Plant Life for Naked People

Finally, I sit down to write about the plants. I’ve thought all along they deserve writing that concentrates on one hand, the values and observations they’ve given my life while tending them, and the other, some amateur scientific analysis. Upon filing a report, I found it is many reports already, for we’ve tried a wide, daily-evolving array of techniques, and each represents a hypothesis. I believe cataloging them will provide the proper framework for the wealth of thoughtfulness which awaits us. I think you’ll enjoy it very much, and I encourage each of you to consider fostering some plant life.

The scarification of the seeds is where the process begins. Marc Kane observes the process, done with a fingernail file, was like nature’s preparation for the seed, as it prepares for winter germination, the physical process induced by its surroundings. An animal claws it with its feet; the wind blows it along the ground; in general, only scraped on and crushed can the seed realize its potential and grow. Covered over by leaves, composted by the season’s elements, the seed requires an inner life, an interment, a bed for the winter, to sprout in its spring season. This is the case with the Japanese Black Pines and Red Maples , our examples here. Another hypothesis involves clipping a broken tree and giving its root another chance. The pruned top was also subjected to root hormone; we’ll be following those as well. A combination of intuitive guesses and reading comprises our research, and the emotional quality of caring deeply for their fragile lives is its own work; after all, happiness thoroughly includes the possibility of disappointments along the way, just as research involves cataloging degrees of success, failure, but most succinctly, growth.

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May Day with the Trees (Early development)

It's livened up the house considerably to have this new floral life experiment unfolding on our windowsills and tables. We took our bonsai seeds---Japanese Black Pine-- out of the fridge April 1st after cold germination for about a month, and put in a second batch which remained until April 20th. After four seeming starts, we found ourselves down to one tree, which is growing steadily.

Scarified maple seeds, prepared for germination. When they sink, you know it's a good seed.

New growth emerging from a branch, cut off in pruning by the city, salvaged and set in water for two days.

shrub on our path to Balboa, tree in Balboa---part of our casual catalog, which we're looking up bit by bit this week.

Shang Chi, our Japanese Pine Tree bonsai at nineteen days. So you see, our little lab is a combination of bought seeds and pruned bits from trees in my neighborhood. I plan to document our early tree process from this month in a couple of more blogs, plus there'll be three or four posts based on Balboa Park's foliage as well.

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