Home, Land

I love plants.

2009-11-16T20:14:00.000-08:00

http://anti-matter-3d.com/Stapeliads/hi/Hoodia_gordonii_4.jpg

That is such a cool flower! I bought something at Roger's Garden's today that might be Hoodia. I have to bring it up to the computer and compare it to photos.

Roger's Gardens is legendary and I can now see why. Quite an interesting selection of plants and the the whole place is nicely laid out. They had some Gasteraloe's I hadn't seen so I bought the most prolific-looking specimens of three to propagate for next year. Oh but it will be dull this winter if growth rates slow.

I also got a very fragrant pink carnation for my collection of very fragrant carnations. They are going to look great all humped together in a bed some day.

Rob and Marcella made terrariums last night. M filled a large footed jar with sand and planted a 6" high baby Saguaro in it. She poked down against the glass to draw sand from higher layers down through a few lower layers. The effect is like chocolate frosting dripping off a cake. I have forgotten what Rob did; something with an egg cup. Oh yes, he took some Conos with my approval, although my approval was reluctant to say the least. I put 3 small plants and a plastic pit bull in a square pot. The pot's surface was divided in a 2x2 grid; each item got one square. The dog's entire square was covered with a layer of beige sand that conceals the dark soil the plants inhabit.

I also got a nice small columnar cactus at Roger's that was $12.99 and had a few spires in one pot. I hope it stays this cute. Finding out what it is is going to take a while. All the Cereus-type cacti are pretty similar.

Something interesting another day, I promise.

Octember

2009-11-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought it was still October. I'm not wrapping my head around this whole November thing. That's partly because I do not feel as bombarded as usual by holiday themed advertising this year. I suppose advertisers have scaled back like the rest of us have.

What's that got to do with my garden? Bloody nothing, as I am sure you'd noticed.

All right then. What is going on?

The lawn is all green and ready for a trim. I must take pictures to send to the city to get into the lawn removal rebate program. For every sf I get rid of and replace with mulch or something else, I shall receive one dollar. Open to lawns in the City of Los Angeles.

The Gasteraloes are blooming again, some with a fury. By that I mean that some have two flower stalks. The new ones, which lack the pink decorations, are not blooming. I got those at Descanso this fall.

I guess I haven't mentioned what else I got there. I got a Saguaro for mom for Christmas, a Bismarckia (blue fan leaves; different from the Brahea), a blue med fan palm. Something glauca of course. This was bought from a retiring Mt Sac Hort prof. In my next life I will study hort in school. Home study is darned good also, but the more people to talk about plants with, the better.

One of Jero's Streilitzia nicholii (sp?) offsets has rooted. It's the larger of the two I checked. The other one had not rooted but is alive. The big Philodendron seems to have rooted. I got tired of all my indoor attempts and finally just shoved it in the barrel of calla persistence (BCP) and put a pot on it (Solandra grandiflora) to hold it down. I took the pot off and gave the Phil a good tug...nothing doing, it seems to have rooted. We shall see. I wonder if it will wait until spring to do anything. It's a climber with three-lobed leaves.

Well, to be frank I am more interested in soil content that what's above it these days. I wonder if there's any gold on my property :)

Back to the topic at hand

2009-10-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

It rained last night and today. It was a decent rain. It wasn't a good, hard rain in San Pedro. Was it something write home about? Definitely, yes.

The grass is loving the even, sustained drink. Everything will have its leaves washed. Weeds will overtake the lawn...When this drives up a little Marcella and I will have to plant something fab along the walkway. Bulbs maybe. I have the Narcissus and the Agapanthus from the old lady. We can also plant seeds or better yet, transplant the morning glories and provide stakes. Done!

So, that fellow wants the cement mixer--the plumber's helper that is. How much labor should he trade for it? He offered to plant the dreaded queens, which I was going to return. So I said "no" to that. There are the three pindos, the Bismarckia, and the Blue Mediterranean to plant as well. But M. and I could do those. Must have him do something I can't do myself. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have 5 green palms interspersed with that gang. (Keep in mind that a Brahea armata holds court down there too.) I could plant the new agave after dividing it into three. What else...I'll use a big pot for the Saguaro. I can plant my Saguaro seeds in the same pot. How darling, if they germinate. How exciting, really!

None of that solves the cement mixer problem. It will be so nice to have the space in the shed--can toss another shelf in there--using that universal tool stand we got from Cartier. So I have to think of a task. I wonder if he is good with concrete? It would be great to re-do the walkway thus: break up the concrete into 10# chunks and set aside. Build stairs by framing out with 4x4s, putting in base, and setting concrete chunks down as pavers and using gravel or sand to fill the chinks. Would like to acid dye the pavers bright-ish colors for fun. Would be neat to make molds and pour my own pavers in amusing shapes such as mushrooms, daisies, and prawns.

