Bromeliads in the Valley of Desolation

Later this month I am giving a presentation to the Parkdale Horticultural Society on my trip to the West Indies. In preparation, I am striving to finish scanning all of the film photos I took, not including the Polaroids, because frankly, I’ve got to draw the line somewhere or I’ll never be done. I’m doing

When I Was a Young Girl

“But people are always speculating — why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.” – Malcolm X. I believe I’ve published that quote before, but it’s

Essence Fragile

We’ve finally had all of the film from our Caribbean trip developed and I now have the arduous task of scanning it all before the end of September (27th), when I will be giving a presentation, here in Toronto, of some of the botanical images. I took this photo while on a tour of an

One Life to Live: A Wish List

This post is a little off topic and not exactly related to gardening. Please indulge me as I go off on a completely decadent, shoe-gazing tangent for a moment. Ignoring is also an option. Please also note that I wrote the bulk of this before my birthday last week so the tense is a bit

Seasoning Peppers

In the Caribbean, that’s what they call peppers that look like hot peppers but aren’t. Although, I have also heard the term used with hot peppers, too. I suspect they really are hot, just not by West Indian standards. All of these were hot, let me tell you, and incredibly aromatic. But hot, ho yeah,

Sunlit Grass

I just found out that it is ‘Roid Week and have decided that I will post all Polaroids in the Daily Botanical for the remainder of the week. I took this photo on December 13, 2009, our third day in Dominica but our first in the little cottage we would stay in for the remainder

Giant Granadilla Flower

One of these days I will sit down and put together a longer post about the giant granadilla (Passiflora quadrangularis), a passionfruit that is as large as a small melon! We were treated to one on our first night in St. Lucia and I have been thinking about it ever since and pondering when i