Mouse and Trowel winners announced

Celebratory Gazanias.
So the winners of the Mouse and Trowel awards were announced yesterday, and PATSP won for two categories: Best Indoor Gardening Blog, and Post of the Year (for the Zombie Apocalypse post). I didn't acknowledge it yesterday because:

1) We're still dealing with some dog diarrhea issues here (she has yet to go in the house, which is very, very good, and believe me we're appreciative of our good luck on that particular count, but she's also gotten us up in the middle of the night for two nights running), and the sleep-deprivation that goes with that;
2) I did get the box of plants from the post office I mentioned in yesterday's post, and there was repotting and picture-taking to be done;
3) I didn't exactly know what to say.

The traditional Streptocarpus of Public Recognition.
But so I guess what one does in this situation is, one thanks the people involved. So.

• A big thanks to Colleen Vanderlinden and the M&T sponsors, for setting the whole thing up in the first place. I know a lot of work goes into these things.
• Thank-you to everyone who stopped by PATSP to see whether it was worth voting for during the last couple weeks, and a second thank-you to everybody who decided it was worth your vote.
  
• I know it sounds kind of weird, but I want to acknowledge the other blogs in the Indoor Gardening category: Get in the Garden, Indoor Garden-er, Nature Assassin, and Plant Zone. If you aren't already visiting them, you really ought to be. When people said (as people did, often) that Indoor Gardening was an especially tough category in which to vote, they weren't kidding. Please, go visit them and leave them messages about how they were totally robbed. 'Cause they were.
• Should probably also thank the husband, who makes it possible for me to spend almost all my time blogging or watering, and without whom PATSP would be literally impossible, or at least updated a lot less frequently.
• Finally, I have to thank the zombies, whose tireless dedication and perseverance inspires us all. More brains indeed!

Random plant event: Hoya bella flower buds

In October 2008, I traded plants with someone from Garden Web, who gave me three sets of Hoya cuttings: Hoya bella, Hoya carnosa var. holliana, and Hoya picta. Picta only lasted four months before it basically shriveled up and died; carnosa var. holliana looks like it's going to make it, but it's only been actively growing for about six months now; and then we have bella.


Which has produced two sets of buds at some point in the last couple weeks. I wasn't expecting to see flowers on this plant anytime soon. I have twelve Hoyas total now, some of them dating back to 2006, and only lacunosa has bloomed so far. Which, granted, lacunosa has been enthusiastic enough to kind of make up for the rest of them -- it's been more or less continuously in bloom since mid-January -- but I've learned not to have high expectations. Also these are still very small plants. And yet.


I don't know what the smell will be like, or whether there will be a smell at all -- bella is apparently one of those that may or may not have a scent, depending on unknown factors. If it does, it's supposed to smell like candy (still a pretty broad description: circus peanuts? butterscotch discs? Skittles?). And of course the buds may still drop. If they stay on, though, it'll be interesting to see what it's like. I'll let you know.

As a side-note: this is the last day to vote in the Mouse and Trowel Awards. If you intend to but haven't yet, you should definitely do that nowish.

Mouse and Trowel Nominations

PATSP has been nominated for multiple Mouse & Trowel awards. Which is kind of weird. I mean, I'd thought maybe one nomination.

But instead, I'm up for:

Best Container Gardening Blog
Best Indoor Gardening Blog
Best Writing¹
Post of the Year (for the Zombie Apocalypse list)

Obligatory Gazania of Celebration. Gazanias are the official celebratory flower of PATSP since, like, forever.
Or maybe it should be we. "We" are up for four awards. I mean, there's only the one of me, but it sounds classier if it's plural, right? More meaningful somehow? Or does that just make me sound like a crazy person? (Or, more accurately: does that make us sound like a crazy person?²)

The competition on Indoor Gardening Blog is going to be especially painful, as I know (in the internet sense) three out of the four non-PATSP blogs on the list: Plant Zone, Indoor Garden-er, and Nature Assassin. Even more painful is my sudden realization that, of my previous ten posts, only two of them were even remotely related to indoor gardening.

*wince*

(In my defense: it's spriiiiiiing, with all the flowers outside that other people have worked so hard to grow for me to take pictures of! I can't disappoint those people by not photographing their plants, can I?)

