A Kid In Italy Invented A New Word, Which Makes Me Happy

A petaloso moment in my St. Albans, Vermont
garden last summer. 

Language rules often don't make sense, and there's always a need for new words, in my opinion. Or at least revamped words.

For instance, I've always complained that you can have sunny days, but you can't have moony nights. Why? Must a night with a full moon in the sky be described as "moonlit?"  

What about butterflies? Shouldn't they be called flutterbys? After all, that's what they do.

This is why I found a soulmate in an elementary school kid in Italy. His name is Matteo, mine is Matt, so maybe that's a sign we have the same mentality.

What happened was, his teacher was mystified by a word Matteo used in a writing assignment. It was "petaloso."

It's an Italian word that doesn't really exist, at least not yet, in any Italian dictionary.

The word is a combination of "petalo," meaning petals with the suffix "-oso" meaning full of.

Matteo, 8, used the word "petaloso" when describing a flower that was full of petals. The word totally makes sense.

Matteo's teacher said his use of the word "petalolso" was wrong because the word, at least up until that point, didn't really exist. But next to her red "X" she wrote that Matteo made a "beautiful mistake."

I'll say.

Now, there's a drive to make the word "petaloso" an official word in the Italian dictionary. Hell, it belongs in English dictionaries, too, in my opinion.

The drive to make "petaloso" a word got an early boost when Matteo, with the help of us teacher, wrote to the Accademia delia Crusca, the institution that oversees the use of the Italian language, to ask for their opinion, reports the BBC.

The reply soon came from one of the Accademia leading linguists: "The word you invented is well formed and could be used in the Italian language..It is beautiful and clear.'

However, in order for a word to be a real part of the Italian language, a large proportion of the population must use it and understand its definition.

The linguist from the Accademia wrote Matteo: "If you manage to spread the word among many people who start saying, 'What a petaloso flower this is!', then petaloso will have become a word in Italian."

So Matteo and his teacher started spreading the word, and I'm happy to report "petaloso" has gone viral. The word has been used at least 80,000 times on Facebook and 40,000 on Twitter, says the BBC. 

As noted, I think "petaloso" should become a word in the English language, too. Many English words are derived from others in different languages, and this one would work, too.

Spring is just around the corner. My perennial gardens will soon (I hope!) explode with a wide variety of flowers. In other words, my gardens will be petaloso. It's a beautiful word that I hope to use  many more times in the future.

More Proof That Gardens Can Ease A Troubled Mind

The Koroki homestead in Japan, in full bloom. 

A saw a nice (and very pink floral!) story on boredpanda.com, via rocketnews24 the other day about how a nice husband and Japan treated his wife for her sudden blindness.

The wife had diabetes, and that diseased caused her to become depressed and withdrawn. Mrs. Kuroki stayed in the house all the time and didn't want to do anything.

Mr. Kuroki worried and wondered how to help his wife feel better about himself.

His wife lost her sight, but didn't lose her sense of smell, he reasoned, so he spent two years planting fragrant pink flowers around the dairy farm and house where the couple lived.

It worked! Mrs Kuroki came out of her shell and outside, where she could smell all the flowers.

The flowers also became a local tourist attraction, so all that activity helped raise her spirits, too.

I guess what the Kurokis did is why so many of us plant flowers around our houses. I don't think I have the energy to plant several acres  of flowers, but I'll sure as hell keep adding more as soon as spring weather comes.

Here's a quick video of the couple in their pink garden:

Summer Flowers Keep Blooming Around My House

It's a slow Sunday, rainy and quiet, so I just went through a few of the photos I took in my gardens in St. Albans, Vermont so far this summer.  

Check out a few images to brighten up your drizzly Sunday.

Plants in a pot on my deck soak up evening sun.  

A peony captures the last light of a setting sun.  

Close up of a white peony.  

Some festive lillies  

Lillies, with more colorful blooms in the background.  

Maybe We Can Get Our Beer and Other Supplies By Drones After All

Awhile back, toward the end of January, I bemoaned the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration put the stop to a brewery who was trying to deliver beer to ice fishing enthusiasts out on a Wisconsin lake.  

