Monthly Archives: April 2011

Apr 30 2011

The Urban Gardener: Hostas

Just a few more pics to close out this week.  While I was out yesterday snapping photos of the allium and the iris, I also took a few of my hosta.  Most of the older ones are a pretty good size now and stood the weather well despite just a bit of hail damage to some of the leaves. Hosta cover most of the back bed, and believe it or not, I’d like to have a few more just to cut down on the open space that constantly needs weeding.  Maybe I’ll add a few new varieties this year.  We currently have 26 hosta in the backyard, and about 5 different types.

I believe this first one is called an elephant hosta.  One of our originals that has been here since we first moved in.  We split him twice last year so there are two more now.

Here are two of our Royal Standard hostas.  We have several of these now thanks to splitting them last year.  You’ll noticed a smaller newer Elephant hosta behind them, and a smaller one in front that is of the Green Gold variety.  I think it was called Fire and Ice or something like that when I bought it.  The Royal Standards have also been split and planted in the front yard.  There are two or three there that provide good space filler and greenery all summer.

Not sure how these two ended up together.  I don’t even remember which one was actually planted here, but somehow the two paired off.  As they get bigger, we’ll probably end up moving one.

Hoping to see more new blooms next week!  I’m out of town Wednesday through Friday next week so it’ll be nice to see what’s grown or bloomed by the time I get back.

Apr 29 2011

The Urban Gardener: The Alliums Have Landed

The iris isn’t the only first bloom this week.  We have one allium that has also opened.  These are my favorites next to the irises.  I have purple and yellow.  The yellow were just planted last October so this will be there first year and I’m looking forward to seeing them.

I’m considering moving most of these after their blooming season this year because as I said in my previous post from a few days ago, I lose quite a few of them because the dogs trample through the bed and break the stems off before they’ve bloomed.

Their leaves also grow very long and don’t stand up straight.  They lay out flat on the ground like tentacles so I think they might be planted at the wrong depth.  Anyone else have any advice about this or experience this problem?

Apr 27 2011

The Urban Gardener: Sporty Irises?

This morning when I left for work I discovered one bearded iris in the front yard had bloomed.  It’s to the left of the porch and is a deep purple.  What’s interesting about this is that there are no dark purple bearded irises in the front yard, or there have never been any previously. We have dark purple Dutch irises right next to the bearded ones that are deep purple, but their leaves and size make them easy to tell apart.  These where this one bloom opened have always been lavender in the past.  The picture is from April 2010.

I hope to get a picture of it this week if the rain ever lets up.

Here are some possible reasons for the color change according to GardenWeb:

  1. Irises often do not bloom every year. It is possible that your dark colored irises neglected to bloom this year, while lighter ones (perhaps left by a previous owner) within the same planting area did bloom.
  2. If you dug your original irises from a bed where only purple irises were blooming, perhaps you assumed that you dug only purple irises. However, there may have been a number of other colors of irises in the original bed that weren’t blooming at the time you dug but that did bloom later in your own garden.
  3. If you dug and replanted a bed within the last several years, it’s possible a tiny piece or pieces of a previous iris planting remained in the bed and has now matured to blooming size.
  4. An animal or child may have uprooted a rhizome from elsewhere and dropped it into your garden without your knowledge, or a neighbor may have tossed unwanted rhizomes over the fence into your yard where they took root. It happens.
  5. Certain cultivars are far more vigorous growers than others, and in closely planted beds, the more vigorous growers will almost inevitably choke out the less aggressive irises over time.
  6. Your original irises may have been bee-pollinated within the last few years. The seeds from those crosses may have ripened, dropped, and germinated among the original plants, and now you have a bunch of new seedlings blooming within your original clumps. Iris seed does not grow true to the parent plant and may well have produced some new colors in your iris bed.
  7. On extremely rare occasions an iris may “sport”, meaning the iris may produce an offset that differs noticeably in appearance from the original plant. HONORABILE is one well-known example of a cultivar that has produced several sports in its long history. The sport offsets, however, do not change the color or appearance of the original plant.

Most of these made me chuckle.  It’s kind of like, “Hey, maybe you just forgot what you planted or it was just a dormant flower you had there at one time.”  Since we’ve never had this color before, and this plant has been there for about 3 or 4 years, I can only assume it was a dormant root in the mix or it changed colors.  There are a handful of other buds that have not yet opened so it will be interesting to see what color they are when they do open.  Stay tuned…

Apr 26 2011

The Urban Gardener – Week 6

Nothing to post last week for Week 5.  We’re still in the growing stages for the next round of blooms.  The mad rain and hail we’ve been getting pretty much hammered the tulips into nothing but a stalky existence.  The daffodils also passed last week. I plan to clip off the dead flowers but leave the green leaves up a bit longer just as a nice simple border around the front walkway and as filler in the back beds.

