Posts

Showing posts with the label little frankie

Ask the Perfumer - Sunday, May 20, 2012 - until 10 PM EST

Image
 I'll be here for your perfumery questions until 10 PM EST.  In the meantime, here's an update on Little Frankie - Little Frankie out of the shipping box Dec. 2011 Little Frankie May 2012 So many fragrant flowers are in bloom here at Casa Jasmin!  A neighbor walking his dog stopped to mention the fragrance, and I pointed out several of the beauties responsible for scenting my street. But perhaps the sweetest victory, unscented, is the thriving health of Little Frankie, my frankincense sacra plant.  He arrived defoliated, looking like a sick little stick in December, and how he's sprouting out all over.  Typical of frankincense "trees" he's going to have a weird, twisted shape that is just fine with me.  I care about his health, and the wonderful chance to nurture such a rare historical plant. 

Frankincense Friday - Little Frankie is leafing out after waking up from his dormant period

Image
On December 19, 2011, I wrote about the arrival of my little frankincense tree.  Click here to read and see the photo.  Even for a dormant tree, Little Frankie looked pretty poorly.  The heat pack that he was shipped with torched his growing tip, and fried his few remaining leaves.  I potted him up in a cactus soil mix, put him on my kitchen windowsill and watered him with about a teaspoon of filtered water once or twice a week.  I'm sure my housekeeper thought I was overly optimistic, as he looked like a bare, dead twig. On March 18, Jeanne Rose wrote to me via my Anya's Garden Perfumes group on Facebook, asking how my tree was doing, as she believed hers, purchased at the same time, was dead.  Later that day I observed Little Frankie starting with the tiniest of leaves flushing out, and told Jeanne to have patience, perhaps her tree would come out of dormancy, too. I had been cautiously optimistic, because the dead tip, also the site of the apical meristem in the plant,