If I don't respond here in two hours...

...then please call the cops! I just got word that Violent Villain and his lovely spouse Viola Vixen are twenty minutes away and coming after me! I think he's still hot because I trounced him so Vociferacely in our recent Parrotia debate. I am going to try to placate him with some bottled spirits, but if this doesn't work I'm just hoping I can outrun him, although my knees are not much better than his. If you are of a prayerful kind, please utter one on my behalf.

Scott

one on my behalf one on my behalf one on my behalf one on my behalf one on my behalf

39 minutes to go . LOL

you lucky devil......right there in person.

Hey,
I hope he remembered the elbow pads for the arm wrestling match. kt

I called the cops.

Whew, that wasn't so bad. I am pleased to report that John must've been on his medications, for we all enjoyed a very nice afternoon! Gave him and Marianne the fifty cent tour of the Beuerlein Estate, had lunch at a local place, and then did the $1.00 tour of Rowe Arboretum. I even got a few pictures. Here is John pointing out to Ernie the north side exfoliation on a Pinus bungeana.

Scott

And me demonstrating that the thing should be limbed up to at least thirty feet.

Which would turn this:

Into this....almost overnight. But I digress...

Left to right, my lovely wife, John's lovely wife, (both of us have over-achieved on the spousal front, btw), and the Vernal Vigilante himself.

Scott

Glad to find ya all in one piece and that you all had a great time.

Oh, great tree too!

And we took this picture for Dybuk. An attractive little mutant called Pinus thunbergii "Oculus Draconus." We are, after all, always thinking of others!

Scott

Scott,

Who won the arm-wrestling contest? P. b. 'Spring Ghost' is a product of its good fortune of being limbed up and exposed to light for a good number of years to let Housewife #3 scrub whatever she scrubs. Otherwise, it would still be growing in relative anonymity there at the Dawes. Sounds like you all had a nice time! What is the Beuerlein Estate?

Regards,
Ernie

Hi Ernie,

The Beuerlein Estate? A glorious, crowning horticultural achievement called my yard. Seems to confound most people, but I like it from time to time. The rocks grow well here, as does the occasional maple and hornbeam.

If you're ever in Cincinnati, ring me up. I'll give you a beer and waive the admission fee.

Scott

Looking good! Our weather turned unseasonably cold and rainy today.

I was kind of hoping that John took you out cause I was hopping the next plane to get the first chance at the abandoned digs at your garden. It is not that I wouldn't miss you it is just that I would want to score all the variety waiting there for me to bring to my arboretum. I shall start another thread to get you guys going at each other again. Maybe next time. Lets see the tiltle of the next controversy. Hmmmmmm. Oh I have it "What is the perfect planting technique, Variety or Singular species in a garden setting"

"both of us have over-achieved on the spousal front"

Around here we call that out-kicking your coverage.

I like to say that our reach exceeds our grasp...

Referring back to Scott's inauspicious post of Nov. 10 around 4:50 pm....here's what the fine (un-DefiledDenaturedDestroyed) Pinus bungeana actually looked like at the Rowe Arboretum.

Quite nice in its shades of greens, chartreuses, yellows, creams, reds, purples, oranges, russets, browns, silvers, grays, and whites.

Makes the old 'Spring Ghost' look positively bleached out.

VV,

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder for sure. I suspect that if the image was taken not using flash, the other colors would show up moreso than they do in the picture the way that it is now. I hope you don't mind that I took it into my loving hands and cured it as much as I could in Photoshop. Pictured below. I prefer my P. bungeana shorter on the greens and longer on the reds and whites. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c16/erniew/plants/PinusBungeanaStem.jpg This is plant is just to the left of P. bungeana 'Spring Ghost' at Dawes. You can see 'Spring Ghost' throught the crook just left of center. For what it's worth, flash struck again and somewhat overexaggerated the colors in Scott's pictures.

Grrrr, Original correction was in the wrong color space for web use. Correction of the correction below.

Ernie

LHDP:

Is your other job cosmetology?

No, all you've done is tart it up. My picture is pretty much what it looks like, warts and all.

I don't have anything against the lacebark pines at Dawes; I just think they've been robbed of what else they could be. There's a place for monochromatic, and then there's otherwise.

VV,

I am a photographic cosmetologist! By nature, photography is fraught with error, no fault to the picture taker. Camera meters attempt to make everything 18% or 12% grey, depending on the camera. This is made very obvious when shooting small subjects (like Ptelea seeds) against the sky or pictures in the snow. The sky turns 18% grey and everything else goes goes black. To a lesser extent, this can be seen in other images. In the lacebark pine image, the camera metered 18% for flash on the trunk, which was actually slightly overexposed and left some flash glare. Overexposure (especially in digicams) means flat or uncontrasty images. The camera tries to make up for this but it is only a guess by some engineer in Japan that thinks you're taking pictures of sunlit people. I added contrast to the image and actually desaturated the greens some because of the color processing algorithms of point and shoot cameras. The bottom line: in order to get documentary color reproduction, the person taking the photo needs to understand the limitation of the camera and work around them.

All of my above technobabble aside, I'm not sure if I understand your last statement. I know that you may prefer a phone call to discuss such matters as it is quicker, etc. I can't say how much I've learned from reading on the net between two parties discussing something that was new to me. It is a great way to indirectly share what we know. If you do prefer a phone call I'm not opposed.

Best Regards,
Ernie

This is what I have been trying to tell him