#this is the year I green thumb

[oddosprey]

That feeling when you finally figure out how to take care of plants and they SPROUT MORE BABBY PLANTS

Aaaaaa

[puppyeared]

id fumble him so bad

[transingthoseformers]

Me, all fall and winter: oh, I want to get some berry bushes in the backyard! I just think it'll be nice🥰

My dad, not listening: okay

My dad, today, after my grandma dropped off raspberry and blackberry bushes:

[trashshouldnt]

hello :)

hallo :]

[pee-boner-clenching]

i found my dream little guy today!! bear paw succulent found in a north carolina nursery will show more once I carve a hole into the pot/bring it to my home state

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

hheheheheh, i went on a thrilling little trip today to the garden centre and bought some flower seeds (cornflowers and a packet of some mixed flower seeds), some herbs (thyme, rosemary, chives and a mint, but one that had a funky name), a new very pretty pot for the plant on my desk that desperately needs a new home, a new pretty plant so that my desk one isn't so lonely (it's so pretty, the leaves are both green and white. sorry, i don't know the name of it), as well as the thrilling purchase of some more dirt. a garden girlie is always in need of more dirt.

[starredforlife]

what’s a career I can do from anywhere and get reasonably paid for where I can be outside n do basic manual labor perhaps with some kind of design or artistic angle and don’t say mural painting bc I’m bad at painting (genuinely)

[fidgetspringer]

Been wanting to try propagating sundews for a while. Found this beautiful glass dome on sale today that i think will be really cool for it!

[paskariu]

MY PURPLE PASSION IS ABOUT TO BLOOM YES

Caring for it has been an up and down thingy because i've never had a plant like this one and made some mistakes along the way but it's blooming regardless!

Up until now i've only ever had orchids and a bazillion jade plants

[bmpmp3]

recently i decided to start playing a new mobile rhythm game as i wait for sif2 to come out in english and a day later i nearly chopped off the top 4mm of my index finger by accident (blanket knitting incident). is the universe itself trying to stop me.

[gothmothgoblin]

december is hard bc its cold and dark and where is the sun? no one is around and everyone is upset. everyone is broke and reliving shit w their family from the past and grieving another year lost and worrying for the future. all the plants are dead and everyone is sick and everyones lips are chapped, noses raw.

its so hard for me to leave my room its so hard for me to get up its so hard for me to remember all the reasons i have been getting up this whole time.

my friends leave to go home and come back Different but never Okay

[dapperpea]

I'm trying not to be a black thumb and growing garlic and potatoes and the thing nobody told me about is how bad I wanna dig 'em up so I can see how they're doing. Like, this one's so big!! I want to see it!! I want to see it NOW!! This garlic's leaves are dying! What's wrong! What can I do! I want to dig it up and check but that will probably not help at all!!

I wanna dig 'em up and look so bad but I can't aaaAAAAAA

[cyan1decandy]

Gonna start on refining the backstories tonight, but it might turn into bullet points 🤣 Hopefully I can finish Toria's and then I can focus on Aileen's on Thursday. Just gotta run some errands.

[cascadianights]

A partner gave me a pitcher plant 2 weeks ago and I have KEPT IT ALIVE INDOORS so far

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

it’s been so hot this june that i think the first strawberry of the year is finally ready to be enjoyed TOMORROW! IIIIIHHHHHH!! big moment BIG MOMENT! look forward to it every year 🍓

[reasonsforhope]

In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the long study of a butterfly once thought extinct has led to a chain reaction of conservation in a long-cultivated region.

The conservation work, along with helping other species, has been so successful that the Fender’s blue butterfly is slated to be downlisted from Endangered to Threatened on the Endangered Species List—only the second time an insect has made such a recovery.

[Note: "the second time" is as of the article publication in November 2022.]

To live out its nectar-drinking existence in the upland prairie ecosystem in northwest Oregon, Fender’s blue relies on the help of other species, including humans, but also ants, and a particular species of lupine.

After Fender’s blue was rediscovered in the 1980s, 50 years after being declared extinct, scientists realized that the net had to be cast wide to ensure its continued survival; work which is now restoring these upland ecosystems to their pre-colonial state, welcoming indigenous knowledge back onto the land, and spreading the Kincaid lupine around the Willamette Valley.

First collected in 1929 [more like "first formally documented by Western scientists"], Fender’s blue disappeared for decades. By the time it was rediscovered only 3,400 or so were estimated to exist, while much of the Willamette Valley that was its home had been turned over to farming on the lowland prairie, and grazing on the slopes and buttes.

Pictured: Female and male Fender’s blue butterflies.

Now its numbers have quadrupled, largely due to a recovery plan enacted by the Fish and Wildlife Service that targeted the revival at scale of Kincaid’s lupine, a perennial flower of equal rarity. Grown en-masse by inmates of correctional facility programs that teach green-thumb skills for when they rejoin society, these finicky flowers have also exploded in numbers.

[Note: Okay, I looked it up, and this is NOT a new kind of shitty greenwashing prison labor. This is in partnership with the Sustainability in Prisons Project, which honestly sounds like pretty good/genuine organization/program to me. These programs specifically offer incarcerated people college credits and professional training/certifications, and many of the courses are written and/or taught by incarcerated individuals, in addition to the substantial mental health benefits (see x, x, x) associated with contact with nature.]

The lupines needed the kind of upland prairie that’s now hard to find in the valley where they once flourished because of the native Kalapuya people’s regular cultural burning of the meadows.

While it sounds counterintuitive to burn a meadow to increase numbers of flowers and butterflies, grasses and forbs [a.k.a. herbs] become too dense in the absence of such disturbances, while their fine soil building eventually creates ideal terrain for woody shrubs, trees, and thus the end of the grassland altogether.

Fender’s blue caterpillars produce a little bit of nectar, which nearby ants eat. This has led over evolutionary time to a co-dependent relationship, where the ants actively protect the caterpillars. High grasses and woody shrubs however prevent the ants from finding the caterpillars, who are then preyed on by other insects.

Now the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are being welcomed back onto these prairie landscapes to apply their [traditional burning practices], after the FWS discovered that actively managing the grasslands by removing invasive species and keeping the grass short allowed the lupines to flourish.

By restoring the lupines with sweat and fire, the butterflies have returned. There are now more than 10,000 found on the buttes of the Willamette Valley."

-via Good News Network, November 28, 2022