Tag Archives: greenhouse

Reminiscin’

We were doing some clean up of old old files in the family archives.  It’s always nice to go back and just take those walks down memory lane now and then. It puts things in perspective. One of the things my little sister found during clean up was a collection of my old sketches. These were all from the early 1990’s. I was probably around 11 or 12 years old at the time I drew the following sketch — and at this time, I didn’t have any Sarracenia, but was already so fascinated by these plants. I don’t remember exactly where I got the inspiration from this, but it may of been from a book from my school or local library.  (If anyone recognizes this diagram, please let me know!) I would check out plant books even at this young age and just fill my mind with plant goodness.

Sarracenia Cross Section
Early 1990’s: Sarracenia flava cross section – a sketch be me.
I was still in grade school. This was penned during my pre-voice-cracking days.

The above drawing shows the anatomy of the different zones of a pitcher. Pretty rad, eh?  *I drew this before I grew any Sarracenia.*  I’ve murdered plenty of flytraps, but nobody around had any Sarracenia to sell or distribute.  Who would of thought that from this, I would of grown and ended up with something like this blog?  It’s pretty crazy just looking back at the whole thing – and looking forward to what’s to come in this plant journey is pretty exciting as well!

Greenhouse: October
October 2011: Greenhouse, after major trimming and thinning plants out.

Hummingbird extraction

Hello out there y’all. I took a few days off and was out of town in beautiful Lake Tahoe for a few days. It was nice to get away from the office for once and just enjoy air and light. And trees. And lake.

Just wanted to share what happened today in the greenhouse… it’s not really too Sarracenia related, but it was pretty fascinating anyway.

I got back into the garden today and managed to get some work done. I was sorting some Sarracenia seedlings out, and was repotting a few others plants just to make some more room.  When I walked into there of the greenhouse where I let the seedlings grow up a bit, I was surprised to find a hummingbird stuck!  I guess it was the flowering Pinguiculas that attracted it. Nice to observe the hummingbird at such a close distance, but the bird could not find it’s way out no matter how much I tried to urge it towards the door.  Now, I have some chickenwire to support the woven polycarbonate roof, and the bird kept flying into it and at times would get a little trapped then wriggle free again. It kept wanting to fly up and out — and kept hitting the wire ceiling.  Geez… Poor thing.  The opening to the greenhouse I have is *much* lower than the ceiling height, so regardless of what I did to to try to get it out, it would not fly out of the door.  My vents are covered with a screen as well, so no way of it escaping that way.  So… in order for it to leave and be set free, I had to take the situation in my own hands. Literally.

Hummingbird[Hummingbird stuck in the greenhouse. I wonder if the hanging Drosera’s thought it was a meal?…]


[Gotcha!  My greenhouse is not the place for you, homie. You could become lunch for one of my plants!  Time to go, lil’ buddy…]

Hummingbird[I let go outdoors right after this photo. I actually felt a hummingbirds heartbeat today… ]