Thursday, March 13, 2003

Spring is nearly here During the winter, I keep all of my various random smaller plants on shelves in my office under flourescent lights. While they bloom sporadically throughout the winter, everything blooms at once right before the spring season. The meyer's lemon tree was given to me by my sister because it was dying in her house. It normally produces about one lemon a year. When ripe, my sister and I sit down to some good gin, fresh soda water, and make the world's best gin & sodas with fresh Meyer's lemon juice. No better G&S can be had. This year, it looks like we are goin to have to throw a block party as the lemon "tree" (more of a bush) is covered in several dozen blooms. If you are looking for information about plants, D. G. Hessaryon's The House Plant Expert can't be beat. Excellent reference material. Just ignore the decorating tips in the front (last updated in 1972, it would appear).... Today, I stumbled across The Plants Database which is a part of Dave's Garden. It is clear that I'm going to have to allocate a good chunk of time to exploring these two sites; there is a wealth of information within and what looks to be a very strong community. Update: At random, I found a collection of quicktime movies of flowers blooming. The site also has time lapse movies of many other aspects of plants including nastic movements (i.e. venus fly trap closing), circadian responses and tropic response (following the sun or responding to gravity). 9:56:34 PM  pontificate