This gallery contains 5 photos.
Red branches reaching… The sky is sleeping… Gray skies and thunder rolling… The clouds are weeping… Saturday evening darkness leads to sunny Sunday mornings… Float away to greener lands away from city warnings… The trees reach out to me… Waving tiny branches… Always be alert to step away from shady glances… Understand empathy… Practice individuality… […]
“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…
Narcissus… Better known by the common name Daffodil… Is a genus of hardy spring-flowering bulbs in the Amaryllis family… The name is linked to the Greek myth of Narcissus… Who became so obsessed with his own reflection that he knelt and gazed into a pool of water… Eventually falling in and drowning… The Narcissus plant sprang from where he died…
Narcissus is poisonous… Mostly in the bulb… But also in the leaves… Accidental poisoning is uncommon… But due to the bulbs resemblance to an onion… It is not unheard of… Daffodils also cause a skin irritation known as “daffodil itch”… Some cultivars more than others… It is probably best if those with sensitive skin wear long sleeves and gloves when working with this plant…
Daffodils have a long-standing association with fruit tree guilds in permaculture… Typical recommendations being to plant them in a circle around the tree based on what you believe the canopy will be in a few years… The belief is that the bulbs will prevent the grass from encroaching on the tree… Early flowering attracts important beneficial insects… And the poisonous foliage will prevent browsing…
The only one of these three beliefs that has any real merit is beneficial attraction… Grass and weeds do not stop advancing unless they encounter an impenetrable barrier… A circle of bulbs does not count as an impenetrable barrier by any means… Likewise… Although the foliage of the daffodil is toxic… Most of the poison is concentrated in the bulb… It would require a carpet of Narcissus below the tree to seriously have any possible effect on preventing browsing… But it would be really beautiful…
My recommendations are as follows… Daffodils should not be planted as a border around your trees… Although it will look pretty… It will not work exactly as advertised… It won’t hurt anything either… Daffodils should be planted in clumps at a depth of at least four inches… I like to throw a few bulbs in the air and then plant the clumps where each one falls… Daffodil bulbs reproduce on their own… Every so often the clumps should be dug up and divided to prevent overcrowding…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
New To writing and never had to site sources before… These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring… My source is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information… But much of this is just related from the web…
This website and all of the information presented within is provided free by the author… Me… It is my sole opinion and is not representative of anyone other than myself… Although this website is free… I sell prints of my photography here – www.society6.com/chriscondello – or you can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com – Although it isn’t a requirement… It helps…
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is – 1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
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“Beauty and the Beast” – © chriscondello 2013 – A lone daffodil against a house in ruins…
Off in the distance I hear the rumble…
From cloud to cloud it rolls and tumbles…
Till it slowly rolls off and into my ears…
A sound I’ve anticipated for 32 years…
Hyacinth breeze and the smell of rain…
Leading right up to the storm…
Writing rhymes to the sound of wind chimes…
A memory frozen in time…
Clouds roll in and the sky gets dark…
Illuminating discharge electrical arc…
God apparently has something to say…
Showing off with her frightening display…
Today I will rejoice in the cold rain…
Immerse in it from cloud to drain…
Ashes to ashes… Dust to dust…
Wash away my emotional rust…
peace – chriscondello
“Hyacinth Breeze” – © chriscondello 2013 – Hyacinth, one of the most intoxicating fragrances I associate with spring…
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This gallery contains 10 photos.
