Two Things That Made Me Happy Today

Coral Reef Restoration

I heard a segment on NPR about this–according to one of the divers, the sponges are growing back, and in a year, you’ll have to look hard to tell where it was damaged. Since coral reefs are on my mind of late (can’t imagine why…) this made me very happy.

And in a completely random chain of conversations, I got to here: Carnivorous Plants For The Home and Garden

Either I convinced Kevin, or Kevin convinced me, or somehow we came up with the notion that since we’re in North Carolina, home of many of the species, we’d try a little carnivorous plant action in the new garden. The plan is to do a railing box of Venus Fly-traps in the back and a whiskey-barrel planting of pitcher plants in the front. (Much as I’d love to put them in the ground, we’re on clay and they require sand/peat/whatever. But I can at least do a little pot!) *

Since we do have a very boggy drainage area, I’m tempted to start looking for some native plants that do well in constant wet–I’ve already got spicebush, which is supposed to do well there (we’ll see how itdoes before I start planting it en masse) but I wouldn’t mind something else as well. It’s basically soggy shaded leaf-mulch at the moment, and while that’s a challenging environment, surely something would like it!

*Yes, I am quite aware of the plant poaching problem here in NC, and believe me, I would only buy from nurseries that do their own propagating.

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