Looking for a 6-foot inflatable pink flamingo?

Well look no further. I know where you can find it. Garden Ridge.

Doesn't that store name sound deliciously outdoorsy? I stopped there for the first time today, thinking I might find some interesting bird feeders. They might have bird feeders in there somewhere, but I got a little distracted.

First there was the 1 acre jungle of plastic greenery. I've never experienced anything like it. Not only were there probably 25 varieties of fake trees, there were probably 25 of each variety to choose from. Three real unplastic birds flew overhead while I was surveying the indoor landscape the in awe.

(This picture is from their web site)

The vast selection of home decor options were also amazing. How about a 2-inch bust of JFK? Or how about a 2-foot bust of some generic wigged white guy. You could put it in your living room as a conversation piece. "Yes, that was my great-great-great uncle Bob, the 3rd chief Justice of the Supreme Court," you could tell your neighbor, the young impressionable attorney.

(Photo by Mark Jones)

Culture-snobs visiting your home? "Oh, isn't that a great replica of Swartzenrosenfluer? I just love his operas from the end of the Baroque period." And they will nod in agreement, rather than look ignorant.

Or you could just dress him up in seasonal attire, and pose him in a variety of compromising positions, like J.D. and Turk's stuffed dog in "Scrubs".

Come to think of it, how could I have walked out of the store without that plaster bust?

Soggy and Sublime

Now that it's officially summer, the weather is starting to settle into its summer routine. That mean my habits are also undergoing seasonal adjustment.

I tend to look forward to the edges of the day now. Early morning is time for watering, if the previous night's rainfall hasn't quenched the garden's thirst, and then I head indoors before the sun gets too strong.

I also look forward to the hour before dusk, when dinner dishes are put away, the late afternoon showers have usually blown over, and the air is starting to cool. This is my favorite time to take a walk around the neighborhood. Then I might attend to a few quick chores around the yard like filling the birdfeeders, deadheading, and bringing in some cut flowers to cheer up the house.

My schedule was thwarted today since rained late tonight, up to 8 o'clock, and I briefly considered staying indoors. But as I felt my spirit sink, I realized that time on the treadmill and/or repotting my houseplants is just not the same. I missed the outdoors.

I gathered my gear and trotted outside. The worst thing that could happen is that I'd get a little wet. Fortunately, that only happened when I played in the puddles.

Photo by JuliaStot

In honor of this soggy and sublime evening, I'll wrap up with of my favorite A.A. Milne poems:

Happiness

John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh --
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

Carpenter Bees: Another Backyard Mystery Solved

It looks like I bumbled a bit with my post about Conversing with the Bumblebees. I actually was talking with a carpenter bee!

We recently hired a landscaper, and it's been nice to delegate some of the heavy garden chores now that I'm 5 months pregnant. They did a really nice job mulching and weeding this spring, and the lawn looks great. It was also nice not to be the one to get poison ivy while weeding the beds in the backyard.

While talking with the landscaper this week, he solved another backyard mystery- The Case of the Sawdust Piles. I'd noticed little piles of sawdust on the porch and I was fearing termites, even though we have a contract with Terminix. But come to find out, the little guys I'd mistaken for bumblebees were actually carpenter bees, which like to bore into wood to make their nests. (Bumblebees make their nests in the ground, so they don't generate sawdust.)

Bumblebees and carpenter bees look similar, so it's easy to confuse them. Here's how to tell them apart.

Bumblebees have furry abdomens that often have some yellow.

Carpenter bees have a shiny black abdomen

These two bees are also sometimes confused with honeybees. The honeybees look quite different, however, when you look closely. Check out Judith's blog to take a peek inside the bee hives.

Although I didn't get the bumblebees I'd planted for, these insects are natural pollinators and don't seem to be much of a nuisance. I haven't seen any noticeable damage yet. Also, like bumblebees, they seldom sting. In fact, the male carpenter bees don't even have stingers. The females rarely sting and will leave you alone unless you mess with them.

Despite their lack of stingers, males carpenter bees tend to be aggressive when you near their nests. So that's probably why the little bee was pestering me when I was planting my columbine.

Sources / For Further Reading:
Clemson University Media Relations- Carpenter bees take wing in warm weather

(Click on the images for photo credits.)

Back from vacation

I just returned from a camping trip in Kentucky, where my friends from college surprised me with My Pagan Baby Shower. Of course, I was convinced that my garden would suffer in my absense, even though I had a neighbor watering once over the weekend. But now that I've returned, most plants look even better than I left them. A lot can happen in a week- the vitex shrubs are now blooming, the impatiens started from seed are blooming, and the fennel has recovered from all the munching by the catepillars. I guess the garden doesn't miss me much afterall. Sigh.

