Mauna Kea and Hawaiian Blueberry

One of the places I absolutely *had* to visit when I was on the Big Island was Mauna Kea, Hawaii's tallest mountain, reaching a height of 13,900' above sea level. Technically, it's the world's biggest mountain, measuring 30,000' from the base, which is at the bottom of the sea, to the tip.


It's also the site of the world's largest astronomical observatory, with 13 telescopes representing 11 different countries. The air in this microclimate is the some of the driest on earth, second only to Antarctica. This, in addition to the absence of cloud cover and light pollution, makes for excellent astronomical viewing conditions.



Warned that going to the summit individually is quite difficult (you definitely need four-wheel drive) and reluctant to bring a bunch of winter gear with me from the mainland (it's a chilly 32° at the summit) I signed up for a tour with Mauna Kea Summit Adventures. The tour picked me up at 4pm, and along with about 12 other people, we had a picnic dinner at the visitors center (elevation 9000') before going to the summit for sunset.


After the sunset, we descended back to 9000' for some stargazing. I saw Saturn and its rings, the Omega Centauri, constellations Sagittarius, Virgo and Leo, as well as the beautiful binary star, Albireo. We also learned a fair amount about night viewing and general astronomy. It was an excellent tour and quite educational. By the time I got back to the hotel, nearing midnight, I was more than a little awestruck by how truly insignificant we are and by the incomprehensible age of the galaxies. (Light years, as a concept, always trips me up. The Omega Centauri is around 15,000 light years away. I see it, but because of its distance, it may not really be there anymore. Only in 15,000 years could someone know if it existed in 2010. Discussing this brain-bending concept with the tour guide, he quipped, 'I think that's why insanity is more common among quantum physicists and astronomers.' ...I can't verify that, but can imagine that the sense of profound insignificance, combined with the fact that - in such a profession - you ask questions that can never be truly answered, may be a bit maddening at times.)


I suppose that's why I prefer plants. There aren't a lot in this biome, but there were enough. I saw the plant below when we stopped for a photo-op at around 11,000'. Does it look familiar to any east coasters?


Those bell-shaped flowers are a clue, perhaps. Also maybe the reddish hue to the foliage...But who am I kidding, you read the post title so you know it's a blueberry, or Vaccinium reticulatum. In Hawaii the plant is commonly called the 'ohelo. There are two species of Vaccinium in Hawaii, and both have some subspecies, too, varying slightly among the different Hawaiian islands. V. reticulatum is found in open woodlands and high elevations, while V. calycinum is found in wet, wooded areas.


The plant's berries, like our more local V. corymbosum, V. caesariense, or V. angustifolium, make wonderful jams or jellies or can be eaten fresh. They can be picked by visitors and locals but the maximum takeaway is 1 quart when picking in parkland. That's because the plant provides habitat and food to two endemic moths as well as the endangered nene, or Hawaiian goose.

Aloha from the Honolulu Zoo

I spent the afternoon yesterday strolling around the Honolulu Zoo. To be honest, my nostalgic parents had me on a mission. In 1981, we were in Honolulu for a few day during our move to Kuala Lumpur. We went to the zoo and my folks took a snapshot of my brother and me. They understandably want the same shot, 29 years later. How could I turn them down? Perhaps if they scan the old one and send it to me, I can put a "before and after" up, for kicks.



The Honolulu Zoo is a modest one, small, probably around 50 acres I would guess. The signage is some locations is quite old and of course, their fake rock concrete walls are distant ancestors to some of the fancier work you can see these days, like at my old workplace, the Bronx Zoo.




But none of that matters much if the animals are engaged, physically and mentally. And that seems to be the case for most of the tenants here.





Their African Savannah walk is small but the moats are laid out sensibly and you get pretty intimate views of the animals. It was the closest I'd been to these animals (except for one behind the scenes experience at the Bronx Zoo with a giraffe - the feeder let me pet her nose!).




I'd also say the keepers have a good sense of humor. Apparently they have rhinos that could be mating. Rather than close the exhibit so that the rhinos' "rough behavior" would be behind closed doors, they simply informed the public about what they could possibly see.


And this sweet sign must have been in response to concerned questions from visitors. It still tickles me they named him Bobbles. Unfortunately I didn't spot Bobbles yesterday.

From Oahu to Washington

Well, I got back from Hawaii on Wednesday and am still kinda struggling with jetlag (and the pile of emails that I've yet to address). A couple people have written me messages regarding this blog and if you are reading this, thank you! I will get back to you soon. I promise.

Areca palms (Dypsis lutescens) at a
plant nursery in Wahiawa.

