Michelle, you could really work with the tree's presence, and maybe try mulching or "mossing," or both. Moss will normally grow in deep shade and it can be encouraged to grow really densely and beautifully. There are recipes around for doing so, which may require extra sulfur, and/or I think beer and other stuff being applied. You may already have some moss growing under your tree--check under any fallen rotting leaves, especially in the curved spaces between large roots where soil depressions collect moisture.
We have a big maple with shallow large roots. When we moved in, Steve planted "perimeter" plantings of shrubs (yews, azaleas), lilies, lantanas and other stuff about ten to fifteen feet from the trunk; planting anything under maples really can be tricky. Steve keeps the plants (and the tree) mulched with the tree's leaves that naturally fall there, and he's also added a bit of mulch/compost. The plants are growing nicely now, but I think people doing this need to be careful and not cover too much tree roots with dense applications of extra mulch especially as I've read that a certain percentage can possibly kill a tree. That's something we don't want to do; the maple is one of the reasons we bought the place.
You could try searching the web for "growing moss" and "sulfur/sulphur," "beer," "recipes," etc. Just did a search and found a place that apparently sells moss for transplanting:
http://www.mossacres.com/info_5.asp
Don't know anything about the company though, if their stuff works. When I find moss growing here, I leave it alone, try not to step on it too much, and hope it spreads. "Low-maintenance gardening" is my motto!
Fran
Rose, here are two links about growing lilacs; the first has specific info about lack of blooms:
http://www.gardeners.com/gardening/content.asp?copy_id=5435
http://www.gardenguides.com/articles/lilacs.htm
Rose of Sharon (one with pinkish purple flowers--it was so beautiful in bloom!) grew really well at my parents' Staten Island place. If you don't have success still with the lilac, you might want to look into the ROS, though some kinds may be too large for your yard, especially if you don't prune them. They're actually doing really well here too, seem to be reliable bloomers so far....
Fran
Ooops--I'm sorry about inserting the "h," Teresa. Guess I messed up there cause I saw the Therese name right at the beginning of the thread, and then the Theresa my Italian family (and friends) use is usually that longer version.
Sorry again,
Fran
Theresa, I think the white things with grass-like foliage could be a general description of white daffodils, but then daffodils are a common garden plant and you would probably recognize them. It might be too late for them too--well, depending on where you are. The daffodils we have growing here have yellow centers, which seem to be a common (cheerful) variety. Could you maybe post some pictures of your garden somewhere, or maybe you have some posted already? I love looking at pictures of gardens.
My husband and I have a large garden. I used to have before-and-after pictures posted on my site--should put them back up, especially including this year's. We take pictures year to year, often season to season, and it's interesting to look back over them and see how the garden has changed. My husband's the real gardener in the family; I know the wild plants better. Wish we could grow more roses here! Unfortunately, we haven't have much luck with most. The climbing fancier roses he planted on one arch have only just started picking up--don't know the varieties. But "Robin Hood" roses (think that's the name) do grow amazingly, with their numerous cheerful tiny deep-pink blooms, and Rugosa roses usually do well around here. There's a tiny white-flowered and tiny-leaved volunteer rose at the front of the garden. Think there's a pink-flowered wild variety growing on the side fence.
For a brief period of time, the springs here in this area of the southeast are very beautiful with all the flowering trees and bushes, but I miss the generally more fertile and moist New York soils and lusher landscape the rest of the year; I especially miss the Long Island area. IMO, people gardening in New York somewhere (or in much of the northeast) are very lucky!
Fran
Hi, Lenny. I didn't mean to imply that I think there isn't/hasn't been a warming trend going on now; I was really responding to comments made by others about farther into the future.
I think that overall but not necessarily everywhere across the board at all times, there is more thermal energy in the atmosphere now primarily as a result of human actions over the past few hundred years and maybe even longer. And that is probably the real unpredictable problem: a suped-up atmospheric engine, if you will, not necessarily the actual temperature changes recorded, or that there has been an overall average warming measured. I think too many people keep focusing on that temperature-measure way of looking at it (which measurements seemingly haven't even been across-the-board uniform) as if that's an end unto itself.
I guess to me all this stuff could be "framed" better (and more accurately) than it has been by most. I normally try to look at things in a "larger picture" way. The atmosphere's a huge dynamic system. Pump more energy into it, whether directly or indirectly, especially over a short period of time, and then that already huge system has even more energy. Who knows where that will lead specifically? But, IMO, it is likely to lead to some excessive instability, at least over the short term (IMO, that seems to have started already--signs of excessive instability are here now). Maybe having studied atmospheric science has made me somewhat afraid of how powerful that engine in the sky really can be. But I also don't mean to imply that the atmosphere, especially the lower atmosphere, sits off by itself in its own little bubble; it's connected to what goes on the earth's land masses, in its waterways, to the Sun's behavioral whims.... There are so many variables involved in all of this....
Fran
Hi, Jo:
You said: "Your options are to see the future or die."
