All things Plont @rhinos-flowers - Tumblr Blog

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The chives are monstrous! And the Liatris are coming back like crazy, i wonder if i should try to separate them out a bit before the roots get too tangled, or just leave them be.

#plant #plantblr #rhinosflowers #green #plants #plonts #spring #chives #liatris

sunshineandhope

This sustainable gardening method uses kitchen and garden waste and gray water (or wash water) as food for your vegetables.

A keyhole garden is a round garden bed with a compost pile in the center. The garden has a notch in the front, so gardeners can easily add to or turn over the pile. Featuring a drainage layer, a soil layer, and a planting area, keyhole gardens combine all the necessities that plants need to thrive.

systlin

so I wanna get into beekeeping but there is literally no way for me to take the in person lessons the local beekeeping club offers, are there any resources or videos you recommend on beekeeping? I've already checked out the free theory from their classes but maybe you have some recommendations

Go to a used bookstore.

Find a book called ‘beekeeping for dummies’

Buy it.

This book is now your bible. It contains answers to everything you will ever wish to ask. I still consult my copy to this day.

systlin

Here you go. The Beekeeping Bible.

Look at her go! She sure loves the window i have her in, coincidentally right on my desk. I might just keep her inside even when it warms up if she continues to thrive like this, so long as the cat leaves it alone lmao.

I believe all the little sprouts are coming up from the root ball of the vine, and not any type of weed ect.

Clemantis

#plants #plonts #plantblr #rhinosflowers #green #spring #sprouts #vine #clemantis

systlin

hi! since I am #selfisolating for the foreseeable future, I figure it’s a good time to start some seeds! my question is: I know of all the Big seed companies like Burpee, but do you know of any smaller companies (that ship) that I can support instead?

Jung seeds!

Eden Brothers!

Baker Creek!

Seed Savers!

Victory Seeds!

PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS

AND WE ARE BACK

Starting with a lil surprise. Walmart has started opening up its garden center, and when i was checking out the pollinator packs/other bulbs and root packs, i found this guy already making a head start. It is a purple Clemantis, and it is a vine. I wasnt planning on potting/planting anything until closer to May, but i figured id give this guy the chance she deserved.

Hopefully the cat doesn't eat it.

#spring #plants #plonts #cottagecore #sprig #seedling #bulb #roots #vines #clemantis #flowers #planting

thesesummersonspoet

I honestly just want to cry.

ADAM (yes, the extremely transphobic, lesbophobic film) has been nominated for a GLAAD award - if you don’t know, those are one of the biggest LGBTQ media awards to exist.

I don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve tried so hard to raise awareness. And I keep saying, I’m not even trying to ban people from watching it but just letting people know what it’s really about (a transphobic cishet person pretending to be trans to rape lesbians!!) because the film promotes itself as LGBTQ representation and I don’t think it’s okay to basically trick vulnerable LGBTQ teens into watching it when it’s not representation at all.

But even if it doesn’t win, being nominated in the first place gives their claims of LGBTQ representation more credibility. This is going to hurt people.

I’m just so tired. I’ve tried my best and nothing has worked. The people who have actual platforms just keep refusing to listen to us anyway. No one cares.

thesesummersonspoet

Okay, instead of crying, I got angry and wrote an open letter to GLAAD explaining in detail why this film is harmful and why it doesn’t count as representation, asking them to rescind the nomination.

If you would like to read that and/or add your signature in support then you can use this Google form to do so.

Please share this ❤︎

botanyshitposts

I was ok with sunflowers until today

botanyshitposts

sunflowers be like i am not one single flower but instead contain many multitudes of flowers but fear not!!!! my petals are flowers too

botanyshitposts

apparently the ‘ray flowers’ shown on the outer edge here turn sterile early in development and literally just dedicate themselves to the flower cause by growing one huge singular petal each. i swear to god i reach my limit with plants once a week

gallusrostromegalus

Is it really a plant if it doesn’t have absolutely bonkers anatomy though??

fatehbaz

ughhhhhhhhh noooo stop it! aha! don’t release non-native earthworms in random plots of soil for enhancing gardens or free bait, don’t do it anywhere in North America lmaoooo! stop, it’s so dangerous and extremely harmful, with devastating and surprisingly dramatic and visible biome-wide effects! haha popular tumblr blogs should stop repeatedly and widely sharing advice recommending the release of non-native earthworms and calling it “anti-imperialist praxis” and “bioregional autonomy” and “vegan self-suffiency” lol! dooooon’t! it straight up destroys soil and outright kills forests :/ it directly causes death of understory plants; death of iconic species like goblin fern and serviceberry; elimination of vital fungal networks providing both soil structure and tree-to-tree nutrient-sharing; loss of native invertebrates and amphibians; savannification of the boundary between woodland and tallgrass prairie; death of red maple, sugar maple, and red oak stands; and especially harms hardwoods forests of the Great Lakes and Midwest lmao seriously stooooop it >:(

