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This
crab has got a green thumb ... er, make that white , hairy claw.
Marine ecologist Andrew Thurber, who was studying a new species of yeti crab (named after the hair-like brisles on its claws) called Kiwa hirsuta discovered that the crustacean is also an avid gardener:
The bristles that cover the crab’s claws and body are coated in gardens of symbiotic bacteria, which derive energy from the inorganic gases of the seeps. The crab eats the bacteria, using comb-like mouthparts to harvest them from its bristles.
The bacteria in K. puravida gardens are closely related to species that live in other cold seeps and hot hydrothermal vents all over the world. “It looks like the bacteria may use the seeps as stepping stones, to create this global connected population that consumes the energy coming out of seeps and vents,” says Thurber.
Thurber thinks that K. puravida waves its claws to actively farm its bacterial gardens: movements stir up the water around the bacteria, ensuring that fresh supplies of oxygen and sulphide wash over them and helping them to grow. “This 'dance' is extraordinary and comical,” says Van Dover. “We've never seen this strategy before.”
Nature News has the story and the video clip: Link
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The Alnwick Poison Gardens in Alnwick, England was established in 2005 by the Duchess of Northumberland. The grounds contain nearly 100 deadly plants that produce poisons or hallucinogens. Some are so dangerous, they are displayed only behind glass. And yes, there are opium poppies, cannabis, and magic mushrooms as well, but you can’t get close to them. Read about the poison gardens and other strange gardens that are (or once were) open to the public around the world in a list called Gardens of Death and Other Horticultural Marvels at Atlas Obscura. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Jax60)
This wooden pallet was recycled to house a wall of water-retaining succulents, although any number of plants could probably be used. The entire do-it-yourself tutorial is available at the link. Link -via Design Sponge
This stunning sculpture known as the Mud Maiden can be found at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Mevagissey, UK. Flavorpill shows us this and nine other wondrous botanical gardens around the world.
Link via Flavorpill
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Garden Plate – $14.95 and Garden Utensil Set – $19.95
Do you have a fussy eater on your hands? Make meals fun again with the Garden Plate and Garden Utensil Set from the NeatoShop.
This fabulous plate comes complete with ramps and breaks to separate food into groupings. It is specially designed to work with the shovel shaped spoon, rake fork, and the garden hoe pusher (to make it easier to gather food and push it onto the fork and spoon). Playing with your food just got a whole lot more fun!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Mealtime fun!
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I can’t keep a full-size garden alive, but maybe I’d do better with something on a smaller scale. That’s why I love Another Studio for Design’s Matchbox Gardens. Kind of a modern take on the Chia Pet, Matchbox Gardens use cress seed, an easy-to-grow seed that will germinate year-round. Bonus: you can eat the plant if you really want to.
The same company makes PostCarden, which is just what it sounds like: a cute little mailable garden. You probably can’t send them if you’re outside of the EU, so those of us on the outskirts will just have to be jealous.
Link via Flavorwire
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Garden Gnome Tissue Holder – $24.95
Seasonal allergies got you down? You need the Garden Gnome Tissue Holder from the NeatoShop. Nothing perks you up like a cute, little, bearded, guy in a pointy hat bearing tissues. Now wipe your nose and get out there and spruce up that yard!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Personal Care items.
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Pride of the Valley Sculpture Park is an outdoor gallery just outside the small village of Churt, Surrey, England. There are around 150 sculptures at any time, and many are for sale. See lots more pictures at Kuriositas. Be warned, some sculptures are nudes. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Mike Lawrence)
The city of Detroit has shrunk to a population of only 900,000 people -half as many as in the 1950s. Empty houses and businesses are apparent in every part of the city. City officials are weighing different plans for what to do about Detroit’s long-term health. One idea is to return the outer parts of the city back to agriculture. Residents are already getting started in gardening.