I counted the hosta yesterday in the back yard.  We have 26 just in the back thanks to splitting quite a few last year, and I believe there are about 5 to 6 different varieties.   Most are still a bit small right now, mainly the ones we split.  The more established ones are much bigger.  The picture is not of ours, but it is four of the types of hosta we do have in the yard. I believe there are at least two hosta in the front beds.  We’ve kept them to a minimum there because there isn’t much room but I may change that just to continue to fill the front beds in more.

Speaking of the front beds, the irises are more filled in and there are several blooms on one side.  I don’t think the orange ones I planted last October are going to bloom this year though.  They are still pretty small.  So the ones that are about to bloom will probably be the next picture.

In the back, there is one allium bloom almost completely open.  This is my favorite flower and one that we have a lot of.  I still have yet to see hints of any of the yellow ones I planted. These are such a strange delicate flower too.  Their leaves are almost too long and they spill out over the ground like tentacles of an octopus rather than standing up and protecting the flower.

Unfortunately, the dogs have trampled a few and snapped the stalks off so we lose a few each year before they even bloom. This will be their second year in the bed for the purple ones, the first year for the yellow if they bloom.

Hopefully, if the rain lets up I’ll have a few decent pics to post by the end of the week.

Apr 25 2011

Water for Elephants ~ Movie Review

I have to admit that Water for Elephants was a decent representation of the book.   Take into consideration that a movie is never going to give you 100% of the book.  That being said, I was disappointed with the parts of the book the movie left out.  There were lots of little details and nuances that just can’t come across on the full screen anyway, although you would have liked to have seen how they would have been portrayed.  Although too numerous to mention and for those who haven’t read the book it wouldn’t matter anyway, the biggest (for those who have read it) would be the comedic scenes that play out with Jacob in the nursing home.  All of those chapters were completely left out.

We open with an old man (Hal Holbrook) wandering into the parking lot of a circus that is packing up and moving out.  A workman comes out to see if he is lost and invites him in out of the rain while the man calls the nursing home.  The old man looks at the old black and white circus photos on the wall and recalls out loud which circuses they are from.  This grabs the worker’s attention and he mentions the Benzini Brothers Circus tragedy from years ago.  The old man says he was there and the worker asks him to tell him about it.  We flash back to a younger gentleman played by Robert Pattinson and the movie is played out as a flashback of the old man’s story.

Although I never would have expected it, Robert Pattinson plays out a perfect Jacob.  That irresistible smile he gets on his face when he’s around the animals definitely lets us connect with Jacob the way we wanted to see him connecting with Rosie the elephant. Perfect choice for the part!

Christoph Waltz was a decent August, the ring master and circus owner.  I pictured someone larger and darker, maybe more Italian looking, when I was reading the book but August’s charm and charisma as a business man, and brutality and harshness as a monster, really made him a different type of character that readers will both appreciate and despise.  We really see him on the verge of snapping and just how quickly it can happen.  There is one scene where he becomes angry with Rosie that really sets that uncomfortable tone you get from him in the book.

Reese was Reese, what can I say.  She’s beautiful to look at, but just not as sexy and alluring as Marlena comes across sometimes in the book.  Still a decent performance from her though and she and Robert make a cute couple.

Speaking of sex, there’s a lot of it in the book including a strip tease tent in the circus. Those scenes are in the movie, but treated with dignity and careful camera angles – obviously allowing this movie its PG13 rating.  It drags in places where we have to witness the slow glances and connections being made between Jacob and Marlena.  August’s discovery of the two is a bit rushed, but after that the action picks up making the last half of the movie pretty solid.  The sad redlighting treatment of circus workers being thrown from the train out of spite and to lighten the financial load is there, balanced with a breathtaking scene of Jacob and August walking across the top of the train in motion.  And then there’s old Rosie, and you can’t help but smile along with Jacob at the gentle beast when she performs or is providing comedic relief.

Non-book readers might find the movie a bit slow at times but will enjoy it overall.  After all, we each have our own favorite circus act, right?  Some book lovers will certainly be disappointed, but if you try hard to approach the movie with a different set of eyes (and lower your expectations just a tad) you will be well entertained.  I know I was.