--Don't know where you got this statement from, but it wasn't from my post.... And how you could have inferred that from what I wrote and pushed it onto me is beyond me (if that's what you meant to do in your post--but maybe you meant "your" impersonally?), especially when I closed my post discussing the fallacies usually involved in making an either/or choice between two things only, and especially since there's the obvious combination that you can see the future and die anyway. But what will "the future" be? Damned if I know; I don't have a crystal ball. Wish I did.
Not only am I cynical, but I'm also nihilistic, so don't expect me to have "faith" in anything because, chances are, I won't. Still, I don't see anything wrong with dreaming. However, I do see a lot wrong with when dreams are confused with "realities," when dreams are confused with probabilities. I agree with some of the MM points; where I disagree with them is in their tone primarily, which I think is too dogmatic. I happen to like some "Space Westerns" (even though I don't normally like regular westerns). Generally, I try to judge each story as if it exists in a vacuum, based on whether it works in and of itself. Some Space Westerns are cool stories; for example, I love the movie OUTLAND. I prefer "lighter" science fiction. I think too much real science in science fiction is, well, too much. I'm not crazy about it for the reasons I've described above and more.
However, where I have another problem with a good deal of science fiction, and where I think the MM people might too, is when it seduces people who have no real experience in science into thinking humans and their technologies can solve everything, where it seduces them into thinking humanity has a crystal ball and can definitely see what the future will be simply because some author imagined it in a certain way, especially if that author has some experience in real science. Not all science is necessarily competent science, not all scientists are necessarily competent scientists. I think science follows the same spectrum of competence that other professions seem to follow, which often winds up meaning that the bulk of scientists are not good at what they do.
Some of the dogmatic comments in this thread making specific predictions about the future are exactly what bothers me. Doing that too often can be dangerous and foolhardy, and is often unscientific coming from scientists especially. Frankly, I don't like the term "Global Warming" and prefer the words "Climate Change" (or "Climate Instability") but not for the reasons the psychotic pathologically lying Bush crowd does. IMO, "Global Warming" seems to have become a populist term that has seduced some people into thinking humans are likely to get off easy with the earth just warming up overall. The reality most likely is: we don't know what will happen exactly, so, therefore, we probably cannot easily prepare for what will happen. That is a much scarier scenario, IMO. And it would be better to prepare for a whole host of eventualities, which very few if any people, or countries, seem to be preparing for.
Generally, when a change is occurring or a new dynamic is introduced into the atmosphere, or any system, complex or otherwise, the usual response in the system is a spectrum of reactions, not necessarily a single overriding reaction. There may be a single overriding END result as the system tries to and ultimately does reach some kind of equilibrium again, but before that happens, there is often a great deal of disorder and high unpredictability. It may be that all the carbon dioxide (and some other shit) that has been pumped into the atmosphere may cause a "global" warmup; it may also cause a global iceage; it may also not cause anything consistent globally but may change local climates into sporadic unpredictable atmospheric states, where the notion of "climate," micro, local or otherwise, is ultimately rendered moot because the atmosphere has become so unstable (personally, I think this is the more likely scenario over the short and possibly over the long term; that the "atmosphere" must exist and must always reach an overall "equilibrium" for the lifetime of the Earth isn't carved in stone anywhere I know of, and even if it was carved in stone in the "laws" of physics, there isn't necessarily a guarantee that the laws of physics, assuming they are "correct" and "real," will always exist, will always work, especially the way we have perceived them).
It would be better if scientists explained that much of this stuff is very up in the air (ahem), that making predictions on it will vary in probability as to how likely those specific predictions are to occur, and that all the predictions could even be incorrect. Labeling something as a "warming" may give some people the idea that they can prepare for the consequences because they won't be so bad, like we'll all just run around naked post-warmup, which I think would be great, but that is most likely only a possibility for the future, not a certainty. And is that scenario probable, highly probable, minimally probable? Given a lot of the stuff I've seen and read, I think that we're in for some very scary times, and an eventual cooldown over a good deal of the earth is the more likely scenario, assuming some kind of overall equilibrium is reached once again and there actually still exists a notion of "climate." Humans are generally more suited to warmer environments; warmer environments on Earth tend to support more lifeforms in kind and quantity. I think this planet's in great trouble. If human civilization lasts another twenty years without at least the obvious start of greatly destructive environmental catastrophes, I'll be surprised. Once a system reaches a critical mass or state, things tend to start happening really fast. I thought this planet hadn't reached a state like that yet, that there might be more time to avert reaching it, but lately I'm beginning to think that it has already reached it and now the Earth's riding on the downward slope (at least the parts we need to exist on). Probably nothing we could do at this point would likely change the final outcome(s), even though doing some things might prolong the amount of time before that final outcome occurs and maybe alter its nature slightly. I just don't think it can be altered enough at this point to prevent a lot of death and destruction, a lot of instability and insanity, a lot of scary stuff in other words.
