The man who planted trees

Today I would like to write about a book, that was recommended to me by someone. It’s about a story that had high influence on me, and, we could say, on my meaning of life. This is a blog about a story written by Jean Giono – The man who planted trees (original title: L'Homme qui plantait des arbres).

It’s been probably round year and half, if not two years, since I bought this book. As I said before, it was recommended to me by my friend, with words: “This book will be probably right for you,” when I begged her to write me a list of books that I should read. And it really was.

It took me a while to find it. There weren’t any books left in bookstores in the dozen places I checked, so I had to buy it over the internet. I don’t really like to buy books that way, because it’s too unpersonal if you haven’t had that book (or one of it's sibling-books) in hands before, but sometimes there is no other way.

The Slovene copy of the book is printed on special paper, and equipped with wood engravings by Peter Abram. 

When the book arrived, I was surprised by how thick it was. But luckily, I have learned already, that the quantity of the written is not always quality. And then I smelled it. I just love the smell of books, of their paper, and sometimes I even think that I can smell the letters in them. So when I smelled it, I was surprised again, it smelled so differently from the other books. Maybe because of the paper they used for the book.

The story is partly autobiographical, and it talks about a shepherd, who had unselfishly planted thousands of trees in the ruthless landscape in the French Alps.

I won’t talk about the meaning of the story, because I believe, that every story gives different wisdoms to different people (if you don’t have the time to read it, you can watch it below). For me, this story was inspiring, and it has woke up the calls in me, which I hadn’t heard in a long time. The calls, which made me become a gardener, but during the school time, and this whole world going so fast, I had forgotten about them.

So, I started planting my own trees. I started with Ginkgo biloba. I had collected seeds in autumn, in the city where my school was. I planted them in spring, on the day of the earth, 27. April 2010, and soon they sprouted.  I have them on  the balcony, where they are exposed to the sun and the wind, so that plants can be more resistant. I decided that I will give them to the people, I care about a lot, and are special for me. I have already given a few to some of them, and as they say, their ginkgos are growing nicely. This year I also planed gingko seeds. And because this is an international year of forests, I will plant them on the land we own, to form a little forest. 

Last year's, and this year's plant of Ginkgo biloba

I have already prepared seeds of a Dove tree – Davidia involucrate, of Monkey puzzle tree – Araucaria araucana, and I will probably some other tree seeds.

So, now if you would like, well actually I highly recommend you to watch this short movie 'The men who planted trees' by Jean Giono, and I hope it will touch you too, but still try to read the book.

Part 1/4:

 Part  2/4: 

Part 3/4: 

Part 4/4: 

So, read you next time!

Uroš

Bamboo diary: Moso sprouts

Today, I just returned from a week-long holiday on a Tenerife island, and I was really happy when I saw my first bamboo sprouts. The seeds of Phyllostachys edulis – Moso - have sprouted. While I was gone, I kept my grandma busy, I told her to keep an eye on them, and to write down the dates of emerged seeds. When I came home, she happily told me: ”You have three small bamboos there, and I had to look very closely, so that I could see them.” These were the first three Mosos (11.9.2011), which came out just 14 days after the sowing. Then the next day there were two more sprouts, and today another two, again. Gosh, I’m happy, seven out of thirty. I really do hope, that they will all survive. Oh, and I almost forgot. It looks like, there is no difference between the seeds, which have been soaked through the night, and those which weren’t.

I am surprised that, again, none of the Fargesia nitida seeds have come out, even though they were fresh, and the Moso seeds against them, were over a year old. It probably happened because I hadn’t put them in the fridge for stratification, and it will, therefore, take them a little bit longer to sprout.


Here you have some pictures of the little ones:

sprouted on 11.9.2011

sprouted on 12.9.2011

sprouted on 13.9.2011

So, read you next time!

Uroš

Bamboo diary: Sowing Phyllostachys edulis

On Monday (29.8.2011) I sowed seeds of Phyllostachys edulis. I bought them a year ago, from some German on-line company that sells seeds of rare plants. I would had sowed them before, but I was in a student residence hall during the week, so I wasn’t at home enough, to keep an eye on them, if they would had sprouted. So now I have almost finished my studying, and I’ll be staying home for at least a year, and it’s perfect timing for me to grow bamboo. Yes, I know I’m very, very late with these seeds and their germination rate is probably 0%, but still I had to try.

Seeds of Phyllostachy edulis. 6 of them were too dry.

I used the same technique I used with Fargesia nitida,which I sowed the other day. I’ve had 36 seeds and 6 of them were completely dry. I potted 15 as they were and the other 15 with those 6 dry ones, I soaked them in water through the night and sowed them the next day (30.8.2011). The 6 dry ones didn’t get better, so I threw them away. And now, I'm waiting again. It’s probably just gambling with luck anyway.

So, read you next time!

Uroš   

Bamboo diary: Fargesia nitida seeds

Today I have sowed my first bamboo seeds of Fargesia nitida. I brought them form Scotland, from Castle Kennedy Gardens, to be exact (on 29.6.2011). I got them totally by coincidence, when I went to see the gardens. The dying bamboo was visible from far away, and I knew it at that very moment, that this had to be a flowering bamboo. First I took some photos of it’s flowers and habitus, then I took some samples for herbarium, for my collection and after, I also took some flowers, which were already producing seeds, so I was hoping that I would get some seeds from them.

Flowers were already produceing seeds.

Dying clumps with last leafs.

I put them in a paper bag with silca gel, so that it wouldn’t get rotten or moldy . They were stored like that til now. Because the germination rate of bamboo seed falls rapidly, I just hope that I was not to late. I got 10 seeds out of 20 collected flowers. Their size was around 5 mm.

Bamboo seeds look like grain.

To sown them I have used a technique from David Crompton book Ornamental Bamboos.

So let’s see what I have done:

First I put peat-based light compost and filled the pots so, that compost was 2,5cm under the upper edge of the pot. I used mix of two bought composts for seedlings (Brill and Valentin). Then I sprayed the compost with water, so I could put the seed on a wet base.

So, I put 3 or 2 seeds per pot, covered them with 1 cm of compost and sprayed the compost again. I placed the pots in a room with a constantly warm temperature (20°C+), and is very bright, but not a direct sunlight.

Now I’m hoping for the best, which is that at the least 2 or 3 seeds will sprout. Based on the theory by Ted Jordan Meredith (Bamboo for Gardens), it should be from 2 to 3 weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

So, read you next time.

Uroš