As I learn to use my new Panasonic camera, I hope to bring more updates from my garden soon.  Below are my first Spring pics.

The lighting of 34th Street in Hampden

The Miracle on 34th Street

Me, this past Saturday.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

I first encountered hardy Cyclamen in Bavaria.  My girlfriend and I were driving to Bad Reichenhall in Germany when we came across Thumsee, a beautiful lake and popular swimming hole, just west of the city.  We parked the car and decided to take a hike on a path around the lake.  While dodging a group of nude seniors who were trying to coax us into the water, we stumbled upon, quite literally, a patch of blooming cyclamen.  The flowers were tiny, but the tubers can grow to be quite large and here they emerged from the soil like bulbous rocks.  The flowers had delicate wing-like petals, but what struck me most, was that among the cyclamen patch where distinct groups whose leaves had different markings from the next.  I was hooked.

Various Cyclamen Leaf Markings From My Urban Garden

According to The Cyclamen Society, “The genus is notable for the fact that although it is small, there are species which flower in every month of the year”.  The thing I find most interesting is the important role of ants in the germination process of many Cyclamen seeds.  Ants are attracted to a sticky coating on the seeds, so they collect seeds from the plant and carry them away, often to their home.  There they eat the sticky coating and then discard the seed.  Oddly, it is the removal of this coating that makes the seeds particularly viable for germination.

Here's a trivia question to you all - Which species of hardy Cyclamen shoots up flowers before its leaves and is blooming now? I don't know and this one is my garden.

Below is a time lapse video I found on YouTube of a Cyclamen blooming. Enjoy!

Hello Blotanists – I’m calling on you because I believe you share my respect for our planet and are willing to spend a few moments of your time to help.  -I’m also quite aware of the power of Blotanical bloggers!

A friend of a friend of a friend… is involved in a noteworthy project to create more sustainable jobs for coal miners and reducing negative environmental impacts of Mountaintop Removal in Appalachia.  This group is taking real action to make a difference.

If you have a few moments and are willing to help, go to Brighterplanet.com and vote for Community Biopower Association: Institutional Empowerment in the Coalfields of Appalachia.  You can vote up to 3 times for the project and you can submit all three votes at once.  They are currently only 50 votes behind the first place project. Voting ends on Sunday, November 15th. If you have not voted before, you have to create a log in. The log in is easy and the site promises not to use your email for any purposes other than verification.

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Thank you to everyone who voted for this project.
Voting is closed and the project came in a very close second.

Well, my neighbors have been at it for weeks and finally my Halloween decorations are up as well.  Below are some images for your enjoyment.

Ghost

Aconitum napellus

Goblin

Arisaema sikokianum berries

Ghouls

Gentiana scabra

Spiders

Hamamelis virginiana

Bleeding Heart

Dicentra x ' king of hearts'

Witch

Ipomoea alba seed pod

Claws

Eryngium agavifolium

Eyeballs

Taxus bacatta 'fastigiata'

Here, one of my neighbors has some decorations quite different from my own.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I am coming up on the third year anniversary of the purchase of my home.  After looking back at pictures, it is amazing to see how far it has come along.  Now it is time to start on the back!

As stated recently in a NY Times article, Baltimore is full of artists.  In recent years, works are making their way onto the streets and into yards and gardens.  Below are some examples of gardens as galleries, just around the corner from my home.

Tinge Commons is a newly opened community garden and public art space.  I would love to see these trees mingled in a natural landscape, but after speaking to the artist, I discovered that the trees were not originally intended to be outside.  -How cool it would be though, if they were made to endure and interspersed between other trees and flowers.

Here is a Hampden neighborhood resident’s version of the famed Spiral Jetty.  Just as Smithson used the site’s own materials to create his public work, so too, it seems, has this resident in their garden sculpture.

With this Hampden topiary, the art is the garden and the garden is the art.  The two are inseparable (some may say).

Remington has this literal take on a beer garden and I like beer.

Back in Hampden, a great tire planter sits in front of one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, Holy Frijoles.  This planter transcends the tire and is a great example of upcycled art.  To make a tire planter, CLICK HERE for a link.

One of the best places to buy potential garden art is Baltimore Clayworks, a ceramic art center.  This commanding fountain resides in front of the building that houses classrooms and artist studios.

Across the street, in front of the gallery, my favorite local garden art piece resides.  Often art in the garden is an afterthought and could be more carefully considered.  Either the garden is around the art or the art is around the garden and neither is carefully integrated.  -But here the ‘dog’ convincingly emerges from the bushes.

Voting for the Mobbies is open until Oct. 9th.
My blog is located in the Misfits: Defying Categorization section.