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… […]
This gallery contains 11 photos.
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
“Perfect Fleabane” – Hamnett Way – Wilkinsburg, PA – Beauty in the ordinary… Hope in the gutter…
Orange glow from the buzzing street lights…
Shining through the blinds of my broken windows…
Cool air sending me off to honeysuckle dreams…
Cool air coupled with the full moons beams
My body is in paradise… But my mind resents…
Among the sleepy trees and urban spring scents…
Surrounded by the energy of those who no longer…
The ability to perceive will only make us stronger…
The pain in your mind is probably a product of me…
Close all the windows… Light a candle and see…
I am still standing… I am a ghosts from your past…
I am a green thumbed vagabond and I expect to last…
Despite your best attempts to silence all my voices…
Talking trash and stacking shit to take away my choices…
I still have a voice… I still have a mind… I still have you…
I still have what most people consider a deeply flawed view…
Reality is relative… Reality is individuality…
Reality is a fucked up place you’d have to cut out of me…
When my mind is idle I dream of the most messed up scenes…
Heroin memories in the gutter dissolve into lucid dreams…
All encompassing reflections of pure misery and pain…
When I’m down I swear needles fall from the sky like rain…
Needles always land with their point to the ground…
Every day I try to scream but can’t muster a sound…
I feel so lost… I feel alone… I feel destroyed… I am beat…
If I had a white flag I would wave it in defeat…
Memories flash through my head like brilliant bursts of light…
Realize I’ve lost my mind but at least I have my sight…
Take me to a greener land of Goldenrod and Ironweed…
Take me to your gardens grand and show me to your seeds…
Show me all the secret places that you find so grand…
A warm embrace is the only way to settle shaking hands…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
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This gallery contains 8 photos.
The following post was not easy to write… before the emails and comments start I have to say that I am alright… I won’t be accepting comments on this particular post… Read it for what it is… A deeply personal piece of art… Enjoy… plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello This work is licensed […]
“Breaking Through” – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA
Posted on the Vernal Equinox – 3/20/2014 at 12:57 PM EST….
Snow is falling on my dreams of spring…
Falling on the tips of my green tulips…
Falling on daffodils and hyacinth breeze…
Hiding under the leaves from the naked trees…
Spring is right around this next corner…
The fresh scent is rising through the air…
Like my bulbs growing under the leaves…
In the blue sky and under brown trees…
Right outside my broken window…
Frozen tears fall from the winter sky…
Spring will soon flow from the melting snow…
Slowly flowing to the seeds I sow…
Spring winds right outside my old door…
Whistling past my open window…
Blowing away the grey winter leaves….
Making way for the mighty trees…
Making way for my gardens in green…
Making way for you and me…
To turn this landscape of brown and grey…
Into a magnificent flower-filled display…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
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“First Flower – First Photo” – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA – So here it is… The first Snowdrop I found blooming this year… In fact… This is the first flower of 2013… At least in my neck of the woods… This is also the first flower photograph with my new camera…
~
I took a bunch of photographs of this patch of Snowdrops… But none of them compared to the first shot… None of the other shots could touch the way I feel about this single photograph…
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…
Today is the first day of spring!
There’s something about the warmth of the spring sun… Coupled with the chill of the fleeting winter winds… To me… This is the first sign of spring… This is the first sign of life…
Spring calls to me… Another cold snap away… Yet… She is right beneath my feet… Right before my eyes… The sun emanates… Spiritual solar display… Warm radiating glow… Melting snow flows…
The spring sun shines on my face… Cold winter winds on my back… Searching for color… Searching… Searching for signs of another season… Another reason…
Another reason to get out of bed… A reason to rationalize why I’m not dead… When we have nothing… We have everything… When we have everything… We have nothing…
Essentially… None of this matters… Who cares what we can buy… It’s all garbage… It’s all fake… What really matters is what you can make…
Or what makes you…
Are you nothing more than a cause?.. Or are you the effect?.. Are you the building blocks that they use to erect?..
