The week that was, 6/13-19/2010
'Tanker Traffic' by Kathryn Altus, 2010. Water based oil on canvas, 36" x 24" and part of the "Some seas" exhibit at the Lisa Harris Gallery in Seattle. Click on the image to be taken to the gallery.
'Tanker Traffic 2' by Kathryn Altus, 2005. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20" oil on canvas. Click on the image to be taken to the artist's website.
Approximately 40 percent of the coastal wetlands of the lower 48 states is located in Louisiana. — “Watermarks,” LaCoast / USGS*
Oil has been observed on approximately 503 total miles of U.S. coastline. –– Florida update, Gov Monitor, June 19, 2010
“… simply protecting the shore and the nesting habitat is not protecting the birds that forage out over the water.” — Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society’s Louisiana Coastal Initiative, Yale Environment 360…
The Dry Garden: Log love
Hackberry and coral tree wood gives loft to a bed with the hummingbird sage and an almost insect-like tendril of Artemisia californica (upper screen left). Photo copyright: Diane Cu / whiteonricecouple.com. Reprinted with permission.
In taking nature apart and putting it back together again in our gardens, we err toward the refined. This is the case with mulch. Nowhere is it written that it has to come chipped, much less in a bag from a store. In fact, there is much to be said for laying it down by the log.
Click here to keep reading today’s Dry Garden column on the beauty and benefit of deadwood in the garden. Or for full listings of dry garden events for June and July, click here.
Diane Cu’s photograph comes from this writer’s garden; on Cu’s first visit she was immediately struck by the texture and form of the deadwood and …
Pot growing season in California
Click on the graphic to be taken to the campaign that put marijuana control up to a vote in California in November 2010
… is in full swing, according to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting. However, this year, shortly after autumn harvest, on November 2, 2010, the opportunity to extend controls now used for alcohol to marijuana, or Cannabis sativa, will come before California voters. Here is a chance to aim for the civility of the Dutch. Proponents of the plan point to the potential to fill public coffers and empty state prisons. Less obvious benefits include an end to growers splashing herbicides on public land and possibly even a stop to water wrangling by marijuana farmers, though given the attitude of legit farmers to water reporting, that might truly be a pipe dream. Labels as to potency would certainly be a public service. For those who want …
The week that was, 6/6-12/2010
… while excess rain involves modest gains, deficiency involves large losses. — “Monsoon, welcome,” commentary by Ramesh Chandra, director of India’s National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, Financial Express, June 9, 2010
A draconian drilling moratorium might make more sense if the industry had a history of devastating oil spills. — Opinion piece, “The second oil disaster,” The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2010
“One of the last pristine, most biologically diverse coastal habitats in the country is about to get wiped out. And there’s not much we can do about it.” — Felicia Coleman, director, Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, “Even the best outcome won’t be good,” USA Today, June 7, 2010
… the Old and Middle rivers – tributaries of the San …
The Dry Garden: Undressing for summer
Bark hides in plain sight. Who needs the superhero power of invisibility when you’re constantly upstaged by flowers, fruit and foliage? It takes an event to draw the distracted eye to the trunk and limbs of a shrub or tree.
That event is happening now. With the summer solstice nigh, California’s best-adapted woody plants are slipping into dormancy to ride out the dry season. As they do so, still sated on spring rain, newly thickened by another year’s growth, the most wanton of the lot are shedding last year’s bark.
Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden on the beauty of bark in the Los Angeles Times.…
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