h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today whilst weeding my back garden, I found a Polygonatum x hybridum (Solomon's seal). http://www.tv.cbc.ca/canadiangardener/MoreDirt/images/450-21.jpg
Mine is actually prettier than that picture, because the buds underneath are white, with green tops, where they are hanging down from the overhanging stem. In that picture they appear green, or maybe that was an earlier pic.
Solomon's Seal.
I actually had no idea what it was, I had to look it up in my garden plants book, I certainly didn't plant it, so thank you to whatever bird dropped that seed...


On May 5th, (tomorrow night, in the West) 3 planets: Mars, Saturn and Venus will form an equilateral triangle - in the Middle East this will appear directly over Bethlehem. There was a similar grouping of planets on April 1st, 2BC, which may have attracted the attention of the Magi.

Hi, GB! Congratulations on the Solomon's Seal. I prize herbs highly and I must say I envy your good fortune. Also I had to comment on the alignment of the three planets. I didn't realize this was the same as April 1, 2BC. Thank you for bringing this up...I find this VERY interesting.

I stopped by your page after noticing your name was the same as it use to be...long before the Survivor thread . It's hard to believe so much time has passed. I hope you are doing well.

Hello ox!
How nice of you to drop by!
The Survivors...yes, have you seen the poems that Kes put up for us?There's a link on my personal space to the Lost Poetry Office, if you haven't. That's the first and only time I ever fell in love with a crab.

The Solomon's Seal is quite breathtaking in its beauty. I feel truly blessed, gardening is all about getting pleasure out of what you put into it in the first place, but when a mystery seed is planted...and it is something so wonderous - it's a great honour to be the recipient of such a
It is actually among all my lily-of-the-valley, which is my birth-month flower and it's very rampant in my garden.And it's exactly the same colours. Green leaves and white flowers.

The alignment - yes. According to today's weather forecast it's going to be raining here tonight so I won't see it, it'll be too cloudy. But I hope it will have an effect in the Middle East. You never know. Nothing else seems to be working.
I have always been into astronomy for as long as I can remember.
I'm a volunteer Solar System Ambassador - I like to inform people of upcoming events like the one mentioned above - I have a page devoted to it, which I update when something new is coming up.


Thanks for dropping by, it was nice chatting to you.

I'll keep a look out for the planets this evening. It gets very dark here, no light pollution. However, because of the hills it rains a lot so it might be too cloudy.

I have lily of the valley in my garden too, but I only just realised yesterday. I was just admiring the flowers without knowing what they were. If it's your birth flower then that makes it Elfin's too.

I went to Sissinghurt once and there is a part of the gardens devoted to white flowers only. It was amazing to see how many different kinds of white there could be.

oh
Thank you for that...
My best wishes to Elfin!
It's my older daughter's birthday next week too, the 13th. She doesn't share my love of flowers because she suffers from hay fever. She always buys me them though.

At the bottom of my garden is a lilac tree which is in full bloom, the scent is overpowering which is why I spent yesterday afternoon out there weeding. My back was killing me but the scent was so heady I was almost high!

Good luck with your gazing tonight Coely, according to Sky News this morning, it's going to be cloudy & raining this side of the country. I just mentioned it to Mike who's in the Middle East - it should be quite a show.

A link to Sissinghurst for you. Lots of pictures to look at. The part I meant is actually called "The White Garden"
http://www.invectis.co.uk/sissing/

It gets really busy there in the summer but I seem to remember going at about this time of year and it not being too crowded.

ooh, thanks a lot!
I'll browse that site after I've done our lunch.



I could never do my garden all one-colour flowers.
I love the pale blue of love-in-a-mist and the bright orange of my grandma's marigolds. The pale lilac of my lilac tree and the burgundy and gorgeous sunny-coloured heady-scented wallflowers under my lilac tree. Such a mis-match of colours but I adore them and the scents drive me wild!

There are 10 different gardens in the grounds of Sissinghurst. Some are full of scent and colour. The White Garden is the most famous one though.

Yours sounds lovely. I bet the mis-match of colours means you get lots of

Too cloudy.

Too hazy and too much city skyline for me...I'll keep trying. It would be best if I could get over to the beach (west coast Florida).

The link to the gardens is lovely, Coely. My herb patch is fainting away in the heat; no rain for a while and it's been over 90 degrees F for more than a week now. I think I'll have to create a bed for them under my orange trees so they get a very filtered light this summer.

It was cloudy and raining here too.

Nothing on the news either....or my paper today.

Didn't anyone see it?

I have planted things in my garden just to attract
I have a orange-ball buddliea in my front garden and the purple davidii buddliea in my back garden. I leave some nettles at the top of my back garden for them to lay their eggs.

Plenty of butterflies around already - they have beaten the butterfly bushes!

I have butterflies, but I haven't planted anything for them. I have
passiflora incarnata in a crazy sprawling vine across a fence
http://www.passionflower.org/photos/passion.jpg

Silver Vase bromiliad (Aechmea fasciata)
http://www.plant-care.com/PlantTips/Images/A_Morgana.jpg

Hibiscus
http://www.big.net.au/~paradise/images/ChristineLouise.jpg

My yard is a mess right now and nothing is getting the care needed to make it a pleasant retreat from the city heat (I'm right at the intersection of two huge roads).

I have other plants that are struggling with the weather...a few wilting orchids I doubt make it through the summer and some sprigs of Forsythia that came from an old plant that had been in my family for generations in West Virginia.
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/forsythiat.jpg
I used links to show the various plants, sorry I don't have pics of my own.

I have two passionflowers, one growing up against my back fence and one against my garage. The clematis are doing well - I have a white one on the back fence which I've trained to grow along the top, {I planted that} and one I inherited with this house, it's just against the wall between my patio door and my kitchen window, that's a lilac-coloured one. I chop them down every winter and they don't half shoot up! Thealso love the clematis and the passionflower.

Your garden sounds lovely.
That reminds me...I must trim back my Hibiscus. It's spending all it's energy in long branches with few blooms.
I also want to plant jasmine and ginger, but I keep putting it off (I am essentially lazy). It may actually be a good idea to not plant until I see how this summer's weather goes. We used to have a good rainy season; sunny and hot with a strong shower or storm at some part of the day. The last few years it's been very dry and hot. I, of course, blame the fact that most of Florida has been paved over and the beautiful natural environment mostly destroyed.

Didn't see it last night - too cloudy! I did get a good view on Saturday night though - from out in the country, up on a hill

Pretty amazing!