Latest news with #landscape
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Could Four Trails success bring hope to Hong Kong documentaries in the long run?
Hong Kong filmmaker Robin Lee was advised to keep his expectations 'very low' before the cinematic release of his documentary Four Trails last December. After all, he was told, it was just a sports documentary that had no A-list celebrities to attract audiences. In making the film, Lee could not even secure any sponsorships or funding. Still, the 36-year-old believed deeply in the story's power to resonate with audiences as it captured the physical and emotional journeys of runners taking on a gruelling 298km challenge, while showcasing the natural beauty of Hong Kong's landscapes. 'You can't blame them [distributors] because there is no script ... I couldn't tell them [where] the money that you're investing is going to go because no one really knew what would happen,' said Lee, who was the film's cameraman, director and editor. Against the odds, Four Trails became a surprise box office hit, earning over HK$10 million and becoming the second highest-grossing documentary in Hong Kong history. The film also earned Lee the title of Best New Director at the prestigious Hong Kong Film Awards. The 101-minute documentary film follows a group of ultrarunners in February 2021 as they braved the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, one of the world's toughest ultra-marathons. Runners must complete Hong Kong's four major hiking trails within 72 hours. The success of Four Trails has boosted the confidence of Hong Kong's small documentary filmmaking scene – though this outlook stands in contrast with the wider movie industry that is still reeling from cinema closures and competition from streaming platforms. The documentary has sparked a renewed appreciation for Hong Kong's trails – even superstar and avid hiker Chow Yun-fat helped promote the film. It also inspired a group of primary school pupils to hike sections of the Lantau Trail with one of the runners featured in the movie. 'In our film, I made loads of conscious decisions to try and get as many different personalities as possible. As a viewer, hopefully, there was one person in the film which you could relate to on a personal level,' Lee said. His next goal is to take the documentary to cinemas around the world and, eventually, to streaming platforms. He is currently in talks with global distributors. 'It's just me and my brother, Ben, who's the producer. The two of us are trying to get the film out globally ... with almost next to no experience before. So it's still taking a lot of time,' he said. While commercial success and accolades were never Lee's motivation, these achievements have been crucial to his goal of reaching audiences overseas. 'Around the world, people don't look at Hong Kong as a trail running destination, so I was really excited to show people this is what Hong Kong has to offer,' said the director, who was born and raised in the city. 'We've got one of the hardest challenges in the world, and it's here in a city which most people think is just skyscrapers.' How Twilight of the Warriors director spotlighted City of Darkness' spirit Challenges of making Four Trails Before filming began, Lee hiked most of Hong Kong's four main trails – MacLehose, Wilson, Hong Kong and Lantau – to familiarise himself with the terrain, identify key filming spots and connect with the runners before the race. With no script to follow and less than 72 hours to record most of the footage, building rapport was crucial in shaping a human-centred narrative. 'It's like a big jigsaw puzzle, [but] there's no picture that you have to follow. You're creating the picture, so it's really difficult to try to figure that out,' he said. Lee recruited his brother and a few freelancers to help film during the race. Once the ultra-marathon started, one of the biggest challenges, Lee said, was figuring out how to build a coherent storyline that captured the journeys of 18 athletes moving at very different paces. 'Everything is changing,' he recalled. 'The runners gave us a time sheet of when they thought they would be in places, but some of them are going faster [and] some are going slower than what they anticipated. Therefore, you have to be really flexible.' Fly Me to the Moon director discusses universal theme of belonging in her film By the third day of the event, exhaustion set in. 'I only slept two or three hours; my brother had just one,' Lee said, adding that the filming process felt chaotic. 'We had this detailed plan before the race, but by day three, it looked wrong. And your head is playing all these games with you that you don't really know which is the right decision to make.' The film showed how the runners started to buckle under the mental and physical strain, but behind the camera, the filmmakers were struggling, too. 'You see them hallucinating and going crazy as the cameraman and the director were also going through a similar situation, so fatigue is really difficult,' Lee said. Even after the race ended, Lee had to edit the footage while juggling his freelance work. Since Four Trails was entirely self-financed, he would take on short projects – some lasting a day and others a week – before returning to edit the documentary. 'I needed to pay for things like graphics. And at one point, I had to hire a composer to write original pieces for specific scenes,' the director noted. 'It's a bit of a risk, but if I don't do it, it's not going to be as good, and I want to make something which I'm really proud of because this may be my only chance to make a film.' 'Four Trails' videographers run to catch up with a competitor who is on the way to the next trail. Photo: Edko Films Ltd Blazing a trail for the industry The commercial success of Four Trails is rare in Hong Kong – Lee's experience of balancing his passion with freelance work is not. Ryan Lai, who has been a documentary filmmaker for about six years, said funding was the major challenge for him and others in this field. 