RE: More demons of ignorance, arrogance, and darkness

Now that's just a crime!

Lynda
West TN - Zone 7

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of james singer
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 2:32 PM
To: Garden Chat
Subject: [CHAT] More demons of ignorance, arrogance, and darkness


Last evening I got an e-mail from a reporter in the Venice bureau of 
the Sarasota Herald. She found me via "Dave's Garden." She wanted to 
know if she could quote something I'd written on DG about night 
blooming cereus. Then she asked me if I was aware of what had happened 
to one of 80-year-old night blooming cereus plants in an older 
neighborhood on Venice island. I said I wasn't.

Turns out that a woman, Ms. Ruth, now in her 80s, "planted" night 
blooming cereus on two palm trees [Phoenix canariensis] in the median 
in front of her house in the mid-1940s. I don't know which genus of NBC 
they are--they're an epiphyte and their vegetative body is cylindrical, 
about the diameter of a hot dog but in much longer stems. For the last 
30 or so years, the annual blooming of these two plants has been 
occasion for a block party; many neighbors gathered in Ms. Ruth's front 
courtyard at sundown and waited until the cacti flowers open.

Last year, the reporter told me, the assembled neighbors counted more 
than 200 blooms. It must have been beyond glorious.

About a week ago, a young city park's department employee cut the NBC 
off one of the palms before he could be stopped. "I was told to clean 
up street trees," he said. "And I thought this one was ugly." Here are 
two pictures I took this AM; one is of the remaining "ugly" tree, the 
other is of the beautified tree. If you know anything about pruning P. 
canariensis, you'll find the beautified tree looks like it was trimmed 
by Freddy Krueger.

http://snipurl.com/pnxg

Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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