Apr 24 2011

I’m Batman Times Four

Have you seen these 4 Film Favorite Collections in stores now?  Superman, horror films, Rocky, etc.  And oh yes!  Batman!! And yes, I made J buy this for me for my birthday!  In 1989, I had movie posters adorning my wall, the Hardee’s franchise cups lining my book shelf, Batman rug, Batman shirt, you name it.  Like everyone else, I had Batman fever that year.  I loved Jack as the Joker, adored the Penguin and Catwoman in the second one, and don’t even get me started on Robin and those bat tits and cod piece!

I look back at the films now and analyze them through a different set of eyes.  Burton was dark and brilliant despite Beetlejuice Michael Keaton as Batman.  Jack was overpaid and upstaged Batman.  Schumacher had to be on drugs because his two films were crazy and bright.  Arnold as Mr. Freeze?  Give me a break!

But all in all, these films are fun and a part of pop culture history!  I can sit down and watch them over and over and just have fun.  There are few films like that which I don’t mind seeing again and again no matter how bad the sequels were.

What about you?  What film series are you watching over and over?  Batman? Harry Potter?  Jurassic Park?  Pirates?  Those are all a few of my favs.

Apr 23 2011

Skyline ~ Movie Review

I love Eric Balfour and had forgotten he was even in Skyline. Since the trailers looked promising, I thought Skyline had good potential. And it does when it comes to visual effects. It’s plot and storyline are where it falls short.

Jarrod (Eric) and his girlfriend arrive in California to spend a birthday weekend with a rich friend with a big penthouse apartment in a skyscraper. Our cast quickly dwindles to six – two couples and an assistant, and a building manager. A lazer-like blue light awakens everyone the next morning after the party, and they discover machine-like aliens have come down to Earth. The struggle to stay alive and out of harms way quickly ensues and by now you can already guess who is going to die first.

The special effects and intensity in the scenes is what keeps the movie going. I didn’t really connect with any of the few characters, and that is probably where this movie suffers. Unlike Alien, Independence Day, and other big blockbuster films of the like, our cast is limited to just this handful of people.

In other films, there are usually multiple story lines and conflicts to keep us interested, and everyone unites to fight the evil forces. Here, there is no hope for our couples, oops, make that couple of cast members. When they are the only ones we see fighting the bad guys and their resources are pretty limited, there just isn’t much hope for them.

Before you get too bored with the film, enter the military forces in the form of planes and a few foot soldiers. This makes for some awesome fight scenes and explosions in the air, but that’s about it. The movie almost teases you with a doomed ending that ends up taking you completely by surprise and will have you wondering what the heck you just saw.

You have to wonder how movies like this even get made. Like I said, the special effects and alien lights are brilliant and were probably genius on the big screen, and that’s obviously where the budget of this film when. There’s even one scene where Jarrod and his girlfriend are wounded and have abandoned all hope; they are outside on top of a building.  The camera swirls around them.  As they embrace, you can see the alien crafts and military swarming in a battle in the sky behind them.  With the camera angles, music, and visuals, it’s very dramatic and even breathtaking. But with a blue collar cast which included Donald Faison from “Scrubs” and the mediocre storyline, the film left me wanting more in the end.

Apr 23 2011

Why I’m Seriously Considering Leaving Netflix….AGAIN!

So I’ve been waiting a month to see Skyline, and now have to wait another month to see the new Harry Potter film if I want to utilize my Netflix membership.

Netflix signed a deal with Warner Bros. to delay movie releases by 28 days. It involves licensing agreements to be able to show the movies via broadband, and the movie companies think they are devaluing the movie. So, as a truce, Netflix agreed to delay the availability of new releases. The movie company agreed thinking this would increase DVD sales.

And Netflix execs think this is a good thing for consumers. Read about that here! Seriously??? What you are really doing is pissing off consumers. One person even filed a class action lawsuit against them saying they had devalued the Netflix membership. And I think I agree! For someone who wants old movies and sitcoms readily available to them, I guess Netflix is a good move. But for someone like me who tends to watch what’s new, Netflix has become worthless.

For example, Netflix still doesn’t have the new Harry Potter movie so I went to RedBox today thinking they might have it. Nope. A Netflix worker who was there servicing the machine told me RedBox is in the same agreement and doesn’t have the license to distribute the movie until 28 days after release either.

In today’s society where companies like Netflix were created to meet the fast-paced and technological demands of today’s consumer, moves like this outrage me! Movie companies gave first rights to Blockbuster of all companies, but aren’t Blockbuster stores closing left and right?

So take my blog post as one perfect example of a pissed off customer! With Dish Network On Demand, I’d rather pay $4.99 per movie to watch it first come first serve than wait a month for Netflix to get a new release!