Flower deliveries via drone? So far, it looks
like it might be legal.  

Well, now, there's a glimmer of hope.

In a move similar to the beer drone enforcement, the FAA in February ordered FlowerDeliveryExpress.com, part of Wesley Berry Flowers, in Michigan to stop its experiment of delivery blooms via drone, CBS Detroit reported.

However, a federal administrative law judge, Patrick Geraghty, ruled that he could not accep the FAA's argument for regulating drones, which applies to flights below 400 feet.

Had he agreed with the FAA, the judge said, "a flight in the air of a paper airplane or a toy balsa wood glider could subject the operator" to FAA penalties.

The judge's ruling applies to fights under the ceiling of 400 feet. Drone flights above that are still definitely iffy in the legal department.

Geraghty wasn't ruling on the flower deliveries, but instead another guy who was fined $10,000 for reckless flying when he used a drone to film a 2011 University of Virginia promotional film, CBS Detroit said.

Official FAA rules about drones are due late this autumn, but those rules have already been delayed over and over again.

Judge Geraghty's ruling in favor of the Virginia photographer basically means there are currently no rules for drone flights that don't go above 400 feet. The Detroit florist said that means he'll resume testing his drone flower delivery system.

And presumably, beer can go out via drone to those Wisconsin ice fishing enthusiasts.

You know what would get really interesting is now that pot is legal in Colorado, will drones deliver that, too?

Starving For Spring, So Here's A Time Lapse Of Flowers Blooming

As I look out my window in St. Albans, Vermont, I see it's snowing a little on this cold, gray March morning.

We can dream of spring, can't we?  

A lot more snow is in the forecast this week. Much of the northern part of the nation is still locked in a winter that just won't quit, and forecasters say the cold, January-like regime will last into April.

It's enough to make you want to go to Siberia to warm up, as it's probably mild there.

To help a little, here's a video showing time lapses of flowers blooming. It's bound to help a bit.

Vermont's Last Flowers Of The Autumn

The weather abruptly turned chilly and November-like Tuesday around my house in St. Albans, Vermont, spelling the end of a remarkably long flower season.

A cosmos bloom catches a gusty October breeze
in my St. Albans, Vermont yard.  

The spring was somewhat early and warm, and October until now has been the warmest in many years.

We've had no frost, at least until probably tonight, so a few of my flowers are still blooming.

As if to signal the change toward winter, most of my perennials really started to give up the ghost in the past week, even before it turned nippy.

I was able to get some more photographs of flowers in during the past two weeks before the inevitable cold, colorless winter sets in. A few examples are in this post.

Hope you like them as you scroll down for a peek.

A zinnia seems perky enough despite the growing
October chill. 

The morning sun lights up a rose bloom
after some rain.  

A bee rests on this colorful bloom on a warm
October morning in St. Albans, Vermont.  

Can't Get Enough Of Flowers From My Garden

With summer ending, it's time for another installment of photos I took of flowers in my garden in St. Albans, Vermont.

The photos were taken over the past couple of weeks. It's probably even better to display the photos in the dead of winter, when we're craving such things. But you can never get too many flowers.

So here you go. As always click on the photos to make them bigger and easier to see.

More Garden Beauty

Every summer, my flower gardens in St. Albans, Vermont get better and better.

They are not anywhere near where I want them to be yet, but it's getting there, slowly but surely. Here are a few photos to show what I've been enjoying.

The sun glows through a day lily  

Day lillies compete with wildflowers
at the edge of my property.  

A riot of color in front of my house.  

Peak Summer Flowers in Vermont

As I occasionally do, I'll wander through my flowers in the gardens around my St. Albans, Vermont house and take a few photos. Here are some of the latest:

As always click on the images to get a larger view of them, if you'd like.

