thebonegirl:

As you probably know, today is international women’s day. So I’m going to go right ahead and tell you that Maria Sibylla Merian is one of my favorite badass ladies of the science/art world.

Born in Germany during the mid 1600s, Merian began her artistic career at a young age, painting her first observations of insects around age 13. She spent  most of her life studying and composing beautiful watercolor paintings of her observations of nature and is most noted for being the first person to clearly record the life cycles of moths and butterflies. She made a self-funded expedition to Suriname where she recorded a bunch of previously unknown flora and fauna, she invented a washable fabric cloth, and published several books. Mind you, this was at a time when oil paints weren’t considered lady-like, the western world believed that moths and butterflies spontaneously birthed themselves from mud, and western ladies were advised not to go into tropical climates because it was known that women would furiously menstruate themselves into a hemorrhaging death.

Please do yourself a favor and go read a book about this woman. Thank you for your time.

I’ve written a few papers on her, but I don’t have the time to go dig them up right now. I’ll suggest some readings for you when I find them.

(via scientificillustration)

The deer proof flower garden: delphiniums and Icelandic poppies. These beauties don’t have much to say December through February, but now you just can’t shut them up! Bloom time: March & April, full sun (where they can smile brightly), Zone 7B

2013 Update

Substitutions for the Shade Garden

Avoid Impatiens walleriana again this year, due to the disease problems associated with everyone’s favorite summer annual. Click HERE to read the 2013 Downy Mildew Update. 

First the good Impatiens news: you can still use SunPatiens and New Guinea Impatiens, as they are not affected by downy mildew. Both varieties offer many flower and foliage selections, and they will tolerate more sun than Impatiens walleriana.  

For other shade garden plants, consider Heliotrope’s lovely violet-purple flower clusters which are also fragrant, making this a perfect container garden or borden garden choice. Fuchsias look lovely dripping from a hanging basket or container garden. How about Coleus? The riotous foliage combinations work well with just about any flower garden favorite: there are trailing Coleus and upright Coleus to suit every need, and they make excellent bedding plants. Consider the Begonia (and I’m not talking about the “wax begonias” planted en masse in front of every subdivision and shopping center across the country). Look for the dark-foliage or spotted-leaf Begonias, dragon-wing and angel-wing Begonias, dripping with flowers from spring through late fall. There is simply nothing more elegant, and they will triple in size over the growing season. Nicotiana is a fragrant, shade tolerant annual, and it’s also deer resistant. 

There will be plenty of choices for the shade garden this summer, so keep your eyes open.