The presumed Stapelia flowers closed up today. I wonder if the rain did it, or if they are just on the wane. I believe it will be dry tomorrow so I will report in with whether they re-opened.

bon nuit

solved a few problems this morning...

2009-10-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

...namely, terrorism and healthcare.

let's just bite the bullet and put CT machines in airports. Everyone gets scanned for cancer and weapons at the same time. Excess radiation is a trivial problem for some individuals compared to the other problems it solves for the government.

More thinking

2009-10-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

"The writer enjoys writing because it makes doing nothing feel like doing something."

Agree or disagree? I'm afraid I agree. If this is meant to be a gardener's blog, well this gardener spent more time today getting dirt out from under her nails than into them.

I did de-pot the mold. I felt I had to break the pot to get it out, so I did. It began accidentally and soon was beyond control. The mold will need a little repair but will probably be usable. I keep getting be-fuddled as I try to order ceramic supplies. I guess I will do one category at a time: slip, glazes, furniture, molds. Must research kiln-sitting devices.

The lovely Stapelia finished blooming in one sense--three of the four buds are open wide. The fourth bud hadn't opened as of late afternoon today. I was lucky to get such sharp pictures with an eight year old video camera.

I am keeping an eye on the variegated Stapelia in the same pot as the one in bloom. It's doing two small outgrowths that seem to be four-headed and might be flower buds. I'll see if I can get a photo.

Thought of building a low deck around the pool using Monrovia lumber. Revert to sand for passage from seating area to shade potting bench/pool equipment. Build a low wall with cinder block and make it seem as though it is a simple step up to a new level. Perhaps find or make smaller table top for blue table--re-shape to better fit in corner?

Oh, rats, I totally forgot I was writing a blog. I have to go now. Bye.

How to bloom if you is a Stapelia

2009-10-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

In 4 Easy Steps.

These were all taken at the same time, this very morning. I used an older Sony video camera with a still function and a 4MB memory stick. Oh, and the fragrance of the blooms is as promised. A jab in the nose of something awful.

Eh?

2009-10-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't found the camera yet. Maddening. I did find the cell and was dismayed. Oh well I can use it to take pictures until I find the camera. The camera's four years old and I only bought it because my then 5-year old Kodak went kaput. I have another Kodak somewhere I got for free; must unearth and use. Oh, Tom has it in Monrovia.

Oh, great news about the landscape! For Jero's swan song, I directed him to build a kind of terrace that extends southward the palm terrace, four feet below the concrete patio. He built it with the broken concrete chunks Marcella and I had brought, and filled it with soil from many locations. A great aspect of this project was that some of the soil came from the boggy area where the tap always drips. Clearing that mud away allowed him to fill it with gravel, and to use the cleared-away mud as part of the new soil for the terrace extension. [Ed.: Do I sound crazy?]

Anywho, once the terrace extension was created, Bayou tested its restorative powers by running in tight circles, rolling around, and then casually lounging on the new bed. He was a delight to watch and I didn't worry much about the ancient wildflower seeds I had just strewen. He tilled them in good. Something will survive around the edges and that'll be fine. I'd be thrilled if it were carnations.

Did I mention that Marcella and Jero gave me a Delphinium in a deep blue for my birthday? I repotted it and noticed it's got at least two good stems coming on soon. (As an aside, the Stapelia buds are bigger still...but not open yet.)

Jero's true final act was showing me how to make a mold from a nice pot I found at Rob's. He showed me how to make a removable wooden case to restrict the plaster poured around the object of which you are making a mold. He and Marcella had to go to the post office before 5pm, so he couldn't stay long enough to pull the mold off the pot. I was supposed to do it but plumb forgot in the midst of other excitements. I am going to make pots in pastel shades that correspond, but with more white, to the various colors of the plants I sell. I may or may not mix yellow greens with blue greens on one pot. Maybe I would, if it had a white band at the top that dribbled into watery blue green that dribbled into watery yellow green. Maybe with red earthenware showing though.

If a city was once magic, is it always magic? Can the magic be killed by development, which is a form of decline? Because whatever you loved about an area will be gone once the area is developed. Development is another word for obliteration. You shouldn't have to get permits to build, you should have to get permits to obliterate. You shouldn't be able to change the nature of an area unless the surrounding public agrees. Votes taken annually.

