Spooky Salix Gracilistylus

Salix Gracilistylus is in the willow family. A black mysterious pussy willow. Mine are blooming now they are more like catkins than flowers. Very cool and spooky easy to grow also.

Frozen Plant Resurrected

A team of Russian biophysicists has successfully grown ancient plants from tissue material that stayed frozen in the Siberian region for about 30,000 years.

This is the oldest plant material to have been brought to life so far.

According to a report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists extracted the so-called "placental tissue" from immature seeds and put it in a special nutrient solution, which imitated a growing plant.

After a while, the tissue in petri dishes germinated into mature seeds, which have been planted in soil and grew into fully-blossoming plants.

The scientists found only subtle differences in the shape of petals and the sex of flowers between the "resurrected" plants and the modern-day Silene stenophylla, which still grows in the Siberian tundra.

The research team suggested that tissue cells were a perfect material for their experiments because they contain high amounts of sugar, which helped the plants to survive in a hibernated state for so long.

Image and Article can be found HERE!

Adding Color to My Haunted Garden

Color for the Haunted Garden

It has been awhile since I have posted.  Life demanded a lot of my time dealing with family issues and I have missed my hobbies I'm so fond of.  One of them being a "Haunted Garden" every year for Halloween.  It's that time of year when the seed catalogs arrive in the mailbox and I always find new plants I want to try.

The one below is a "Rainbow Chili Plant" and the different colors the pepper make as they mature, are like eye candy.  Mine grew all summer and was so beautiful last fall I brought it in the house where it survived up until November (it's not really an inside plant).  This year I plan on planting a whole row!

Every year I try to add a couple of new varieties.
I have already discovered a plant I must try this year.
It is an "Ornamental Eggplant",  Pumpkin on a Stick.

It looks delightful and I can imagine it adding beautiful shades of green to yellow to orange in my Haunted Garden this year.  I imagine painting little faces on the fruit for beautiful Autumn Bouquets!  They could also be used as a fun project with small children like my granddaughters who love to paint with me!

Pumpkin

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."

    - Henry David Thoreau

Flower bombing

Ever driven by an ugly field or an empty part of your property and though "flowers would be so lovely here" - well, here is your chance (actually, next spring would be better) to make it happen.  They are called Flower Grenades.  

The "grenade" is made of clay and full of flower seeds.  The clay will dissolve in the rain and in a month or so you should see some wild flowers. 

Although this seems fun and throwing them into vacant lots seems harmless....I recommend you keep the "bombing" to your own property...just to be safe :)

These are from the UK - but you can get them here in the US through Amazon.

I guess it is a love/hate relationship

that I have with spiders....they creep me out (the real ones) but I love Halloween.....so they fit there.  That is why a few years ago when I remodeled my patio garden we had these gates made.

Current photo

Looks lovely in the snow also last December

They are one of my favorite things in the yard.

I keep them in the garden

instead of the closet :)  (my skeletons that is)

I just planted the pumpkins around him the other day, by October the vines should just be starting to curl around and through him and the flowers blooming.  Makes for a great photo opportunity.

And it confuses the heck out of people that visit the house!  I like that.

In the posts are a columnar pear and a dwarf apple.  I love fruit, but fruit trees make quite a mess. After the last of them died (my plum tree,) I told myself only small fruit trees in the future.  These two are perfect for us!