I personally… I am the builder… I can tear them down… And I can build them up… Give me a vineyard and I’ll put wine in your cup… I’ll put life in your cup…
I have come across another spring… Another day… Another moment on this earth… Another heartbeat… With you…
Today we celebrate… Celebrate the sun… Celebrate the land… Celebrate life… Celebrate the simple little fact that today… We as gardeners get another shot… Another opportunity to sculpt life… Another opportunity to turn our garden dreams into reality…
It all starts today… March 20… 12:57 PM Today… We all have something in common… Today… We all dream of gardens… We all dream of spring…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
This is the end of the series… From this point forward I will return to my regular random format… A big thank you to everyone who has been following along throughout the winter… Without your regular comments I never could have finished this series… So thank you…
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… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address- 1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
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“Heuchera and Snowdrops” – Spring 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA
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…
Today is the last day of Winter! Tomorrow will be the last post…
I made it all the way to the end of winter… I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stay focused through all 90 posts… But I did it… And I learned so much while doing this series that I would suggest doing something similar to any gardener looking to boost their knowledge of plants…
I have already started planning for next year… Except next time I am going to invite people to join me… I took some inspiration from WordPress and tagged each post with #postaday… I also added my own #plantaday to make searching for my posts easy… May I suggest you start taking photographs now if you have any interest at all in participating next winter… The way I see it… If enough people participate we could create a pretty massive wealth of plant-based knowledge…
“Heucherella” – Summer 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA
Heuchera happens to be my favorite ornamental perennial… My girlfriend and I have created quite the collection… I like it because it comes in every color imaginable… Plus it will survive in a wide variety of conditions…
Heuchera is often labeled as a full-sun plant… In my experiences I find that it is equally at home in the shade… As you can tell from the photographs above… These plants are in full-shade… I have also noticed only the plants with light-colored leaves can handle extreme sunlight… The purple and red-leaved varieties absorb too much sunlight…
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Tomorrow will be my last post of this series… I thought the first day of spring would be a perfect ending… Plus… The Snowdrops are in full bloom right now and the photographs taken with my new camera are top-notch… Today the temperature is supposed to near 60F… I will be outside from the moment I finish this post till the afternoon thunder showers arrive… Until tomorrow…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symplocarpus_foetidus
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
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… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is…1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
“Symplocarpus foetidus – Skunk Cabbage” – Spring 2013 – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA – Blooming right now in my neck of the woods…
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…
Tomorrow is the last day of Winter!
I know what your thinking… Skunk Cabbage? Not exactly a plant you would expect with only two posts left in this series… Symplocarpus foetidus is not exactly what most people would consider an interesting plant… Well… I intend to change that with this post…
Symplocarpus foetidus… Commonly known as “Eastern Skunk Cabbage”… Or simply “Skunk Cabbage” is one of the nastiest smelling plants I have ever come in contact with… The leaves when broken emit a foul smell similar to the smell of rotting meat… A few years back I decided to test this… I stomped a clump with my shoe and put my nose near it… It burnt so bad I had to go home… It was probably 4 hours before my sense of smell came back…
Skunk Cabbage is one of the first plants to bloom in the spring… Its flowers are produced on a long spadix contained within a spathe… 4-6″ tall and purple in color… The nasty odor of this plant is used to attract pollinating flies that are also active this early in the season…
Skunk Cabbage is one of the few plants that exhibits thermogenesis… Because this plant blooms so early in the year it is not uncommon for this blooming period to occur when the ground is still frozen solid… SC has developed the ability to generate heat… Often reaching temperatures 95 degrees F above air temperature… This helps melt the ground around the rhizome and allows the plant to flower whenever it is ready… It is also thought that this area of warmth also helps attract pollinators…
Believe it or not… Skunk Cabbage is also edible… Kinda… The leaves can be dried and then cooked… Raw they will apparently burn your mouth… SC was commonly used in medicine in the 19th century… Today it is common in water gardens… Though I have to caution… The rhizomes often attain a thickness of 12″ or more… Removal can be difficult…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symplocarpus_foetidus
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
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… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is…1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
“Hyacinth Breeze” – Spring 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA
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…
2 Days to Go
Hyacinth… I wanted to save it till late in this series because it is high up on my list… There’s something about the sweet scent of Hyacinth… Something about the way it travels in the breeze… In fact… “Hyacinth Breeze” is something I am constantly writing about… When fully blooming in the perfect atmospheric conditions the scent will knock your socks off… And by perfect I mean those days in early spring when the air is predominantly still and slightly humid… These conditions allow the scent to accumulate on the moisture drops… When the wind blows the scented moisture in the air travels around the house…
Growing Hyacinth is ridiculously simple… Plant them in the fall… 4 to 6″ deep… The bulbs are poisonous so squirrels will not dig them up… Hyacinth is a perennial bulb and will provide blooms for many years… The offspring will also bloom… But they rarely bloom as profusely and in fact resemble the wild version closely…
I wanted to share a few poems from the past… Hyacinth related of course…
– Hyacinth Breeze – I may rewrite this one… I can do much better now…
– Garden Prayer #1 – Not Hyacinth related… But written in Spring…
– The Eyes of Spring – One of the first…
– Garden Prayer #3 – I have actually written close to 100 garden prayers… But I have only shared 4… Some are better than anything I have ever posted… Some of them were written on paper and placed underneath whatever I happened to be planting at that time… My garden prayers are special to me… Some are meant for you… Some are meant for me… And some are meant for the trees…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_(plant)
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
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… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is…1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
“Hanging at the Community Garden” – Summer 2013 – Hamnett Place Community Garden – Wilkinsburg, PA – I don’t know the variety… But this was the only tomato in the whole place that wasn’t showing the final stages of late blight…
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…
3 Days to Go
Allow me to start this off by saying I am working on a series of posts dedicated to tomatoes… It was originally intended to be just a single post but has blossomed into so much information I have no choice but to break it up… Consider this post a teaser…
Tomatoes are the most popular garden plant grown today… In fact… I think it is safe to assume that if you have ever grown a vegetable garden… You have grown… Or attempted to grow tomatoes… Currently “heirloom” and “grafted” varieties are trending… Heirloom varieties in particular were at one time only available from specific seed catalogs and specialty nurseries… Now I regularly see them at the big box stores… Furthermore… I find them in the discount box stores… And I have to admit… They are relatively decent plants given the fact that they are ALWAYS cared for by inexperienced people who don’t give a damn about the plant…
Which brings me to my first two points… Heirloom or Conventional?.. And the much more recent option… Own-root or grafted?..
