Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread

Almost the middle of December, and Tom Servo is still gardening! Outdoors! With broadleaf trees!

Got another photo! Planted 3 Japanese maples in my back yard about 10 years ago; a dwarf lace, a burgundy, and a coral bark. (light gold leaves in the fall) This is the time of year when they are at their best!

Intriguing trees. And the rest of the garden looks nice in December, too. Now for something Christmas-y from Garden & Gun:

The Southern History of the Poinsettia

Joel Poinsett is to the poinsettia what Christopher Columbus is to America; a lot of folks like to say he discovered it, but someone was definitely already there. "Poinsett was a diplomat who facilitated the trade of plants," says Jim Faust, a Clemson University horticulture professor who studies poinsettias. "He built a network of people interested in plants because he saw it as an economic opportunity for South Carolina."

Deeply Rooted

Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, Poinsett was dispatched to Mexico by President James Monroe in 1825. . .

Edible Gardening

Also from Garden & Gun, The Mad Scientist of Paw-Paws:

Largely the domain of foragers, the biggest edible fruit in the South has mostly been forgotten. A quietly obsessed Quaker from West Virginia has made it his life's mission to change that.

Fun reading.

The ripe pawpaw was firm but yielding, like an avocado. I cut it open, sucked the flesh from the peel, and spat out the big, flat seeds. The flesh was yellow orange with a luscious texture, almost like a custard. But it was the taste--luxurious, sweet, with a long finish--that threw me. It tasted tropical, the fruit of a tree rooted in Costa Rica with three-thousand-mile-long branches. The flavor was not unlike a banana. It also had hints of mango and papaya, even pineapple. But none of the "tastes like" descriptors do it justice. A pawpaw tastes like a pawpaw. There's nothing else like it.

Pawpaws are having something of a moment these days. Throughout the fruit's native range--it grows wild in twenty-six states, including most of the South and as far north as Michigan--craft brewers are making pawpaw beer and ale. You can find pawpaw ice cream in high-end restaurants. Facebook groups like Pawpaw Fanatics count several thousand followers posting trophy photos of their finds. Lori Mackintosh, who runs a you-pick fruit and vegetable farm in Berryville, Virginia, that supplies pawpaws, says she can spot people who want them as soon as they get out of their cars. When I ask how, she says, "Well, dreadlocks and BO," then laughs at her own description.

Don't plan on getting quality fruit from wild plants, necessarily. The "Mad Scientist" is a hybridizer.

Critters

From CaliGirl:

This fox was rubbing his face on the sofa and rolling around. He was really cute.

What a face!

From By-Tor:

While the family was shopping at South Coast Plaza, I busied myself with some bird photography five miles away at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. The hummingbirds and most passerines have moved on but still got a great egret, lots of white pelicans and a pair of phoebes - a Say's Phoebe and a Black Phoebe.

Two of these things are not like the others.

Trees Falling Down

We had a great discussion in last week's thread about trees falling down. With news of the terrible tornado, some of this discussion becomes more relevant. Nature is not always kind. Don't comment on old threads.

Removing a stump the easy way (not the quick way).

Three different ways

If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden
at that g mail dot com place

Include the nic by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ,
unless you want to remain a lurker.

posted by K.T. at 01:17 PM

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