Now the seeds of a remarkable rebirth are being planted – literally. Across Detroit, land is being turned over to agriculture. Furrows are being tilled, soil fertilised and crops planted and harvested. Like in no other city in the world, urban farming has taken root in Detroit, not just as a hobby or a sideline but as part of a model for a wholesale revitalisation of a major city. Some farms are the product of hardy individualists or non-profit community groups. Others, like Hantz Farms, are backed by millions of dollars and aim to build the world’s biggest urban farm right in the middle of the city.
Mark Covington, 38, is one of those 21st-century pioneers, though he stumbled on his role almost by accident. Finding himself unemployed after losing his job as an environmental engineer and living back with his mother two years ago, he started tidying up an empty lot near his Georgia Street home, planting vegetables and allowing local people to harvest them for free. An orchard of fruit trees followed, as did a community centre – made by converting a pair of empty buildings – which keeps local youths off the streets. The result is a transformation of the area around his childhood home. Local kids come to movie nights held amid the crops. Residents love the free, fresh food in an area where no major supermarkets exist. The Georgia Street Community Garden is never vandalised.
Link (with video) -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
This was the winner over at Craftster’s current challenge to totally revamp a board game – and user KandeeCorner did just that by turning her garden to look like Candyland!
Each little micro garden matches the board game (more or less). They have a theme, smell, color and -where I could a taste made with interspersing herbs (lemon balm in the yellow garden), Licorice in the purple one, etc.
Link – via uniqueunusualandinterestingart
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was created by Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick in Dumfries, Scotland in 1989. It contains unusual geometric patterns in order to inspire the mind. The mound pictured above was designed around the Fibonacci sequence. This is a private garden and open to the public only one day a year.
Link via The Presurfer | Video | Official Website | Photo: flickr user Paulus Maximus! used under Creative Commons license.
Photo by Iwan Baan
Gorgeous design and blending of utilitarian and aesthetic elements. More photos at link (The Contemporist).
The New York based landscape and urban design office of Balmori Associates has designed the “Garden That Climbs The Steps” in Bilbao, Spain.
Photo credits: Kevin Conger (top left), Nancy Conger (top right), Tom Fox (bottom)
The Crack Garden is an award-winning project by CMG Landscape Architecture in San Francisco, California. The project transforms a desolate concrete landscape into a lush garden:
Inspired by the tenacious plants that pioneer the tiny cracks of urban landscapes, a backyard is transformed through hostile takeover of an existing concrete slab by imposing a series of "cracks". The rows of this garden contain a lushly planted mix of herbs, vegetables, flowers, and rogue weeds retained for their aesthetic value.
Pothos has thousands of followers and gives regular updates. Pothos … is also a plant. A built-in moisture meter relays messages about the plant’s current state in order to remind its owner when it needs watering. This is, one has to admit, a potentially wonderful innovation for those of us with thumbs that are anything but green. Still, Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?
Are you slowly killing your houseplants? Is it because you’re too busy Twittering? THEN HAS THE INTERNET GOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOU!
link -via huffingtonpost
A simple, weatherproof camera designed for the garden or wildlife enthusiast. It can be programmed to take photos at variable intervals for the creation of time-lapse movie files.
It can focus as close as 20″ away to illustrate petal growth or, with its wide 54″ field of view, it can capture perennials as they grow to conceal your spent spring bulb foliage. The camera takes a picture at one of six pre-determined intervals (five seconds to 24 hours) and combines them into a single 1280 x 1024 resolution AVI movie file for easy playback on a computer. It has a light sensor that turns off the camera at dusk and back on at dawn, allowing for continued video capture each day. Movies are timestamped and stored on the camera’s removable 2GB USB flash drive, which can take up to 18,000 pictures.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Betcha didn’t know that "ha-ha" is an actual word meaning a trench, basically a sunken fence to keep livestocks from coming into your backyard while preserving the uncluttered look of the landscape:
… the name is derived from the response of ordinary folk on encountering them and that they were, "…then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them Ha! Ha’s! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk."
More on Ha-ha at Wikipedia – via Fancy Notion’s Word of the Day
