#and then he ended up enjoying himself on o.f.

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

How did KC come to doing O.F? Also poor blood moon. Poor mans just has to stay under his bed to avoid being traumatized even more.

He heard Glamrock Freddy dated Roxanne, who has an OF and it just snowballed from his curiosity lookig into it, to him starting an account, to him enjoying said account.

Poor Bloody is hiding against the only asexual for dear life.

[blackpjensen]

The Bloom Is Back On The Tupperware Rose

At its corporate campus in Kissimmee, FL, Tupperware® has revitalized its signature hybrid tea rose. BrightView Landscapes created two rose gardens on the company’s grounds with the help of local experts.

Landscaping is often an attempt to improve on Mother Nature’s best. But, sometimes, it can also become a matter of preservation. That’s the position Tim Harris, a regional designer/project estimator for the Orlando, FL office of BrightView Landscapes, found himself in when he was called on to design two new rose gardens for the world headquarters of Tupperware®.

Faced with the near-extinction of its Tupperware hybrid tea rose, the company opted to rebuild its rose stock from five remaining plants. BrightView, which holds the maintenance contract for the corporate campus in Kissimmee, FL, was brought in to design and build the new rose gardens to showcase a portion of the revitalized roses.

South Garden at Tupperware headquarters in Florida

“Roses” and “Tupperware” have always been synonymous. The company vice president who developed the idea of the Tupperware sales party first commissioned a hybrid rose in 1953. Its design and color were reflected in the company’s products and use of color for many years.

Over time, the company and its leadership changed, and in 1981 a new Tupperware hybrid tea rose, with many of the same characteristics including a brilliant dark pink color and rich fragrance, was developed by rosarian J. Benjamin Williams and registered with the Library of Congress.

With its rose species, Tupperware has been careful to control the stock, planting it on its campus exclusively. So, when it became apparent in 2014 that there were only the five remaining plants, the company sprang into action, hiring rosarian Wendell Ulmer, owner of HeavenSent LLC in Apopka, FL, who suggested the roses could be repropagated.

BrightView’s Harris explains that the existing rose plants were dug out and taken to O.F. Nelson & Sons Nursery/Nelsons Florida Roses, also in Apopka. The company is known for bringing roses to the Sunshine State.

“They have a patent on a special root stock called Fortuniana that’s nematode-resistant,” Harris explains. “They took cuttings off the plants, rooted them, and then grafted them onto the Fortuniana rootstock. They were able to replicate from those remaining plants approximately 300 Tupperware roses.”

Two Rose Gardens Brought To Life

It was at that point that Harris was brought in to design two roses gardens, a North Garden and a South Garden. The project won a 2018 silver Award of Excellence for a design/build project of $25,000-$100,000 from the National Association of Landscape Professionals  (NALP).

He explains that the size of the Tupperware headquarters building is such that a garden at either end would make it more convenient for employees and visitors to enjoy the roses.

“They also have two ponds on either end of the building, so it balances it out,” he says.

However, the two gardens, each approximately 40’x 80′, are not identical. The North Garden is laid out in the shape of the letter “H” and includes four benches and a 16′ x 10′ pergola for shade, while the South Garden has a single walkway and three benches.

Part of the difference is due to the presence of trees at the two sites. While a Weeping Willow was left as part of the South Garden, a Tabebuia on the site of the North Garden was relocated just to the north of that garden and closer to the pond.

Harris is particularly proud that the tree was able to be successfully relocated.

“We used a tree spade, and it didn’t even go through any transplant shock,” he says. “It didn’t drop a leaf.”

Other than moving the Tabebuia tree, site preparation for the two gardens was simple. “Each area was just sod, which we cut and removed,” Harris says. “It was also pure, clean, and weed-free, so we didn’t have to do any chemical weed treatment.”

Hardscape for the project included paver walkways and freestanding wall blocks columns with caps to support a gate for each garden.

“We went with the pavers for aesthetic reasons,” says Harris. “We didn’t want to pour an impervious surface, and these are ADA- (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. It’s very simple construction.”

Because of its location in a former swamp, the water table at the site is fairly high. Rosarian Ulmer created a special soil mix for the gardens which was used both for planting the roses — which Ulmer handled — and to raise the grade of the entire garden slightly to promote natural drainage.

At the same time, some irrigation was required for the roses.

“We did spray-stake irrigation, which is a low-volume irrigation,” Harris says. “Each rose has its own spray-stake spraying water at the bottom of the plant, so the foliage doesn’t get wet and promote powdery mildew or black spot.”

While the roses — approximately 160 of them split between the two gardens (the unused roses are held in containers in a specially built nursery holding facility and may go into another rose garden at a later date) — may have made a straightforward move to their new locations, not all the plantings were as accommodating.

Tupperware commissioned a local artist to make the metal benches for the two gardens. The benches are designed to mimic the company’s logo. Shown here is the North Garden.

