Month: March 2014

New roots

Standard

It was a rough winter here in New Jersey. It even was tough on my potted plants. To be fair, these are older plants that had grown big, and probably should have been redistributed and repotted some time ago. There might have been an issue with how frequently I watered them, but we won’t get into that.

Yuck

Yuck

So I figured it was time to do something serious. Many of stems had grown long over the years but had lost a lot of the leaves. So I cut them off the main plant into shorter segments.

Cuttings

Cuttings

I put them in water so they can grow new roots.

Ahhhh!

Ahhhh!

I threw away the old roots, many of which were attached to nearly leafless stems, coiled in the dirt they had been feeding off for years.

Useless

Useless

I’m waiting for the new roots to grow.

Growing roots

Growing roots

Future new soil and repotted plants — photos not shown.

[All photos by A. D. Joyce]

©A. D. Joyce, 2014

Butterfly Facts

Standard

At night or during bad weather, butterflies hang from the undersides of leaves or crawl into crevices between rocks.

The typical life expectancy of a butterfly is two to 14 days due to predators or the weather. Some live for as long as a year.

The ancient Greek word for butterfly is psyche.

butterfly (English)
buttorfleoge (Old English)
papillon (French)
ihe n’efe-efe (Igbo)
farasha (Arabic, standard)
mariposa (Spanish)
borboleta (Portuguese)
bebe (Fijian)

Eighty percent of all butterfly species live in the tropics.

Butterflies communicate mostly through chemical signals. A few species can produce noises with their wings.

Some people say that when a butterfly lands on you it means good luck.

In Chinese culture, two butterflies flying together symbolize love.

In Devonshire, UK, people would traditionally rush around to kill the first butterfly of the year that they see or else face a year of bad luck.

In the Philippines, a lingering black butterfly or moth in the house is taken to mean that someone in the family has died or will soon die.

Butterflies breathe through tiny openings on their sides, smell with their antennae, and taste with their feet.

You can feed butterflies with a butterfly feeder and homemade nectar.

(Facts via the Butterfly WebSite and Wikipedia.)

©A. D. Joyce, 2014