Musa Ornata Milky Way Banana Flower

Milky Way is a recent introduction to the ornamental banana collectors trade I've had for 4 years maybe. It grows to 7.5' in height and 6' wide in 2 or 3 years for me here. It makes a thick grove as trees grow close together. Leaves have a dark grey purple tinge and blooms are gorgeous but, hard to photograph as automatic focus doesn't like white and tends to focus on something darker like the closest leaf or stem. I've grown it in several different environments here in zone 8b and have been over all very pleased with its performance. However it will not bloom well if it is grown in less than ideal conditions. The plant is a  little hard to find but worth the while. I believe I bought this plant from Martha's Secrets on line store. She 's a very nice lady and good at her business.

Musa Siamensis Banana Flower

Musa Siamensis is a recent introduction into the collectors trade of ornamenatal bananas from Asia that grows to 9'. I hear it can be a little invasive but I've had no problems so far in the 3 or 4 years it's been here in my yard. It seems to like more water than the average ornamental banana, and will not grow taller than 2' nor bloom  in shade. However in full sun and with ample moisture, it's foilage is a beautiful deep rich green I haven't seen before in any banana tree. I have it growing in three environments and next spring I think know what to do with it. 

Garden in the Sky / La Granja Colca Canyon, Peru

 
Images of  La Granja                   
Colca Canyon, Peru ( on a part of the canyon called "The Crack ")

La Granja Spanish Definition - La =  "the'' feminine, Granja = A garden / farm worked for one man for his family / a school / place of learning for children / steep and narrow lesson to those who have forgotten from where all things come.

Dolomite Mountain Range, Northern Italy

Scratched Film Image of entering Dolomite Mountain Range in Northern Italy, driving from Southern Austria

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolomites 

Santa Catalina Convent / Cusco, Peru

You were not supposed to see this and other forthcoming images, as an overly protective spirit guard would not allow the taking of photographs here.

I told the guard It should not keep such a collection of generous thought locked up in a darkened cave, that little kids should see it in far away lands...

At that instant, every trace of the spirit disappeared, and the room was filled with a golden light.


Image of side Chapel at Santa Catalina Convent and Museum / Cusco, Peru

Farm Fields in the Desert at Arequipa, Peru

The thin and raveling thread of life, 

a frailty where everything is gained and nothing is lost, 

I heard a wise man say, 

"you must leave the smallness of your self 

to find every beauty, 

 the greatest of which requires you never return. 

Image of irrigated farm fields in barren Peruvian desert, Rio Chili river, AQP runway.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu (pronounced Machu Picktchu) means old mountain. The ruins here are for the most part as they were when Hirum Bingham cleared them of rain forest in the early 1900's. Many ancient ruins were reconstructed to some extent, but these were not. Except for long decayed roof poles and thatched rooves, the high quality stonework is in excellent condition, as it was when abandoned and overgrown by rainforest.

Extremely remote and invisible from the narrow valley floor 3000' below, it is believed to have been a hiding place for the Inca elite during times of war. Fertile topsoil from the Sacred Valley was carried up the mountain to fill the garden terraces. Many of the crops grown in Peru today were grown here in these terraces long ago, to make life in Machu Picchu sustainable during periods when crops were raided down below.

The earliest stone work was built in the megalithic period, many thousands of years before the arrival of the Inca, who expanded the site to what it is now. The megalithic construction is believed to be more of a spiritual nature, when population was sparse, and war wasn't as likely. However in the days of the Inca people, the Sacred Valley and surrounding mountains were well populated.

The peoples who constructed the Megalithic stone masonry here and all around the world are an even bigger mystery than the Inca. Almost nothing is known about them, except the fact that they lived many thousands of years before the Inca, and their knowledge of stone cutting and placement is unsurpassed even to this day. We can not duplicate it.

This leads one to suspect a more advanced civilization may have lived thousands of years before us, that man's understanding of his small window in time, his cultural methods and philosophy of priorities are in need of study, in light of the fact that these peoples have all vanished.