Between site work and my free time in Oahu, I took about 1200 photos! I will do you, dear reader, the favor of not sharing them all. (And indeed, I can't post work photos, which is a shame since the work was quite fun.) I'll sort through some of the best pics and pepper in posts from Hawaii in the months to come.

View northeast from Diamond Head summit

It's also as good a time as any to announce that I'll soon be moving away from New York. This summer I will relocate to Washington DC. My 11 years in Manhattan have been wonderful, but it's time for a change. I hope to freelance and slowly build a practice of my own in the region where I was first introduced to the worlds of horticulture and landscape design. The fact that my parents, brother and sister live there certainly sweetens the deal.

Haleiwa Town on the North Shore

I've always struggled with classifying myself as a "New Yorker" -- but this trip to Hawaii brought some of my New York characteristics into comic relief. While hiking at Diamond Head, I could precisely time when to pass other hikers with the agility of one who regularly walks on crowded Soho sidewalks, darting tourists along the way. A couple from Vancouver actually started following me, impressed with my steady (but polite - really!) progress to the summit.

Can you spot the sea turtle?

I wore my Yankees ballcap everywhere, trying to avoid getting too tan. On the north shore, a couple heard me approach the hotel elevator and held the door for me. When I entered the car, sure enough, the woman was wearing a Red Sox hat. We mock-gruffly nodded to each other, amused to find rival fans so far from the east coast.

Mineral falls, Waimea Valley, North Shore

(yes, that's me in the ballcap).

As a New Yorker, I was startled to find such scant Hispanic influence in Hawaii. It's obvious enough that there wouldn't be a large Hispanic culture, but I still found myself surprised to find the second language in Honolulu is Japanese. Not that my Spanish is particularly great -- these days it mostly consists of sentences used in MTA ads ("si ve algo, di algo").

Mango farms, flanked by Norfolk Island Pine
(Araucaria heterophylla).

And bagels. God, let's talk about bagels. I may be a reluctant New Yorker, but my pride in our wonderful bagels is only equal to my dismay when I rediscover this truth, which happens to be every time I leave the five boroughs. I met a woman in Waikiki who asked (upon noting my hat) if I was a New Yorker. She was from Centereach, Long Island. The next thing she said (quite woefully, I might add): "I miss bagels."

Dole Pineapple Plantation (an aside: when in Hawaii,
it's always worth it to spring for the convertible)

I love New York, in the deep, complicated, and at times barbed, way one loves a former lover. I want what's best for New York. I'm a little bit afraid of what life will be like without New York. But I know that it's time to leave New York, before I become embittered by New York. I'll visit often (and will continue to teach plants at Columbia). But it's time to be on less intimate terms with New York.

Ironwoods (Casuarina equisitifolia),
Sunset Beach, North Shore

Now then, what to do with this blog? For the next month or two, I'll continue to blog at this site. Then I'll pick up right where I will leave off: DC, Plants & Other Stuff. It's a ridiculous title, but when I started this blog, I named it New York, Plants & Other Stuff because I really wasn't sure what the blog would be about. Over the years, it's crystallized into a site that celebrates the diminutive features of the plants all around us. I hope to continue a blog with the same tone in DC. I'll keep this site active and will most likely link to former posts regularly. I hope you join me as I move a few states south.

Okay, ONE pic of the site work. Shh, don't tell.

That Big Magnolia, Scaled....Sort of

As soon as I uploaded the photos I took of yesterday's giant star magnolia, I regretted that I hadn't taken a photo of it with a person or some other way to scale it.

Sure enough, within moments of publishing yesterday's post, I got an email asking how big it really was.




With some irreverence, I've attached a picture of the tree with Shaquille O'Neal photoshopped next to it. The Shaq's about 7' 1". I think he's pasted into this photo at about the right size, making this specimen about 45-60' high. No promises on that estimate though!

Ducks...

I snapped this photo on a run last Tuesday morning, after another rainy, rainy night. It reminded me of when I worked at the zoo.

The Bronx Zoo is over 300 acres in size and is equipped with many small ponds and streams. Some of them are natural, others are by design. But all of them are quite lovely. And yet, after a storm, we'd inevitably find ducks sitting in oversized puddles.



One day, while walking to an exhibit which was under construction, a colleague stared at two ducks splashing around in a water-filled pothole. In mock exasperation, he plead to them, "There's a pond -- right over there! Why don't you use that?"

Passing these ducks in the ephemeral pool above - with the Harlem Meer just 100 yards away - reminded me of that. ...I suppose ducks like a bit of variety as much as any of us.

Have a good weekend!