Anyway for real, I sure hope no one is deliberately releasing non-native and invasive earthworms, or bait worms, anywhere on Turtle Island/North American land, especially west of the Mississippi River or north of the Wisconsin glaciation. Earthworms and bait worms sold in stores are, by and large, not species native to the continent. They severely harm forests and soil ecology, leading directly to disruption of fungal networks; death of saplings and seedlings; death of forest understory plants; replacement of typical understory species with grasses; mortality in adult trees, as well; changes in pH; and other harm, especially devastating in northern hardwoods forests of the Great Lakes region.

Not gonna name names, but several times this year, popular blogs from the [forest-lover, anarchist/leftist/solarpunk, Moomin-fan, environmentalist-ish] realms of Tumblr have widely shared advice recommending the release of non-native earthworms or bait worms into the wild, as a form of “praxis”. I’ve got these posts screenshotted, but since I generally respect people in these circles - and in the interest of avoiding discourse and drama - I’m not going to share them. (A popular post was widely shared in February 2019; another “release store-bought earthworms” post was shared in December 2019.) I appreciate where their hearts are at. But:

Source: [x].

Some things:

From a Phys dot org summary of Great Lakes Worm Watch:

“The western Great Lakes region, which is the area we’re focused on, has no native earthworms,” says ecologist Cindy Hale, a research associate with the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Native earthworms in the region were all wiped out after the last Ice Age. The current population was brought by Europeans hundreds of years ago, (soil was often used as ballast in ships) and they’re now changing the face of local forests. Anglers are adding to the problem by dumping worms that don’t end up on the end of a hook.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Hale’s team created the Great Lakes Worm Watch website and outreach programs to stop the spread of non-native earthworms and to clear up the common misconception that they’re harmless. […] Earthworms may be small but when they take over a forest, the impact is dramatic. They cause the rapid incorporation of organic material into the soil, changing its structure, chemistry and nutrient dynamics. What’s known as the duff layer is suddenly removed, and this duff, or decaying organic material on the forest floor, is habitat for several species of insects, spiders, small vertebrates, bacteria and fungi. It is also the primary rooting zone for most plants.“What’s really the biggest negative effect on the plants directly is the removal of their rooting zone. It can cause mortality of adult plants but, furthermore, it can cause a loss of reproductive potential. A lot of these native plants have seeds that have very complex seed dormancy and germination strategies,” says Hale.

–

Caption by Shireen Gonzaga for EarthSky: “A forest understory with a high diversity of native plants, the result when there are no earthworms in the soil. Image courtesy of Paul Ojanen.”

Caption by Shireen Gonzaga for EarthSky: “Forest soil with an abundance of non-native earthworms can result in a bare understory. Image courtesy of Scott L Loss.”

Non-native worms disrupt fungi networks, alter soil pH, damage seedlings, and allow grasses to gain stronger footholds to replace native/natural forest understory plants (from an EarthSky review of 2016 research by German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research):

Bottom line: European earthworms, introduced by early settlers, are changing the physical and chemical characteristics of soil in northern North American forests, creating a decreased diversity in native plants. […] At the top soil layer, earthworms convert fallen leaves to humus. That’s a good thing if you’re growing a garden, but, in a natural forest, it causes a fast-tracking of the release of nutrients instead of allowing the leaf litter to break down more slowly, as it would without the earthworms.

Also, as they burrow through the ground, earthworms disrupt the mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants. Some deep-burrowing worm species change the pH of upper soil layers by mixing in alkaline soil from deeper in the ground. […]

All of these changes adversely affect native plants that did not evolve in such conditions. For instance, the goblin fern is rarely found in areas with high earthworm density. Other native plants facing threats include largeflower bellwort, trillium and Solomon’s seal. Earthworms also consume the seeds and seedlings of some plant species, influencing what grows in the forest understory.

In some locations, grasses, with their fine root systems that quickly absorb nutrients, dominate the forest floor. Non-native invasive plants that evolved in soils containing earthworms gain an even stronger foothold in these forests.

–

Cindy Hale, the prominent University of Minnesota-based researcher of non-native earthworms in the Great Lakes region, has published this book through Kollath-Stensaas Publishing:

–

Non-native worms harm birch trees specifically and hardwood forests generally (excerpt from University of Toronto research, 2016):

The worms can cause dramatic changes to ecosystems by altering soils, reducing leaf litter and disrupting microbial interactions, which reduces biodiversity. Now it seems they are also eating plant seeds in the wild, potentially altering the make-up of forest communities. (…)

“They eat a lot more seeds than we think,” says Cassin [ecologist at University of Toronto in Mississauga], now at the Ontario Invasive Plant Council in Canada.

