Plants

Those searching for answers to the question " Is medical marijuana good medicine? " will find few in Dr. David Sack's Times Op-Ed article.   On the one hand, Sack concedes, "Marijuana can effectively treat neuropathic pain, and it has been shown to improve appetite and reduce nausea," an acknowledgment substantiating the plant's therapeutic utility. However, he later warns that cannabis' ability to provide relief for certain other conditions, such as lupus and anxiety, remains unproven.

A malfunctioning golf cart, a faulty electrical system or even arson could have led to the fire that triggered the deadly explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, but federal and state officials said Thursday that their $1-million investigation had yet to find the cause. Fourteen people died in the April 17 blast, including 12 first responders who arrived nine minutes after the fire was reported - and just eight minutes before the explosion shook the town, devastated two schools and shattered a nursing home.

Companion planting is based on the idea that, like people, some plants do better with good neighbors. For tomatoes, strawberries and squash, one of the most popular of companion plants is borage ( Borago officinalis ). As a seedling, borage doesn't reveal its potential. The leaves are rough and fat, and as they get older, covered in fur. Only when the sparkling lavender star-shaped flowers appear in spring-summer does borage, also known as starflower, shows its potential: Bees and pest-killing wasps love the blooms.

POOLESVILLE, Md.  - On a curve of the Potomac River 37 miles northwest of Washington, the Dickerson power plant has stood sentry over small villages, crop fields and horse farms for more than half a century. Burning mostly coal and some natural gas, Dickerson emitted about 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2011, akin to the pollution of about 275,000 cars. How much longer Dickerson will run depends in no small measure on the steps President Obama takes to fulfill the pledge he made in his State of the Union address to tackle climate change.

In the heart of the Wilshire Park historic district, Horacio Fuentes has built a garden with the feel of his native El Salvador. It begins by the sidewalk, where a pito coral tree grows, planted 15 years ago. It hasn't yet produced the dramatic red flowers that, when eaten, are said to prompt a deep sleep with intense, erotic dreams. Maybe it's too cold here, Fuentes said. He's had more success with his papayas. The plants are scattered around the frontyard, low enough to harvest, each with a cluster of ripening fruit pushing out from the main trunk.

At Wattles Farm, the community garden in Hollywood, Gina Thomas pointed out a cluster of tiny, husk-enclosed ground cherries hidden among the foliage. Some were no bigger than marbles. "It comes from South America," she said, adding that one Wattles gardener from Poland makes pies out of the cherries. "They look like tomatillos but are sweet and tart at the same time -- the crunchiness of a tomato with the sweetness of a cherry. The very yellow ones are the sweetest. " But be warned: The leaves and unripened fruit are toxic.

Kendall Brown, professor of Asian art history at Cal State Long Beach and one of the experts to weigh in on the Storrier Stearns garden in Pasadena ( see related article ), has a book coming out this month. It's titled “Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America ,” and for this edited Q&A, we asked about his fascination with Japanese gardens, how best to experience them and why our notion of Japanese gardens is not entirely Japanese. What do you find most intriguing about Japanese gardens?

The Product: Experts have been saying for years that there's no such thing as a magic pill for weight loss. But who knows? They used to think no pill could treat bacterial pneumonia or erectile dysfunction. At a time when scientists are unlocking new secrets about our appetites and metabolism, it seems at least remotely plausible that the secret to a slimmer body could someday fit into a capsule. Maybe it's already there.

The tromboncino squash in Nancy Howell's garden plot doesn't resemble the trombone for which it's named but, rather, a french horn. “This is what happens when you stay away for one day,” she says, laughing, holding up a huge squash that's curled in on itself like a snail. Tromboncino is a highly vigorous variety -- some would say an aggressive squash -- that can take over a plot quickly. For that reason Howell, a member of the Ocean View Farms community garden in Mar Vista, plants it toward the end of summer on the heels of less-demanding summer squash.

In a neighborhood of manicured lawns and well-groomed flower beds, it's easy to spot Bart and Rosalie Palisi's Anaheim Hills home. Their yard features several varieties of the cacti and succulents they have nurtured from seedlings. "We've always loved cactus and succulents," Rosalie explained. "When we moved to Southern California, it made sense to try to plant something in keeping with the desert environment. We wanted a yard that was low maintenance, yet attractive.

