More from "the other side"

     Here are more photos from Sri Lanka, a sub-tropical delight for plant lovers.  For me, the best were the mosses, the most beautiful I ever saw.  The high humidity and rainfall make for perfect conditions for mosses to grow.

     The WWII cemetery in the capital of Kandy is the most beautiful I ever visited, well landscaped and maintained by a full-time worker.  Many of those buried there are British, killed in bombing raids by the Japanese.

     I also love the tea plantation areas in the south, where the highlands are conducive to tea cultivation.  They were started by the British in the 1800s.  Tea pickers, all women, earn the equivalent of a minimum of $5 for an eight-hour day (prices for many items is a third to half of ours).  They have their harvest weighed four times a day, the last weighing done in their village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On the other side

     Of the world, that is.  I took these photos in December 2015 at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.  It has a sub-tropical climate, so lots of palms and other exotics (for me).

     The photos show something I never saw before, a wire-frame house covered in vines.  The first view shows it a distance at the end of a very colorful walkway.  The last photo was taken inside.

 

 

A little explanation

     My wife, Dorothy, and I bought our one-acre property in 1969.  It is 150 feet wide and 300 feet deep, with a bit cut off on the back left.  We bought it mainly because there was a hill on it, and I knew that could make for more interesting landscape gardens.  Plus, it had a 20-acre woods behind.

     The first photo shows us, along with Dorothy's father, just before starting to build the house.  The next two photos show the house in 1970 and 1972.  Notice that the driveway does not go straight out to the road, as usual.  I curved the drive to the side of the lot for two reasons.  First, it would make for a wider lawn, making the lot appear wider.  Second, I thought the curved drive would make for a more pleasing entry.  After 47 years, my wife still is mad at me for doing that, as so many visitors have a hard time backing out.  Quite a few have driven off the pavement.  Too bad.

     The fieldstone terraces in the front were built in 2007.  I never liked the plain flat front lawn extending into the ditch.  A year earlier, I saw a photo of a very abstract design of a lawn somewhere in Europe.  It had three flat sections, rising at different rates, with the highest rising about 20 feet in total.  The most unusual thing is that they did the same thing in the opposite direction, but the three levels flipped (meaning that the fastest rising one became the slowest rising one).  Somehow, in trying to emulate it, I came up with the design of terrace levels with intersecting curves. Not the same, but a bit different, nevertheless.  My (ordinary) neighbor said I should have built an "ordinary" terrace.  I asked him, "Do I seem ordinary to you?"

     The plant at the base is Lysimachia nummularia (Moneywort).  The first terrace has Sedum floriferum 'Weihenstephaner gold' and the next terrace Vinca minor (Periwinkle).  The dark green plant in the center is Muelenbeckia axilaris (Wire Vine).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More winter green

     An especially cheerful and beautiful moss in the winter is Dicranum scoparium, commonly called broom moss, as its leaves are swept to the side, resembling a broom.  The first three photos show it, the last taken with a closeup macro lens.  I have yet to find this moss growing in SE Wisconsin, as it seems to prefer acidic substrates, and the ground around my home is slightly alkaline.  I collect this moss where it grows in central and northern Wisconsin.

     The last four photos are of my favorite moss, Anomodon rostratus.  Preferring alkaline conditions, I find it in many places in SE Wisconsin, from ground to limestone rocks to the bases of trees.  I often attach it to limestone rocks (sometimes granite rocks) with 100% silicone caulk for anchoring purposes.  If it "likes" the rock, it will put down rhizoids in a few months into the rock.  Then it spreads, as can be seen in the photos.  In these two cases, the moss have been attached for from six to eight months.  The last photo shows a rapidly extending stem

 

 

 

 

 

 

on a rock.