I am thinking of Vancouver. It's not the city I remember as a child and as a young adult. I wonder what San Francisco is like these days? It's a magic city, too, but I feel its magic is dark; so is some of Vancouver's. Los Angeles and New York are not as dark as the two west coast gems SFO and YVR.

Good night; nothing much else to say.

2009-10-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

Ai! I was about to start typing, and remembered just then that I had taken wads of photos today. I might have to post them in Picasa or photobucket. Oh my. Well, next time I get up I'll look for the camera and the cable I need. I would be nice if Blogspot let us keep photo libraries online. If not uploaded files, then at least owner-created indexes of the photos on our hard drives with small thumbnails.

Hmmm. Garden coming along! Haven't seen ryegrass sprouting, but remain hopeful. Watering going well. I am going to use Round-up on the weeds I think. Or maybe the steamer! Shouldn't that do it? Oh I do hope so! I will apply it as close to the crown as possible, and also to soil where many weed seeds lie. Gee, if you had Bermuda grass or St. Augustine you could write seasonal messages in the lawn with steam. With Festuca you could etch permanent designs and fill them with gravel once the grass rots and can be removed. I like the idea of rivers of green glass or very narrow, winding stream if you have an incline. I might try this. I cannot wait to see how the grass looks. Would I regret seeding Bermuda grass? Could I keep it out of the tree cages? If I must have lawn I guess it should be St. Aug. I love the stuff and it's tough as nails and fills back in after injury. But somehow much more controllable than is Bermuda. I think it's easier to notice its first forays out of its own zone because its stolons are so big and chunky. Bermuda grass can have a few footholds in the soil before you realize it's there. And then if you procrastinate...

Ok, here is a thought experiment. We could perhaps model this if each reader would state what ONE plant he or she thinks would survive the longest and spread the most in their home gardens with total neglect. Bermuda grass would be high on the list, I think, if you exclude true cacti and trees. If we include trees I might wager Washingtonia filifera (sp?). When thinking of your own yard, assume everything is perfectly well established.

It's awful. Tomorrow might be Jero's last day. I cannot stand it!

2009-10-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

Man, I lost my cellie which is fine, I don't miss it at all except for the GPS and the camera. Realized I should sell my truck and the Chevy and get a lime green convertible Saab. I love it when things just fall into place like that. I guess an iPhone touch would do the trick? Or would it. Anyway I am done with cellphones. If the dogs get out, call me at home. They wouldn't be treated any differently by their rescuers depending on whether I were reachable or not; [Ed. Order new tags with your address on them.]

That was quite a train of thought. I do believe it has left the station without us. It began because I am lamenting the absence of photos for today's diatribe.

Onto the garden...during a pissy little discussion with Rob about whether my sailboat's mainsail was ripped or not, a powerful gust toppled one of the queen palms. Not sure if I should mention here that I do not like that plant much at all--not for any reason I can think of--and give my excuse for owning five of them. Or should I simply attempt to return them? The latter.

Well, anyway, one of them came a cropper and knocked my basin of mature Stapelia off the card table. Oh sheesh. The budding one was unearthed and lay panting, imploring, on the concrete. I tenderly re-planted her and her ilk, steadied the palm, and generally rearranged things so it wouldn't happen again. As Amos Tversky said, "Such are life."

I think I have divided all the succulents now, which takes away a sense of urgency that had been building and becoming sort of a tirade. Everything I have is maximally divided and planted to grow on and into saleability by December. A lot depends on temperatures. I wonder if I'll need artificial light and to grow indors. Or perhaps a greenhouse would be helpful to warm things up and grow more in winter. I wonder if there's time to build one before Jero leaves. I won't tell him today. We are going to focus on ceramics and tile today. We'll make a mold of a pot I found and perhaps even pour the first realization. Depends on my getting my tax matters attended to by noon, I think. Must upload dogs for Connie and must...check with Ross...do bank statements for ...something else...involves printing..."Very, very, very, very important piece of paper" (Bubble, in an early AbFab ep.).

We planted several trees, I think I said, and it Jero may have finished the drip irrigation. What a trouble free garden I will have. Just trees, each with a wooden cage to keep the dogs away, some mulch, and the potted plants inside the tree cages. Then my nursery activities up near the house. I do think I should keep the pool and grow aquatics in it. If that doesn't obviate swimming, I might.

Oh, I give up.