Picea abies

Remember in December when I posted about Picea abies? Probably not -- who am I kidding? But in any case, I had written that I have seen more than one modest rancher dwarfed by these trees. On first glance, I thought that situation was being played out at the farmer's market near Dia:Beacon.


But after getting a closer look, that's not quite the case.



Sure enough, the Beacon farmer's market cabin was built around the Norway spruce. I suppose, were I a more intrepid blogger, I would have asked someone the back story about the tree. But I was quickly distracted by the wine tastings and hot apple cider.

MTA: Fail

This was taken at the Broadway-Lafayette Station in Soho. New Yorkers who spend far too much time below-ground may be able to tell what's wrong with this picture:



If you can't figure out what's off, the Q line is yellow and never runs on the same platform as the B, D & F. Instead, that Q shoulda been a V for the V line.

More from the Florist, & my memories of working at one

When I was in college and grad school, I worked at a florist during the busy periods, namely Homecoming (lots of mum boutonnieres), Mother's Day (whatever arrangement was being pushed by FTD) and of course, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day was arduous; we would begin working all-nighters starting around the 11th or 12th, putting together arrangements, stripping roses of thorns, taking orders.


It's always amused me that florists are depicted in romantic comedies as mellow, sensitive, easy-going souls. Most recently, Ashton Kutcher plays one in the insipid-looking Valentine's Day. I never saw the movie, but Jennifer Aniston played one in that movie with Aaron Eckhart too, and both trailers would suggest their characters - Aniston's & Kutcher's - support this stereotype. Me, I'm remembering Christian Slater in Bed of Roses - he falls in love with Mary Staurt Masterson from afar, and then sends her flowers anonymously. I think there's also a scene where he's spying on her outside her apartment, which once again prove that whatever's supposed to be angsty and romantic in movie life is actually stalker-y and crazy in real life (I'm looking at you, Lloyd Dobler).



Anyway, this image of the peaceful florist always makes me laugh, because I remember the first one I worked for. She was the most high-stress woman I'd ever met. 5'1" and barely 100 pounds, she was a ferociously hyper, chain-smoking handful of woman (once we actually had a customer complain that her flower arrangement smelled like cigarettes. Oops.). You can understand the pressure, too. On Valentine's Day, a florist has maybe tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, all of which is highly perishable. I don't know the exact statistic, but it'd be safe to say a typical florist can probably make around 10% of their annual profit on this one day. So, I understood my boss being a bit...edgy.



The other thing that's rarely touched on, is that florists really know everything that's going on in a small town. They know who's dead, who's getting married, who's birthday it is. They even know who cheats. I remember a man coming in and giving me two orders, to two different women. One got an order of roses, the other got carnations. My boss told me, after he left, that the girlfriend got the roses, the wife got carnations. Yuck.



Sadly, I realize this post would have been far more topical last week - it may have even gotten picked up by another website. Alas, it was only after this past snow that I was antsy enough to go find some greenery! Perhaps it's just as well; maybe we're happier to think that florists are zen Earth-mother or father figures. Even if, to me, the more relatable movie character for a florist may be Seymour Krelborn.

New Commenting Procedure

Hi all,

A short note to say that you'll need to enter a captcha word when you comment now. If you've been reading recent posts you will see that I've been getting the worst comment spam lately.

I hope it's not an inconvenience. Please keep coming back!

--Jennifer

Last Friday's Wolf Moon

Chances are, many of you readers were forwarded some email or received a facebook post about the moon last Friday. Last Friday the smallest distance between the moon and earth, or its perigree, was reached. Actually, to be more accurate, the moon was as close to earth as it can get - 221,577 miles - at 4:04 AM on Saturday morning.



These photos were taken around midnight so the moon was actually moving closer to us at this time. It's not common for the perigree to occur at the same time that the moon is full, which is why this is considered a special event.


What made it even more unusual, was that Mars was "at opposition" last Friday, too. That meant it was opposite the sun and thus rose with the moon. On January 27, the red planet was nearest to the earth at a mere 61 million miles and was still quite close to us two days later on the 29th (click image above to enlarge).



The name 'wolf moon' was applied by Native Americans who often viewed this midwinter moon with the accompaniment of hungry, howling wolves.



Regular readers know I had to get a new camera recently. I have to say, I think my fairly everyday Canon 10x Zoom did pretty well with these shots. Now if only there was a bit more plant life to shoot!

Thom Mayne's Cooper Union Building

I have (very reasonably, I think) veered from too much architecture on this site. There's no dearth of architectural criticism (snarchitecture?) on the web and I don't feel like there's much I can add to those dialogues. Though really, check out From Our House to Bauhaus - it's a fun read.