'It's extremely difficult to make a living from documentaries in Hong Kong,' Lai explained. 'Unlike narrative films, documentaries typically lack commercial appeal and therefore attract little to no investment. Aside from some occasional art-related funding, there's almost no financial support available.' As a result, Lai said most documentary filmmakers would treat their work as a side project, not a viable career. 'That's a major obstacle for anyone who wants to pursue this seriously in the long run,' he said. Thus, Lee hopes the unexpected triumph of Four Trails can spur greater support for documentary filmmaking in Hong Kong. 'If you're investing in film, you don't have to shy away from a documentary as long as the story is good,' he said. 'All the stories in Four Trails are real. They're not made up. That, in many ways, makes it even more exciting than some [fictional] feature films.' Lee believes the way forward for the film industry is to prioritise originality. 'If you can keep making original ... and new content, that's going to get people talking. Then that's the best thing for the industry,' he said. Stop and think: Why was the box office success of Four Trails so unexpected in Hong Kong? Why this story matters: Documentary filmmaking is a key art form that shows real stories. It is hard for many of these creators to make a living in Hong Kong, so the success of Robin Lee's film could bring hope to others in the industry.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Photographer turns lens on unheralded parts of Wales
David Hurn is routinely described as Wales' most important living photographer - but he's not a fan of overstatement. "I'm a photographer, it's like being a plumber - it's no better than, it's less useful than," he says from his cottage in Tintern, Monmouthshire. Over the past seven decades the 90-year-old has documented everything from the Aberfan disaster to The Beatles at the height of Beatlemania. For his latest project David, who made his name photographing people, has turned to something different - the Welsh landscape. Anyone expecting quintessential images of Wales' rugged mountains and dramatic coastlines would be mistaken. Instead his book takes in some of the country's lesser-celebrated sites, including graveyards, council estates and even a public toilet. "I wasn't the least bit interested in romantic sort of postcards, people do that for a living and they do it incredibly well so don't compete with someone who does something better than you do," said David. Instead he set about allowing various experts to suggest what he should photograph when it came to exploring the human effect on the landscape. The result - Wales As Is - is an unflinchingly unsentimental portrayal of Wales. Author Richard King, who David invited to write an essay to accompany his photographs, said he found the images refreshing. He said searching for Welsh identity in the landscape seemed to be "a national hobby and a national obsession". "The thing that really struck me is how much we want to impose a narrative on these places," he said. David said he wanted his photographs to explore what people in Wales meant when they said "this is my culture". "Because whenever I asked them what they meant by the word they got all defensive which means they don't know what they're talking about," he laughed. "I wish that people who wanted to talk about culture were cultured, it's not asking a lot." Richard and David first met when Richard interviewed David about his experience of photographing the Aberfan disaster for one of his books. On 21 October 1966, David was one of the first photographers on the scene when a colliery spoil tip collapsed onto a school killing 116 children and 28 adults. It is an experience that has remained with him all his life. "It was undoubtedly the most difficult thing I've ever had to do and that is because you can't think of anything more obscene than children being suffocated with slurry off a tip," he said. It was made all the harder because he understood that the parents and miners desperately digging children out of the slurry did not want to be photographed - but it was also imperative he did so. "That's very difficult to deal with, very difficult and in this case we're talking children which makes it even more difficult," said David. "It was obvious they saw you as voyeurs but you as a photographer, as a journalist, realised you had to be there because this was an important thing that needed to be documented and you didn't want it to be pushed under the carpet. One of the ways to stop things being pushed under the carpet is to document them and publish them." Alongside his documentary photography, David made a name for himself photographing stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Michael Caine, Sophia Loren and The Beatles. He also shot five covers for fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. Photographer's images expose mum's dementia agony Dreamlike Wales inspires Egyptian photographer The photos capturing life on margins of society "Of course all these things pay a lot of money. It's the trivial that pays a lot of money and what you try to do seriously pays the least," he said. "To go to the Canary Islands with 11 models in the '60s was nothing but fun, I enjoyed doing it but I wasn't the least bit interested in the end result, it's as simple as that." Many people of his age and with a long career behind them may be thinking of slowing down, but not David. In fact he says work on his next five books is already underway. "It's difficult because my legs don't want to work and to shoot pictures you have to walk places and that's difficult now I'm at an age where I struggle," he said. "But I want to do it."