2009-10-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Well anyhow I am starting to think they are Stapelia and that the cutting I took from Tom is also Stapelia. I was in the dark about this genus at the time of the theft but did notice his were about to bloom. Damn. So anyway I also bought one that looks like Tom's at Armstrong and decided that what I have are Stapelia, not Huernica. My buds are bigger and darker than they were before. Four of them in one cluster. Oh hell what if I am out of town when they bloom? This feels like it has happened before. Darn.

The photo in the upper left of this update is of my supposed Brahea armata while it was in its box at Home Depot.

What else? Jero adheres to the bury the root flare school of tree planting and I do not.

I can't really get chocolate ice cream off my mind right now; it will be the first night without in months if I don't get any. The Dunns aren't answering.

Marcella and I broke up that clumpy Agave I'd got at Armstrong and planted the chunks in right-sized containers for growing on. Some were quite tiny; nearly all had roots.

We brutalized the various Dianthus, all having been chosen for fragrance and therefore meriting drastic measures to insure their vigor. Is it typical of them to have lousy root systems, or were mine started badly by the growers? It seems they just stop growing at some point, and no amount of watering or not watering makes a difference. I dug one up from its pot and the roots were fine, flimsy, and seemed inadequate to steady and fuel the growth of the plant. I have a yellow carnation that's down (due to irrigular watering) to a twig with very little foliage, and which has taken several weeks to show any sign of leafing out after I gave it a jarhead cut. But it has begun to make little green nubs offs its papery limbs.

What else. My gourds still thrive; the morning glories seem less than robust, though markedly better than those transplanted at an early age into Marcella's garden.

I foolishly checked the grape cuttings for roots--there were none. I became curious after noticing one of them wilting.

I got a tiny white mini-Cyclamen with a pink stripe on one petal of one blossom; I'll plant the seeds and see what I get. Big surprise: it is fragrant, and in a really nice way. It's the first time I had any inkling they had a scent. I have no idea what species it is, even after a lot of googling and goggling.

I forgot to re-plant the nodocactus (sp?). I went upstairs for the spray bottle so I could make a lemon juice solution and spray it on the stained parts of the old picture frames and have them bleach in the sun. A few hours after going up I remembered about the lemon juice. Anyway the frames are dry and quite usable; I guess I hope it is not too damp tonight. Well if they are damp maybe I will spray them with lemon juice solution; it'll soak in well and dry tomorrow. And I must plant the little gent.

Two of Hammer's Conos have bloomed, one in orange and the other in baby pink. Other of his plants are giving me the finger and making faces at me. Various Haworthia are blooming with their big frog tongues swaying in the breeze. I mean to ask him about the weird Crassula thingie that came in the pot with an Aloe from Altman's I got at Armstrong, but haven't got a picture of it yet. I doubt it is a repeat-bloomer so the opportunity to ID it passed for the year. I also must send him the old Cactus and Succulent magazine.

Well, I can't seem to focus on plants tonight, and there's the ice cream truck. Writing's on the wall.

2009-09-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

Y'aint going to believe this but my dern Heurnias are about to bloom. That is, one of them is going to have four flowers. There are four buds. No, I did not say "that is one of them" in reference to the Gasteraloe to the right. That's just a little eye candy to get the ball rolling.

These are the ones I repotted about 2 weeks ago. I didn't check for buds at the time because it had never occurred to me that the things might bloom. What did I think they were--slugs? Is there an African succulent that doesn't bloom?

Oh by the way I own the domain "calandrinia.com." I feel this plant (oops--what species?) symbolizes the fun and excitement of succulents. The name might mean "Lark," as the Spanish "Calandrina" means Lark (the bird) in English.

What else...oh, my gourds are just popping up with big baby leaves...what are those called? But the one I gave to Marcella is barely out of the ground. I think I should put these right into one gallons and not bother with 4". We'll grow the gourds used to make the cups (mates) from which yerba mate is drunk.

Found two big pots in the alley, plastic ones. Old but not meaningingfully cracked or damaged by age. Faded.

Getting ready to murder the pool. Can use the water to water the new lawn I suppose. Must get on weeding tasks. Blowtorch?

Huernia etc

2009-09-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Rob so liked the photos of Stapelia in my cactus book that I searched the internet looking for a place that sells Stapelia. Found ONE! Made me pay attention to my Huernia about which I know little. They have muddled along in the same pot with the big Kalanchoe for a while, but I recently re-did that and took them out. Now I have to find out what might trigger them to bloom, as they haven't yet. Meanwhile a Sansevieria I got at the same plant sale has made 11 plantlets and stayed alive while being neglected. And it takes a lot of neglect to make a snake plant shows you it is suffering...

