Mother Nature is a bitch

It's January 6 or 7. I went to toss something to the compost heap and noticed my croci (or crocuses, if you want) sprouting. The same thing happened last year. Warm winter, no snow, croci, hyacinths and what else sprouting... and then the temperatures fell to around -15 and killed my plants. The bulbs recovered but my Madeiran Selaginella which happily lived through a bit of snow and frost died despite mulch and a heap of spruce branches. Warm and snowless winters suck in the business but personally, I could live with spring starting tomorrow. I will not hurry to claim that I've recovered from my winter depressions but this year, I'm okay. Or, to be exact, not going through the depressive downs. I'm not happy and I have a constant itch to make the things turn green and run outside among them. Damn... I haven't dealt with the herbary backlog from the previous season yet. And I forgot to sow some stuff that needs to be exposed to cold. Gardening is a winter job, too.

Winter!

I have certain reservations about autumn. The best one happened in 2010, it was sunny and warm and nice until around the half of November and then it started freezing and snowing and it was generally sunny, cold and snowy until around New year. The fogs and rotting leaves were entirely skipped. 2012 is doing its best, hopefully, as it was nice and sunny until around a week, then it was nasty and foggy but today, we had snow. Yes, some people elicited screams of Holy shit, it's October, no snow should be allowed. The coolest thing? I'm still on my summer dose of anti-depressants and I'm doing excellently well. Anyhow. The other day I went to the botanical garden and noticed a medlar tree. it took quite a bit of search for what to do with them and apparently, medlars have a bad rap. It's said that they're edible only when they're rotten but it's not true, they need to freeze first and then the meat turns brown and can be made into jelly of sorts. Well, the afternoon plan is to go and steal a few kilos of medlars (I hear that the quinces in the university botanical garden are plentiful but I have an insider friend so I'll ask him to bring some.) to see what comes from them. I've recently become more obsessed with food than ever. Since October 1, I'm a restaurant manager. It's cool and scary at the same time and fun stories will follow.

Herbary

Includes potentially important announcement
I am proud of myself today. I accumulated a huge backlog of pressed plants, half-legible notes, nicely prepared tags to go with something in the mess folder...

I had declared the hallway a Herbary Room some time ago. The coffee table is perfect for spreading sheets of paper, piling newspapers interspersed with plants and topped with eight heavy exhibition catalogues to make the plants flatter... but in winter, the table serves as a flower stand for hibiscuses, orchids, camellias and stuff that lives outside all summer long.

This is the place.



I sit on that spot on the carpet which is not covered in paper.

Note the newspapers all over the place. Since the standard herbary sheets are 30x45 cm, slightly larger than the standardized A3 format, they need to be custom ordered. To have nice folders from white paper, one would need to order them, too, while newspapers have just the right size, being a tad larger than the sheets, and they come free. I mean, newspapers do cost something but you can retrieve some from the trash bin, for example. I'm picking well-read copies from my dad's trash. Today I had the chance to refresh my memory on the beatification of Pope John Paul the latest or the World Championship in ice hockey.
Every folder is meant for one plant family, which is a standard way of sorting. I have a folder of singularities, or stuff where I have only one specimen of said family, to keep things somewhat easier, a family gets its own folder when there're two or more. Which is not really difficult, today I started eight new folders - the messy pile contained lots of interesting stuff.

I was told by my dear friend and occasional mentor M. that if a herbary is to have a sense, it needs to be publicly accessible. I thus hereby announce that my herbary is accesible to public by prior arrangement. Bring your own computer, there's no trained staff to assist you either and the internet connection sucks but there is coffee and on a good day, cookies. I can offer a small and not particularly fine selection of botany books and lots of literature on art, there may be a kitteh available if she wants and I plan to get some cushions to sit on during the winter.

Not yet compost

I need to get more sheets cut for my herbary - I thought 500 would last me an entire season but I'm already running out. I could maybe start numbering the specimens. In fact, I'd welcome some database thingy which would also store the data... but that would be probably too much to expect from life and universe.

Yesterday, M. dropped for dinner. I needed to plant the stuff I brought over from Madeira and which included a fern whose name I forgot, some Viola riviniana or what the hell, Viola odorata ssp. maderensis, and the stuff that arrived just because I left and which was left at M.'s for plant sitting. I heard that cat called Squirrel showed quite a bit of interest in Wassabia but then decided to go on chewing her palm. M. seems to be rather envious of my little yard. I got some useful information, bragged about how I grow my own weeds for my herbary because they have lots of space, M. laughed, held my Fumaria when I picked some other stuff and then he shouted out: Holy shit, what's this?

I'm not telling you what it was before it gets published in an impacted magazine. Let's say that my garden is interesting.

I like weeds. After all, weed is whatever is defined as unwanted so... so what. By not minding them, I make them non-weeds, after all.

