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The Canary in the Coal Mine
Three weekends ago marked a milestone of sorts as mean daily CO2 levels at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observatory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii topped 400 ppm for the first time ever....
View ArticleMoss-tacular!
Mosses are soft, green, and tough as nails, as shown in a recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (prestigious, high impact journal with a rather unfortunate acronym). Dr....
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Phosphorus and Big Macs
Minnesota, and I were cruising through old pictures and files and getting all sentimental about the cool stuff we used to do. A lot of it was never published just because after we were done with one...
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How NOT to do an experiment
Over on Facebook I follow some groups who find provocative topics, and today’s “science fair” post was so over the top that I had to share it here. Here’s the original post. Now the accompanying text...
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One tree’s leaves… over 400 kinds of bacteria!
Okay… this bit of research just blew my mind. Researchers took leaf samples from just ONE tree in Panama, and identified over 400 different kinds of bacteria making their home there. Sampling 57...
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Walnut warfare
Recently, a question about using black walnut chips for mulch was posted on our Garden Professors Facebook group page. As gardeners know, black walnut has a reputation as a chemical warfare species...
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Nature’s Poisons
An early 17th century “plague panel” from Augsburg. Public Domain picture courtesy of WikiCommons It’s more than a little bit intimidating to be a part of the Garden Professors team, since I have no...
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Scientific Beekeeping
Honey bee (Apis mellifera), Courtesy of Charles Sharp at Wikimedia Commons When I first moved to the country in the late nineties, one of the first things I wanted to do (after establishing several...
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Ray’s 2015 Tomatoes
I thought I’d share some of the new varieties of tomatoes I’m growing this year, along with some old favorites. Garden Gem and Blush First up is a picture of a new variety from Dr. Harry Klee’s...
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Add one species, get four new ones
Here’s an interesting twist on the whole native, non-native discussion… sometimes the introduction of new species of plants can trigger the evolution of new species of insects! Sometimes, in fact, a...
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Love notes of genetics and physiology for Valentine’s Day
A St. Valentine meme compliments of my “friend” the self-styled Rev. Apostle, and Bishop to the Stars, Joel L. Watts. Ahhh….’Tis the time of year when we celebrate romantic love in homage to a 3rd...
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Upside-down growing
I was poking through old photos and came across this oddity: What you are looking at is Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) being grown hanging upside down. I saw this year ago at a nursery in Japan. (You...
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Allium Fever
Ornamental onions are hot patooties. From big, bold, purple globes to small pink half-moons, there is no end to ornamental onion-y goodness out there with 30+ species and cultivars in the trade....
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What’s in YOUR honey? It may not be the nectar you expected.
This month’s National Geographic has a brief article from an ongoing study of the DNA profiles of urban honey. While we can all observe honeybees visiting flowers in our own gardens, until recently we...
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BOTANIST IN THE KITCHEN
(Revisiting Ray’s Recommendations) Image by Keith Weller, USDA ARS It’s been awhile since I wrote about, or recommended a blog I like which I often use as a source of something to share to The Garden...
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Hello Again, and a fun article that was called to my attention.
By Jeff Gillman (posted by Linda C-S, who has taken liberties with using photos from UNC Charlotte gardens that have nothing to do with Jeff’s post.) Living arch at UNC Charlotte gardens It has been...
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Native vs. nonnative – can’t we all just get along?
Probably the most contentious gardening topic I deal with online is the native vs. nonnative plant debate. This, unfortunately, is a debate that is more based in emotion than science, and I don’t...
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Testing, testing, 1-2-3: Trialing new plants for the home garden
How do you know that plants will do well in your garden? Do you research the types of plants for your region, study different cultivars, and select only things that have been proven to do well for...
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