But don’t worry… I’ve written all about my trip in a new eBook coming out very soon. The book is about cave exploration, botany in Central America, cacao, jungle remedies, and the ridiculous fun that comes with traveling (and drinking lots of rum punch!).

Here’s a taste:

Botanically Belize

“Huh? You’re huh? Please!? Where the hell is Please?”.

I reminded my father that I was going to Belize, not “Please” – mostly since “Please” was a word, not a country. I also made sure to note that even though I have not seen the movie “Hostel”, I’ll be sure to check for all my limbs and organs and won’t befriend anyone, ever – just to be safe. I also filled him in on the small fact that Belize was located in Central America. Not South America. Not Mexico. And it wasn’t “the Congo”. And the Napa Valley is for retired old farts, not for a 29 year old who needs a little adventure.

However, my father’s last concern actually made me stop and think.

“Jenn, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I know you’ve been digging in the dirt since you were a little girl, but it’s been with marigolds and roses, not in no jungle. You won’t last one day! This whole “Dirty Girl” thing is cute – but your daddy knows the truth! You’re just not that dirty”.

I hung up the phone. “Damn it. He’s right!”.

——–

Stay tuned for the link to the whole book!

butterfly from the butterfly farm in San Ignacio, Belize

Hours later (with the help of Dustin, who can build anything out of anything!), they turned into a new coop for my babies.

Presenting: Chateau Bawk Bawk

front view of the new coop

hooks hold the romantic lights, burlap with plastic keep the rain out

a sand-blasted manzanita branch

wood from my fence, a client's fence, and driftwood from a trip to Port Townsend

happy bawk bawks, checking out my stock of plants

“No. It didn’t. You fucking murdered it.”

I love when someone tells me that a plant has died.

Died.

“It died”.

Plants don’t just die. They don’t have depression, anxiety attacks or the overwhelming need for Zoloft. They are not melodramatic, write goodbye letters and commit suicides. I know it’s not good practice to use a single example to validate a statement, but I’ve never once witnessed a plant, uproot its self to draft out a will and testament, and then die.

Here is what actually happens. People or things kill them. When I say people, I mean you. When I say things, I mean natural disasters, deer, gophers, or children with an affinity to stab trees with knives (***this is a real example from a consultation I went on, where the parents would let their devil child stab the trees with a knife! Can’t wait to read about that kid in the newspapers.) I find it funny when blame is placed on the plant, and not the person who is supposed to be caring for the plant. Professionally, I’m waiting for the day that zombie plants come back to life to avenge their own deaths. I would take pleasure in seeing a poorly watered primrose come back to life, and smother an unsuspecting gardener to death. Personally, I’m waiting for the day that zombie plants come back to life and give my sister a good, old-fashion what for. She doesn’t like watering. Or bees. Or when her gardenia doesn’t flower. It’s frustrating on so many levels, and I find myself summoning a zombie attack with every insipid conversation we have about her concerns for her garden. It usually ends in me trailing off about how I’ll fertilize something with something at some point… and her driving us to the nearest wine bar, and quickly changing the topic.

Plant murderers never admit to their misdeeds. And you have to be careful, they are tricky and cloak themselves under the false identities of little old ladies, mow-blow-and go gardeners, and people working in professional buildings. The poor Philodendron in your cubical (no doubt lacking real sunlight, air circulation, water and nutrients) didn’t just die. It was a victim of a full blown office assault! Or the hapless hydrangeas, though planted with what resembled care, were subsequently murdered from lack of water while sweet Grandma Jones went away on vacation, to see her grandchildren for three weeks. Grandma Jones is a murderer.

In conclusion, it didn’t just die. You killed it.

But if you’d like a list of zombie plants (plants that seem to come back to life after just about anything!) peruse below and add some of your own:

Salvia luecantha
Salvia uglinosa
Mint
Eucalyptus
Miscanthus
Morning glory
Ivy
Alyssum
Calla Lilies
Crab Grass…

*What are some others?

lav. 'grosso' about to be transplanted. wonder how they will seal my fate...

*I l o v e this time of year.

If this time of year was a man, I’d marry it. I find myself writing “Fall” over and over on my notebooks. My papers are doodled with, “Mrs. Jennifer Fall. Mrs. Jenn Fall. Mr. & Mrs. Fall.” Let’s just say if Fall was porn, I’d be subscribing to “Deciduous Studs xxx” and having a grand old time. Yep, me and Fall are getting pretty serious.