The study shows another way that earthworms can alter forest ecosystems, particularly for small-seeded species such as birch, says Lee Frelich, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota in St Paul. (…)

Once earthworms have invaded a habitat, they are almost impossible to eradicate, says Erin Bayne, of the University of Alberta in Canada. Conservationists must instead work to keep worms out of pristine habitats, he says, for example by restricting the use of worms as fishing bait and by controlling accidental transport of contaminated soil.

–

Non-native worms lead to wildflower, fern, and sapling death. In hardwood forests, this loss is probably due partially to how worms degrade the duff layer; the loss of this layer also provokes soil erosion and directly eliminates the forest floor shelter of larger invertebrates and amphibians. When saplings cannot establish themselves, there is tree loss. (From Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

Studies conducted by the University of Minnesota and forest managers show that at least seven species are invading our hardwood forests and causing the loss of tree seedlings, wildflowers, and ferns.

–

Sugar maples, important both for forests and human food production, are devastated by the worms (from several years of research by Michigan Technological University across multiple national and state forests in the Upper Great Lakes):

A new study suggests that non-native worms are eating up the forest floor, causing sugar maples to die back and perhaps harming other forest dwellers.

Sugar maples are prized as much for their valuable lumber as for their sugary sap and dazzling fall colors. In Michigan alone, they are the basis of a multi-million-dollar industry. But several years ago, foresters began noticing that the crowns of the big trees appeared unhealthy, with bare limbs and little new growth. “They were losing trees before they could harvest them.” (…)

–

Great Lakes Worm Watch has some fun links and resources:

You can download a comprehensive key that helps identify earthworm species. Available for free, via Great Lakes Worm Watch:

Text from Great Lakes Worm Watch: “Different plant species respond to earthworm invasions differently. Some native plants appear to be very sensitive, so much so, that they can rapidly disappear when earthworms invade a forest. Some examples of these plants include…”

Worm Watch: “If earthworm invasion leads to changes in the mycorrhizal community of fungi, the diversity of plants that make up the understory would be dramatically changed. Fungi are a preferred food of many earthworm species and they graze it heavily, which could dramatically impact the abundance and composition of fungi in the soil. By grazing fungi on or near plant roots, the earthworms not only can damage the roots, but they prevent the plant and fungi from forming the symbiotic relationship where mycorrhizal fungi exchange nutrients and water for carbohydrates with green plants. If the fungi can’t get enough food, they will die back even further. For some of the native plants that need mycorrhizal fungi, especially when the plant is young and small, survival will be difficult if earthworms prevent this relationship from being formed.”

NO MUSHROOMS

drferox

Essential Oils & Pets

So what’s the deal with essential oils?

They are everywhere, the current Big Thing. People think they can use them for everything - for food (ffs no), to revitalise their belly button, to treat their dog’s ear infection - and some people just think they smell nice.

They are marketed as natural, perfectly safe, little bottled miracles, but that’s really not accurate. Not all natural things are safe, and essential oils should be treated with care.

What is in an essential oil?

We all know, and have known for hundreds of years, that many plants have medicinal properties and before the invention of modern medicines humans did the best they could with what they had to heal themselves.

An essential oil is the concentrated essence (hence why it is called essential) of a plant. Plants obviously contain lots of different molecules - some structural, a lot of water, and those that are medicinal. Also many that are poisonous. The essential oil is only the volatile (evaporates into gas easily) oils (fats, do not dissolve in water).

The first problem here is that the essential oil of a plant may contain 500 or so different molecules, which all have different effects on the body. Some will be non-functional, some will be useful, and some will be harmful.

Their relative concentrations will also vary by the strain of the plant, the season it was harvested, and the health of the plant. The whole witchcraft thing of ‘only harvest these herbs under the full moon of the month of X’ could be legit, the contents of the plant will vary by the time of year.

Now, compare essential oils to modern drugs.

If you go to a pharmacist and you get a prescription, that medication will contain usually just one (though sometimes two or three) known active ingredients. And that product is labeled with its concentration, as well as the non-active ingredients (eg starch, glucose). The pharmacist could tell you with fairly little effort what its effects are, common side effects, uncommon side effects, off-label uses, other drug interactions, contraindications, duration of effect, etc. In short, we know modern medicines inside out.

The 500 or so compounds in a single type of essential oil? We know some of them. Just a few.

Now how many drugs are in a typical pharmacy. 500 different ones? Imagine taking one pill out of every single box in the pharmacy, grinding them up, and taking a big sniff. That’s like what essential oils are. The compounds in the essential oil are capable of doing something, but not all of those somethings are going to be good.

