Purdue Extension Service
Purdue Extension Service
Vanderburgh County, Indiana
The following links and sites on this page lead to various horticultural items that tickle my admittedly strange sense of humor. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
If you know of a link or have a picture that you think belongs here, please e-mail me at:
Strange Stories: Various bizarre stories and other text items I've found on the web.
Peculiar Pictures: Photographs of strange things people do to plants. Photographs for the DNR "Weird Trees" contest are also shown here.
Laughable Links: Miscellaneous web sites that I found intriguing. Some online games, an online comic strip, and more!
Music to Mulch By: Lyrics and actual songs (and poetry) involving gardening.
What's up with all that turfgrass?: Listen in as Heaven tries to understand modern urban horticulture.
Ban Dihydrogen Oxide!: Information on a "frightening" chemical.
Cloning of the Zucchini Opiate Receptor: An extremely peculiar scientific experiment using zucchini, hot plates, and a Mr. Potato Head (tm) toy, published by the Annals of Improbable Research.
Fire Ants -- A Darwin Awards Winner: So, you don't want to use those nasty pesticides? See what happens when an unsafe alternative is used. This also links to the Official Darwin Awards page (Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool... by removing themselves from it in really stupid ways...).
Washington Town Fends Off Tumbleweeds: And you thought YOU had weed problems?
Join the Plastic Pink Flamingo Boycott!: Someone has secretly monkeyed with the classic plastic pink flamingo -- and outraged connoisseurs are calling for a worldwide boycott of America's beloved bauble of bad taste. Published by the Annals of Improbable Research.
Beaver Dams: Here's a story of how a couple of beavers violated Michigan law by engaging in "construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams."
Tree vs. Man: A Darwin Award Winner showing that there is a right way to remove a tree. Actually, this was the wrong way.
Catapult: Another man vs. tree Darwin Award Winner. This one was so weird, it had to be true.
Watch Out For That Tree! : Yet another man vs. tree Darwin Award Winner . There seems to be a pattern developing....
Brussels sprouts: Not everyone likes them...
Butterfly Swarm: Not funny, but amazing and beautiful.
Camouflage in Nature: An interesting picture of a baby deer hiding in an unusual location.
Can't cut the grass closer than this!
Change of Grade: Raising or lowering the soil around a tree during construction, even by a couple of inches, can be quite harmful to the tree's health.
Corn hunters: Bringing home dinner.
Darth Tater: Mr. Potato Head jumps the Star Wars bandwagon....
Deforestation: Can't see the forest for the trees...wait, now we can!
Department of Unnatural Resources
Dog Digging: One of the more unusual pest problems I've had to deal with....
Dragonfly Wings: A wonderful high-resolution close-up of the intricacy of the network of veins in an insect wing.
Drought Effect on a Lake: The effects of the 2002 drought on a reservoir in Colorado I happened to see while on vacation. Not really funny -- actually, downright scary!
Dry Christmas Tree on Fire: Clicking this link will open up a short movie to show why it is so important to keep your Christmas tree hydrated. Basically, after the onset of a spark, the tree is completely engulfed in flames in less than five seconds, and the entire room is filled with flame and smoke in under a minute. This film is offered in several different formats. For more information on fire safety, go to the US Fire Administration's "Holiday Fire Prevention" page.
Dumb Gardener: It's not rocket science....
Electric Chainsaws: This is why my wife bought me an electric chainsaw for Christmas...
Fast Food table: Is that for here or to go?
Fall Leaves: fun for some, but not so fun for others
Fear of Pesticides: What happens when you don't completely understand the topic....
Forest Politics: He used the "L" word!
Gardening, herbivore style: Another one from Kevin & Kell.
Great Tomatoes: Why do those tomatoes taste so good? From the on-line comic strip Kate's Mountain, by my artiste friend Kathy Garrison-Kellogg.
Green concrete One and Two: When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, a neighbor finally got fed up with mowing, weeding, watering and fertilizing his lawn. So, he poured a concrete pad, which he felt was low-maintenance. And then he painted it green so that passers-by would think it was a lawn! Too bad, then, that the following night, some unnamed scalawag painted little yellow dandelions all over it....
How Not to Fertilize Your Tree
Insect Egg Laying: Good places, and not so good places...
Ladybugs: How to identify different types of ladybugs.
Mean Ol' Farmer: ...chasing away those poor starving bunnies...
Molting: Time lapse photos of an anise swallowtail caterpillar molting.
Mosquitoes: Rated PG for language.
Organic fruit production: A good choice...?
Peonies Envy: From the on-line comic strip Kate's Mountain, by my artiste friend Kathy Garrison-Kellogg.
Philosophy and mowing: You can learn a lot from your lawn....
Plant More Trees!: These are a series of comic strips from a New Zealand comic called "Footrot Flats." Warning: This page will take a while to download if you're on a 56K modem. It's worth it, though....
Playing With Your Food: Some extraordinary artwork using fresh fruit and vegetables.
Praying Mantis: Cartoon that is literally indescribable...
Praying Mantis Babies: Another cartoon that I won't try to describe....
Preventing cold injury to trees has never been easier! Or weirder....
Problems with mail order seeds
Real Men Like Flowers: At least, I'm not going to tell him otherwise....
Real Roots: Not really funny, but a good picture of how people think tree roots grow, and how they really do.
Saving paper can be taken to extremes.
Sick pumpkin: This one's a little gross.
Square watermelons won't roll out of your refrigerator.
Strawberries -- they come in all sizes! Big ones and little ones!
The Wilderness, improved: Courtesy of Kevin and Kell.
