Light...

Watching the light filtering through this leaf made washing dishes enjoyable today.

Then I started pondering all the cellular processes going on inside this little guy.

Feeling humbled by a simple green leaf.

Graffiti snails roaming London | Metro.co.uk

Sydney is busy today designing snails. Sculpey plus little girls equals happiness. While researching snail shell images we stumbled upon this great article.
Graffiti snails roaming London Metro.co.uk

Natural art...

Found this inside our living room window today. Love that I could actually get a half way decent image.

So sweet. Lovin the flourish theme performed by nature.

I was excited to see what had happened to my seedlings over the past week. Here are the viable growing seedlings. Five beans had to be dug out and pitched due to rot. I replanted new beans in their place. We'll see how they are next week.A happy little bean plant. Yes, I see the holes on the leaf. No, I don't know what's eating my beans.Started a new experiment on plant propogation with cuttings. Everyone took small cutting off a variety of different plants in the greenhouse. One with heat and Rooting hormone, One with rooting hormone only, one with heat only, and one with no heat...trying to see how fast they grow roots. I'll keep you updated. Scented geranium, lavender, coleus, and well I forget but I loved the leaves.

Paige's "little house"

This is Paige's newest find.... it's her "little house" for the garden. She is quite sure that she will be able to visit all her new bird friends when they move in. Love clearance at Lowe's.... the roof is corrugated metal beyond sweet.

Apple a day....

Future garden happiness....

Moss smoothies anyone?

First I must introduce you to the my amazing friend Staci and her equally enchanting daughter Sophia. Staci and I met while volunteering in the fall at TBG. There's nothing like bonding while pulling out all of the wet and slimy Hosta leaves. We and both girlies came to voluteer on Tuesday and the girls were immediately put to work harvesting moss.Sophia was a moss collecting superstar, all business. Check out her pose when she showed off her full bucket. Paige was so excited to have a new friend that she kept running around and around. She did eventually collect some moss but Miss Sophia was a real trooper. So the rule in the the green house in no food, no drinks, ask Paige, "There's chemicals Mr. Matt said." So when we went to the kitchen with the moss I had a confused Paige. When we started making "smoothies" using moss, beer, and buttermilk she didn't know what to think.

This lovely moss is from the Pacific Northwest. Yep Mr. Matt brought moss home from his vacation. The girls had no problem loading the blender but no one wanted to press "the button." Really, grown ups do the strangest things, moss in blenders. What's next? Let's not give Miss Paige any ideas. I'm a little concerned to see what Paige starts trying to throw into our smoothies I sense a more than a few oncoming disasters.Okay next step, painting the mixture on the pots. Girls + Mud = Fun, giggling and messes. I highly recommend foam brushes for almost all painting activities requiring no detail. Being cheap and disposable makes me not worry when the brushes are ultimately ruined.

Information on how to make your own moss covered pots. http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf36735232.tip.html

This is another pot that was created Tuesday. Caladium, Sweet Potato vine, Barberry and Tiarella. That's as detailed as I feel like getting on the plants right now.

Summer...

Kate had the day off of school yesterday. After arriving home from my schooling we were off to the greenhouse for planting and photography practice. Miss Kathryn loves her camera from Christmas. We are still waiting for her to edit her botanical movies. Here is some of the days photographic results...Blueberry bushes in bloom. Sweet little flowers aren't they? Don't you want some for your yard. Fun Fact: the foliage turns red in the fall. Beautiful and edible landscaping.Kate practicing her photography skills. The hat is cute Leanne!!! She's using it not only as a fasion statement, but to hide the hair that she hadn't brushed yet.Green it's a good color.Love the veins above and the foliage on Heuchera Electra below. Really spring will be here sooner than you think.On the way out of the greenhouse Kate stated, " I don't won't to leave summer to cross back over into winterland again. I see why you want to be here all the time." Nice to have brought her over to the dark side... or at least the green side.

Prophase, Anaphase and Plants in Plant Science...

For all Twilight fans out there I have some 411 for you. You know the scene everyone loves in science class when Bella and Edward first start talking. Whipping slide mounts of and on the microscope.... You know it, and you know you love it.

Well lets me tell you from personal experience that there is absolutely NO WAY that scene could have really happened. Yes Kate, vampires are fast. Focusing the microscope that fast would take at least a couple of minutes or some miraculous skills. Vampires, Kate are not miraculous, nor sweetheart, are they real. Blasphemy I know. So I really love the microscope and came prepared, of course, with Excedrin to prevent the headache that the light gave me last week. Here is an onion root tip stained under magnification...

And under more magnification...Last but not least I was very excited to see how my seedlings were doing. Yes, I took my camera...how else am I to show my girlies what I'm doing. I have already let everyone in class know I'm nuts. Just being myself. All seedlings were happy enough except one bean. He was decompsing so according to instructions I took him out pitched him and put a new presoaked seed in. I was trying to figure out how this would work out control wise when I realized that everyone else was back in class. Why? Umm, apparently my beans were the only ones which had popped their heads out of the soil. So I was the only student taking measurements of more than corn sprouts.See one happy little bean plant. Isn't it cute? Seriously, I acknowledge that I have issues. Yes I am officially a plant geek, nerd, or really and quite happily just my very quirky self.