Anyway. Final voting goes through 17 May. Be careful about impulsive clicking: once you vote, it appears that you can't change your vote. Or maybe you can, and I just can't figure out how.

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¹ (!!!)
² People? Persons? We're all agreed on "crazy," right?

And the Mousie goes to. . . .

Picture created with ImageGenerator.net.

Faire Garden has won the Mouse and Trowel award for Best New Blog, which PATSP was up for. I suppose I'm okay with that, though I'll admit to being a little disappointed. The other results are here.

One last bit of bribery: three kitties and a motorcycle

For anybody who's been putting off voting in the Mouse & Trowel awards, just one last reminder that it's almost too late to do so. Voting ends at midnight on May 13th (the site says EST, but wouldn't it be EDT? Or is Colleen in one of those places that doesn't do Daylight Savings Time? And is that the midnight that begins May 13, or the midnight that ends May 13? In any case, it'll be midnight somewhere, on some day, when voting is officially over. Probably somewhere in North America. And it'll be soon. So go vote for somebody, if you haven't.).

Also if you really, really want to vote for Garden Rant, I'm okay with it. I think. Though my houseplants and I are still waiting for an apology. And, frankly, the Dieffenbachias are getting a little angry. Watch your back, Amy. They're not fast movers, but they're motivated.

So but check it out. Three kitties and a motorcycle:

Photo from icanhascheezeburger.com. Caption by Mr_Subjunctive.
Photo from icanhascheezeburger.com. Caption by Mr_Subjunctive.
Photo and caption both from icanhascheezeburger.com.
Photo and caption both from icanhascheezeburger.com.

You tolerate me! You really, really tolerate me!

Huh. So I'm actually on the ballot for the Mouse & Trowel awards. Only in the one category (Best New Garden Blog), but hey: am I complaining?

I am not. Though I'm almost certainly going to lose, since one of my competitors in that category (Gardening Gone Wild) is also up for Best Design, Most Innovative, and Garden Blog of the Year, suggesting a level of readership (or ballot-stuffing, or blackmail of Mouse & Trowel's Colleen Vanderlinden) far beyond anything I can dream about yet. I suppose it's, as they say, an honor just to be nominated.

I put in my votes already; I like the general tone of Garden Rant, but I'm somewhat embittered against them for a post from 2006: Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate Houseplants. I kept running across it in the course of searches for one thing or another, and it annoyed me every. Single. Time. I like it even less because I can't tell whether it's tongue in cheek or not. (I'm not sure which would please me less: if it's not a joke, then it's just ignant; if it's tongue in cheek, then they got me all riled for no good reason.) So Garden Rant didn't get any votes from me. Not that they needed my vote anyway.

Which is probably unfair and childish of me, but so be it. Don't nobody come between me and my houseplants. Perhaps next year, after they write a new post praising indoor plants and apologizing for their sad, sad attempt to build up their own plants by tearing down those of others, I'll think about it.¹

(UPDATE: Added a link in the sidebar to Garden Rant. I'm not above being sweetalked, and Susan was persistent.)

I would encourage readers to throw some votes to Mr. Brown Thumb for Post of the Year. Although it's looking more and more like the blog has been retired (though I've seen claims to the contrary, nothing has happened yet; I'm kind of losing hope), Everyone's a Garden Coach is pretty awesome in its randomness.

One of the three sites listed for Best Photography crashes my browser when I try to load it, so I skipped that category. I am not technologically advanced enough to be comfortable with podcasts, so I skipped that one too, though I'm sure they're all very nice.

In any case. Voting is now open, and will remain so for a month. There may be periodic outbreaks of kitten photos from now until the results are announced, as well.² Oh my god -- here comes one now!



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Photo credits: both from Icanhascheezburger.com.

¹ I'm kidding, to the extent that I'm not really that angry about it, but not kidding insofar as -- what the hell? Houseplants are all that some of us have. And they're perfectly harmless. What'd houseplants ever do to you? My Yucca guatemalensis would like to have a word with you, Amy, if you don't mind.
² (Referencing this post and this post.)

Bribery continues: kittens! Candy!