The roses, which are planted 4′ apart, were to be set off with Majestic Beauty® Indian Hawthorn shrubs, which were to be used as topiary in the gardens. However, they became what Harris refers to as “quite an issue.”

“We procured them at a nursery that had field-grown them,” he explains. “We planted them after they had been freshly harvested, and they went through severe transplant shock. We lost all but two of them, and a lot of time and energy and money was spent.”

Instead of replacing like-for-like, Harris then opted to go with container-grown Feijoa (also known as Pineapple Guava), which can be maintained into a globular canopy structure.

The other piece of the plant palette for the project also presented a challenge. Harris says one of the main parts of his design dealt with controlling the deer which populate the woods around the Tupperware campus, and just love to eat roses.

His solution: a 5′ tall fence with metal posts and a green vinyl-coated material of rectangles measuring 2″ X 4″, which was then heavily planted with Podocarpus.

The deer-barrier fence installed in the South Garden.

“The Podocarpus is growing through the fence so the garden is very hard to see,” Harris says. “In fact, we had a $4,000 change order on that part of the job because the client’s landscape superintendent, Bill Pearson (who supervised the job for Tupperware) wanted them planted so tightly we had to buy more Podocarpus and plant it so the root balls were touching. We didn’t even dig individual holes.”

As finishing touches on the project, Tupperware had two gates specially made that mimic the gate at the campus’s original rose garden and commissioned a local artist/sculptor to make the metal benches for the two gardens.

The benches are designed to pick up the on the Tupperware logo, and on a large fountain in the building’s main entrance. Harris says the benches have become one of his favorite features with the project.

Harris estimates he spent about 140 hours designing the project, with a four-man BrightView crew and rosarian Ulmer spending another 350 man-hours to make it a reality.

Certainly, his experience with the Majestic Beauty Indian Hawthorns was the most challenging part of the job, and while the clients were happy with the job, Harris says if nothing else the project taught him to be firm when the need arises.

“They wanted the rose gardens in by a certain deadline, so we rushed to harvest those main topiary trees,” Harris says. “I wanted them harvested and then held to get through the transplant shock. We ended up taking them freshly harvested and they shocked on us severely after we installed them.

“I learned a valuable lesson and will never repeat that mistake,” he concludes, adding that overall the project was unique in its purpose, design coordination, and cooperation and should serve the Tupperware employees for years to come.

Schipper is a writer and editor specializing in B2B publishing. She is a partner in Word Mechanics, based in Palm Springs, CA.

The post The Bloom Is Back On The Tupperware Rose appeared first on Turf.

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[recordsandrambling]

On Flower Boy: Tyler's Growth as an Artist and Its Effect on a Long Time Fan

Tyler, the Creator released his fourth full-length studio album Flower Boy on July 21. It went on to hit number two on the Billboard charts despite Tyler's best efforts to push for the number one spot. Since then, the record has garnered critical acclaim and has been referred to as Tyler's best work to date.

To many critics, the new record was a culmination of all the potential that Tyler has shown on his previous mixtapes and albums. From Bastard to Goblin to Wolf to Cherry Bomb, there were seeds of genius that were waiting to be watered, and only finally in 2017 did "Flower boy T ... bloom into a tree."

This post isn't meant to be a review of the album. It’s hard to pin down a definitive score for an album mere weeks or months after its release. I simply want to reflect on Flower Boy's place in Tyler's career and where the album fits into the narrative of my Tyler experience.

I first heard Tyler, the Creator's music in February of 2012, about a year after Goblin came out. I was fussing through YouTube after coming home from high school and stumbled upon the now-famous "Yonkers" music video. Hoo boy. It was a lot.

Yet I found it intriguing. Back in those days, I didn't bother listening to rap music because I thought it wasn't an artistically or musically significant genre (granted I was snobby about music back then.. scrolling back through young me's pointlessly angry Facebook posts about Justin Bieber might give that away). Somehow though Tyler's rebellious attitude and lashing out against rap blogs and pop stars aligned with my 17-year-old view on the world at the time. Grrr! No one gets me so I'm gonna be angry at the establishment!

So I allowed myself to bypass the whole "no rap" thing because as far as I was concerned, Tyler was more indie rockstar than rapper. I fell in love with Bastard because it renounced much of the bling-era lyricism of rap at the time (2009): "I created O.F. cause I feel we're more talented than 40 year old rappers talking about Gucci." On top of that, it had an emo vibe to it. Much of his lyrics questioned his place in the world, his upbringing, and his future. All problems that a teenager could relate to.

At the time Tyler resorted to shock value in most of his songs. When his lyrics weren't introspective, they were about rape and misogyny. It was edgy, and a young teenager like myself thought it was cool, kind of like seeing an R-rated movie when you're underage. The horrorcore sound certainly turned heads and put Tyler on the musical map, but it wasn't gonna be enough to maintain an audience. By the time Wolf came out, I found it hard to listen to his old tracks without cringing or feeling uncomfortable.