My feeling is that science fiction would be a more, well, responsible field if it did address what seems to be the more likely futures of life on Earth. Blasting off to the stars once we've fouled up this place beyond repair is a nice fantasy--who the hell wouldn't want to run away from catastrophe? (Okay, maybe a masochist wouldn't.) But to me the likelihood of that being an option in the near future is just too low to spend exploring in a huge chunk of fictional works. There are other possible and more likely futures that should be more widely written about today, but they're not being more widely written about, probably largely because they would be so ugly that the reading-for-entertainment factor would kick in, and people wouldn't buy those ugly unsexy future books as much as they'd buy the pretty sexy future books; I have personal experience in that for sure because my futuristic stuff isn't happy writing. But I think a lot of science fiction is escapism. A lot of fiction of ANY kind is escapism. Many readers seem to be turned off to realism; I happen to like realism, even though I recognize there's only so real "fiction" can get, and even though I don't like TOO MUCH realism, especially too much real science, anymore than a person who was/is a cop or a lawyer or law student enjoys reading fictional cop and legal thrillers. If you have some experience in an area, reading fiction in that area can be very frustrating. And I also think too much real stuff can give readers ideas, like because they've read a detailed realistic depiction of an operation on someone in a novel, which was written by a real scientist/doctor, those readers are now qualified to do that operation. There seem to be a lot of kooky people in the world!
...Er, as usual, I've written a tome-post. I'll stop now. Sorry for the long posts to those reading them,
Fran
I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot in strong disagreement the first time I came here, especially considering I agree with the political stuff I see you've posted since. But, if you don't mind, I'm going to jump in this one time to say that I find The Mundane Manifesto SF thingie you've posted about interesting. That site's comment about this planet most likely being our only future is something I've often argued. Guess my pretty useless Earth and Space Science degree had to come in handy for something someday.
I too find supereasy space-travel and supereasy colonization depictions in fictional worlds irritating, so I agree with some of the MM's points but don't necessarily think they and especially the whole manifesto should be storytelling dogma. I think the world is big enough for many kinds of stories. I also think a story that did buck the numerous-aliens-in-easy-to-understand-communication-with-each-other-and-doing-extensive-easy-space-travel cliche, especially a story that addressed the likely extreme difficulties in extensive space travel and colonization, would probably be an interesting one. I'm usually a very cynical skeptical person; guess I prefer very cynical skeptical stories. Unfortunately, I would classify most sci-fi as being overly optimistic and full of "faith," faith in the future, in science and in humanity in general, so I don't enjoy most of what I read (or at least try to read but cannot ever finish...).
But I think Kim Stanley Robinson's RED MARS kind of fits into The Mundane Manifesto of what makes good sci-fi; it is one of the most "realistic" science fiction stories I've read. It also illustrates a potential flaw in demanding too much reality from and therefore putting in too much real "science" into science fiction, especially for stories that involve space travel and colonization: the story will likely get bogged down in all the necessaries involved in solving real-life supercomplex and often practically-impossible-to-solve engineering problems. Not sure if Robinson's intention was to show how potentially problematic colonizing would likely be, but he ultimately did show that--or at least that's what I remember.... It has been several years since I read the book completely; maybe my comments on this are very inexact. (And I see this article http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2001summer/robinson.shtml describes the book as utopic--I don't remember the story that way at all. Oh well.)
But my point is: I enjoyed RED MARS because it seemed realistic to me, with my having studied both science and engineering, but I also DIDN'T enjoy RM because it seemed so realistic that I found myself stopping to check if the science was accurate, which rudely pulled me out of the story. To me, science fiction is fiction; if people really want to read and write real science, they should read and write textbooks. I don't normally enjoy reading textbooks disguised as novels, which too much sci-fi today seems to be (IMO at least). I've read more than a fair share of science textbooks over my lifetime; I've worked in scientific publishing. When I pick up a novel, I want to read a STORY. The science info-dumping in RED MARS detracted from the characterizations to me. I think Robinson does characterization very well. If he had stuck to that more, had stuck to exploring the interesting RM characters more, the book would have read better. As it is, although I enjoyed reading about the world he created, the story was a struggle for me to get through, which fiction shouldn't be. I still think it's a good book, one of the best science fiction books I've read; it just could have been more enjoyable reading....
Which brings me to this manifesto page http://mundanesf.com/default.asp?id=8&mnu=8
Too many people seem to think writing is a choice between doing two things: entertaining or enlightening. I say, stories of any kind can and ideally should both entertain and enlighten. Those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive; I think that many writers are not good enough (and brilliant enough) to do both, so some people have come to believe the two are mutually exclusive given the paucity of fictional works that seem to do both compared to the number of fictional works that seem to do neither or only one of those. On the OTHER hand, it could just be that, IMO, most people unfortunately seem to love believing in and using absolutes and either/or scenarios, pushing possible outcomes into a choice between only one or two supposed "certainties," when in actuality there could be and likely are many possibilities and few if any certainties--or so it may seem at least (!).
Fran
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2005 | 8 |
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