Botanically speaking, my garden is rather schizophrenic this month. On the Coast, we had a heat wave and frost in Feb, a cold summer, and the sun is just now warming up our sea-salt-soaked bones. My lavender plants have just been sheared back from their summer blooms, the annuals are filling out and flowering, but my roses, salvias and poppies are spent. Generally gazing over the whole garden, it doesn’t look bad, but not as full and flowering as was last year.

Ah well.

In my recent nursery trips, I was able to procure some fabulous black bearded iris, black calla lilies, black poppies and black pansies. As you may or may not have guessed, I’m really into planting black flowers right now. Maybe it’s my mood from the shorter days and the darkness descending, maybe it’s Halloween inspired, or maybe I just like black. Either way, it’s Fall and I’m primed for the season!

What are the Fall plans for your garden?

KE’s job has been pretty much a dream. Great client, great property, and all the plants are happy! This has been the weirdest year of weather, and not every project I’ve worked on have grown in as much as they normally do by this time of year. I guess the constant blanket of fog in August was not conducive to fabulous growing. In any event, this job has been great. I love deigning projects for men.

Men = foliage color.

Men = succulents.

Men = dark colors and no pink!

It’s heaven. The pic above are simple spanish lavender, agave attenuata, black smoke bush and a ‘lime light’ viburnum. The soil in this part of HMB is a gorgeous clay, loam which (minus the gophers) makes for perfect growing conditions. I’m not a huge fan of bark (shown – cedar chips) as a mulch, but it was insisted upon, and at the least smells great when you walk on it.

Wide, long bands of spanish lavender, carex grass and black iris (among others) – run along side the vast lawn. The quick growing perennials and grasses will fill in fast, creating a giant, textured sweep throughout the entire back garden. I am not a huge fan of lawn for many reasons – but if one insists upon lawn (and one did!) than No-Mow is the only way to go. Mow it once a year and it looks fabulous. Little water, even less fertilizer and it grows long and lush rapidly. It truly is the prefect lawn for a picnic or naked lounging (so I’ve been told). The pic below was after it was just installed, so it’s much shorter and yellower than it will be in a few weeks.

The dudleyas line the hand-cut, blue tumbled stone pathway beautifully. I’m excited to see them grow in and mix about with the layers of thyme and echeveria.

Alena Jean Nursery & Flower Shop

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post about Alena’s shop! Other than being friends with her forev’s, Alena’s shop is one of my weekly addictions:

Cracked out from green tea at the sushi lounge - check.

Veggies & fruit (and those crazy good malt balls) from G. Berta farm stand - check.

Flowers from Alena’s – check!

Alena opened her adorable shop on 340 Purissima (x street Mill) in Half Moon Bay, in 2005. Nestled in the amazing barn her dad (Jerry Whiting) owns and operates his landscape construction company out of. Jerry has been doing coastal landscapes since the 70′s, and has created gorgeous gardens all over HMB and beyond. She started small, just using a corner of the barn, sharing the rest with her dad. As business grew Alena booted him out and e x p a n d e d, creating a fabulous flower shop and nursery. There you will find flats and flats of gorgeous Annie’s Annuals, and other hard to find gems. Alena’s style leans towards (grabs and smacks about) the eccentric… always interesting and architectural. You will find your basic and beautiful rose and lily flower arrangement – but you’ll also find arrangements with artichokes, pods of all sorts, tillandsia, moss dripping, wild branches… in all sorts of cool vessels. However, my favorite part of the shop, is the shop itself. It’s worth a trip just putzing around and eying all of the gorgeous wood architecture and interesting fixtures. Wide plank barn wood. Irrigation key handles. Driftwood. Yep, it’s rustic heaven!

Next time you are in HMB – or need some fabulous flowers – check out Alena Jean Nursery & Flower Shop!

340 Purissima, HMB. 650.726.3662

Hours – Tues – Sat/ 10 – 5pm. Sun/ 11 – 3pm.

www.alenasdesigns.com

Nowadays, sex is easy to come by. A meal bought, a bottle of wine consumed and hot botanist later, you’ll find yourself blissfully falling asleep and satiated. (You can go here, here or here.) But for most plant life, sex is a bit trickier. Imagine being firmly rooted, seeing a potential mate, feeling the urge and not being able to reach out and say, “Hey, are you from Tennessee? Cause your the only ten I see!”.

Devastating, right?

Take for instance a simple Coconut Palm tree (Cocos nucifera), a tree that can grow on a beach, drop it’s fruit, ultimately getting swept away by the tides, and redeposited on another beach thousands of miles away. This coconut (not a botanical nut at all, but a fruit) can germinate and grow on a beach, so far from it’s species with only a washed up bottle of  rum, and the soft, distant melody of steel drums to keep it company.