All of that said, I cannot resist posting two photos of Thom Mayne's Cooper Union Building. If my many posts about Liz Christy Gardens haven't indicated it clearly enough, for the past few years I have been living in the East Village and the Lower East Side. Longtime readers will remember I had to leave my LES apartment in December '08 due to a fire. Since then I've been in the East Village, just a few blocks away from this building.



The fact that I walk by this building on a regular basis probably accounts for why I love it so much. Perhaps if I had only seen it once or twice, I'd feel differently. But the thing I have discovered about this building in the course of my quitodian walks by it, is how much the building responds to the light. On sunny days it sparkles, on cloudy days it almost blends into the atmosphere. It's remarkable, and if you live in the city I encourage you to walk by it in all kinds of weather -- it's like an architectural mood ring. (Yes, somewhere Herbert Muschamp is rolling over in his grave.)




Since I've already invoked tacky 70's fashion fads, I suppose I should just go all-out and say that I also like this building because I can practically see the hovercars whiz by it, fifty years from now. I'm not much for sci-fi movies, but I was arrested by the tableaus in Minority Report, since the mix of old and new architecture seemed to realistically capture what may lie ahead. Seeing this building, just across the street from its 1858 predecessor, gives one a great view of our possible future as well as our past.

Straddling Seasons

Yes, I know it's barely one month into winter, but it's time to start thinking about spring, no?

I mentioned once before how, in New York, when all else fails, we can gauge the change in seasons by what's on display at the bodegas. Well, this picture seems to perfectly illustrate where we are in the year.

We still have the leftover mini Christmas trees and the Amaryllis bulbs (typical for holiday flora), but they are slowly being edged out by jonquils and Iris reticulata. Soon we'll see forced hyacinths in the delis and after that, cut daffodils and finally lilacs!

Though it's hardly a natural setting, this little arrangement in the East Village is a nice indication that warmer weather is ahead.

From Our House to Bauhaus

Frankly, I think Tom Wolfe could write about factories that produce brown paper bags and he’d spin a good yarn out of it (except maybe, for A Man in Full). The Bonfire of the Vanities is a must-read for anyone, but especially for those of us who have lived in New York and have been witness to more than one local political scandal.

Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building

But despite this and despite the fact that I work in the field of design, I had never read From Bauhaus to Our Houseuntil recently. And that’s a shame, because it’s a great read.

Wolfe chronicles the advent of modernism, starting with Walter Gropius and his Bauhaus School for architects. From there he illustrates the fevered admiration of the rest of the world’s architectural community, until the point that defining yourself as an architect is barely less specific than labeling yourself a modernist. He touches on the absurdity that some of the most renowned modern architects are the ones that build the least. Finally, he observes the backlash towards this style - starting with Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas.

Gordon Bunshaft+SOM's Lever House

If you are even tangentially connected to architecture or design, I’d recommend this -- it’s a light, fast, breezy book that somehow still manages to provide academic information and discuss seemingly lofty concepts.

Moving Sale

A total "Other Stuff" item. So "Other Stuff" that I'm post-dating it, so regular readers won't be too bothered.

I need to sell the following items. Contact me at jennifer.g.horn@gmail.com if you are interested.



Oak dresser, 45"Wx18.5"Dx24"H. $75. Low height is perfect for TV's.



1950's era standing ashtray. Very 'madmen.' 10"x10"x20". Since it's vintage I'm asking $50.



Antique (1940s) dresser with armoire doors. Walnut veneer. It needs some TLC but with the right person this can restored beautifully. The armoire doors would make this a great bar closet.
35"Wx47.5"Hx20"D. Asking $125.



Bed Bath & Beyond over-the-toilet storage shelf. $15.



This IKEA dresser needs some help - I've drilled the pieces back together once before, it definitely needs it again. That's why I'm selling it for so cheap: $15. 32"Wx33"Hx16"D.



Pop art plastic chair. 18"x18"x32". $25.



Wooden saddle stool. 24" high. $30.



Kate's Paperie: Home Leather Chair, 21"x21"x35". Great condition. $75.



This Crate & Barrel storage cube/coffee table has suffered serious cat damage (see scratches). But fabric can be stapled over this and it can still be quite useful. 18"x18"x20" CHEAP: $10.




Dirt Devil mini-vac. $10.




Simple human mini dish rack. 12.9"D x 14.5"W x 7.1"H. Only 1 year old. Retails for $40, this one is $15.


...In the words of Kramer, "Interesting trades considered."

...That's not really true, I just want the cash, but I'll consider reasonable offers and I'll definitely give you a discount if you buy multiple items. First person to pay for an item gets it. You can schedule pick up after payment - but must do so by the 23rd.