Mexican Yams + Expatriate Chemist = "The Pill"

You might be surprised to know that the 60's sexual revolution was sparked by a vegetable!

The human hormone that makes up the active ingredient in" the pill" was first synthesized in bulk by modifying a plant hormone found in the Mexican Yam.

Yes, it may sound silly but plants do have hormones. Just like in humans, plant hormones influence the plant's growth and stage of life. Examples of the use of hormones in horticulture include:

Ethylene signals fruit ripening (It can also travel as a gas between fruits; this is why one bad apple spoils the bunch.)

Gibberellins ainvolvedled in stem elongation (Dwarf varieties of plants often have reduced levels of this hormone.)

But getting back to the Mexican Yam story- Why use plant hormones to make a human hormone ? Well plant hormones are similar to human hormones. We can't harvest people, and chemically hormones can be very difficult to create from scratch.

Before this synthesis method was developed, doctors were already realizing the potential of this hormone, progesterone, to treat medical conditions like menstrual disorders. However, it was extremely expensive. In the 1930's, progesterone sold for $80 a gram.

An American Chemist, Russell Marker, found that diosgenin, a plant hormone extracted from yams, could be cheaply converted into a human hormone, progesterone. Despite the obvious potential of this type of research, not a single American pharmaceutical company wanted to take on the project.

However, this did not deter Marker. He quit his prestigious academic job, emptied his savings account, and moved across the border to spend his days drinking tequilaulia and learning everything he could about harvesting yams.

Thanks to the work of Marker and succeeding workers at Syntex, a small biotech company in Mexico, progesterone became cheap and readily available, which lead to the eventual realization that it could be marketed as an oral contraceptive.

Today, forty years after the introduction of oral contraceptives, "the pill" is one the most common methods of birth control. Although there are even better ways to synthesize it now, about half of oral contraceptives on the market still contain this same active ingredient that was first synthesized in bulk using Mexican Yams.

For more information:
Visit the science section of the American History Museum in Washington D.C.
Yams of Fortune: The (Uncontrolled) Birth of Oral Contraceptives

Well at least Southerners remember how to drive…

As a new citizen of the South, it's always annoying when I see the southern states place last in a new ranking of the states by some standard, from unemployment rates to heat stroke deaths. Just the other day I heard on the radio that South Carolina ranks last in nation for the amount of air pollution emitted by school buses. And these buses are probably pretty empty, since South Carolina also ranks near last in high school graduation rates.

But for once, the South finally pulled ahead in the rankings. According to a national driving test conducted by GMAC insurance, Southerners at least know how to drive. Most of the Southern states rank toward the middle in GMAC ranking, recently reported on CNN.com. And for once the Northeast ranked last. New York, Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and New Jersey were at the very bottom of the list. For once, the South kicked some Yankee ass!

Well at least most of the Southern states. South Carolina ranked 40th. Sigh. Here’s some other rankings I collected from the Internet:

South Carolina ranks 50th
number of women in elected office
high school graduation rates
infant mortality rates
SAT scores
heat stroke deaths
rate of women murdered by men

South Carolina ranks 2nd
Production of turnip greens and collards

I have complicated feelings towards the state I now call home. I think Carl Hiaasen, a master of satire and one of my favorite authors of the moment, has a similar feeling towards his home state of Florida. Watching an interview on 60 minutes last Sunday, I realized that his extraordinarily humorous novels are actually a means to express his anger at what is happening to ecology of Florida. He says writing novels is his therapy, since in fiction “bad guys always get what they deserve”. He’s extremely frustrated with the corrupted government of Florida, but the same time, I can’t imagine him living anywhere else. He seems so at peace living on the water in the Florida Keys.

Similarly, I am frustrated with some aspects of the culture of South Carolina, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. It's wonderful to be so close to the mountains, and I really enjoy the climate. For me, a season of heat and humidity is much better than a season of walking home in the dark (at 5 o’clock) and 20 degree snowy wind. Been there, done that, and discovered that perhaps seasonal affective disorder isn't just a scam to sell full-spectrum light bulbs. This sunny state has been good to me.

Day 2 of Garden Withdrawl

I've been "reading" for the AP Environmental Science exam, so that leaves little precious time at the end of the day to spend in the garden, let alone blog about it! I should be back to vacation mode soon, though.