Welcome to the Natural Coalescence Blog

You know you're a botanist when typing.... you keep trying to spell "left" but muscle memory keeps making you type "leaf". Even better if autocorrect on your phone has learned you text "take a LEAF" a lot more than "take a LEFT". I call this plantsylexia. Which is still hard to spell, just like dis...dyslexia.

You know that 'adult thing' where you like slipping on a fresh new pair of socks? It's like a cozy snuggle for each foot. It's a thing. There I am craving some warmth for my toesies on a chilly February day, open up my trusty sock drawer and want a small pair, so I pluck one out. And to my surprise there's an extra addition. Not a bug (I try very hard to keep home critter-free) thankfully. I do have plant-socks, fungi socks, and even dinosaur socks, but this is new. Fuzz

This use probably won't make it onto a toaster oven box or manual, but it was only too obvious for me. How else can you encourage some pine cones to open up in the middle of a cold soggy winter when they've closed back up after laying on the ground for a month or two? And all closed up is NOT going to make the right crafting project. What's a botanist to do? Toast them cones! Little toaster oven set to low is just the right size and not wasting too much energy to gently d

Talking with fellow gardeners today, I noticed (again) how commonly we have plants in our pockets. It's what I call "Botanist-ID", like the hints in identifying a plant but rather it's the traits of a plant-person. Key features include: Tendency to talk to plants, having a large collection of indoor plants, and gardening books. Also look for: In their pockets, particularly of jackets or hoodies or even purses- you will likely find parts of plants like seed pods, loose seeds

You know that excitement of seeing new tiny life emerge from the soil, poking its little cotelydon'd head through the harsh grains and into the warm light? And then likely some baby-talk to the seedlings, because they are SO CUTE! Well right now is Fall Seedling time, starting a multitude of native species indoors to keep them safe from hungry critters outside & give them a leg-up on cool fall establishment. You can imagine my window sills and patio are quite full of these

collecting fall leaves, then giving them a bath