I added a poll.

Vote as often as you want!

"Free Spirit Spheres build lovely, spherical wooden treehouses that you enter via a suspension bridge." Link.

Did you see the mugshot of the guy who tried to burn the man prematurely? Too funny. Link.

"I am disturbed that the Man is burnt. As I looked at it, I was going, 'This can't be happening,' " said Bob Harms of South Lake Tahoe, a seven-time burner.

Kyle Marx of Eugene, Ore., said the fire started from the Man's left leg and spread to engulf nearly his entire body.

"Some people were chanting, 'Let him burn, let him burn!' and some were chanting, 'Save the man, save the man!' " Marx said.

I say this whole thing goes down as vital cultural trivia.

[Joan] Rivers has been down too many times, and too far, to think that getting the last word really counts for much. It's an apt touch to play video footage of Rivers misidentifying one star after another on the Oscar night red carpet. Celebrity, which she's courted one way or another all her professional life, is a ripe fruit waiting to rot. "Who the f- are you?" as Rivers puts it, the eternal Hollywood question.

" 'Thank-you' is a sign of weakness," she says in one of her battle mottos in the show. Women should "use sex as a weapon." Balance that hard sell with the surreal images she conjures of her own body falling apart or the cartoon lunacy of some old man's 36-hour erection on Cialis. Rivers talks tough about going after what you want, but she knows it all falls apart anyway. Laughter, finally, is what gets you through the career disappointments and a husband dead by suicide and all the rest.

Link.

I can't say I've paid close attention to Joan Rivers in recent years, but when I was young I thought she was hilarious. I love outrageous, offensive humor. The worse, the better. Part of me thinks I would love to be the garden blogger who trashes everyone's flowers on Bloom Day. "Those flowers are hideous! What a shitty garden! Another goddamn daylily? Is she fucking kidding me?" But that's just not me. (So, I guess I would actually prefer to read that blogger, rather than be him.)

The Joan Rivers show at the Plush Room sounds like fun.

In a rapid-fire hour at the Plush Room, Rivers laid waste to homeless people, stroke victims, Palestinians ("They're so ugly"), lesbian nuns, Angelina Jolie's "pelican lips," Anne Frank, Tom Cruise, crazy people, Hillary Clinton ("She's such a dyke"), Madonna's "homely children" and her own good friend Linda Carter ("that stupid bitch") and "best friend" Julie Andrews.

but it's way sold out. There's always Connie Francis. And Charlotte Rae. Seriously. Charlotte Rae. Scroll down.

When I win the lottery, I'm hiring someone who's job it will be to make sure I have tickets to all the fun, ridiculous shows that come to town that slip past my admittedly poor radar.

Messy Thoughts

I'm sure most people who visit whoreticulture also visit A Study in Contrasts. But if you don't, right now is a good time because Kim has a compelling and informative post up about the recent flooding in Ohio. Much better than what you'll find in the national news I wager (if only I could be bothered to read the news anymore).

Please sign my petition

telling Julie to [please] post her recipe for plum ginger crisp! (RTWT*)


*"Read the whole thing". Because the plum ginger crisp is at the end.

The tiniest tomato

Carol, who throws off garden blog memes like a rainbird sprinkles water, has invented the Ritual of the Tiniest Tomato.

Here's my entry, from 'Early Cherry'.



Carol put her tomato up against a nickel and declared herself the winner. Well, I couldn't find a nickel this morning, but (ahem!) I'm pretty sure pennies and dimes are smaller... And the San Francisco subway token is smaller still. The diameter of the subway token easily exceeds the tomato's. Can you see?



Somehow this plate didn't make it into last week's garage sale. Now it's a ritual throne.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden

Okay, this is me trying to cover 47 acres in one hour for you.





These plants are for sale obviously. I want to say I love the weeping cedrus flanked by Tibouchina and a row of Rudbeckia in front. Nice!

Leucospermum. I don't think I've ever seen one so red.



Into the garden...





Driftwood in the garden: Yes, yes, yes!













I rather like the Eucomis collapsed under this enormous grass.





This was a surprise.



This garden is known for its heathers.





















I regret not taking more time to compose the pictures a little better so you could see the way the colors work together. These pictures only hint at that. As it was, I couldn't even see how the pictures looked in my camera because the sun was so bright.

A fence encloses everything above, plus much more, to prevent deer browse. But you can pass the fence at gate points, and hike straight out to the ocean.











Acres of doug iris.



If you've never seen the Pacific Coast, it varies on this theme for hundreds of miles.





Armeria.



Erigeron.











There's a little teaching room out here overlooking the water.







This is cool... a whole wall of moss and lichen i.d.



Guy stayed with his parents close to the base because they're too old for the hike out, and I don't want to leave them waiting around for me while I dawdle over mosses and lichens. So, I head back in.



What's August without a dahlia garden...





















Cemeteries as garden features: works for me.







I love a vegetable garden!



The welcome garden element is an old plow blade.



And I like this little scene across from the vegetable garden.







You'd have to grow basil in a cold frame out here.



What I enjoyed most in the vegetable garden were these single plantings of squash, so you can see exactly how much space a single squash would use if it could.



I found this extremely informative.



They're like ground covers. You can even get ones with variegated foliage.



Chuck B. says, "thumbs up" to the squash planting in the vegetable garden.



This looks like CA native Lilium pardilinum, but I'm moving pretty fast at this point.



Back at the nursery, I'm amazed how much I know about plants after gardening and volunteering at Strybing for a couple years. I used to be overwhelmed by plant choices at the nursery. Now I make short work of them.

I buy a passionflower to go with the Dahila imperialis I've decided to keep from last year...



Mahonia aquifolium 'Compacta' for under my back steps...



and two Sisyrinchium 'Quaint & Queer' (I shit you not) as an impulse.