I've seen them once in my life, in Smoky Mountains, about 10 years ago. It was pretty much spiritual experience. The darkness came alive. I cried when I saw their luciferase smeared over windshield and glowing long after the creature was dead. I knew lots of lore about them, saw them in mass culture - never realizing I never saw one myself, even though I take care to notice all living things around, from bacteria and yeast to mycchorizal networks.
I live in Europe.
I had (still have) huge problems growing from seeds. The only things that help are:
Then things start to move.
Unfortunately, this way I can't get anything exotic. Even the places that seem decent enough, like Palmatum, send the seeds that just do not work (I had better - order of magnitude better - results with seeds from supermarket apples than from apple seeds they sent me; I wish they sold 5-needle pines and sequoias fruits in supermarkets!). Things are so desperate we've made BAP-6 growth hormone and I'm going to try it on purchased seeds, it must work, I just didn't try yet (someone told me it does exactly the right thing - germinates strong seeds - after trying it, it's my turn now). Here, you can buy some from my store if you like to try it too https://store.zymologia.fi/hormones/24-37-6-bap.html#/17-weight-1_g - it's just as hard to cook 1g as 1kg (apart from reagents cost and work of putting this stuff in jars), so why not share.
I'm too afraid of machines messing up in this. First time I used ChatGPT it literally tried to kill me with an explosion (chemical procedure description done obviously wrong and dangerous; fortunately I asked about something I wrote myself), and with mushroom id it's even simpler than with chemistry.
Oh, these plants are outdoor bonsai, these trees are perfectly accustomed to this climate (thick snow, -30C, some sunless days, etc) and totally do not tolerate indoor tropics.
I tried transplanting some local trees in the fall, as textbooks say, and they perished pathetically. The best time must be some other time. I suppose the best time should be early spring when roots did not wake up enough, but then I might need to break ice. Then now is fast growth slowdown moment, I suppose it must be the next best bet. I'm doing one at a time now!
Thanks!
Just another a bit of advice: remember to reeeeeally carefully inspect grants; in many cases (almost always - but not always, I had some luck there in the end) they require supporting paperwork and other stuff that would effectively require you to spend resources comparable to grant funds themselves just to handle grant issuing party relations. Or they steal the IP in the end. Grants are dangerous poison, for once you have a team writing reports in payroll and rely on grants, it's very hard to drop this, and people would rebel, and firing someone because you are not applying for grants in near future is very hard and often too unethical to do.
Whoa, I'm in their shoes right now!
Ok, the shoes are uncomfortable af and have holes, but mine are clean! I've lived with this tech company for 4 or 5 years now, and I never ever stained myself with VS bullshit. I might go bankrupt this month, I had harsh betrayals and market fluctuations beating the shit from me. I've got store with sales that are just too slow. I've delayed salaries for almost a month (except mine, I haven't made any money for myself this year lol). I still refused to go for all those investor traps and I'm proud of that. Worst case - I'll just go bankrupt and start over!
With investments, you'll never get out clean, without betraying yourself. There will always be compromises. And you won't get very much richer in the end, it's a game where those "bad guys" will inevitably burn you unless you'll become one of them. The rich will get richer and you've participated in burning the world? Not cool.
I've been there. I had in my hands technologies that save the world. I had nuclear waste treatment technology tested in Fukushima. I had sub-10 nm lithography in 2014 (and we showed it to Intel in hopes they'll just hire us back then). Investors never want to save the world, they want coke and whores and to burn us all. Decision makers will keep messing things up. Only grassroots are sustainable.
(please do come to my store buy some weird stuff before it's gone and I'm losing everything and starting another company again: https://store.zymologia.fi/)
Gosh, this post and especially all the comments singing with unison to my dream cheered me up, I've got to go do something good now!
I don't think we are at technology level required for that, as well as with mushrooms.
I use this website (exploiting my ability to read in russian), it translates into English quite well with Firefox built-in tool it seems, getting funny at places, but picture guide and systematic and clean description are one of the few gems hidden in russian language-only moderately old academic literature. I struggle finding comparably good wild creature guides (especially for weird things like mushrooms and mosses) in other languages, at least for free.
Also, consider replacing LECA with perlite, it's much lower in ions, it seems, especially slow leaching ones.
Cool setup! We also grow moss and carnivores!
I collect moss from my forest (it has lots of moss growing and a couple handfuls here and there are totally negligible and regrow in no time), stuff them into yogurt 1L buckets and mostly use for rooting of other plants (can't resist to advertise the rooting gel I use, sorry, because I am also its manufacturer: https://store.zymologia.fi/hormones/35-rooting-gel-50ml-1-x-container-for-dipping-cuttings.html). Naturally, constantly watered and dimly lit, as is perfect for rooting plants, moss just keeps growing. I keep collecting more, but I think quite soon this will become self-sufficient process. In an abundant situation like mine (except for long winter time) it's not a big deal, and your setup with moist rocks must be much more efficient.
With kids, it's more like 20 seconds or 4 minutes, still as risky
Nah they are still looking for a sufficiently good fence.
I do not have a lawn, I have several ha of forest and grassland. I have about 25 nest boxes for wild birds, occupied 2/3 (last year I had a huge owl living in one!) and countless other nests, several snakes, snails and frogs, lynx and I see bear tracks and scats now and then. I keep bees and allow wasps to build wherever they like, there are lots of bumblebees everywhere and birds sure have something to eat. I mulch a lot and keep loads of rotting leaves. I mow with scythe when I absolutely have to clear small area. I know there are fireflies in Finland.
Never saw a single blink.