Lost in (Tony Avent's) Space

It's a warm, humid day in Chacala. I spent the morning fashioning some pots for plants out of miscellaneous junk from around town. Mostly various plastic and metal throways. Made holes in the bottoms, and kind of wired some things together. I will probably transfer the plants to nicer containers when I get some, but these are okay for now.

It started raining about three hours ago, and I came in the house to check my email, and somehow ended up at the website of Plant Delights, a wonderful plant nursery owned by Tony Avent and located in North Carolina. And then I spent the last three hours lost in reading his expedition reports from South Africa and Thailand/Vietnam. The reports were wonderful, and the many, many photos were incredible. I could barely drag myself back to boring old Mexico. What a great read!

And, right at the end of the hours of reading, there were two photos of my very favorite plant here in Mexico. Of course it grows lots of places, but these photos were of the Desert Rose/Adenium /Rosa de el Desierto, taken in Thailand.

I hope I get to go to the plant markets and nurseries in Thailand before I die. Or getting to garden there would be fine too. One photo was taken at Mr. Jiew's Unyamanee Garden nursery, showing a variegated form. The other photo was a taken at a booth in the Chatuhak plant market in Bangkok, and shows about fifty Adenium plants waiting for sale.

I want to download and post these two great photos on this blog. I just emailed Plant Delights to see what their policy is about using two photos from the expedition reports for personal, not professional purposes, like this blog.

Have to wait and see. I am still unclear about when it's okay to use other peoples' from the web. And what the legal and customary practices are. Particularly when I can't find anything written on the website.
Later (\August 9 2006) Just received an email from Tony Avent, with permission to use his photos. Very nice, and much appreciated.

Above: Adeniums at a booth at the Bangkok Chatuchak Plant Market
Below: variagated Adenium at the Unyamanee Garden Nursery, in Bangkok
Photos used with permission of Plant Delights Nursery

Later that evening: I just want to mention that my introduction to the current plant expeditions (as opposed to those from the 1700, 1800, and 1900s) came from reading Daniel Hinkley's expedition reports in his (late and much lamented) Heronswood Nursery catalogue and website.