And now I need to get back to my serious writing. Then I'll hopefully install the PhotoShop and I'll be back with pictures.

Out in the wild

I spent five days at the field trip of Department of Botany.
It was immense fun, the natural science people are more user-friendly, there was no intellectual snobbery or arrogance from the teachers. Lots of crazy, though, but in a nice way.

I'm quite low maintenance (1) so I grabbed the laptop, some reading matter, reasonable amount of clean underwear... and that was it, moreless. Yeah, and chocolate, lots, because the school canteen is what it is. I thought there would be wifi, after all, it's the university, but nope - thus the radio silence and a general lack of online coverage.

It rained. A lot.
My decision that one set of clothes is just about fine because it's a camp, not a hotel, and at the end, everything will be wet and dirty, was perfect. I was dirty and wet but so was everyone.
Also, for messing around in the forest, an umbrella is the best option. You can make notes without your notebook getting wet and it can be used to fend off dinosaurs and evil tree branches. It doesn't look like the true-to-the-bone outdoor gear but botanizing is not a fashion show (some ladies apparently thought it but the hypothesis that wolves might prefer to dine on people sans makeup was not verified due to general lack of wolves).
I wore birks. (2) And jeans, tank top and a merino/qiviut blend sweater. Not a real city chic but in general, I was heavily overdressed. Also, I lacked umpteen insulation layers compared to the rest of the crowd but it was moderately warm, very humid... and, well, in one day, I had Reputation. Blue paint on the toenails helped quite a bit, I suspect. In continued rains, I walked barefoot around the camp and also out in the wild as long as the terrain permitted. I wasn't asked whether I drink anti-freeze but apparently people guessed so.

There's one important thing: I was in average ten years older than the... kids. I knew some Latin, I had wrinkles and half of a Ph. D. and apparently it made me even crazier because at a certain age, one should be done with that booooring school. Also, my cabin mate, aged whopping 20, was totally flabbergasted that I don't have kids (3) and don't intend to have any. WHat surprised me is that she planned to get some asap, and that she believed in homeopathy, for which karma got her on the spot, she turned down the offers of ibuprofene for her menstrual pains because she doesn't eat chemicals and she has some extremely diluted dinosaur shit homeopathic remedies for that.
People-watching is a good hobby.


I brought lots of stuff to inspect and I wanted to keep the moss specimens nicely at one place, without changing them into a handful of indefinable debris. Since I was somehow underprepared in the field of packaging material, I MacGuyvered a box out of a chocolate wrapper (4) which gained me a bit of awe... what the kids do nowadays at school when they are bored, I wonder?
The mosses are now firmly planted in my garden because... because they are pretty and I have a yard to stick plants in.

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(1) before you start chiming in about my collection of anti-wrinkle creams and nail paints, rest assured that I can live without. Perfumes are a collection in the narrow sense of the word, they are for artistic appreciation much more than for keeping me trimmed. And now go on reading to get the real point
(2) minuscule b since I'm not referring to the brand name but to a certain sort of orthopedic footwear, which in my case were Schoeller thongs.
(3) and the whole package including husband, ex-husband, mortgage, debts... but that's what my old crone brain adds.
(4) Lindt with pears and almonds,although the pears are made from apples and stuff. I love it and it was on sale and I care a damn about folks claiming that Lindt and Sprüngli is bad chocolate.

Gardénia

I happened to discuss the whole Les Exclusifs line with a few fellow Chanel freaks and it occured to me that while many people enthuse about larger part of the line, Gardénia seems to be the least popular. I asked and it seemed to me that good part of the people haven't even tried it because, well, there's so much of other stuff. I guess it's the name, it may evoke a plain boring soliflore. Or something. I have a bottle of Gardénia on the shelf and I wasn't able to remember the smell or any other impression so when I came back, this was one of the first tasks.

I know, I know, I promised a rant on Guerlinade but Guerlinade is still stuck somewhere in the P-space; I have something to pick up at the post office so I hope it'll be that one. Blame the mailmen, dear readers, and meantime you'll have to do with whatever comes (but I promise, I have quite interesting stuff up my sleeve).

Gardenia jasminoides is a plant (alright, I'm being Captain Obvious today), I happen to own one specimen which nowadays rests somewhere downstairs. I think it's related to camellias - definitely nothing to do with jasmine as one may judge from the name - and it has large white blossoms that smell sort of buttery sweet. A quick glance to the internetz corrected me, Rubiaceae family, into which gardenias belong, is also called coffee family. Now that's cool(3).

