Haven’t done a dot of gardening lately. It’s cold. It’s wet. The dominant color in my garden is brown, excepting those evil little green baby weeds in the backyard beds and walkways.
I suppose I should hula hoe them… and prune my roses, and yet…
It may take awhile for something or someone to pull me out of this gardening funk. Right now I am uninspired and yet… restless. Luckily, the garden doesn’t really need me right now. My houseplants do, though, so I continue to water my orchids and my new Stapelia cuttings and the cute little carnivorous plant a friend gave me.
Too bad that little meat eater hasn’t gobbled up all the ants that are wintering in my orchids. I’m not fanatical about poison, so the most they have to put up with at the moment is an occasional surprise monsoon from my kitchen sprayer. I keep meaning to buy some ant bait.
I do have a few photos to share from a recent trip to the newly greenified Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Any place that checks you for butterfies on the way out of the elevator is cool in my book.
Take the Academy’s advice to visit mid-week in the afternoon to avoid crowds. Planetarium and 3-D bug movie tickets are first come, first served.
4-story rainforest, which felt like being in a human terrarium. Dress accordingly.
5 butterflies
weirderrific plants…
Just your everyday albino alligator…
At the moment, I must scrounge up something edible for two unexpected guitar-wielding, teenage dinner guests. It’s Finals Week, the kids get out early all week, and my son has friends over. Par… tay! Oops, I mean high school U.S. History finals rock!
I would have been frantically cramming all night back in the day. My son is a genius slacker. Slacker genius? Anyway, he almost never studies, which both frightens and impresses me.
To the new year… a new season… new life bursting forth from tight, dormant buds. Oh, and a new president! Can’t wait to see what kind of rose is named after him. I bet they’ll call it the ‘Hope’ rose. It better not be a bush rose. Make it a bicolor grandiflora or a hybrid tea, please.
Oh Angela…you sound so busy and your life sounds full of familial obligations. Smart boy, yours! But I do know teenagers are a test, believe me. It’ll all come out in the wash. (Whatever that old saw means.)
In any case, I’m glad I’m not the only one with browned and snow sodden plants (I know yours aren’t snow sodden).
Good to see your new photos, and I’m looking forward to news of things besides weeds emerging in your garden, or discovered on your journeys.
Happy New Year to you, no matter what problems are presented by weather, plants, people or anything else.
You give us all such a wealth of information, amusement, intelligence and the beauty of your photos.
Garden Gran
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one in a gardening funk! I should be taking advantage of every bit of un-rainy weather to get out there and take care of business but I just can’t seem to get myself out the door. I guess it’s just a human form of hibernation.
Winter does it. But flowers will bloom again.
I just want to say i am really enjoying your blog…I love to see whats going on back home in ol sack-of-tomatoes.
keep it up!