HOUSTON - A paramedic who responded to the devastating fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, last month was arrested Friday after federal investigators said they discovered he had the makings of a pipe bomb. It was not clear whether the arrest was connected to the April 17 explosion, which killed 14 people and injured more than 160 others in the small McLennan County town about 70 miles south of Dallas. The explosion had been investigated as an industrial accident, but officials said Friday they had started a criminal investigation.

California energy officials are preparing for another summer without the San Onofre power station while facing the growing possibility that the nuclear plant will never return to service. The nuclear plant, one of only two in the state, was powered down more than a year ago when a small amount of radioactive mist leaked from one of the thousands of tubes in the plant's steam generators. Southern California Edison officials said in financial statements last week that if federal regulators do not agree to the utility's proposal to restart one of the plant's two units at partial power, they might elect to retire the plant completely by the end of the year.

An epic battle is raging in South Florida: man against snail. The state is struggling to contain an invasion of the giant African land snail, a species that thrives in hot and wet tropical climates. These gooey and destructive mollusks grow up to 8.5 inches long, feast on 500 different types of plants and nibble on calcium-rich stucco, which they use to construct their cone-shaped shells. The snails are originally from East Africa but can now be found throughout the world. Aside from destroying plants and buildings, they can also be carriers of a type of meningitis.

Mike Gray, an author, activist and documentarian who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for "The China Syndrome," the provocative 1979 film about a cover-up at a nuclear power plant, died Tuesday of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home, his family said. He was 77. Gray developed the "China Syndrome" story after reading books and interviewing scientists about the dangers of nuclear power. No one knew how timely the subject would prove. A nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania went into partial meltdown barely three weeks after the opening of the movie, which starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas and became a box-office and critical success.

Traditionally, working folk dreamed of retiring to California to grow citrus, or more recently wine grapes, but these days the second career crop of choice appears to be artisanal olive oil. Fresh, local oil is all the rage; universities and industry groups help guide aspiring growers, and once their groves start bearing, many sell at farmers markets, where they earn premium prices and enjoy schmoozing with shoppers. Mark Mooring of Buon Gusto Farms followed an unusual version of this path, from starting the Los Angeles Police Department K-9 Platoon to growing olives in Ventura, where he produces richly flavored, award-winning oils.

An environmental group has warned that a federal agency's plan to designate 98.4 acres as critical habitat for an endangered plant in western Riverside County is inadequate and could result in the extinction of the species. In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this month designated the small area just west of Lake Elsinore as critical habitat for Munz's onion. The wildlife agency also rejected the center's request for it to protect habitat for the endangered San Jacinto Valley crownscale, which inhabits portions of the San Jacinto River flood plain near Hemet.

James Cameron's science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" takes place in 2154 on the lush moon Pandora. To help make the set believable, Jodie Holt, chairwoman of the department of botany and plant sciences at UC Riverside, was approached to consult on the film's plant life, as well as how a botanist would study such flora. Holt, a plant physiologist, talked about her involvement in the film and the "Pandorapedia," a detailed catalog of the moon's features, including its many plants. How did you become involved in the film?

Some say that aquaponics may be the future of local food production, especially in cities. Why? Well, it's a soilless, recirculating system that uses the waste products of one system to fuel another and uses much less water than conventional farming in the process. In this case, fish (tilapia, for instance) provide fertilizer for the plants growing on the water's surface while the plants (vegetables, flowers or herbs) filter water for the fish below. Evo Farm in Mar Vista is currently Los Angeles' only operating aquaponics farm.

State regulators took the highly unusual step Wednesday of suspending operations at a Vernon battery recycler that has discharged harmful quantities of lead for years and more recently has been deemed to pose a danger to as many as 110,000 people because of arsenic emissions. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control said its order came after officials learned this spring that Exide Technologies, one of the largest car battery recyclers in the world, had been continuously releasing hazardous waste into the soil beneath its plant because of a degraded pipeline.

An environmental group has warned that a federal agency's plan to designate 98.4 acres as critical habitat for an endangered plant in western Riverside County is inadequate and could result in the extinction of the species. In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this month designated the small area just west of Lake Elsinore as critical habitat for Munz's onion. The Fish and Wildlife Service also rejected the center's request for it to protect habitat for the endangered San Jacinto Valley crownscale, which inhabits portions of the San Jacinto River floodplain near Hemet.