Moths & Me. Lured In By An Ancient Cycle of Milk & Wine Lily Variation

  When two individuals of the same plant species cross-pollinate, the seeds and resulting plants vary in size, flower color, petal shape, and even vigor. That variation among individuals, good for people and animals too, ensures adaptability and continuity of the species. Variations bring flexibility and strengths. Over hundreds of millions of years, some plants…

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Mother’s Day Lily Farm Gathering

Mother’s Day Plant Sale!  We occasionally spiff up the farm and invite guest. Announcements for these private events go out via our email list only. Gatherings for cool gardeners, for great clients and old friends, we limit guest numbers but don’t charge anything. These are thank you days. My Momma, Gloria Farmer is the heart…

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Why I Decided to Self-Publish

‘Funky Little Flower Farm’ stories include memories like my coming out, of being with my father on his deathbed and Momma’s memories of her grandparents. I want to share them, but I want control over how they get published now and forever. When I struck a book deal with a publisher for my first book,…

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Tiny Passion for Passiflora lutea

Tiny lime green flowers on this slender, summer growing perennial vine make me smile. Sure it’s kind of weedy. It scrambles over shrubs and comes everywhere around here. But it’s a lovely olive green leaf with silver mottling.  And it has a strong root system.  I don’t know how you’d get rid of it if…

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The Orange River Lily…

Isn’t orange.  The name comes from the Orange River, the longest river in South Africa. This species of Crinum grows along it’s banks. Like most wild things, each one is different. We grow big flowering strains as well as our own selection, ‘Aurora Glorialis’ which opens green, fades to lite pink and then to rich…

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A New Years Resoilution

In this year, when we walk let’s walk with big, amazing steps. Considering every every cell and bone and where each foot falls. Connect to the life below each step. Feel the the tiny creatures in their universe below ground. When we garden this year, let’s weed, kneel, dig, spray in ways that make them…

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You’re making me blanch…Etioliation

Etiolation: You know when you leave a bucket on the grass and all the grass under it goes sort of pale green and white?  That is etioliation.  It’s a plant response to trying to grow in low light. If the pale stems ever find sun, they’ll to turn green.  (That is de-etiloation) We eat a…

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Deer Moss and Gum Drop Trees

December means hiking into a special dry place in our woods.  It’s a bald spot, open and dry and sunny. A magic carpet of deer moss yields spongy with each step. Silvery green carpet colors, climb the little haw trees too.  Lichens, with silver leaves. Only lichens are not plants, so they don’t have leaves. …

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Peter Pan Might Live Here!

This is our design studio. And it’s where interns get to live. Someone described it recently, saying I had “a Peter Pan Thing’ going on in here.  What’s that mean? Tom Hall and I built this place. More accurately we rebuilt our old woodshed, with the help of lots of volunteers, friends, a cob expert,…

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