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
David Hurn: Photographer turns lens on lesser-celebrated Wales
David Hurn is routinely described as Wales' most important living photographer - but he's not a fan of overstatement. "I'm a photographer, it's like being a plumber - it's no better than, it's less useful than," he says from his cottage in Tintern, Monmouthshire. Over the past seven decades the 90-year-old has documented everything from the Aberfan disaster to The Beatles at the height of his latest project David, who made his name photographing people, has turned to something different - the Welsh landscape. Anyone expecting quintessential images of Wales' rugged mountains and dramatic coastlines would be mistaken. Instead his book takes in some of the country's lesser-celebrated sites, including graveyards, council estates and even a public toilet."I wasn't the least bit interested in romantic sort of postcards, people do that for a living and they do it incredibly well so don't compete with someone who does something better than you do," said David. Instead he set about allowing various experts to suggest what he should photograph when it came to exploring the human effect on the landscape. The result - Wales As Is - is an unflinchingly unsentimental portrayal of Wales. Author Richard King, who David invited to write an essay to accompany his photographs, said he found the images refreshing. He said searching for Welsh identity in the landscape seemed to be "a national hobby and a national obsession"."The thing that really struck me is how much we want to impose a narrative on these places," he said. David said he wanted his photographs to explore what people in Wales meant when they said "this is my culture"."Because whenever I asked them what they meant by the word they got all defensive which means they don't know what they're talking about," he laughed. "I wish that people who wanted to talk about culture were cultured, it's not asking a lot." Richard and David first met when Richard interviewed David about his experience of photographing the Aberfan disaster for one of his books. On 21 October 1966, David was one of the first photographers on the scene when a colliery spoil tip collapsed onto a school killing 116 children and 28 is an experience that has remained with him all his life. "It was undoubtedly the most difficult thing I've ever had to do and that is because you can't think of anything more obscene than children being suffocated with slurry off a tip," he said. It was made all the harder because he understood that the parents and miners desperately digging children out of the slurry did not want to be photographed - but it was also imperative he did so. "That's very difficult to deal with, very difficult and in this case we're talking children which makes it even more difficult," said David."It was obvious they saw you as voyeurs but you as a photographer, as a journalist, realised you had to be there because this was an important thing that needed to be documented and you didn't want it to be pushed under the carpet. One of the ways to stop things being pushed under the carpet is to document them and publish them." Alongside his documentary photography, David made a name for himself photographing stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Michael Caine, Sophia Loren and The also shot five covers for fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. "Of course all these things pay a lot of money. It's the trivial that pays a lot of money and what you try to do seriously pays the least," he said."To go to the Canary Islands with 11 models in the '60s was nothing but fun, I enjoyed doing it but I wasn't the least bit interested in the end result, it's as simple as that." Many people of his age and with a long career behind them may be thinking of slowing down, but not fact he says work on his next five books is already underway."It's difficult because my legs don't want to work and to shoot pictures you have to walk places and that's difficult now I'm at an age where I struggle," he said."But I want to do it."
