Plants and Poison - Cherry Laurel Water

For the past few weeks I have been doing my family genealogy. At the same time, I have been watching a series Who Do You Think You Are, where a number of celebrities from the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom trace their ancestors. Today I watched an interesting episode about Alexander Armstrong. The episode I am referring to is featured below.

Armstrong is one of those rare people that come from an aristocratic family. One of ancestors was poisoned by something called Laurel Water. Before watching this episode I did not know what laurel water was, so I went straight to google. The Laurel plant is grown usually as a shading shrub but can be pruned into a tree. It is not uncommon for animals to die from this poison. Farmers need to be careful what kinds of plants they put on their property.

Growing 17 types of tomatoes!

I had no idea that there were so many varieties of tomatoes.

Cloning Ancient Trees

I few years ago an article was featured on Yahoo discussing a group of botanists, Archangel Project, who made it their life work to clone old growth trees. When I first learned about this project, I was amazed. I really hope others can appreciate the significance of this.

These images shows us 100 percent DNA of a living 2500 year old Giant Sequoia, over 200 feet tall with a circumference of 50 feet.

They have a presence on Facebook. There are other arborists that clone ancient trees. We can find them by conducting a quick google search. Today I learned that it is common practice to dip the cutting into rooting powder. This will stimulate root growth when the stem is planted directly into the dirt. I am very interested in cloning ancient trees.

If there is anything I would like to do before I die, that is clone African Shea Trees and make an orchard in Chihuahua Mexico.

Transplanted my Basil Plants Today

For the first time ever, I rooted Basil cuttings. My interest in rooting basil was peaked after I stumbled upon some online drama. Apparently, some guy claimed that his cutting rooted in one day. I had to find out for myself if that was possible.

This is what my basil looked like
 after a couple weeks

The rooting process is fairly simple.

1. cut off some fresh basil stems from your plant
2. put them in a cup of water
3. change the water once a week

i used two clear, empty jars of baby food to root my basil. After about two and one half weeks my cuttings finally started to root. This morning I planted them in nice, warm soil with the mother plant. This got me to thinking, how many plants are propagated by rooting, using this same process?

How to Root Pineapple

I had no idea how pineapple was planted, grown, or harvested. All I did know was that pineapple grew in Hawaii, and that the plant was engineered to fit into the Dole pineapple machines. They appear red, yellow, green and brown.

So how to propogate a pineapple plant? Go to the grocery store and buy a pineapple with healthy green leaves. Make sure that the leaves look strong and healthy. If the leaves are brown or orange, do not use it.

Grab the leaves and pull it out of the pineapple. Remove any additional flesh that comes out.