The Imitation Game

Being the hopeless romantic that I am, my girlfriend and I went to Forster on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast to swim with dolphins over the Valentine's Weekend. It was a perfect day, we got to see so many of these amazing, playful and curious creatures all within what felt like arms length.

The whole experience reminded me of what wonders we have in our lives and how the natural world has helped develop some pretty amazing technology that has helped our daily lives.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if this is true good old Mother Nature must be very flattered indeed. You only have to look to modern designs, structures & man made landscapes to see we are are incorporating and re-creating more natural elements into our lives.

The increased use of green (or vertical) walls and roofs in and on buildings attempt recreate mountain, alpine, coastal and cliff face landscapes, with the benefit of reducing radiant heat and energy costs (but more on this subject at a later date).

Doing a bit of research for this blog (yes I do some research, it all can't be flying by the seat of my pants stuff) I discovered the concept of Biomimicry. It's a fascinating discipline aiming to create nature-inspired solutions for complex human challenges in sustainability, environmental protection and technology. There are some interesting examples of Biomimicry.

Take Velcro for example, that nifty invention came about in 1941 when a Swiss Electrical Engineer by the name of George De mestral was walking in the woods with his dog, on his return he noticed he and his dog were covered in Burdock Burrs (Arctium sp.). Curious to how they worked, he took a closer look with a microscope and wondered how this kind of hook and loop system could be useful, in 1948 Velcro was invented.

Arctium sp. Burdock Burr

Another fascinating example is the Lotus plant or Water Lily (Nymphea sp.). Despite growing in the muddy bottoms of lakes and ponds the leaves always seem to stay clean. This is due to the micro-rough surface of the leave, this "self cleaning" system repels dust particles, as soon as a speck of dust lands it it quickly ushered to a central point on the leaf, once the leaf has water land on it (rain etc) the dust is washed off. A clever German company, ISPO, spent four years studying this phenomenon and developed a paint with similar properties, reducing the need to wash the outside of your house.

Nymphea sp. Lotus or Water Lilly

Ever seen the seeds of Maples (Samara) fall from the trees? The start spinning like a helicopter rotor blade the moment they fall, twirling like an aerial ballerina - an extraordinary engineering feat from Mother Nature designed to disperse the seed far away from the parent plant. If you haven't witnessed it for yourself, get onto YouTube now!

The Maple Seed - Samara

The Samara seed design works so well that they have been studied for years and just over 8 years ago serious applications began to surface in the area of drone technology. In June 2012, American global aerospace, defense and security technologies company Lockheed Martin posted a rather cool video on YouTube of the drone technology they have been working on called Samarai - you can check it out here: Lockheed Martin Samarai

Life can be a wonderful thing, all you have to do is look around, walk outside - take a short trip or along one, somewhere new or re-visit an old favorite. Of course to me, life within the natural world is something else, something much more wonderful, powerful and beautiful.

What inspires you?

Forest through the Weeds

Did I ever tell you I hate weeds? Well I do. A lot.

As I walked through the nursery today I was reminded of my hatred. I kept wandering off to pull weeds out of our stock, in particular Fireweed (pictured above) a plant I have a deep hatred for.

On the way home this afternoon, as I pull up the traffic lights near a new sub division I see swathes of Rhodes Grass (Chloris gayana) lining the road verges, most likely planted there to stabilize the roadsides during and after earth works are carried out. A very effective grass indeed but it does tend to spread into areas where it becomes an issue.

Due to the good rains we have had during the middle of summer, weeds have exploded around the Sydney area. Weeds by nature are opportunistic, spread freely and set numerous viable seeds - if plants could get jealous they would certainly get jealous of weeds.

So what is a weed? Back when I was studying, a weed was anything classed as a 'plant growing out of place'. Certainly you could say it's any unwanted plant, or something not native or endemic to the particular area - but what about the exotic selection in the average home garden or the non-native trees lining our streets?

A weed to me is a plant that colonizes and is persistent in an ecosystem that it did not once belong. Weeds in general show many of the same characteristics - weeds can be native and exotic. You can find a lot of good weedy information at the Weeds in Australia or Grow Me Instead websites.

Weeds in Australia (and around the world for that matter) are spreading at a rate that far out weighs the management of them. Controlling weeds consumes a large amount of resources and of course money - it literally costs billions a year. It's hard to put a figure of course on the actual cost to the natural environment but in Agricultural/Horticultural terms, it is estimated at around $4 Billion dollars annually - that's a lot of peso's!

It's not all doom and gloom though, weeds are, in some cases playing there part in alternate environment. Take Lantana camara for example, a significant weed Australia wide. A true 'Frankenstein' of a plant, a hybrid that its true origin is fairly unknown. Though it has provided habitat for small insectivorous native birds and smaller mammals like possums but unfortunately also for foxes. Lantana also serves as a pretty useful buffer between disturbed bushland and intact good bushland.

My daughters often make comment about to all the "pretty flowers" they see , most of these are weeds like Purple Top (Verbena), Gazania (pictured above), Coreopsis & Dandelion flowers and the fluffy seed heads they enjoy to spread (come on, tell me you didn't also do this) to name a few. I think the attitude of my daughters is fairly reflective of the general consensus - weeds are so common now they are simply tolerated.

Where would you start when faced with the above? Yes, it's a big problem, bigger still when you stand back and take in the whole thing. It's the overwhelming sense of futility that we all feel when faced with a garden, paddock or bush full of weeds. Where do we start?

Though like a lot of problems facing society today, it's something we all have a part to play in - Think Globally, Act Locally they say, its a great saying but I prefer an old gardeners saying when thinking about managing weeds is: "One year of seeding equals seven years of weeding".