Working on a program for plant enthusiasts in South Florida...

PlantsFromParadise.com is branching out into exciting territory here. I am currently in production working on a program that will have details concerning nearly every local plant and tree!

So far I have pictures and information on 30 plants and trees in South Florida, but I am nowhere near done. I am going to add EVERY plant in town.

I want to include information on the following:

• height
• canopy
• leaf shape
• tolerance
• diseases
• growing conditions
• tricks to keep them healthy
• plants that look good together

I want to offer:

• all the plants in one spot
• categories of plants
• a test to determine if you REALLY can identify the plants of South Florida
• a test to determine if you have knowledge about the peculiarities of the plants growing in South Florida

Another program just about pests may be next.

First design will be in Java. I will work on getting the whole jar in one thing...no folders! Also an exe might be easier for Windows users??

Perhaps this can be applet or web service as well...

Lots of exciting ideas. Originally I'll ask for beta testers and then I'll charge 20.00 for it.

It's going to be worth it!

Isn't it the truth?

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

Bertrand Russell

Why Trees Can't Grow Forever

Why don't trees grow to 1,000 feet tall? Here's what limits them:

"The Douglas-fir, state tree of Oregon, towering king of old-growth forests and one of the tallest tree species on Earth, finally stops growing taller because it just can't pull water any higher, a new study concludes."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811195319.htm

Extinction in the Rain Forests

"Common tree species in the Amazon will survive even grim scenarios of deforestation and road-building, but rare trees could suffer extinction rates of up to 50 percent, predict Smithsonian scientists and colleagues."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813164644.htm

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Wouldn't it be awesome if we could work together as a species to protect our natural environment? Our current consume and destroy attitude does not seem to be sustainable.

Trolls like Rush Limbaugh need to be ignored.

Thrinax no more....

A Caribbean palm that is well-known and widely grown in South Florida, the Keys thatch palm, is no longer what it was: Thrinax morrisii.

Instead, the palm turns out to be a different genus, say genetic detectives Scott Zona of Florida International University and Carl Lewis at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. The scientists established the new genus Leucothrinax, with the thatch palm the single species. Its new identity: Leucothrinax morrisii.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/home/story/641612.html

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So you can see, it's time to update your price lists! I wonder how long it will take for this information to reach the nurseries?

It's fun to stay on top of things :)

The destruction of the chestnut

As I drive around town and notice the whitefly destroying ficus benjamina, I find myself thinking of the possibility of other trees being wiped out. Now, the ficus benjamina shouldn't be considered endangered. It IS an exotic and some might see it's downfall a positive thing.

The ficus benjamina doesn't do well in hurricanes. Its shallow root structure is invasive. The costs of maintaining it are exponentially more than natives. All in all, it's not a good choice. Yet plantsfromparadise.com and plantstromparadise.blogspot.com sold more ficus than anything else. The market wants what it wants. Cheap and fast growing.

Consider this article:

Chestnut blight was caused by a fungus eventually determined to be Cryphonectria parasitica. It was probably imported to the United States on the Chinese or Japanese species of the tree, which both show resistance to it. The blight destroyed billions of American chestnut trees in the first half of the 20th century. The loss of the chestnut, in terms of the sheer number of trees killed, the size of its range before the blight, and the variety of habitats affected by its demise, is unrivaled in the history of human-wrought ecological disasters, even though epidemics such as Dutch elm disease have received more attention.

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/blighted-hopes

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Another effect of globalization...

Consider native alternatives like cocoplum to ficus. Green buttonwood is another alternative.

Planting trees in London

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/08/sunday-times-wo.html

The charity wants to plant an astounding 600,000 new trees to buffer those precious zones, creating a showcase for woodland in one of the most densely populated parts of the country. More than 2m people live within 15 miles, and there are good transport links to millions more in the capital. Having been to see the site myself, last week, I confidently predict that many Londoners will be drawn out to see a wood more than twice as large as Regents Park, and nearly half as big again as the combined area of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park.

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Interesting...we should consider this in South Florida!

Most beautiful live oaks you'll see all year!

http://www.bergoiata.org/fe/trees/Live%20Oaks,%20Oak%20Alley%20Plantation,%20Vacherie,%20Louisiana.jpg
Gotta give credit to that photographer.

Makes me want to travel to Louisiana...

DIY water purification

If anyone is interested, this is a cool idea to purify water:

http://www3.telus.net/farallon/

Growing food in the city!

With her snappy online videos and show Farmers Almanac TV, urban Gen-Xer Patti Moreno proves that you don't have to live on a big, rural spread to grow your own food.

She brings some green into the concrete jungle and earned the nickname "Garden Girl" from Home Depot sales clerks after many trips to stock her New York City oasis of organic treats.

On her gardening pages, you'll learn that you can grow your own salad with just a little window box or even indoors. Moreno is full of tips and tricks for cutting costs and having fun in the dirt, whether you're a novice or expert green thumbs.

Don't miss the recipes because you'll definitely want to cook up the goodies from your garden. Urban sustainability makes you the ultimate locavore.

She notes, "Urbanites act is if organic food is something new, when in fact, factory farming is new." Organic farming is simply the way people used to grow food, before the biochemical inventions of the 20th century.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/greenpicks/169/city-girl-grows-grub.html

We ar exceptionally lucky to be in South Florida! We can grow vegetables all winter. We can grow bananas, mangoes, avocados, lychees...The list goes on and on.

I'm planning on doing a series of interviews with local farmers and placing them on YouTube. I will be asking questions about how plants and trees grow, especially fruit trees.

Look for it...coming soon!

The Service in this Place STINKS!

Five plants inspiring technology

Imagine what insights the rainforests have:

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/04/top-5-plants-that-inspire-new-technology/

Carbon-eating trees

The fifth and last kind is called "low-cost backstop," a policy based on a hypothetical low-cost technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or for producing energy without carbon dioxide emission, assuming that such a technology will become available at some specified future date. According to Nordhaus, this technology might include "low-cost solar power, geothermal energy, some nonintrusive climatic engineering, or genetically engineered carbon-eating trees."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494

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Great article about some books on global warming.

The idea of carbon-eating trees is very appealing! All trees help the environment though...why not plant a few at your home?