#bradford pear trees can suck it

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

So, There are Some Interesting Trees Around...

I grew up in Alabama, then spent time living in Tennessee, Georgia, and El Paso, Texas (I only specify El Paso here because it’s REALLY different from all the rest of Texas I’ve ever seen).

Then we moved to New York. Not in the city, not quite, but real close. We are also, however, a stone’s throw away from the woods in a couple of different directions. Which, I gotta say, was really nice after living in the desert for four years. El Paso is beautiful, but I MISSED TREES.

We moved up right at the beginning of April, which was very fortunate for me. I’d never lived this far north, and despite living in Atlanta for a year, I’d never lived anywhere so crowded or urban.

And then I got to see Spring for the first time. You see, I’d lived a swath across the South, but I had never before experienced real seasons. There was typically hot, really hot, less hot, and occasionally cold. Leaves didn’t fall in Autumn, they fell sometime between January and March, right before we got first level hot again. Flip flops at Christmas was not unusual.

Watching the trees come back to life was amazing. In a lot of Alabama, the southern part at least, a lot of the trees stayed more or less green all year. Lots of green shrubs, green plants, etc. So watching all these skeletal trees slowly drape with yellow and pale green lace, watching the view from the back of the house slowly become obscured (in a good way) by spring colors was breathtaking and very much helped soothe my anxiety of living in such a crowded place.

I’m on my third spring (now officially my Second Favorite Season™️), and I’ve started trying to pay attention to the different trees I’m seeing. Because, I gotta tell ya, some of them are really frickin cool. I had never seen actual cherry blossom trees before (neither the pink nor the white), but I knew enough to recognize them. I had seen weeping willows before, and I love them very much.

Let me tell you my delighted surprise when I discovered WEEPING CHERRY TREES?!?!? Like, WHAAATTT???? THEY GET EVEN BETTER?!?!?!?! Some of them look like traditional weeping willows that happen to have cherry blossoms on them. Some look like actual fountains of cherry blossoms spraying up in the air.

And then.

AND.

THEN.

I was at the park with my son, and I noticed this one particular tree. I’m fairy sure it’s some kind of intentional hybrid, like one type of tree deliberately spliced to another, but y’all. Y’all. LOOK AT THIS QUEEN OF A TREE.

This is ONE tree. Tall, lovely white cherry blossoms, and then two WHOLE BRANCHES of PINK WEEPING CHERRY BLOSSOMS. Like. WHAAAAATTTT??????? LOOKIT THIS LADY.

And I think it’s a deliberate splice for a couple of reasons (please know that I am NOTHING like a tree expert in any way, I’ve just read a few books and am attempting to use logic and would love the science side of tumblr to pop over and info dump). The pink weeping blossoms are on those two branches only (unless I miscounted, which is possible because I was so excited), and they are on the one side of the tree. You can also see where the bark looks different. I have another picture or two with the bark, hang on.

Y’all, I dunno why I’m sharing this except I’m excited, and I hoped other folks might know stuff about the beautiful trees. And it’s so nice to live somewhere that isn’t infested to the point of smothering under the oppression of Bradford Pears.

#cherry blossom #cherry blossom tree #weeping willow #weeping willow tree #science side explain #science side of tumblr #science side of the internet #science side please explain #these trees make my heart happy #happy spring #bradford pear trees can suck it

[mommymooze]

Bees, Honey and Beekeepers

So there is a post going around, probably quite old, about vegans won't eat honey because you're stealing from the bees, it's murdering bees, they puke their guts up to make honey, that the bees are ground up to make honey, etc.

Some of it is so stupid you know they all have the dumb.

I am a beekeeper. Registered with the state. My hives are inspected by a state inspector at least once a year to make sure my hives are healthy. Although we have about 40 hives and do sell honey and bees, we don't make much money on it. There is no "pure profit" as the Bee Movie puts it. I could talk for 20 hours about bees and barely scratch the surface about them. They are beautiful, fascinating, educational and so much more.

Back around 1960, a beekeeper could put bees in a hive and basically leave them alone and they make honey for themselves and lots of extra honey that the keeper can harvest. However, as time passes, the world gets smaller and problems arise.

CHEMICALS

Lawn Care Chemicals: weed N feed. your local lawn service. They spray the yard killing every weed in the yard. Anything that lands on the odd clover or dandelion will take the poisoned nectar back to their home and feed the deadly stuff to their offspring.

Roundup. This poison is awful. Farmers, suburbanites, cities, they all use it to keep weeds down. They have helicopters and cropdusters spray the acres and acres of land with it. Roundup ready crops are the only things that grow, for miles, starving any creature that lives from nectar.

