Category: landscape

I like this jasmine, Jasminum fluminense (fluminense = of the State of Rio de Janeiro ). It is deemed invasive and should be destroyed.

Native to: Tropical West Africa. The genus Jasminum, of the Oleaceae or olive family, contains over 200 species of vines or shrubs with opposite leaves, many with fragrant flowers, native to the warmer parts of the Old World. Brazilian jasmine was introduced to Florida in the early 1920s via horticulture and has escaped cultivation …

An aggressive, troublesome, difficult-to-control weed; can weed; can climb high into the tree canopy of mature forests, completely forests, completely enshrouding native vegetation and reducing native plant diversity. Has vigorously invaded intact, undisturbed hardwood forests in South Florida. (Plants)

If you have purchased plants from The Huntington, you may have noticed that some of the labels include information other than the plant names and growing instructions. Those additional details might include the person who introduced the plant into cultivation, its geographic origin in the wild, notes about its natural habitat, and the source of The Huntington’s stock plants.

Provenance, or the ownership history of a valued item, is generally associated with works of art. But plant provenance has become increasingly important in the horticultural realm due to the escalation of plant theft from both botanical collections—including, unfortunately, The Huntington’s—and wild habitats. Like works of fine art, certain plants are highly prized and sought-after in a growing black-market economy.

Sandy Masuo, The Huntington

Lee Moses, Bad Girl (Part I), 1967.

Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be.

Acceptance, Robert Frost

Then let not Winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
    Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
    To be Death’s conquest, and make worms thine heir.

William Shakespeare.

This is not the year for palliatives. It is not the year for knowing what to do.

This is the year the planet grew smaller
and no country would consent to its defeat.

Camille T. Dungy

There is something infinitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

Rachel Carson.

A place that holds something far-reaching and infinitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature.

  Lord,
          when you send the rain,
          think about it, please,
          a little?
  Do
          not get carried away
          by the sound of falling water,
          the marvelous light
          on the falling water.
    I
          am beneath that water.
          It falls with great force
          and the light
Blinds
          me to the light.

Untitled, James Baldwin