peace – chriscondello This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
One of my favorite places to plant daffodils is at the bottom of signs, the metal post creates a barrier preventing people from trampling them – Whitney Avenue – Spring 2012
My girlfriend and I were asked to clerk the Hosta show in the Summer of 2012 for the Daffodil and Hosta Society of Western PA, basically we were assistants to the judges. This was such an eye-opening experience, we joined immediately following our commitment. My first daffodil show clerking experience was supposed to happen on April 6th, thanks to our late winter the show had to be cancelled… That is why I decided to write this article…
The reference book of cultivars used by the judges resembles a three ringed phone book, including specifics like cultivar name, color, pattern and mature size… In this world… Pin holes matter…
Many of the plant societies in America are experiencing membership issues, all to often they are plagued with misconceptions that the people involved are stuck up plant snobs, a misconception which honestly couldn’t be further from the truth… They are plant lovers like us… They come together to discuss a specific plant… And most importantly they share that information… And in most cases… Share the plant…
I think I should start this off by explaining why in the hell daffodils and Hostas are teamed up in a society together, that was my first question, why in the hell wouldn’t it be yours…The answer is actually brilliantly simple… Daffodils come up early in spring and bloom through late spring, the Hosta begin to grow in late spring and cover the spent daffodils. One of the requirements of growing healthy bulbs from year to year is letting the plants whither away on their own, the energy it absorbs after flowering is directly related to the bulbs ability to over winter and flower the following year.
Miss Lorna loves her daffodils as well, Whitney Avenue – April 2011
Narcissus – Daffodil
Narcissus is a genus of mainly hardy, mostly spring-flowering perennial bulbs in the Amaryllis family. Common names include daffodil, narcissus, and jonquil are used to describe the genus.
The name Narcissus is frequently linked to the Greek myth of Narcissus, who became so obsessed with his own reflection that he knelt and gazed into a pool of water, he eventually fell into that water and drowned. In some variations, he died of starvation and thirst. In both versions, the narcissus plant grew from where he died.
Daffodils are one of the first plants to bloom in the spring, this is important in attracting pollinators to the early season garden. Daffodils and fruit trees tend to coincide with blooming times, with daffodil commonly blooming a little before the fruit trees… This early blooming tends to put the area on the map for the beneficials… If they found pollen around your fruit tree once before than they are much more likely to return for more only to find a fruit tree in full bloom…
All Narcissus species contain the alkaloid poison lycorine, mostly in the bulb but also in the leaves. May 1st, 2009 a number of schoolchildren fell ill at a primary school in England, after a daffodil bulb was added to soup during a cooking class. The bulbs can apparently be confused with onions, thereby leading to incidents of accidental poisoning. One of the most common dermatitis problems for florists is daffodil itch, some cultivars are known to be a little more irritating than others… Gloves should typically be worn, especially if you have sensitive skin.
“Paradigm” Hosta
Hosta
Hosta is a genus of 23 – 45 species of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name giboshi. Hostas are cultivated as shade-tolerant foliage plants. The genus is currently placed in the asparagus family. Like many monocots, the genus was once classified as a lily.Depending on who you ask there are between 4,000 and 40,000 cultivars of Hosta, with the actual number falling somewhere in the middle.
Hostas are edible by humans, the part eaten and the manner of preparation differ depending on species… In some cases it is the shoots… Others the leaf petiole… And others the entire leaf… Younger parts are generally prefered as being more tender than older parts… The flowers are also edible…
Hosta can survive in heavy shade and are also rather drought tolerant plants, I commonly recommend them under pine trees… As long as you water a hosta through the first year of establishment, it will survive just about anything nature can throw at it… Hosta also tend to have pretty strong root systems, because of this they can be handy plants for use as erosion control.
A potexvirus called Hosta Virus X has become common recently, and plants that are infected must be destroyed as the disease can be transmitted from plant to plant by contaminated sap. Symptoms include dark green “ink bleed” marks in the veins of yellow-colored leaves, and/or tissue collapse between veins. It can take years for symptoms to show, so symptom free plants in infected batches should also be considered infected.
I think it is important to stress that as permaculturists our horizons need to spread much further than food… All plants work in harmony… Your tomato may rely on the bee from my petunia… A fruit tree benefits from the water retention provided from a ground covering hosta, the hosta benefits from the shade provided by the fruit tree… Harmony people…
peace – chriscondello
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