Garden chemicals: dusting your tomatoes, keeping the bugs from your fruit trees with sprays, makes them take poison home to the babies.

LACK OF FORAGE

Those nice green lawns of suburbia that are eating up the farmlands mile after mile? Not a clover in sight. No weeds. Guess what bees get food from? Dandelions, wildflowers, clover, flowering trees (but not those awful Bradford pears, nobody eats that crap)

Farmers go in their little fourwheelers with tanks of weedkiller between the fields and at all the edges spraying poison to keep the weeds out of their barley, corn, wheat, buckwheat, etc. That little bit of flowers and weeds used to feed the bees.

PESTS

Tracheal mites: These showed up in the 80's. Teeny little buggers that get inside the bee, lay their eggs in their throat, puncture through the walls of the trachea and suck out their hemolymph (blood). Passing along germs, parasites, causing infections, ick.

Varroa Mites: came to USA 1987. Think of a tick. They crawl around, jump up on a bee, stick their pointy jaws into a good spot on one, and suck out its juice. A Varroa Mite on a bee would be like you having a tick on you the size of a dinner plate. Freaking huge. They suck out the fat, the stored energy out of the bee. (Thank you Dr. Samuel Ramsay discovered this in 2019. Yes, I met him) They also transmit diseases and illness to the bees.

Small Hive Beetle: Big freaking problem. Arrived in US approx 1998. The beetles eat the honey but not too bad. Their offspring is the worst. They lay a few hundred eggs, their larva burrows through the honeycomb leaving a disgusting slime trail behind them. Ruining the comb for the bees. In a week they can ruin so much honey the bees leave and you are stuck with a stomach churning stinky mess.

American Foul brood and European Foul Brood. Bacterial spores that grow quickly in the warm humid conditions of the hives. The larvae start dying, some turning to slime inside the cells. It smells like death. Spores are the toughest little germy things, they can live for over 40 years, survive sub zero temperatures. Beekeepers used to treat their hives with chemicals, but that made new problems. Most treatment now for this is to burn the entire hive, bees and all. Because if they get out they can infect the flowers that other bees go to and spread the disease.

Wild bees are very much in danger. There are very few left. With the surge of new things bugging the bees, beekeepers are having a harder time keeping the bees alive. My bees are well cared for. I curse any amateur "bee haver" (not a keeper). Beekeepers keep their hives healthy, check them for diseases, work on natural ways to help them.

Bee havers buy some bees, try it out, don't like it, dump the hives somewhere and their bees die. They leave it sit, then wild bees move in, they may build up then die, get some foulbrood spores going in there, then they are a germ factory, spreading death to any bees that come in finding an attractive smell. Their sense of smell is 100 times that of a human and can smell flowers/food sources from around 2 miles away. Which spreads out quickly until its all over the country.

Ask me about bees. I know many interesting and weird facts. I actually wrote a fic about it, how beekeeping would be in FE3H.

#bees #beekeeping

[ame-this]

Journal 5/10/21

This past week has been kinda blah. The weather sucked and looks like it will continue to suck. On the one nice day (Saturday) we worked our assessor cutting up and dragging away limbs from the old Bradford pear tree, It lost a huge branch in last week’s storm.

There was a debacle with procuring the chainsaw needed to do the job. Turns out you have to buy the oil and saw blades separately. But we got after the 2nd trip to the hardware store.

Also replaced the soaker hose line in the garden, since the new timer system blew a hole in the old one. The pressure regulators I installed should help prevent that from happening. I apparently can judge distance, since I bought a drip line almost twice as long as i needed, but that was easily fixed by doubling up the line on the rows that get really dry.

I took down the barrier on the larger plants, as they are starting to get their female and male blooms. I even spotted a tiny green tomato growing on one vine. The zucchinis are also on their way.

The lettuces I planted in the vertical garden refuse to germinate, so I carefully transplanted some of the seedlings I thinned from the other green and root vegetables. Maybe they won’t go to waste. The herb pots are coming along nicely too.

The only plant that seems to like all of this rain is the grape vine. And it is covered in green bunches. I am hoping we don’t get a fungal outbreak again this year. I have applied fungicide whenever possible but the rain just washes it away.

The pond looks good. I replaced the intake hose for the filter box, which was a whole thing since i cut it too long. But I made it work. There are even more water lilies blooming than last year. Except for the dark pink ones, which refuse to make an appearance.

We actually got to sit on the porch and enjoy the backyard a little. We grilled sausages and drank vodka sodas. It was a good day.

