Em Believes

Em believes in the seemingly magical powers of flowers. She thinks that if she believes in her plants, they'll flourish and bloom, and I kinda agree.

I remember when I was younger people discussed the concept of talking to plants to get them to grow and thrive. I also remember that other people thought those people were just crazy. What I didn't know until more recently is that all of that was happening around the time a book called The Secret Life of Plants was released about polygraph expert Cleve Backster's experiments with plants. Basically, he attached polygraph equipment to plants and through a series of experiments, surmised that plants "perceive" human emotions and respond accordingly. While his findings have been discounted by some, it makes for fascinating reading and I'm not convinced there isn't something to this.

I mean, when you read how plants know which ants will steal their nectar and close up when those ants are around ... or how some plants will grasp at a fly ... or change in some way to attract insects they need to survive ... The more I read, the more logical it all seems to me that plants are in tune with each other and anything or anyone that becomes a threat -- and that they'll do whatever it takes to try to survive.

Case in point: I've been thinking a lot about my yard lately, in a nice way, and everything that can bloom is blooming. I had these two huge plants, actually they're more like bushes, I guess, that get these incredible yellow blooms (I'll insert the name later). One blew down in a storm last month and I had to uproot it and carry it to the curb. The other was looking ragged even before the storm, as usually happens with these after awhile. They drop all their seeds and then at some point, begin the downhill slide and more new ones come up.

I was thinking that I should uproot that remaining one too, and drag it to the curb. I actually never even planted it in that spot ... It just popped up there, right in the middle of the yard. But about the time I was thinking of pulling it out by the roots one part of it started blooming like crazy and growing toward the window of my little dining nook at a faster pace than normal. It's as if the part with the flowers is trying to reach my favorite window and show me its gorgeous blooms .... So I'm gonna keep it around. The idea that this plants are trying to show me what they're capable of may seem like craziness to some ... but it's been awhile since anyone's accused me of being normal.

I'm including pics here (upper left) of the side of the plant that's blooming towards my window, as well as a shot below that was taken from the backside that I don't see quite as much (not so many blooms).

Meanwhile, after a very long walk by the river tonight, I dropped Em on a bridge at Southeast 9th Avenue and Cordova Road in Fort Lauderdale .... I put her there a few hours ago, but then I got caught up in reading about plants, gearing up for morning, and looking at DragonFly Garden, a local gardening blog that inspires me.


And this last pic is a very cool insect I plan to investigate. They're in my yard around these flowers a lot. It's like a big green fly/beetle-type thing that seems to have hummingbird-like capabilities. It's a metalic greenish blue and goes from one flower to the next ... it goes inside those little holes in the flowers and disappears for awhile and then comes back out, but while it's scoping out the flower, it just hovers mid-air. That's what it was doing when I took this pic. It took much hanging around to get this shot.

It's only in posting these pics that I have begun to see what a little jungle my yard really is ... but I do love my little jungle. It makes me happy.