In yesterday's post, I announced my intention to cravenly pander to the demands of the public in an attempt to campaign for certain of the Mouse & Trowel garden blog awards. It was then suggested in the comments of that post that the public demanded some adorable kittens. So. . . .

I had been collecting LOLcats with plant and garden content from I Can Has Cheeseburger? for a while, in the hopes of eventually writing a post about plant toxicity to pets: the rough draft quickly spiraled out of control, and so I think it's going to be a while before that particular post gets written, but I still have the LOLcat pictures. So.

This one was far and away my favorite:


And if you liked that, there's more where that came from. As a really, really unrelated bonus, just in time for Easter:

Assorted pictures / shameless attempt at bribery

Admittedly, I hadn't heard of the Mouse & Trowel awards before a week or two ago, and I don't ordinarily care about popularity contest-type things. Being part of Blotanical (which I have been for like two weeks and change now) has actually done weird things to my psyche: I've found a number of interesting blogs I wouldn't otherwise have run across, and that's good, but the site is set up with a lot of popularity-measuring devices (how many people like you personally but not necessarily your blog, how many people like your blog but not necessarily you personally, how many hits your site gets, how many people like each individual post you do, how many messages you get, how many you send, and so on and so forth. Numbers, numbers, numbers.), which is maybe less good.

Popularity-measuring devices are like catnip to me: really, anything with numbers that can be tracked over time. And I check constantly to see if things got favorited, or if I did, or where the blog is in popularity, and etc. The trouble with this is, then I start thinking about stuff like, why did that lady from Australia favorite my blog and then take it back right away? Is it my language? Sexual orientation? Does she just not like indoor gardening, or Georgia O'Keefe references? What does it mean? What did I do wrong? Should I ask her? But what would I say?

Which then slides easily into thinking like, Well, so then, should I tone down the language a little? Is it actually all that terrible? and Do I need more pictures of flowers and puppies and rainbows and heart-shaped objects and angels?

That this is even something I'm considering is sort of mortifying.

So I feel a little odd asking people to go to Mouse & Trowel and nominate Plants are the Strangest People for anything. This can only make the obsessiveness worse, I think. And yet -- wouldn't it be cool to have a little badge I can stick in the sidebar? Ooo! Shiny!

So here we are, bowing to the inevitable. The nomination form is located here, and I think PATSP would be appropriate in the following categories: Best Writing, Best North American Blog, Best New Blog. While I'm here, I'd also recommend Water When Dry for Best Photography and Blogger You'd Most Like as a Neighbor, and if I must compete on the Best Writing front, then let it be against Zanthan Gardens. I am almost certainly forgetting other worthwhile nominees: I find blogs much faster than I can add them to the blogroll or to my favorites list on my browser.

One need not belong to Blotanical to vote.

Or . . . not. Like who you like. I'm just going to be nakedly partisan about this, because for whatever reason, God help me, I want it. (And yes, I do recognize that trying to claim that I'm the best of this particular crop is, at the very minimum, probably inaccurate. But you may tell me so anyway, if you like.)

In order to make it worth your time, I have pictures! Many pretty, brightly-colored, pictures of flowers! And I'll rent some puppies and force them to frolic adorably, too, if that's what it's going to take. (I will, sadly, have to draw the line at angels.) So behold the bribery goodness:

Guzmania hybrids.


Anthurium andraeanum hybrid at home, which I suspect is probably Twyford International's 'Patriot,' though there are so many that it's hard to be sure, and the plant wasn't labeled when I got it.


An orange, doubled Kalanchoe blossfeldiana. I'd never seen a doubled one before. All bribery joking aside, this is a really interesting plant, and was, I believe, purchased right away, not by me.


Viola hybrid. I think the particular variety is 'Yellow Sorbet' or something like that, but I have the nagging feeling that I'm forgetting or misremembering some part of the name.Viola 'Yellow Delight.'


Nemesia x 'Sunsatia Banana.'


Impatiens 'Fusion Glow.' No really. It's an Impatiens.


Streptocarpus 'Falling Stars.'


Torenia 'Summer Wave Blue?' The ID is a little uncertain.


So that's the Mouse & Trowel Awards, then. Go nominate. Think of the puppies.