The label attached to that pot with a Cyrtomium Falcatum rhizome told me this fern would be hardy. There was just one small frond developing and the whole plant looked pitiable. I cultivated it like a tropical plant and kept it in my fern shelf through a whole year. That was quite successful and the plant became a vigorous grower.

Thanksgiving in spring: my crop of Asplenium bulbiferum.

This is the tip of our very own Wollemi Pine. This is very exciting and we'll note our explorations of this remarkable tree on our green pages.

This snow-white frond was hidden under green masses of my bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum). Obviously, there is no hint of chlorophyll in this part of the plant. It only could survive thanks to the enormous vitality of this fern. Here's another image of this frond after pruning.

Various inhabitants of our garden. Enjoy!

More inhabitants of our garden.

Nothing spectacular: just a fly resting on our musa dwarf cavendish (a banana plant) and our sprouting Wollemia nobilis. That's all what happened on a sunny day at home.

It's not easy being green. Kermit the Frog's insight is also true for plants and every gardener wants to know the effects of his treatment on the plants. The EUREKA E! 2544 E-PLANTS project has now simulated plant growth behaviour using a mathematical model that computes influence on various effects on plant growth. Being sort of black magic, effects of fertilizing and nursing are only badly predictable. Hope they'll provide a version for personal use.

Seen it - bought it! Will become a good friend of our other conifers. Data: Sequoiadendron giganteum. Will get old, really old. Needs much water and nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Who will water it in, say, 2000 years? Things start to get small if you consider that this tree will possibly live 3000 years from now.

Rain in the early evening on a cold day in autumn makes our plants wear costumes made of cristals. Time to wrap them up for winter.

Interestingly, some tender ferns do really well so far. Temperatures dropped to 4°C (39.2°F) at night.

I always appreciate links between informatics and biology: spanish scientists of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid developed Vorest, a tool to simulate forests and forest development. Very spanish at the moment, but nonetheless promising. Will follow this. (Source)

Who says palm seeds have to be fresh for germinating. This nice story is about a date palm seed (Phoenix dactylifera) discovered during archaeological excavations at King Herod's palace on Mount Masada that is 2000 years old and that started germinating after careful preparation. The article has been written two years ago and everybody is curious about the sex of this little Phoenix (very matching genus name in this incident!). Israel's dates were already a famous product in ancient times (until the forced displacement of the jews) and it would be exciting to re-establish this old plant family. (Here's a more recent Wikipedia article.)

Winter in the European part of Germany usually isn't too cold but much too wet. So I constructed an ugly, provisory greenhouse for the smaller fern of our paradise garden in order to protect them from cold and wetness. I'm keeping them on the dry side and water them sparingly, usually every two days. Fortunately, frost didn't hit us, yet. I think, they are still fine, the big one to the left is a Blechnum gibbum with almost no damage! The brown spots at the left border is Athyrium niponicum that is, as expected, losing its foliage.

Protecting tree ferns is somewhat cumbersome: to reduce their need for space, I bound their fronds with gauze bandage and packed them into a fleece that would let through (not too much) water and air. I'm doing this for the 1st time and I'm curious how our tree ferns cope with that. If it gets really cold, there are additional jute sacks I lay upon them.

They tell Wollemia Nobilis is hardy. But you never know.

In order to help people to make their virtual worlds or games more vivid, Stanford computer scientist Vladlen Koltun provides a neat software that creates masses of trees. Trees are well-measured objects and difficult to construct manually, so this tool is a real help for producing complex 3D data. Provided forms are ranging from naturalistic to fancyful. (Dryad homepage, Source)

Credit and bank crisis, corruption and bankruptcy, factitiousness and embellishment: it's more than economy, stupid! At least our Wollemia nobilis is doing well and produces lots of new branches. Winter wasn't a real challenge (I protected it with a burlap coat at cold days with temps below 0°C, though) and Wollemia proves to be a strong grower.

This is real in-depth research: researchers revive the study of the development of roots at molecular, cellular, and organ levels. Since the research group consists of mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists it will be interesting to see which results will get unearthed. (Source)