With such a divide, it’s amazing how these trees pollinate and reproduce. Even self pollinators need some help (by wind, insects, etc.) with getting off, so to speak. However, Nature has that covered by introducing pollinators. Insects such as, honey bees, wasps, moths, flies and beetles – eat and mate within flowers, collecting pollen on their bodies, and transferring that pollen to other plants. Arguably, these pollinators act as the most successful Pimps, in the history of “Pimpdom“. Not only are the plants getting what they need – hot, nasty, throw-me-down pollination – but the insects are benefiting immensely as well. In the form of money – one might conclude. A safe place to hide in, eat from, and mate among is damn fine payment for a little exchange of plant jiz.

Although it may seem like the insect is doing all the “dirty” work, some flowers can aid the pimping process along, quite ingeniously. Take, for instance, the Yucca flaccida plant, which has evolved to attract the Tegeticula yuccasella moth. The yucca provides food for the moth’s larvae, and in exchange, the female moths pollinate. First gathering up to a dozen pollinia within the yucca flower and forming them into a golden mass with her prehensile palpi. When ready, she crawls into the flower and positions herself in such a way that her egg deposit into the flowers ovary wall (between the carpels). A single, slender egg is inserted into the flower’s ovule chamber. After laying, she takes the pollinia and draws them back and forth over the stigma, pressing pollen into the central stigmatic depression. This insures pollination of the flower in which she has deposited an egg. Germinating pollen grains send up to hundreds of sperm-bearing pollen tubes into the ovary, resulting in the fertilization of hundreds of ovules (immature seeds) inside, some of which provide food for the hungry moth larva. Sex had. Moth paid. Transaction completed.

In conclusion, in the words of the late, great Notorious B.I.G., “Pimpin’ ain’t easy, but it sure is fun!”.

A few of the BAPP’s crew have come together for a united post! For more fantastic plant/sex posts, check out – Derek‘s, Katie‘s and Rob‘s.

A busted pittosporum tree that some gophers jacked!

Now, it’s yet another strange ornamentation affixed in my garden. I wrapped some coir in the branches, and nestled a bit of ‘Elfin’ thyme. Let’s see how long it lasts until the chickens demolish it.

Readers, blog photography isn’t the piece of cake it looks like it is! (Although, maybe it would be a bit easier with a piece of cake… like delicious lemon cake, or even a cupcake. I would take pound cake for that matter.)

To prove my waste of time theory, here is a photo-log of my trials and tribulations of trying to take just one picture of the darling pansy growing through a crack on my driveway. Alas, my mangy mutts got in the way. Foiling my efforts yet again! Until the last picture, when they left, but it still came out blurry and I decided to quit being a pansy paparazzi. You won this round (again, see this past post) Nat Geo assholes!

The Western or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) have two pairs of wings, the fore wing being larger and the hind being the smaller of the two. Each wing is flat, thin, membranous and strengthened by various veins. The wings have 8 sets of muscles that move these wings in the precise way necessary for flight. A honey bee’s wings are arranged in two pairs that are coupled together by a row of hooks on the hind wing that grip in a groove that exists on the rear edge of the fore wing. As the wings unfold for flight the hooks automatically fall into the groove and lock the two wings into a single aerofoil surface. Although the wings are coupled they are still relatively flexible due to a chemical that moves through the hollow veins. This traveling chemical allows for the wings to bend considerably while in flight.

However, just flapping the wings does not result in flight. The driving force results from a propeller-like twist given to each wing during the upstroke and the down-stroke. Slight variations in the actual angles of the wings determine whether the bee hovers, moves forwards or turns. When bees need to compensate for heavier cargo, they don’t flap their wings faster – they stretch out their wing stroke amplitude. This way of compensation, has spurred much research for model designs for aircrafts that hover in place, and can carry loads for disaster relief efforts.

Honey bees have an incredibly rapid wing beat. The fruit fly (that is 1/8th the size) flaps it’s wings 200 times each second – the much larger honey bee flaps 230 times per second (this is just for hovering – not transporting pollen, etc.). As an insect gets smaller, their aerodynamic performance decreases and to compensate they tend to flaps their wings faster. A honey bee can fly for up to six miles in one flight, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.

Bees buzz by generating rapid wing-beats that create wind vibrations, which people hear as buzzing. The larger the bee, the slower the wing beat, and lower the buzzing. Other bees, such as bumblebees, are capable of vibrating their wing muscles and thorax (one form of buzzing) while visiting flowers – this helps shake pollen off flowers for easier collection. Honey bees are incapable of this kind of pollen collection, thus quiet while foraging. Bees use their wings for flight, as well as thermoregulation, hive communication, and pollen harvest/collection.

Interesting, no?