Geek Dad
3 days ago
- Business
- Geek Dad
Kickstarter Tabletop Alert: ‘Rewild: South America'
Build biomes and populate them with flora and fauna to rewind a damaged landscape. What Is Rewild: South America? Rewild: South America is a tile-laying, tableau-building game for 1 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 45–60 minutes to play. It's currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of 60 Swiss Francs (about $73USD) for a copy of the game. It involves building out a landscape, and then finding synergies between the various plants and animals that can be placed on the landscape. Rewild: South America was designed by Bruno Liguori Sia and published by Treeceratops, with illustrations by Keen Art, Joey Pool, and Johanna Tarkela. New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer. Rewild: South America components. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Rewild: South America Components Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. Here's what comes in the box: Score board 4 Player boards 75 Biome tiles (shrublands, shrubland extensions, grasslands, rainforests) 55 Wildlife cards 26 Predation cards 28 Plant cards 28 Player Action cards 25 Expert Mode cards 4 Overview cards 11 Branch Animal meeples 18 Expert Mode Animal meeples 16 Player markers (4 per player) Start Player meeple 95 Animal markers (paw prints) 35 Minerals 35 Water 35 Seeds One of the first things about Rewild that caught my eye was the illustration style: the animals are done in a cartoon style with sharp outlines, set against backgrounds that have a softer look, giving it a Studio Ghibli vibe. With the recent proliferation of AI-generated images and videos using a similar style, I'm pleased to note that Treeceratops did not use any AI imagery in this game—these images are made by actual people. The illustrations of the various insects and animals that you'll be able to attract to your landscape are all beautifully illustrated, and the style helps the creatures really stand out on the cards. A selection of animal cards showing one of each category: insect, 3 sizes of herbivore, and 2 sizes of carnivore. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu There are several animal categories in the animal and predation decks, each with its own icon: insect, herbivore (small, medium, and large), predators, and apex predators—all but the insects are represented by an animal face icon. My only complaint with the icons is that the small herbivore icon and the predator icon are a similar size and profile, so it can be easy to mix them up at a glance. Treeceratops is a Swiss company with a focus on sustainability, and as such aims to limit the amount of plastic they use, and they also rely on FSC-certified or recycled materials when possible. The wooden tokens in the game come in paper envelopes rather than plastic bags, and all of the game components are cardboard, paper, and wood. The scoreboard is a large board that includes a scoring track around the outside edge, and then has clearly marked spaces for the three types of cards. My only complaint is that because you're constantly taking cards from the board, and then sliding cards to the right to refill, it can be quite easy to bump the scoring tokens out of place. Player board with some terrain tiles and cards added to the biomes. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The player boards are square, filled with hexes, some with additional icons in them. Along the right side of the board there are some icons indicating the three biomes where you will place cards, as well as a reminder for what's needed to complete a biome. There's a regular side and an advanced side—they're mostly the same except for the completed biome bonus. Animal meeples for the advanced game. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu There's a variety of animal meeples, and it's a shame that the bulk of them are only used in the advanced game, because they're very cool. I suppose it's an incentive to play the game enough to move to the advanced mode! These animals can live in the trees! (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The meeples that are used in every game are the ones sitting on (or hanging from) branches. These have a small rectangular base, which slots into the top of the 3D cardboard trees. It's a clever design, and it's a lot of fun when you manage to make that happen during the game. How to Play Rewild: South America You can download a copy of the rulebook here. The Goal The goal of the game is to score the most points by building out your landscape and filling it with plants and animals. 2-player setup. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Setup Give each player a player board, four player markers, and 7 action cards of their player color. Place one player marker Everyone also starts with 4 minerals, 4 water, and 1 seed. The player who most recently saw a wild animal takes the start player token. Set up the main board: shuffle each of the card decks separately, and place them on their indicated spaces, and then reveal cards to form the market (5 animals, 3 predation cards, and 3 plants). Place the rest of the components—animal markers, landscape tiles, trees, resources, and animal meeples—nearby as a supply. Gameplay On your turn, you must play an action card from your hand and use its effect; each card has 2 options except for the harvest card. Once you've played your action, you leave the card in front of you, turned so that the action you took is at the top—the landscape icons above the actions may be used for various effects during the game. Each player gets a set of these 7 action cards. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Six of the cards have an option to add a specific landscape tile to your board, which costs minerals and water. Some of the hex spaces on your board show minerals or water—these are discounts for tiles placed on those locations. In addition, each shrubland provides a 1-mineral discount for tiles placed adjacent to it, and each grassland provides a 1-water discount. (Grasslands can be upgraded to wetlands, which provide a 2-water discount.) If you place a landscape tile on a star icon, you score points immediately, with rainforests scoring the most points and shrublands scoring the fewest. There are also actions that allow you to gain minerals, water, or seeds—each of these also discards a specific card from the market. Finally, there are actions that upgrade landscapes: Shrublands can be expanded by adding a single hex shrubland, grasslands are flipped over to the wetlands side, and rainforests gain a tree. (Each landscape can only be upgraded once.) The harvest card gives you 1 water, plus a number of seeds based on the landscape tiles on your board. Finally, it allows you to take all of your action cards back (including itself). After playing and resolving your action card, if it was not the harvest card, you may then attract a number of cards from the score board: up to 5 wildlife card, 1 predation card, and 1 plant card. The Gray Brocket takes up 4 hexes of shrubland or 3 hexes of grasslands, but cannot live in the rainforest or in a tree. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Wildlife cards have an icon showing which landscape types the animal can live on, and how many hexes they occupy. If you have sufficient space in one of the terrain types, you may take the card and place it to the right of your board in the corresponding biome, and then place animal markers (the paw prints) in the hexes. Each hex on your board can only have one animal marker in it. Some animals can live in rainforests or trees—if so, then you find the matching meeple and use that instead. If you already have a tree, or if you upgrade the rainforest tile later to add a tree, then you can put the meeple into the tree, which frees up the rainforest ground space for another animal and also scores you 4 points. Predation cards also have icons showing which biome they belong to, but they also need specific types of prey in that biome. When played, you place the predation card on top of the prey animal, and score points immediately. (Note that this does not remove the animal markers from the board.) Plant cards cost seeds and have a variety of effects. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Plant cards have a seed cost and show which biome they belong to—just pay the cost and place the card to the right of your board in that biome. Many cards have either a lightning bolt effect or an hourglass effect. Lightning bolt effects are immediate—usually scoring, but sometimes gaining resources. Hourglass effects are end-of-game scoring effects. If a card gets covered by a predation card, then it loses its effects and is mostly ignored except for effects that specifically refer to eaten animals. My forest biome has been completed and scores six points. (The insect has been covered by a predator.) (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu You can complete a biome if it has at least one plant, one insect, one herbivore (any size), and one predator (either size). These count even if they have been eaten. The completed biome scores 6 points, and then you mark the completion bonus on your board with a player marker as a reminder that you've already scored it. Game End The game end is triggered if any of the following happens: A player has 8 visible (not eaten) animal cards showing A player has completely filled their board with landscape tiles The last wildlife card has been placed on the board. When this happens, complete the current round, and then play one more full round. All players then score any of their visible end-of-game scoring effects. The player with the highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the most completed biomes, and then the highest sum of rainforest tiles plus trees. Game Variants The solo game is run like a 2-player game, with an automated player. The automated player uses a set of action cards and a sort of flowchart that determines where it places tiles, which animals it will try to attract, and so on. Since it's a simplified bot that doesn't really have a way to react to what you're doing, it gets a score handicap of 1.5x (or 2x if you're playing on hard mode). The advanced game introduces the rest of the animal meeples and some new wildlife cards that get shuffled into their corresponding decks. The advanced animals have, in addition to the regular icons indicating the required landscape, an additional icon showing a particular terrain layout. If you can build that particular layout on your board, then you get the advanced animal meeple and bonus points. Two animals have found homes in the treetops. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Why You Should Play Rewild: South America Rewild: South America combines the tile-laying and a card tableau in an interesting way. The bulk of your points come from the cards—most of the animals offer either immediate scoring or end-game scoring, and a few of the plants also score points. But in order to play those cards, you'll need to build out the tiles on your board to create the space for them, and that creates a different sort of puzzle about using the hex spaces efficiently, particularly taking advantage of the bonus icons. I like the way that it feels like you're building an ecosystem layer by layer. First it's the landscape itself: shrublands, grasslands, or rainforest. Then, once you have enough space, it attracts insects and herbivores, which in turn can attract carnivores. Since the game ends when you have 8 animals showing (or 9 in the advanced game), you can't just expand indiscriminately if you want a good score. I've sometimes taken the first animal that fits in a landscape spot, but then covered it later with a carnivore. If that first animal had an end-game score on it, I've just forfeited those points—better to take an animal with an immediate scoring bonus if you're planning to eat it later, because then you've already gotten the points. If you're not attracting predators, then you have a limited number of available spaces to place cards before the game ends, so you really want good combinations. There's a wide variety of end-game scoring conditions: you might score points for each medium-sized herbivore, or each tree, or each insect. There are also many animals that will give you points for landscape icons, which appear on the landscape tiles, on certain plant cards, and even on your action cards. For those, the timing of your action cards becomes important. For instance, if you'll score 1 point per shrubland icon, then not only do you want to maximize your shrublands (perhaps by upgrading them), you could get as many as 6 more shrubland icons from your action cards, but only if you take the correct actions and the cards are still out when the game ends. If you play them too early, you might end up taking a harvest