My gardenia happily blossomed all summer long but obviously, when I needed the flowers for photography, it didn't offer any. Still, the lush green foliage fits in, to me, Gardénia is a blend of crushed blossoms and leaves, there is something adstringent and green in the fragrance. And, to my surprise, a perceptible honey undertone. There should be some coconut and with a bit of trying, I do smell it, but it's rather the coconut juice than the greasy nutty bits; the coconut juice, if I remember well, has rather a sour fruity smell. One way or another, Gardénia does not smell of suntan lotion, the main product I associate with coconut smell (there's always Mahora but that's another matter that will be dealt with someday). Still, I find the drydown too sweet - the aldehydic and floral tones disappear and some rather sweet stuff emerges. I think I need to refresh often, then.

There was an earlier version that was made also in extrait version. I have it but at the time being, it's in the House of Eight Cats and it'll need a few weeks to get to me - I'll compare these two someday.

Gardénia is a part of the Les Exclusifs line and as such can be bought only in Chanel boutiques. It is made in a rather opulent size of 200 ml of eau de toilette and goes for 200 euros.

Top notes: aldehydes
Middle notes: red berries, gardenia, coconut
Base notes: vanilla

notes taken from Chanel's website here


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(3) I'm a coffee addict.

Compost

We have a garden. With lawn that needs mowing and all those damn plants that continue growing. After all the damn shrubbery had overgrown us and the regular trash bin wasn't enough for all those clippings, it took a few years but a week ago, we got a compost bin.
Now, a week after, it seems to be the favourite toy of the family. We started sorting out teabags and apple cores to go to the compost because, well, it's home ecology!, folks.
On the occasion of having a place to put organic waste to, mom decided that it's the right time to redo the front garden. The redwood tree, planted there as a sapling so that it could grow a bit nicely, intended to be replanted to the hotel, was somewhat forgotten there and grew to a huge tree - I suppose it could be still replanted but large trees need two years of planning (basically, you dig a trench around it to cut the roots, leave it for a year and then dig it out and move to desired place, using heavy machinery, lots of workforce and... anyways, it's a tough job) and nobody would bother anyway. The spruce was designated to be this year's Christmas tree because mom says it's fugly (rather true) and mainly, we removed all the turf that remained from once very kept lawn - now the trees there take all the nutrients and there's no space for lawn anyway.

Redesigning the garden is one thing, done comfortably over a coffee but actually doing the digging and planting and moving stuff around... ouch. Moreover, the place has bad soil, there were some ten centimetres of decent one spread over all that rubbish that remained at the construction site so in the hole for that damn piece of shrubbery, I found several rods of iron, around three bricks, the largest bit being like half of one.
But, it looks pretty.
There was a gardening fair this weekend so off we went. It's sort of tradition, going there, eating all those hot dogs and fastfoody things and bringing, well, plants.
Silly little flowers. They are planted by the magnolia and I'm curious to see how much they grow up.

Yeah, and taught the family that mouldy bread may go to the compost too. You see, for some reason, there's always the last slice of bread that goes bad. Something existential behind it, I suspect.

Dune

On Saturday, we had to get out of the hotel in some reasonable time and the vague decision was to go somewhere and hang around. Someone said Porto Azzuro, because it sounded nice. However, everybody seemed to have the same idea. We couldn't find any parking space within reasonable walking distance from the centre (two streets and a quay, I'd say} so my original idea, let's go to Lacona, there's a dune, you can bathe and I can see the plants, was recalled.

There's one single dune on Elba. I had my little book on plants of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park so I ranted about it all the time- my parents are not totally in agreement with my hobbies, neither do they appreciate that I can be pretty obsessive about whatever comes to my mind but there was nothing much to do anyway and the argument that where a dune is, there is a beach, worked. Dad parked himself in the beachside bar, mom did a bit more sunbathing - no I don't understand that someone voluntarily stays in the sun and bakes - and I was looking for things in the bushes.

Some sort of Equisetum (horsetail). Looks like science fiction...

Something pointy (damn, I wish I were a botanist)

Malcolmia sp. I knew the name and I forgot but this is another of Elba's endemites, growing only at the dune. It's a very visible plant, with gray-green stem and pale violet flowers and there are damn many of them.

Back to Elba: on the top of the mountain

I love mountain tops. I can see far away and feel the winds bringing distances to me.

Moreover, there tend to be pretty flowers on the mountaintops. Genista desolea created a landscape of golden cushions on the granite (I suppose) rocks, changing the barren edges into stylish space. Moreover, it gave out bittersweet scent I would want to have in a bottle. Tesla bottle, for that matter, so that I could bathe in it.

Isolated places have their endemites. I'm not sure about genista but Viola corsica ssp. ilvensis is one of them. This little and pretty violet grows on the mountaintop only. Viola corsica is an aggregate or superspecies that has a range of variants and subspecies, almost every island of the Tuscan archipelago has its own.
There were a few albino exemplars, too:

And, no, don't go there. It's a boring place and you'd only step on flowers and damage fragile ecosystems. Stay at the sea and sunbathe:D

Shopping spree

On which I bought nothing, basically.