More Flower Bounty From My Garden

The summer flower season continues along in my gardens in St. Albans, Vermont as these photos I took show:

Stealing Flowers: Angering the Gardeners Will Cost You

I admit it, stealing flowers from people's yards isn't exactly the most heinous crime in the world. I mean, compare a few missing lilacs and daffodils to serial killers and terrorist bombers, and you get a bit of perspective.

But still, I can see how Washington DC gardeners are infuriated by a persistent flower thief in their midst. 

My garden in St. Albans, Vermont begins to
grow last week. Hands off, please.  

As an avid gardener who fortunately lives in a place where it is somewhat impractical to steal too many flowers and plants, I can see how people would be livid if the plants they nurtured were vandalized or stolen.

The psychological point of gardening is to labor in the dirt and the mess and to look ugly doing it so you end up with something beautiful.

So when someone steals your reward, namely the flower that is there because of your work, you get livid.

The New York Times article says the thief is elusive, and may be trying to resell his loot at flower shops. My guess is some flower shops might be a little unethical and don't ask questions about where this guy gets his flowers.

Police say they can't make arrests unless the thief is caught red handed. There's nothing illegal with walking down the street holding a flower, and if there's no obvious evidence the flower was stolen, there's not much you can do.

A daffodil in my garden says hi.  

I suppose it's possible somebody will come on my property and steal flowers, but it's in an impractical place to steal, so I'll just have to contend with the insects and the little varmint animals that occasionally damage my plants. And my dog Jackson, who recently decided some of my daffodils weren't yellow enough, so he peed on some of them.

I also must credit New York Times writer Jennifer Steinhauer with her way with words in her report on the flower thievery in Washington. You can't beat her references to thief's "ill gotten begonias" and "one-man flower power grab."

Anyway, I hope they catch the Washington DC flower thief and stop him before somebody drives a garden spade through his heart.

Rejoicing In My Spring Flowers

It's finally that time of year. When, instead of making sure my gardens are growing properly, or expanding, or have enough water, I'm chasing around the yard photographing the hell out of everything that's blooming.

That's par for the course in my life, but what are you going to do?  I might as well perserve some of the fruits of my labor for posterity.

So I take photographs

I took the photos in this post about three days ago. Since then, I've uploaded more than 150 from my camera, all of which I haven't processed yet. So there's more to come.

My camera had better not wear out.

Meanwhile, hope you like these floral moments from my gardens in St. Albans, Vermont

Home Depot Sold Us Plants That Will Automatically Die.

The ever observant and kind Jeff caught it when  I muttered in my St. Albans, Vermont garden a few weeks ago.

I said some splashes of blue would be nice in the section of perennial flowers I was trying to whip into shape.

This flower grows in my St. Albans, Vt.
garden recently. It's a perennial, but
unfortunately won't be back this
year because a national chain
store sold this in Vermont, though it
 can't overwinter here.

Next day, he happened to be in Home Depot picking up some construction material  and drifted by the garden section. He remembered my comment. And there was a clearance sale!  Low, low prices! He spied some perennials with pretty columns of blue flowers. He purchased them and brought them home.

I was of course thrilled with this latest act of kindness and enthusiastically and got to work planting the blue flowers.

It was only when I was done I spotted the problem. If perennials are sold in Vermont, you don't stop to think whether they can actually grow here if you're presented with them as a gift. Of course they can grow here. They were bought at a store located in Vermont.

I looked at the information. My heart sank. The flowers, something callled Blue Fortune, Anise Hyssop,  were hardy to Zone 6. Vermont is solidly in Zone 4. The perennial Jeff gave me would survive only to temperatures to 10 below. It regularly gets colder than that here in the winter.

Now my sense of outrage grew. To me, Home Depot took advantage of Jeff's kindness and generosity. Why were they selling perennials that can't make it in Vermont?

Let's face it, most people who buy flowers for their yards aren't super experienced gardeners. They don't know the particulars, they reasonably just want to make their property look nice.

Garden zones mean nothing to a lot of people. And it's true the perennials I got spelled out that they were hardy to 10 below. But people don't read the fine print.   Like Jeff, people assume if it's sold in Vermont, it can grow in Vermont.

