The plots are thickening at Roxbury’s Vickery Garden

www.recordernewspapers.com
Environmental Commission project has been attracting many amateur green thumbs
Published: Jul 10th, 7:12 AM

ROXBURY TWP. – Green thumbs are blooming in the township, thanks to the newly offered community garden.Working with the township, the Environmental Commission officially dedicated the “Vickery Garden,” in honor of late Mayor Tim Vickery, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 25.

Since then, according to Councilman Martin Schmidt and Environmental Commission member Mena Schultz, things have been blooming, literally.

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What’s Blooming in Baltimore-July ‘09

Catherine Mezensky
Go to Catherine's Home Page
Baltimore Gardening Examiner

On this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day there are plenty of thriving perennial blossoms in Baltimore. These include wildflowers, bulbs, tubers, and flowering shrubs. These different flowers need varying types of care, but most of them provide lots of mid-summer color and plenty of blooms for cutting. To see how flowers like coneflower, hydrangea, and dahlia are faring around the city, view the slideshow at the bottom of this article.

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Century plant shoots up flower stalk in Cedaredge

Written by Bob Borchardt
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 00:00

Cedaredge residents Bruce and Linda Croft are the proud owners of not one, but two Century plants, one of which is blooming, with a flowering stalk towering more than 14 feet tall.

Century plants (aka desert agave) are unique in that they bloom only once in their lifetime, before dying.Dubbed the Century Plant for its longevity, the plant actually lives an average of 25-30 years, spending most of its life as a cluster of leaves. Flowering is delayed for up to 25-30 years, but when it does bloom, stand back! The stalk literally erupts from the center of its leaf cluster, growing at an unbelievable rate until it reaches up to 15 feet in height.

The blooming spike is so tall, and grows so fast, that it saps all the resources of the plant. The plant blooms for several weeks, producing beautiful yellow-orange flowers, said Linda, and then it dies. All that is left is a 15-foot spike and pods filled with thousands of seeds. Linda said the plant survived the winter (which it is not supposed to do) and actually grew more than a foot each day since starting to bloom. "And it gets so beautiful," she said.

When asked, why they chose such an unusual plant, Bruce answered, "The deer don't like it, it attracts humming birds, and it requires very little irrigation." He added, "I'd like to have more cactus."

The Crofts are inviting area residents to drive by their residence at 1180 SE Deer Creek Drive to see this spectacular plant while it is still in bloom, the focal point of their "Sonoranesque" landscape.

Visit SF State's blooming corpse flower

June 25, 2009 -- The public is invited to view -- and smell -- SF State's giant corpse flower this Sunday and Monday. The corpse flower, or Titan Arum, is famous for its death-like stench and its huge central flower structure. The plants, which grow in the wild only in Indonesian rainforests, flower on an unpredictable schedule, once enough energy has been accumulated, and is in bloom for only 24 to 48 hours.

The corpse flower which is expected to bloom on June 28 and 29.

The plant is growing in the University's new state-of-the-art greenhouse. The twelve-room facility houses cool humid, warm humid and arid plant collections and supports cutting-edge research in rain forest conservation, drought resistance, native California plants such as the Manzanita and pollination biology.

The greenhouse will be open to the public on Sunday June 28, 2 to 6 p.m. and Monday June 29, 2 to 6 p.m.

Tours will be available and admission is free.

The greenhouse is located north of Hensill Hall on SF State's main campus and can be found on the campus map at: http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumap/

-- Elaine Bible

Gardening goes high-tech with Easy Bloom Plant Sensor - St. Petersburg Times

By Yvonne Swanson, Times Correspondent
In Print: Saturday, June 20, 2009
The flower-topped sensor may be helpful to beginner gardeners.

I'm a green thumb, but also techno dumb. Out in the garden, I'm at home with my shovel and pruners. At the computer, I can manage the basics, but new gizmos and gadgets make my head spin.

Then along comes the Easy Bloom Plant Sensor, the first Internet-connected gardening tool billed as "the easy way to a beautiful garden." The high-tech sensor measures sunlight, temperature, humidity and soil moisture, then recommends the best plants for your garden from its Web site database of 5,000 plants.

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Gardening goes high-tech with Easy Bloom Plant Sensor - St. Petersburg Times

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Famous “Stinky Flower” Blooms

By STEPHANIE MOJICA
www.pasadenanow.com
Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009 | 6:14 AM

The famous “stinky flower” at The Huntington Library started to bloom Wednesday afternoon and is available for both visitors and members to view.

A different “Corpse Flower” known officially as Amorphophallus titanum, bloomed at The Huntington in 1999, according to the organization’s website. The most recent flower is germinated from a seed of the past “stinky flower.”

The flower is now close to 7 feet tall, a dramatic growth from its nearly two and a half foot tall stature on May 29. The estimated diameter of a fully-grown “stinky flower” is 3 to 4 feet.

This is the third famous “Corpse Flower,” known for its massive height and especially foul odor, to grace The Huntington, according to a news release.

Blooms of Amorphophallus titanium are exceptionally rare, and seeing them can be difficult because within a day or two of blooming, the flower collapses under its own weight and withers away. Only about 50 such flowers have been recorded in the United States, and The Huntington was the first in California to have the flower in 1999.

The flower can be viewed by the public between 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardnes, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. The flower is located at The Huntington’s Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science. Those who are members or become members of The Huntington can enjoy special viewings between 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. until Saturday. For more information, call 626-405-2100.

What's Blooming This Week

Posted by GulfCoastGreenie at 6/15/2009 2:11 PM CDT

This week I'm trying to transition into a midsummer mind set. I've repotted more plants, moved some to places where they'll receive much less sun, etc. I'm also appreciating my succulents and other drought-tolerant plants more.Many of the flowers I've shown previously in my "What's Blooming" updates are still blooming, but here are the stars of June:My plumbago is relatively happy and providing a number of cool blue clusters of blooms. I started them all from seeds. I don't recommend that because it took them so long to mature, but I'm glad now that I stuck it out with them.

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