Michael Franti and Spearhead : Time To Go Home
Bob Marley: War
Month: August 2007
Floral Mandala #1
Well it’s no Portia Munson. But I’ve been dying to do one of these ever since I started scanning flowers. The subject (objects?) were all pulled from previous bloom day scans. After fussing to get the individual blooms extracted cleanly, I’m going to have to start planning ahead and scanning some individually.
And here’s a quick cutflower ‘scanner test’ I did while installing a new scanner the other day:
August bloom day scans
Hastily prepared August scans. But this time of the year, it’s not hard to pull together four scanner-beds worth.
Albutilon, Veronicastrum, Hibiscus, bloodleaf:
Eupatoriums, coneflowers, goldenrod. I have no clue what the yellow flowers are. The grow on 6-foot plants that a neighbor gave me.
Liatris, hosta, butterfly bush, dahlia, lantana, viola, Persicaria (‘Firetail’ I think), Telekia?
Phlox, perlargoniums, spirea, fuscia, dahlias:
Surfeit of purple
Surfeit might be a little strong. Let’s just say there’s purple everywhere I look this time of year. Click images for larger view.
Coneflowers, of course.
In the front gardens, purple clematis amongst the goatsbeard and wild grape, and hosta flowers. (They’re not just for foliage, you know.)
Hibiscus moscheutos in the wet garden, dahlia in patio pot.
And the wetland is just loaded with Joe-Pyeweed. (I’m sure I’ll get around to my tribute to Eupatorium in the next week or so.)
New cherry tomatoes coming your way?
I had a good excuse to get out of the office this afternoon. I hitched a ride with a coworker to go to a cherry tomato tasting at the New York State State Agricultural Experiment Station up in Geneva hosted by plant breeder Phillip Griffiths.
Phillip has been crossing heirlooms with regular old red cherry tomato varieties, evaluating them for market appeal, and growing out the best to stabilize the crosses. He says they’re still a couple of years at least from being ready for release. But you can see some of the results above.
One of the most promising is a ‘dipping’ tomato, about the same size and shape as a ‘baby carrot’ (top row, second from the right). I think it’s got promise. I’m not a huge fan of cherry tomatoes. They’re too sweet for my taste. But all of these had better flavor and texture than the best selling cherry tomato from one of my favorite seed companies, which was also available for comparison.