Last Sunday, the Flame Vine that grows over the arbor at the north end of the Memorial Garden was dangling vines into peoples faces as they walked through the garden to get to the sanctuary.  My wife Diane, chair of the church gardening crew, noticed and was visibly upset. “Didn’t you trim those vines yesterday?”she asked with just a hint of asperity. (One might ask how one knows when a hint of asperity is occurring.  My answer: after 56 years of marriage, one knows “asperity” when one hears it.) Anyway, I responded that indeed I had done the trimming. Diane looked at me, then looked at the vines.  I looked back and shrugged. “Mother Nature,” I said, “her fault, not mine.”  It is just amazing how quickly the vines grow during the rainy season, requiring almost daily trimming.  Some day I may just sit and watch and see if I  can actually see the vines spread their wiry tentacles.  Gotta be better than watching grass grow.

Dick Happy, Gardening Crew

by Dick Happy, UUCS Garden Crew

We get lots of questions about the giant plant that hangs from the iconic oak outside the Lexow Wing.  It is called a staghorn fern and, although it may be hard to believe, it is an epiphyte or air plant getting moisture from rain and water vapor and absorbing nutrients from debris that collects on supporting plants.  It was donated from a church member’s yard several years ago, and it took four men and a large pickup truck to get it delivered to UUCS and hang it from the tree. We give it very little care although it seems to be delighted when we feed it ground up banana peel (it likes the potassium). We have two other smaller staghorn ferns hanging from oaks on other parts of the property.