This fall, I'll mulch the hell of the perennials Jeff got me at Home Depot, but I'm not optimistic at all.

Since most casual gardeners are inexperienced, they won't know why these Zone 6 plants don't come back next spring. They'll assume they did something wrong. So they'll go back to Home Depot and buy  more plants that aren't good for Vermont. Home Depot makes more money and yards remain unadorned by flowers.

I'm sure this all has to do with Home Depot's distribution system that doesn't make distinctions between zones. Still, to me this is a scam.

My advice, and my lesson learned by not reading the fine print: Buy your plants from local growers.  They're  more likely to winter over the perennials they sell, so you know they will grow here. And small, local businesses don't want to screw over their customers. They want you to be happy, so you'll come back for more.

Also, large national chains import plants from growers elsewhere in the nation. That could import diseases to Vermont. A couple years ago, we had a terrible outbreak of late blight in tomato plants across the state.

The late blight got an early, strong start because of tomato plants brought in from warmer, southern climates, to be sold at large national chain outlets. This allowed the late blight to become established early and firmly in Vermont, resulting in a lot of lost crops.

So, learn my lesson. Buy your garden plants locally, wherever you are. And make sure they're selling you plants that can actually grow where you live.

My Backyard Lily Fair

Last week, Jeff took me up to Greensboro, Vermont, to the Vermont Daylily Farm, where I was besides myself with glee.

They have hundreds of really wild varieties of lilies, and he brought me there to shop.

Of course I like the traditional orange lilies, but my gawd, the colors, textures and sizes you can get make my head spin.

I need that variety in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens

Jeff already brought home a bunch of the Greensboro  lilies last year, and they are now in bloom in various sections of my yard. My attitude is, if a few day lilies are a good thing, more are a great thing.

The pictures in this post are lilies that are already growing and happy in my yard. The last pic is in Greensboro, which shows just some of the huge choices I had. You might have to scroll down to see the photos at the bottom, and click on any of the photos to get a bigger, clearer view of them.

At Greensboro, you can wander around the gardens this time of year, and look at the different varieties in bloom. You get a multi-page list which shows which lily is which, and the particulars like when they bloom, how much they cost and how big they tend to get.

We took the list home, after our marking our potential choices. A very nice chore was wandering around the property, imagining which lily would look good where.

I probably could have spend $2,000 on what I wanted. But I'm on a budget, so I limited myself to $124.

It might actually be more fun to add a few lilies every year, so that every summer the color in my yard gets more and more extensive.

We put in the order, and Jeff will go to Greensboro tomorrow to pick up the order. I will be busy planting next week, for sure.

I can't wait.

Unique Day Lillies, Thanks to Jeff

Jeff bought me some really cool varieties of day lilies from Greensboro, Vermont, last summer. They were near the end of their blooms when he got them last August, so I didn't get to fully enjoy them.

I planted them in my St. Albans, Vermont gardens late last summer. Most of them came up nicely this spring and summer,  and now I get to enjoy the results. They're a little later than the standard day lily varieties, so as the traditional ones fade away, these take over.

I'll have to get a lot more of these unusual varieties. They are gorgeous.  Here's a few sample pics. Click on the pics to make them bigger.

Rain and Flowers Create Great Photos

Last week, a thundershower passed over my house and gardens in St. Albans, Vermont, giving the flowers a needed dousing. Then the sun came out, and as usual, I ran around the yard, taking pictures. Here are some of them:

Vermont Flower Season Still Early

The entire spring was early in Vermont due to record warm temperatures this year, and now that we're into summer, everything is still running very early.

A day lily blooms in my St. Albans, Vermont garden this week.

Flowers in my gardens are about where'd you expect them in mid-July. The day lilies have been blooming for awhile now. Astilbe is also blooming nicely now. Black eyed Susans are ready to bloom.

All this leaves me wondering whether there will be any flowers at all in August.

Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy what I have. And if this trend continues, I'll have to find more late blooming perennials so that what usually blooms in September will brighten my garden in August.