This will be the 1st of many images of Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes I hope to publish here. If you are thinking of visiting Machu Picchu, spend the night in Aguas Calientes, and take the early shuttle bus up the mountain to beat the crowd. Be sure to book train tickets from Ollantaytambo (the end of the road) to Machu Picchu (Aguas Calientes) well in advance , as they at times are sold out. Shuttle bus tickets may be purchased the evening before in Aguas Calientes.

Images of Machu Picchu (Huayna Picchu Mountain) in the early morning . West / Left facade, then East / right facade from entrance gate of sanctuary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu

Alaska Cotten

Image of Eriophorum, (Alaska Cotton) near Haines Junction, Yukon. Looking towards the St. Elias Mountains of Kluane National Park and Reserve, home of Mount Logan (5959 meters), the highest mountain in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eriophorum

Bryce Canyon National Park

https://en.

A terrible place to loose a cow.

                                                                                    wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_Canyon_National_Park

The over winter greenhouse

I use a gas heater with a thermostat set to 54 degrees for tropicals. This is to save plants from freezing only, the 2 coldest months of the year, and to extend the growing season 6 to 8 weeks of the year. Without artificial heat, a hoop house of this size will only extend the growing season by 4   weeks, or one zone.  So some of the elephant ears in this image would go dormant in January... When its 25 degrees out for 10 hrs. it gets into the high 30s inside just before dawn for 1 or 2 hours, so the most tender of plants, in the coldest 1 or 2 months, will go into dormancy. I have found over the years that some bulbs do not survive these short periods of cold then warm, but rot, and would fare better in the ground outside covered with mulch. However this is a plant collectors green house. Hardiness, moisture requirements, mature size, disease and pest restance, behavior, shade sun tolerance are unknown, as many of the plants have only recently been discovered in far away lands by plant hunters, spent a period in the USDA quarentine station, then sent to tissue culture labs or propagated for plant collectors like me who grow them in different environments to find where they fare best. 25 to 30 percent are finicky and hard to grow, 60 percent are worth having beside something prettier, but about 5 in 100 are wondrous, and make the horticultural industry.

These palms are too close together.

The location of your greenhouse is important. These are often temporary structures in a subtropical climate, built as inexpensively as possible. Many gardeners aren't sure just how deep they want to get into it, so it makes sense to start small. If your serious get the heavy duty poly covering. The light duty will only last a year, then get brittle. The heavy may go 5 to 6 years if you get all the wrinkles out and stretch it tightly. Put your covering on in the hottest sun, in the middle of the day, and pull it as tight as you can rolling the ends at least 3 times before stapling with 9/16 x 14mm staples. Make sure the staples are smashed down tight holding the poly tightly or it will rip during the contraction in cold weather when it gets tight. Any wrinkle that is moved by the wind will not last. There is heavy duty patching tape for these problemed areas.
 Even an expensive professional greenhouses can't take the high winds that they will sooner or later be exposed to. A location sheltered from the prevailing winds, storms, and northern fronts will keep you from worring in gusts of wind . If there is nothing like this around, you could plant them. A large clumping type subtropical bamboo did much to save my house during 12 hours of 140 mph winds in Hurricane Rita in 2005 (bambusa textillis). It comes in a large and smaller form. It is hardy to 15° F when it gets frost bitten. Here in zone 8b it froze to the ground 30 years ago @ 8° F, and recovered in about 3 years as pretty as ever. If you don't have much room you should try something smaller. Southern live oak, bald cypress, and clumping bamboos made up the bulk of what was left when the wind subsided after Rita.

Make sure the location has good drainage. Water from rains and watering plants should drain away sufficiently well. Imported sandy soil is usually necessary to some degree. During the rainy season would be the time to check drainage before you build anything.

Half as much magnification would be better.

Growing is a joy if your setup is done properly, but if it isn't you will be more likely to fail and become discouraged before you start.