Hungry for his lunch...

This clip off of the Ellen Degeneres show had the girls laughing today. Kate wants to try this sometime. Okay just so you know girls this probably works a lot better if you're famous.

Coral Bells...

So if you saw my previous post you know Paige got to play at the gardens today. Which means that I was also able to play in the dirt. So Miss Melly here are the Heuchera Melting Fire that I repotted with assistance today. They come in the tiniest little seed plugs 288 in each flat. Nature it's amazing what seeds will do.This is before...

This is after... Lots and lots of happiness in a tray. Yes, the littlest minx being herself.

Go Bananas

Mr. Josue saved this banana blossom for Paige today. Josue you rock!!!

Joy...

This is a link to a clip of Josue, his family lives in Haiti. Paige and I had missed Josue'. His month long vacation to Haiti made the green houses a little too quiet. He returned to the gardens on Monday...with a whopper of a cough. His brother who lives in Port au Prince hadn't been heard from since the earthquake Tuesday. Anyone who knows Josue has been praying for him, his family, and all of Haitian people. This was the joyous knews he heard today.

Plants and their cells...

As most of you know I've started classes in Landscaping and Turfgrass Management this semester. Really all things that involve anything green and growing fascinate me. So in our Plant Science lab on Friday Mary, my winter gardening partner in crime at TBG and Owens, were able to study plant cells up close and personal.No I did NOT take these photos. Okay now that I've covered the obvious. I think I might need a microscope. So since I don't want my daughters, at least the destructive one, anywhere near a microscope. How could I share what I got to see. Which brings me the videos below. There is much fascination in my house. Sorry about the music with the clips but the videos are amazing.

The clip below is what our slide looked like...

Really great simple drawing of a plant cell which the Rapplings think is cool.

So life in general amazing isn't it? Really think of all the minute processes that go on to sustain us. Really I love miracles.

Caterpillar...

Paige and I went to the garden today to see all the new plants that Mr. Matt and Josue' had brought in. Paige was excited to play with "caterpillars" Mr. Matt promised her. Yes, Paige does like real caterpillars and takes great joy in stomping on the bad guys. Upon discovering that her caterpillars were this.... and that she could snuggle them she was even more excited. The plant is a an Acalypha hispida or if you don't speak latin, a Chenille plant. This is the only and I really do mean only plant that I have bought and kept alive in a hanging basket. My grandmother loved these and when we found one on vacation in Indiana, oh you know 12 years ago, I bought one. This plant is a lot of fun due to the fuzzy caterpillars that hang off of it's leaves. I remember how much my favorite 4 year old little person of those days, Miss Q, loved it. Bonus, because I loved it I remembered to water it. Hmmm, coincidental that I had talked with Miss Q's mom, for the 1st time in months only an hour before?
Paige did come home and try to "plant" the caterpillars. When that didn't work she went for a vase. With no success at her planting techniques she set the caterpillars on the piano in her bucket to keep them safe.
Paige being in an especially fiesty mood wouldn't pose for a photo. Every other image of her is a blur of movement. Which come to think of it might be a more realist photo of the minx.Her other excitement is watch the bananas on her "Banana Plant." Grow. Here's the underside of a banana leaf beautiful with the light coming through.These are Paige's bananas. She loves them and I've caught her staring at them for minutes at a time. Willing them to ripen. The other request of the day was to photograph "this one." At first I thought she meant the plant which is fun with great variegation on the leaves. Nope she wanted the one leaf on the plant that had a cool hole in it. She thought the plant was pretty tricky to grow a hole in it's own leaf. I guess more gardeners would be happy if they looked at the world from Paige's point of view.

City And Colour - As Much As I Ever Could

This song has been stuck in my head all day. Thought I'd share...much better song than my usual... you know Miley Cyrus.... The Wheels on the Bus... those are what I usually end hearing on rerun in my head all day.

Lovely...

So this is my newest bit of knowledge for the week. Ferns can have solid blade like leaves. When I asked what this was I really was listening but I've already forgotten and only remember the fern part of the naming. My only experience with growing ferns includes feathered foliage.

This beauty came to TBG by way of Bensell's greenhouse. There are more where this one came from. Now I just need a name for this lovely.

Living color...

The voluteers and staff at TBG are busy preparing for warmer weather. These are a few glimpses of one of many amazing potted combinations that have been assembled. I'm in love with the color of the folaige,

The texture of the bark,and the light that filters through the leaves. I'll be keeping you update on the progress of my favorite collections as the year progresses.

Miss Paige enjoying the snow. She loves to eat it, lick it, pick it up and hide it, carrying it around for future use. The girls were taking icicles off the house and using them to dig holes in the snow.

This project kept them busy for at least an hour. I wish I found that much joy sticking icicles in the snow. I prefer to build in the snow and this was definitely to powdery to build with, hence the hole digging.
She's pretty cute when she's all coldish isn't she?
Syd was so very happy to have a day just to play in the snow.
Kate was absolute silliness. Jim Allen brought her a special present.... a squirrel feeding station. I love that she and John were out putting it up not ten minutes later. Much happiness for children and squirrels.