And that’s assuming it’s a pure essential oil, with no impurities or pesticide residues. (Note - no essential oil is just one type of molecule by definition. They’re all a blend of all the oils that come out of the plant.) With a generally unregulated product, that’s not a risk I’m super happy with.

How are they absorbed?

The universal recommendation for all reputable suppliers of essential oils is DON’T apply undiluted to skin. And don’t ever apply internally (don’t eat them). What do a bunch of ‘natural therapy’ crackpots do? Advise people to apply directly to their or their pets skin. Don’t do that. Especially don’t do that with lavender oil which can cause skin ulceration.

These volatile oils evaporate very readily, but they will also dissolve across skin, across nasal membranes, and potentially across the blood-brain barrier. Once they are in the body, those hundreds of different, variable potential compounds could do all sorts of things to the body, including but not limited to liver failure and seizures.

You can’t dilute them with water either. They’re an oil, they don’t dissolve in water, only other oils.

Increased dangers for pets

Our household pets are at particular risk of Essential Oil toxicity for a number of reasons.

They are smaller than us. Their small size means the relative dose of these super-concentrated oils is much higher.

Their surface area to volume ratio is larger, so they can absorb more oils, and absorb them faster, than we do as large mammals. The smaller the animal, the more extreme this is.

Most pets have a sense of smell which is immensely superior to our own and can find essential oils distressing.

Cats have unique quirks in their liver metabolism pathways which means compounds which would be fine for every other mammal on the planet have an increased toxicity in cats

Birds have a different respiratory system to us (a series of air sacs connected to the lungs) which increases their surface area for absorption even more, which is why they’re so sensitive to gases.

Invertebrate pets may be directly harmed because lots of plants produce compounds to deter insects from eating them, and now those are concentrated in the oils. There is also the risk of pesticide residues.

How to use essential oils safely?

On your pets? Don’t. They’re too small and too easy to poison, and they can’t tell you if they’re starting to feel not-good, they’re dependent upon you noticing them being sick. Can you tell the difference between an animal who is ‘calm’ because they’re relaxed and one who is ‘calm’ because they’re feeling a bit unwell? Honestly?

You want to use them for yourself? Dilute them in other types of oils or soaps. You can’t dilute them in water, it has to be in oil. They can then be diffused into the air in a well ventilated space for a short period of time, 20 minutes or so, without pets present.

If you were intending to eat them, for some reason, stick to extracts instead. These are more dilute oils from the plants, and intended for human consumption. You can’t substitute an essential oil and an extract in a 1 to 1 ratio.

There’s a reasonable guide to human safety and risks here.

Alternatives?

The primary concern when dealing with essential oils is how sheer concentrated they are, so if you’re seeking alternatives, dilution is key.

If you’re only using them for the smell, real dried plants are an alternative for some common oils, as lavender and rose grow just about anywhere.

You could also consider using fragrance oils instead, which is what I use in soapmaking. They’re a combination of natural and synthetic compounds, already partially diluted, and only contain about 50 or so compounds instead of the 500 or so you might find in a natural essential oil.

Candles may be another option for some purposes, as the oils are already diluted in the wax, they’re not liquid so can’t be spilled on the pet, and still diffuse slowly into the air. Just use for 20 minutes or so at a time.

The key in all uses is diluting the oil and limiting the exposure time. Use it if you really think there’s a benefit for yourself, but be extremely cautious in using essential oils around pets.

So which oils are extra bad?

Essential oils are highly concentrated, potent compounds, so I’m never going to suggest that any are really ‘safe’ for pets, but there are some that seem to be more toxic than others.

Eucalyptus (honestly, just assume any plant out of Australia is poisonous, okay?)

Tea tree / Manuka (another Aussie)

Clove

Cinnamon

Citruses

Melaleuca (Aussie again)

Lavender

Peppermint

Wintergreen

But this list is not exhaustive! Please check any you intend to use, and use them only with care, dilution and caution. And don’t try to eat them.

This post was viewed early by my wonderful Patreon supporters.

ruthbancroftgarden

Trichocereus terscheckii

People often mistake this tall columnar cactus for a saguaro, but it is actually Trichocereus terscheckii, a similar-looking species from northwestern Argentina. A synonym is Echinopsis terscheckii. It is more cold-tolerant than the saguaro, and makes an excellent landscaping plant in our part of California. This year, it has put out far more flowers than ever before, so that makes us happy.

-Brian

teaganwh

Scottish Highlands, 2017.

alexandrabolhackevents

Sunrise

Tucson, Arizona

womenintheirwebs-archived

the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.