep canyons and striated rock formations. But the most impressive sight is yet to come. At some point next month, the gray floor of the desert will be set ablaze by carpets of wildflowers, in riotous shades of purple, yellow and red.
Aficionados maintain that witnessing desert wildflowers is one of the most rewarding experiences in nature. Fall's dramatic leaf color change is guaranteed to happen every year. Desert wildflowers are far less predictable. If good spring rains are lacking, which was largely the case in 2006 and 2007, the flowers don't appear. When nature does cooperate, for two weeks or a month the desert looks as if it has been streaked by a giant paintbrush.
This year is shaping up as one of those lucky years, due to a series of storms that swept California and the Southwest in January, followed by more rain in February. "I'm hoping it's going to be terrific," says Patrick Leary, a professor of plant biology at the College of Southern Nevada, who teaches a course in desert plants. "You suffer and wait and pray for a good year and when that year comes, you have to be out there every available moment. And then it's gone."
Adding to the allure, these wildflowers bloom in abundance in only a few spots in the world, including the deserts of Western Australia, Iran and southern Namibia. But Americans can leave their passports at home. In a good year, desert wildflowers are in abundance a short drive from some of the nation's major Western cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Tucson.
Desert wildflowers attract followers of singular devotion, spawning a growing number of Web sites. David Senesac, an engineer who lives in Silicon Valley, is one such fan who has his own site displaying photos from his viewing trips. He put 8,000 miles on his car in just over two months to see the stellar California blooms of 2005.
This year, he's planning to witness the wildflowers in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, about 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles. More than nine inches of rain has fallen so far this season, more than the area usually gets in an entire year. "That large amount of rain is likely to repeat an event I last saw in 1991, which they called 'the Miracle March,'" he says. "It was one of the greatest blooms ever in Southern California."
Mr. Senesac calls the Mojave Desert, which extends from Southern California into Nevada, southwest Utah and northwest Arizona, one of the most impressive flower zones in the world, "where species from nearby areas like the Sierra Nevada mountains have somehow found a niche in the desert environment."
Share the Eye:
Change You Can't Believe In mulchblog The San Francisco Chronicle fronted a hard-hitting story this morning on the sorry state of farm bill politicking in Washington ("Dems work to keep subsidies for agribusiness"). Read the top and you'll want to read the whole damned thing.
Happiness is a Quiet Lambing Shed Farming -- Frenchstyle If you have never heard the sound of sheep waiting for their breakfast, or dinner, or tea, and you are invited to do so - believe me it is an offer you can refuse! They are absolutely awful.
An Adventure in Farming Razor's Blog My beloved Aunt Judy sent us a seed catalog like no other. Seeds of Change started almost twenty years ago with an amazing mission of “Preserving Biodiversity and Promoting Sustainable, Organic Agriculture.â€
Daylight to Dark Life of a Farm blog Trying to wrap up all that needs to be done at the chickenhouses has kept me very busy. Disinfecting is set for the 18th and chickens are coming the 28th. There is tons to do before then. Seems there is time to sleep and work, that is all.
still thinking about today...