Toxicity Test: From the on-line comic Nip and Tuck.
Trained houseplants? From on-line comic Kevin & Kell (see below).
Tree Pruning Safety: Several reasons why you should leave pruning to the professionals
Tree Huggers: Sometimes it's a good thing to be a tree hugger. Sometimes, it's not...
Tree Swing: an Oldy but Goody
Trees are a renewable resource...aren't they?
UnCooperative Extension Service: An old Crankshaft comic.
Unsafe mowing practices: This isn't funny...at least, it shouldn't be. Too many serious injuries occur when safe mowing practices aren't followed.
Unusual hazard on the golf course: Although this type of hazard is more common than most golfers think, this particular picture was taken at the military golf course at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska.
What to do with overmature cucumbers.
Wildlife for Sale: I took this picture in Evansville. This beautiful hawk's choice of a roosting place made a strong political statement.
Weird Trees Wanted!: Learn how to enter photos in the IDNR Weird Trees Wanted contest!
Udder Insanity: Help the farmer milk his cows, but be quick!
Kevin & Kell: This is one of my favorite on-line comic strips. A rabbit married a wolf, and moved into a tree with her wolf cub and his adopted hedgehog daughter. . . . Occasionally some good horticulture jokes. Rated "G", safe for all!
Crash Bonsai: OK, so you want to grow a bonsai tree, but you want to spice it up a little? Why not add a little realism to your plant?
Bonsai Potato: As their website says, "Zen without the wait."
Squirrel Fishing: Harvard University looks at a new approach to rodent performance evaluation.
Demotivators: "If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
Playing With Time: This website hosts numerous short QuickTime movies where you can experience a natural event either speeded up or slowed down considerably. Use the main link to check out the entire site; or check out some of the following ones that I thought were most interesting from a horticultural viewpoint:
Urban Sprawl: A look at how the San Francisco Bay Area has changed over the last 80 years.
New York Stream: Four months at a stream, starting in mid-winter.
New York Forest: A year in the life of a forest.
Dandelion: What happens in the one second it takes to blow the seeds off a dandelion fluff.
Forest Regrowth: Twenty years of forest life after a forest fire.
Powers of 10: View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
aMaizing Plant Disease Game: A very cute little game from Great Britain. Try to grow a crop of maize (corn) without being devastated by disease.
Plants Are Evil: ...and research from Cambridge University in Great Britain backs this up! (This site is too bizarre to describe, you need to see it for yourself....)
"Instructional" videos: I found these videos while cruising the internet. All of these are definitely examples of what NOT to do! Please note: all of these videos are off-site, and I cannot be held accountable for their loss or alteration; while the videos are G-rated, some of the other stuff at these sites may be better suited for mature audiences.
Pruning, Calvin Style: I'm not sure who this "Calvin" is, but he doesn't know much about pruning.
Grafting, Calvin Style: He knows even less about grafting.
Tree Surgeons: OK, how many things are these guys doing wrong? And why am I not surprised about the results?
Catch a Falling...Tree?: From Japanese television. I have no idea what the announcer is saying, but I don't think it really matters....
Fountains: The World of Water: Everything you ever wanted to know about water fountains, including their history, pictures of historical fountains and water gardens, and even safety topics for installing your own garden fountain.
Garden Song: Always wanted to know the lyrics to Arlo Guthrie's famous song? How about the infamous "anti-garden" verses? Click here to find them!
English Country Garden: I remember hearing this song on the old "Captain Kangaroo" TV show, back in the 60's (and does THAT date me or what?). After several decades of searching, I found the song, sung by Jimmie Rodgers (be warned, the file is 3.1 meg, so it'll take some time to download!). Click here to read the lyrics, courtesy of Taylor's Traditional Tunebook.
Song of the Open Road, by Ogden Nash: No, I didn't recognize the title, either, but it's my favorite poem about trees! It might make more sense if you first read Trees, by Joyce Kilmer. You decide which is better! (By the way: Joyce Kilmer was a man, who grew up in New Jersey, not too far from my old stompin' grounds.)
Bonny Portmore: A beautifully sad song by Celtic artist Loreena McKennitt. She sings of the loss of a historic old tree in England.
The Return of the Giant Hogweed: A very bizarre song by the rock group Genesis (Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, etc.) from their 1971 album "Nursery Crymes" (yes, that's the correct spelling). Traces the origin of this highly invasive, highly noxious weed into England. The main reason I'm including it here is that as of June 2004, this very nasty weed was discovered in northern Indiana. Learn more about this plant.
The People are Scratching: This song, sung by folk singer Pete Seeger on his album God Bless the Grass, played a pivotal point in my environmental awareness. I remember as a child my parents playing this song on our old record player (the great grandfather of the CD Player, for any kids reading this!). The domino effect of what could have been a reasonable pest control approach leads to some fairly funny but disastrous consequences.
Big Yellow Taxi: This song, by Joni Mitchell, was another pivotal point in my environmental awareness as a child. Written in 1970, it appears off and on at random on "easy listening" radio stations. It took me years (and the power of Google) to find this song, simply because the title is so unexpected (I remember going into music stores asking for the song "They Took Paradise"...no wonder nobody knew what I was talking about!). The refrain ("They paved paradise And put up a parking lot") really got me thinking about urban sprawl and the loss of habitat, long before these were considered to be real problems by most of society.
Talkin' Harvest Time Blues: A delightfully silly song that any gardener who's ever seen a seed catalog will appreciate. Written and sung by Stephanie Davis; you have to hear it to appreciate the poetry and cadence of the song.