For some reason, when the new Dior fragrance, Escale a Pondichery, was announced, I became obsessed with that. It sometimes happens. I became equally obsessed with the Hermes eaux, Gentiane blanche and Pamplemouse rose. Gentian is one of my iconic flowers for some rather complicated and personal reasons (It'll be elaborated and re-elaborated in some of the upcoming botany rants, no worries). I expected a lot from the fragrance: sky turned a blazing copper bowl, cold wind on the top of the mountain, spruce resin and something bitterish in the air and then, an accord of the tiny and extremely cuteGentiana verna growing in the little stream. Or otherwise, the stately plant of Gentiana punctuata in the middle of the festuca grassland.
All I got was sand pushed down my throat and some adstringent roots.

Eau de Pamplemouse rose was better but still not my cup of tea. I simply don't like grapefruits.
The other stop was Sisley's. I tried all the three Eaux de Sisley and I remained unimpressed. No.1 is another citrusy splashy thing I wouldn't be offended with but I wouldn't buy either, No. 3 should be more citrusy with ginger for extra fun but oddly enough, I don't like citruses and detect them pretty well... and I can't find any. Sweet flowers, I read osmanthus as honey and violets, but, no ginger, no citruses. Weird. No. 2 however... hit something dormant. Grass and spruce resin! Our old summer house where I spent half of my childhood, with the half-neglected garden with the largest pear tree ever.... but somehow, in Eau de Sisley 2, there was the initial spruce and grass accord that didn't continue to the pear three and the best apricots ever and clematis pergola. Pity.
Then I discovered that they don't have Pondichery but that there's the older version of Miss Dior in the shelf, the one in pink box. In vain attempt No. Bajillion-and-twenty, I tried it. There's more lily of the valley than in the newest version (white box, dating described nicely by Helg, my information comes from her) but it's not the nice lovable one as in the miniature, undated, I snatched from my mom, nor is it what I remember from the huge bottle of Diorissimo I gave mom for her birthday many years ago. I want lily of the valley fragrance, damn, that will be so nice and sweet as the old Miss Dior.

I went to the department store to check for Pondichéry. Just in case. The Dior woman said that next week (they told me 'next week' last week, too, liars) and offered me the J`adore L`eau Cologne Florale, hot new summer thingy. I tested it some time ago and it didn't really impress me. Because it was on paper, I can add now. I already ranted about it somewhere or somewhere else because it's a good story but... citruses and white flowers not rarely react with my skin to cat piss. I thought the fragrance a benign summer splash, let the Dior lady spray it on my hand... and only then she told me that it's bergamot and whatever else and magnolia. Even before she finished, I smelled the stench of three days uncleaned litter box.
I needed some antidote so I went to try Nahéma again. I couldn't decide whether I liked it and I finally decided I didn't. I'm not a big fan of Guerlain, there's something that just doesn't appeal to me in their classics. Nahéma is a heavy floral with a touch of aldehydes - but forget the aldehydes of, say, Chanel No. 22 or Rive Gauche, these are decadent aldehydes that would smell like soap in a bathroom equipped with gold watertaps. But, too many heavy flowers, the citrus/white blossom combo that results in Eau du Chat effect is there, too, and after a few hours there come some weird roots or woods. I decided to sell off the one I have and pass on to somewhere else.

And it rained almost all day long, too.

Stuck or something

I haven't been posting for quite some time. Well... I'm lazy or busy or something. I could at least start a series like Plant of the day or Building of the day or something.
Well... after all... not that bad idea.
Viola odorata, albino

Best enemies

I seem to have adapted well to Italy. I seem to have allergy to cypress pollen.
Admittedly, it may be mental because on Sunday, I was in the botanical garden, saw cypresses blossoming, the educational note read that it's a popular allergen here and on Monday I woke up all swollen and my hair and skin on my face felt as if they wanted to peel off and walk away. I tried some anti-looklikecrap lotion (didn't work) and took more antihistamins and whined all day long.
Meet cupressus sempervirens. Wikipedia says that it's called pencil pine.
Evil wikipedians, they should have the 'swallow your coffee first' warning. Heeeh, pencil pine! Pine, mind you. Pencils, for that matter, are made of cedar wood. At least those good ones.
I love cypresses, they are pretty. So are the real pines. One sunny day, I'll take the camera with me when going to I Tatti.
The other tree I love because it's pretty (1) is hazelnut. Coryllus avellana for the botany-minded types and another popular allergen.

Pretty tree - they have the curly variety here.
And to round it up to three, a cat lives in the botanical garden. A lovely colourpoint. She has a house behind a glasshouse. The other day I went by bus past the garden and saw her hunting for something.

I have allergy to cats, too.
Life is funny.