USGS The old people know.

Overwinter greenhouses often have too many plants in them. This allows spread of pests and disease quickly. You must realize the forces of pests and diseases, though low on the food chain, are bigger than men by proportions unimaginable. If you can, space plants leaving 12'' or more between. Do not wet the foliage in a green house and do not water excessively, but keep the ground or floor as dry as possible. Plants need less water this time of year. Keep them a little on the dry side.

Though only little bugs, small infestation of white flies, mites, or aphids can become almost as bad as the cold temps outside. Get yourself a pocket microscope ($10 on line). The one depicted here magnifies too much, so try one with less magnification. Go online and study spot, fungus, aphids, white flies, and mites. Spot or fungus will be a problem in greenhouses that stay too damp. Keep your plants 18'' off the ground or floor for plants subject to spot such as palms.  Spot and fungus live on the ground and contact plants when a drop of water hits the ground and splashes the tiniest particle of moisture on them. Even condensed moisture dripping from the poly top starts infestations when it drips to the floor and splashes on the plants. Then when your moving plants around, one that has spot touches the other and bingo.

Your watering wand spreads spot from one plant to the other while watering. Most tropical plants eat spot and fungus for breakfast so don't worry about spot on them so much, only the pests.

Pointed slightly downward.

 A greenhouse crowded with plants is absolutely no good without air movement. Fans help keep humidity consistent throughout the space, and pests find it tuff to suck sap in the wind. I bought a couple cheap but bad ass little fans from Walmart and one runs during summer to tend the few plants that stay inside. It has been running for eleven months 24/7 and it's so quiet all you can hear is the air in the blades.

On warm days open your house up and let the natural breeze through. Sometimes when it's cold out,  the best way to control the pest is to drop the temperature inside the greenhouse and spray everything in it with a soap (fatty acid only, Palmolive green dish detergent) and water mixture. If a plant is infested really bad with pests, put there butt outside in 33 degrees.

You can burn more sensitive plants with soap, so mix properly. This is your best weapon against these pests. You can spend 30 years trying every thing else, but you will come back to it. Spray bottom of leaves first, and then top until run off. Good luck

Wheat field in the Clouds, Andes Mountains

With a greater understanding of it, the depth of beauty increases. What good is a mountain in the darkness.

Nelumbo nucifera, The President lotus

4th day flower.

             Lotus are an invasive, or you might say successful aquatic plant. Don't plant them in an earthen bottom pond unless you want a pond full of lotus. I've had them in my pond rooted in 8' of water, and from that point the runners can spread another 15 feet on the surface, literally covering the surface of a large pond in 5 or 7 years. This can be depressing if you want to fish. However, you will not be sad at bloom time. A field of blooming lotus commands the attention of Kings. As glorious a sight as any mountain range they are. Yes Sir.

2nd day flower.

If you by some chance let them get away, the best thing to do first could possibly be nothing. Lotus are heavy feeders and if you've had an influx of fertilizer in your water for some reason, the lotus will eat every bit of it and possibly starve themselves out. When the nutrients are gone the lotus count will definitely dwindle.

This is what happened in my pond some years ago when I planted azaleas all around it and fertilized them regularly. The run off from the sprinkler system drained in the pond. As soon as the azaleas took root and started growing on there own, I quit fertilizing them and the lotus are now 99% gone. These first lotus were the native American lotus ( Nelumbo lutea ), nucifera species, and Mrs. Perry D Slocum, quite a sight in summer. I've never had The President before this year (Pond Mega-store $40 )... It's a bit more red than other reds and the species plant. It's in a 30 gallon tub now with 6'' of topsoil and water. The open flower is 11 inches wide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo

Kingdom of Heaven

" The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field.

Mathew 13:44  NIV


Wheat fields here at an elevation of 12,000' and higher, are sometimes in the clouds.

Image of farm fields in the Andes Mountains near Salinas de Maras, Peru.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Hidden_Treasure