Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 15:21:37 EST From: CALIFCARN@aol.com To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg4107$foo@default> Subject: Re: Thank god this growing season is over!
Greetings folks, and happy holidays from Peter and Marilee and our employees
and plants and cats at California Carnivores!
Let's hope that 1999 offers kinder weather than this past El Nino year.
It's 21 degrees F. outside right now and everything is frozen solid. We're not
worried at all about our outdoor plants, except our bananas and palms! Maybe,
just maybe, 1999 will be a NORMAL year. Wouldn't that be nice.
I saw much chit chat about aphids on venus flytraps. I'd like to remind
folks that if you have a small infestation on just a few plants, simply
placing a flea collar in close proximity will get rid of them. Don't let the
collar get in contact with the soil or water.
Also, I saw Jimmy Northrop of Northrop's Insectivorous Plant Farm
mentioned. Mr. Northrop was found dead of a heart attack in a bog not far from
his nursery about two years ago. The Northrop's were controversial in later
years because of suspected plant poaching, but this is something he always
denied to me. I believe their wholesale nursery is still being run by his
family. They were destroyed in a hurricane a couple of years back. I met
Jimmy's father back around 1971, when I visited his "farm" (he grew plants on
40 acres they owned). Old Man Northrop was about 90 that year and passed on
the year after I met him. I believe his CP business was started back in the
1930s. As mentioned by others on the chat line, almost all the area near
Wilmington has been developed in recent years, and there are few native stands
of VFTs remaining, compared to decades ago.
I recall someone showing me a slide (It may have been Larry Mellichamp or
Rob Gardener) of a shopping center that was put in near Wilmington, where
originally you could not step foot without stepping on flytraps. They
estimated the amount of plants there in the hundreds of millions, but it was
all plowed under and paved over. All gone.
Have a wonderful New Year's! Th-th-th-th-that's all folks! Peter
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:42 PST