From the category archives:

Flora

Gateway

January 6, 2005

Even on an overcast day, like today, there is beauty to be found. I don’t know why, but every time I stoop low to walk through this green tunnel on the way to the beach, I smile. Something about “becoming again as a child” perhaps. Or, just a smug satisfaction knowing that the shape has [...]

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Another year

September 20, 2004

Yesterday evening, just past sunset in fading light, I wheeled my red wheelbarrow back home and into the garden shed for the last time. This year’s tree planting and repair is finished. My palms are a bit sore from having pushed into the ground 3,000 bamboo stakes (even while wearing padded bicycle gloves). The usual [...]

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She-oak sex

March 8, 2004

Captured in this morning’s dawn light, three she-oaks stand glowing. The keen eye will discern that the two she-oaks on the right are coloured with a dusting of orange, while the one on the left is a bright green. Allocasuarina verticillata. Latin for the type of she-oak that grows around Windgrove on its nutrient poor [...]

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Feast for whom?

February 27, 2004

I was so looking forward to picking the peppers off the thickly leafed potted pepper plant that I had been watering and caring for for the past several months. They were growing in the protective atrium which is attached to the dining room. Just last week I took the above photo of the ripening peppers [...]

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Plant dictionary

November 25, 2003

Okay folks, How about increasing your vocabulary today? Tomentum: (adj. tomentose) a dense covering of soft, matted hairs Stellate: studded with stars Subtending: extending under so as to embrace or enfold Phyllaries: the small bracts around the outside of a daisy head Bract: a small leaf-like structure, sometimes scale-like Scarious: thin, papery or horny, dry, [...]

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Feeling good

September 25, 2003

Why am I smiling? Because I’m planting. Because the red wheelbarrow has she-oak seedlings in it. Not only that, it also has the plastic bags, mulch mats and bamboo stakes that are required to protect each young tree during the first three years of its growth from rabbits, wallabies, wind and competing grass. When the [...]

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First blossom

August 29, 2003

William Stafford came to mind today as I was having some difficulty feeling up to the task of resolving a design problem concerned with plant stands for flowers and herbs in the new atrium off the sun facing side of the house. Years ago in North Carolina while fielding questions from the audience after a [...]

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Health spin-off

July 4, 2003

Several years ago, while in Helsinki, I read a Finnish health magazine (English translation) that suggested five foods be eaten daily to promote maximum health and longevity. These were: Apples, Carrots, Garlic, Lemons and Broccoli. Yesterday, I felt proud like a father with his new born child as I picked the first ever broccoli grown [...]

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Blossoming too soon

June 24, 2003

More wonderful than even the visual delight of a native currant bush in bloom (Leucopogon purviflorus) is the delicate honey fragrance that hovers in the air when the wind abates and the suns warmth exults its nectar to exude. With a nickname of “Bear”, I take great delight in sticking my head straight into this [...]

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Tree people

June 6, 2003

To casual viewers looking at the photo below, they could be forgiven for saying: “Whats the big deal? Just a few shrubs of different sizes.” May I say: “The fog of ones ignorance disappears as one takes the time to become familiar with each shrubs story. With understanding, even a modicum of understanding, the potential [...]

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