Luckily, Wolf was a turning point of sorts. It came out during my senior year of high school. I kid you not, I listened to that thing every day on the car ride to school from its release until my graduation. The jazzy piano chords, crisp production, and wild synth runs from his old projects were still there, but on top of that came more mature song topics and a more coherent story.

Yet Wolf had shortcomings, just as Bastard and Goblin did before. The amount of well-thought out, coherently good songs was too small to justify the long run times of the projects. I would find myself skipping more songs than I would actually listen to. And while Tyler wasn't afraid to spar with experimentation on tracks towards the end like "Trashwang" and "Treehome95," his punches didn't quite land.

In addition, Wolf continued to meld Tyler's real personality with fabricated characters. Sam, Wolf, Salem. Who was the REAL Tyler, and why was he hiding behind characters he invented? Thankfully Wolf's best tracks unveiled him. "Answer," "Awkward," and "Lone" all showed his vulnerable side. Tyler Okonma himself.  Not Tron Cat, not Samuel, not Doctor TC, but TYLER himself. Those three songs paved the way for Tyler to be comfortable enough to record something like Flower Boy.

But before Flower Boy could come into fruition, there had to be the bombastic, left-field Cherry Bomb. It makes sense to me that before an artist's most successful and powerful art piece can be made, the artist must create something so insanely unique that it becomes polarizing.

I did not like Cherry Bomb. So much so that I haven't revisited a single track besides "Smuckers" since its release. The N.E.R.D. influenced "Deathcamp" started the album off on a good enough foot, but as the vocals got more drowned in fuzz, the production became more cluttered, and Tyler began rapping more materialistically than he ever had, the album became more and more daunting to me and I never came back to it.

I appreciate experimentation. But songs like the title track "Cherry Bomb" were too much, with its extensively fuzzy beat and near incoherent vocal part. The excitement I had following Tyler's career up to that point began to dwindle. His upward trajectory shot downwards, and after seeing some critics pan Cherry Bomb and having friends hate it, I wrote him off as an immature kid who would never realize his true abilities as a songwriter, rapper, and producer. Also at the time of Cherry Bomb's release I started listening to hip-hop music more, discovering its roots and enjoying modern artists. Tyler's new stuff just paled in comparison to many rap albums that came out in 2015.

Fast forward two years later. I've graduated college, unsure of where exactly I'm going to end up or what I'm going to do with my life. So I take a road trip with two friends to see the country as a way to soul search, to find what I really want out of life and how I'm going to get there. While scrolling the Internet in the backseat of our red Prius as it rolled over the South Dakota landscape, I stumbled upon the album announcement. History told me to be skeptical, but the singles initiated a bubbling excitement deep down inside me. "Who Dat Boy" was a classic Odd Future banger that traded throwaway lyrics for a smooth guest spot from A$AP Rocky. "911/Mr. Lonely" was a head bopping sing-a-long that was too infectious to ignore.

I grew more and more excited as the weeks went by, and when it came out I immediately purchased it on iTunes (and allowed an extra 20 something bucks to leave my pocket for the limited vinyl run).

It felt like meeting an old friend who I hadn't spoken to in years, one that I've grown up with and apart from over the previous half decade and finally have the maturity to reconnect. I'm out of college, questioning what's next on the journey of life, dealing with isolation and longing for stability. Tyler is not only questioning his sexuality, but opening up his personal life behind the green masks and the characters for the world to see. My love for Tyler's music hit its highs and lows, much like a friendship typically does.

And that's why I believe Flower Boy had such an impact on me. Over the past half decade I had the pleasure of watching Tyler, the Creator grow as an artist and a person as I was reaching adulthood myself. It's an incredible phenomenon to connect with an artist through their art. Tyler fostered a relationship with me, and although he'll probably never know it, shaped much of my appetite for music and art into what it is now. He redefined the possible; who says you can't produce your own music and release it for free? Why can't you make your own fashion line? Is it impossible to create your own TV show?  Find your wings and fly.

I'll forever be grateful for Tyler, the Creator's influence. With Flower Boy, I can be proud of the old friend that I foolishly neglected when I was wading knee deep in through my college years. He created an emotionally powerful album that removed the cheesiness and tore down the character facade in favor of transparency and sincerity. The cluttered, fuzzy production of Cherry Bomb melted into lush, well-layered instrumentals with lyrics dipped in loneliness and end-of-summer nostalgia (similar to another Odd Future member's 2016 masterpiece).

Thanks to Flower Boy, I finally get to see my old friend Tyler for who he truly is. Another person trying to do the best he can with his passions. And luckily for us listeners, he's really damn good at it.