Sunday with the fam tho was a little crazy and left me exhausted mentally. Enough said.

P.S. no update on the caterpillars yet. They are still goo. And vacay is next week. Just gotta make it until then.

#journal #gardening

[grouchyhuman]

Pollen & Allergies or How About Them Apples?

Things heard this time of year is are incessant complaints about allergies.  Yes, pollen all over my car is annoying but I live in the South.  It's expected, just like snow is expected in Canada or rain in a rain forest. As an enthusiast of other folk’s gardens and as one who helps people find information on improving their yards and gardens, I've also heard people complaining about their yards and having to rake leaves and pick up sticks and messy fruit and all sorts of other shit.  For real, people, some of y’all need to stop acting as though nature has the audacity to make life difficult for you.  Nature is nature and nature doesn't give a single fuck about you.  How many times do you see trash on the side of a road? Right?  And you want to complain about something that will decompose in next to no time and is completely organic?  You do know you can compost those sticks and leaves and make some healthy organic goodness for you yard, don’t you?  Get in touch with your local University Extension and learn how. But, back to the rant.  A lot of these weekend lawn-warriors hire gnat-brained imbeciles to do their landscape plantings.  And these lawn-warriors don't really want to work on their yard, they just want to look like they are working on their yards.  One of they ways they avoid work is by asking for trees that aren't "messy" and bear nasty fruit.  Personally, I think if you're gonna have a tree in your yard, you'd as well have one that is gonna give you some delicious goodness to put on your table.  You're putting all that time and money into your yard, you'd as well have something to show for it.

Female trees produce fruit.  Male trees do not.  People like male trees because they aren't messy.  Except in the spring, you know, when they are releasing pollen every-fucking-where and turning everything yellow.  You know what pollen is?  Do you REALLY understand what pollen is?  It’s tree jizz.  Shrub splooge.  Plant cum.  That's right.... every spring male trees (and shrubberies) are giving us the money shots on our faces, on our cars, on our driveways, up our noses.... because male trees aren't messy.  There's probably more plant porn in your neighborhood in the spring than you can find on the entire internet.  That's right, baby, smell that fresh, yellow, spring air!! The problem with all male trees, other than the pictures you now have in your head (you're quite welcome!) is that there are no female trees to collect that pollen so it just floats around everywhere.  Guess that's the price you pay for not wanting messy yards...three months of tree-sperm-induced head-in-a-vice, eyeballs-in-sandpaper allergy misery is SO much better!!!   And, by the by, some pollen from toxic plants can also be toxic and trigger worse than usual allergies.  If you aren’t going to eat a poisonous plant, then why are you huffing poisonous pollen?   Quoted without permission but with full credits so please don’t hate me: “I had a case once where a young girl had been sick for months every single year in spring. She was tested and found not allergic to any of the allergens commonly tested for, but year after year she was extremely sick at the same time of year. I did an inspection of her family's landscape and found a large male podocarpus shrub growing right next to her bedroom window. It was literally "smoking" with pollen. This pollen is not especially low in specific gravity and is not normally found in aero-samples, nor is it almost ever skin -tested for, but it is a common landscape shrub here in California and it normally is sold as a litter-free "fruitless" cutting grown male. On my advice, they cut down this shrub and replaced it with a Feijoa. The girl immediately got better and the spring problem never returned. Podocarpus, a Yew (Taxus) relative, is, like the Yew, quite poisonous and this pollen which must have been going right through her window screen, it was also poisonous.”  from: http://www.npr.org/programs/talkingplants/gallery/ogren.html If you want to fix that problem, get over your work-phobia and plant some useful female plants, not just those ornamental shit-plants (like the Bradford pear).  Get you some delicious fruiting trees growing in your yard.  You'll have flowers in the spring, less pollen in the air and a source of food that you grew all by your damned self!  That's right, bitches, those tasty apples or pears on the table came out of YOUR yard from your frigging trees that you've taken care of all year.  That's how you show some love!  You'll have fewer allergy problems and a solid sense of accomplishment in your serious gardening work. (Plus you may help save the bees.) If you want some solid information on allergy-free gardening, I recommend you check out Tom Ogren at http://www.allergyfree-gardening.com/  I am not getting paid for that plug, I just want all y'all out there to stop suffering from something totally preventable by getting information from an expert in the field.  Sinus concrete really sucks.   And I wanted to take a dig at idiots who seem to think that nature is static and sterile.  If you're one of those fuckers you need to get yourself some artificial flowers and move your candyass into a plastic bubble.

#pollen #allergies #gardening