action and putting them back in your hand. Wait too late, and the game might end before you've played them again. Each card is gorgeously illustrated. (Prototype shown) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu I mentioned the puzzle of building out your landscape tiles. There are bonus spaces on the board that can reduce the mineral or water cost of a tile, so you can use those to get some things built out quickly without having to spend actions to collect resources—for instance, you could use the 2-mineral discount to build a rainforest, since those provide more seeds when you harvest. However, there are only so many of the discount spaces, and rainforests do not provide resources for neighboring tiles. Shrublands and grasslands provide minerals and water, so if you build those up first, you can set up spaces that will be cheaper to build in the future. Having a good idea of how you want to lay things out will help you ensure that you'll have the right amount of space to play everything you need. Some of the spaces on your board have stars, which give points when you play a landscape tile on them, but you get more points for placing a rainforest than shrubland. The first time I played, I avoided building on them, thinking that I'd get around to placing forests on each one to maximize my score … but then ran out of time and ended up with several of them left empty by the end of the game. It's a tricky balance, deciding when it's time to cash in on the bonus points and when you can wait a little longer to build up to a rainforest. While there isn't any direct player interaction—you can't do anything to somebody else's board or tableau—you can try to scoop up plants or wildlife that are particularly advantageous to your opponents. For instance, in one game where I had a carnivore-heavy tableau, my opponent snagged the vulture, which awards points for each eaten animal. It wasn't worth as many points to him, but preventing me from getting it probably won him the game. Your action cards that claim resources also discard cards from the market; it's the rightmost card, so you don't get to choose just any card, but at the right time you could use it to dump a card before somebody else gets it. Rewild: South America has bits and pieces that remind me of some other games, but as a whole it's a new experience. You're managing both your action economy and your resources, and you're looking for things that will round out each of your biomes. I like both the board-based puzzle of the landscapes and the combo-building puzzle of the wildlife cards. And it doesn't hurt that the illustrations are so eye-catching! For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Rewild: South America Kickstarter page! Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews. To subscribe to GeekDad's tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader. Disclosure: GeekDad received a prototype of this game for review purposes. Liked it? 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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Ask the Expert: Why are vegetables twisted and misshapen when harvested?
Question: For the past two years, I have planted root crops including carrots, radishes and beets, and most of these vegetables are small, twisted and misshaped when I harvest them. I have tried different varieties with nearly the same result. What causes this? Answer: There could be a few potential causes for this fairly common problem. Overcrowding seedlings is the most common cause of this problem, particularly with carrots, onions and radishes. It's fine to seed these crops thickly to assure even spacing in the row, but you should thin out seedlings after germination as overcrowded seedlings will compete for water, nutrients and space, which often causes stunted or distorted growth. Other possible causes include compacted or heavy soils when growing in the ground, or a too shallow raised bed or container when growing in beds or containers. Whatever the cause, these 'ugly vegetables' are perfectly edible. Q: I have terrible deer pressure in my landscape, and some rabbit damage as well, so I continually apply wildlife repellents to many of my plants. I have a lot of pollinator plants to attract bees and butterflies and I'm wondering if these repellents are harmful to bees and other pollinators. A: Most wildlife repellents contain capsaicin, which is the compound that makes peppers taste hot. Research has been done to determine whether capsaicin is harmful to bees and the conclusions have been that it does not pose a risk to bees or other pollinators. Some wildlife repellents contain predator urine, particularly coyote urine, which repels deer. I have not seen any research which explored whether urine-based repellents pose any risk to bees and other pollinators. Q: We planted eight arborvitae last summer as a living fence. This winter and early spring, we noticed that three of these shrubs had turned to brown and now orange. What causes this and will the affected plants recover? A: Arborvitae is a shrub which is widely used as a hedge, screen or living fence in the home landscape. I have noticed a large number of brown and orange arborvitae around the Greater Columbus, Ohio this spring. While there are a couple of different insects which attack arborvitae — most notably bagworm and scale — damage from these insects typically appears after a couple of seasons of infestation. Bags of the bagworm are also pretty noticeable hanging from affected branches of arborvitae. My guess is that many of these plants were killed by a lack of moisture associated with the droughty conditions which we experienced throughout much of Ohio last summer. Arborvitaes need an even amount of soil moisture to grow and thrive. They really suffer when put under drought stress. As a general rule, newly transplanted shrubs need to be watered frequently during the first season, and this is particularly true when precipitation is sparse. Arborvitaes which have turned completely brown or orange will not recover and will need to be replaced, and watered well! Editor's note: Throughout the growing season, Mike Hogan, OSU Extension educator for Agriculture and Natural Resources in Franklin County, will answer gardening and home landscape questions submitted by Columbus Dispatch readers. Send your questions to hogan.1@ This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ask the Expert: Harvesting misshapen vegetables