To answer the first question there are a few misconceptions I must answer… Heirloom varieties are touted for being available in cool colors and sizes… And they come in many variations of texture and flavor… And personally I will admit… As anyone with experience in heirloom tomatoes will tell you… The flavor of a vine ripened heirloom tomato like “Cherokee Purple”… Or my absolute favorite “Brandywine” is unequalled by any of the “standard” variety tomatoes available today…
Heirloom variety seeds were often handed down through generations until they were at some point discovered by horticulturists… These seeds were collected and studied until they eventually became available to the public… Some varieties have skipped the science step and have gone from grandmas cupboard to the seed catalogs rather hastily…
There is just one little problem with many of these varieties… The most common issue you will run into is many heirloom varieties are not heavy producers… I am currently thinking of the variety “Cherokee Purple”… Although this variety grows some of the most incredible tasting tomatoes you will ever eat… It only grows a few tomatoes in a season… Albeit they are very high-quality tomatoes…
This brings me to my next question and point… Own-root or grafted?.. For this I am going to again reference my “Cherokee Purple”… The purpose of the rootstock is to make the plant more vigorous… And Honestly… This is a “non-problem”… I don’t know about you… But I don’t have a problem with my tomato plants not growing fast enough… Or vigorous enough… In my own experience the grafted varieties grow really fast… But they are often attached to heirloom varieties that do not produce a ton of fruit… So what you often end up with is an extremely green and large plant… But it will still only grow as many fruit as the same variety on its original root… Grafted varieties tend to get unruly faster than own-root plants…
So to sum that up… I am anti-grafted tomato plants… I believe they are trendy… That’s all they are now and that is all they will be… Don’t waste your money… Heirloom varieties on the other hand I am all for… I will say this… Do some research… Do not go to the nursery without an idea of what you want… It is easy to get lost when you are surrounded in varieties…
The nursery at the end of my street sells over 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes… If you don’t know a thing about the specific nuances of a variety you will end up buying plants you don’t want… Make a list and go prepared… Otherwise… You may end up with the plants that aren’t selling well… And trust me… Out of the hundred varieties available up the street… I would say only 10 are true stars among the crowd… If that…
“Night of the Living Tomato – Late Blight” – Summer 2013 – Hamnett Place Community Garden – Wilkinsburg, PA – The ugly face of late blight…
Another very serious issue associated with heirloom variety tomatoes is the lack of blight resistance in many varieties… Blight has become increasingly common in my neck of the woods… So much so in fact that last year we experienced a mortality rate of nearly 100%… Not to say we didn’t get our hands on a few here and there… But by the end of the summer almost every tomato plant I saw looked like the plant in the photograph above…
I predicted this would happen a few years ago… The problem being caused by the nursery up the street… Now… It’s important to mention that I am not saying they caused the blight… What I am saying is the availability of tomato plants in my neighborhood has meant that everyone has at least a few… A side product of the love of organic gardening is the love of composting… Again… Not really an issue… But when an inexperienced gardeners plants die of blight they often have no clue what it is… Or how to deal with the dead plant… They very often throw it in the compost heap where the disease festers for the winter… The next year the disease is already present in the yard… And as a result late blight is a guarantee…
Plants that have late blight should be pulled immediately… Once you see signs it is too late… The plants should be disposed of as opposed to composted… This should be done in bright sunlight because apparently the spores are killed by UV light… Never handle blight infected plants in the rain… Again… Bright-sunshine only…
I have so much more information… And I owe much of it to the fact that over 100 varieties are available right up the street… For those interested… The name of the place is – Garden Dreams Urban Farm and Nursery – If you happen to go please tell them I sent you…
This post has gotten out of hand… Sorry… I will start releasing my larger series closer to tomato season…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
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… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com
Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is…1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj
Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
chriscondello 