Proper respect must be paid to Mr. Martin Heigen, who took the photo above and generously posted it on the interwebs. More of his work on Huernia: http://anti-matter-3d.com/Stapeliads/Huernia.html

2009-09-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

The Kalanchoe is probably Kalanchoe prolifera, unless it belongs in another genus. I did some research and apparently there is confusion.

In my searching I found a very interesting plant in the genus Dorstenia. Succulents are so weird and cool! Gee, how scientific of me. Well anyway, have a peek at this puppy...click to enlarge your mind.

If you like 'er, read all about it here: Caccy/Succy Socy.

2009-09-14T23:45:00.001-07:00

I was examining that big Kalanchoe earlier today and still unable to decide whether I like the way it looks or not. I am impressed by it. It's unusual in cultivation--it is not one of the furry-leaved ones. I'll get the variety somehow...

What else. Jero called my spiny citrus tree "wild orange" and we saw that it did seem to be coming from old rootstock and that a former central trunk had died a long time ago. I will have to look this up, too.

Seedlings sprouted in the pool! But nothing came of them...

We still haven't seen any fruiting bodies on the gourd/squash thing...but lots of small yellow blossoms. Jero expects cucumbers and I don't see why not. On a related note the gourd seeds are germinating as we speak. I used peat things in which three kids of lavender had failed to germinate. Well, have you ever know it to self sow?

I love self-sowers...I have had good luck with Love-in-a-Mist, them yellow and black daisy things that ain't Rudbeckia and ain't coreopsis nor sunflowers...fuzzy elongated rounded-end leaves? Crap. Anyway, Wistaria all over the place. Mimosa tree. Sorry, tired and cannot recall specific names. That crap that must be Tradescantia and has the wee blue flowers with yellow centers? Some calls it a weed, some don't. I do and don't. It sure is a weed if you don't want it, but if you want it you'll never lack it!

Well what about tall yellow Oxalis? WEED I say even though I love the plant. I just cannot see growing it given how I (stupidly) struggled with it in Santa Monica. But it sure has tasty stems. We Mission Hills kids called it sour grass and half-believed it was sour because "dogs peed on it." Well, dogs probably did pee on it but hey, we were kids. We drank nectar from nasturtiums and Lonicera halliana, one of my favorite plants. It's a ground cover, folks. Use it!

No longer in Monrovia

2009-09-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

Hey all, I am no longer in Monrovia. Good thing because I never would have catalogued all the plants there. I am now in a coastal city in LA County which shall not be disclosed due to not one but two stalkers: one potential and one actual. The potential one is F.S., so please fuck right off, and the real one was T.D., whom I hope has died a filthy death by now so he can no longer haunt my workplace with metal suitcases that seem to but do not carry semi-automatic weapons. I'll admit he only did it once but for me, that's enough to wish him a filthy death, and soon.

It's easier to catalog the plants here in my new town because my yard was barren when I got here.

There was:
an apple tree, a shooty mess which has produced one entire apple this year. My new program of applying water to the soil around the base of the plant at intervals may improve next year's yield.

a thorny but otherwise leafless tall shrub that turned out to be a citrus of some kind and has made, so far, a small, fuzzy, hard fruit that may or may not turn out to be identifiable and/or edible.

a big blowsy lemon tree whose variety escapes me. I have never really cared if a lemon is a Eureka or a Meyer; it's a fucking lemon already. When life gives you lemons do you oull out the Western Garden Book or do you just make lemonade? Thought so.

a vile tall hedge of the coniferous variety, possibly cypress, juniper, or who cares. Tall and ugly but entirely useful.

things I have bothered to plant since my arrival:

a Brahea armata I got at Home Depot for $79.00 + tax. Came in a 24" box. I turned my back and allowed two gentlemen from a foreign country to plant the thing and now it's leaves are turning brown in these three ways:
leaves at bottom are simply dying
mature leaves are browning at tips
new leaf shoots from center of tree are turning brown. I do have pretty heavy clay soil; I might might might be overwatering. I am not sure but I wish to Jesus I had paid attention while those two idiots were working. After they finished I saw they had buried the trunk to a depth of 8 inches. I unburied it and said a prayer or two.

a Yucca recurvifolia, I think, also from HD and also cheap: $69.99 in a 15 gallon container, but well ready for a box. The trunk alone was about 3' and with leaves the plant is 5' tall. The shitheads also planted that one and most of the bottom third of the leaves are dying.

a lovely orange/yellow Tecoma stans, native to Argentina. This is filling in a corner were an evergreen had died.

a decent Bougainvillea. I have forgotten if it is boring old Barbara Karst. If it is I am going to swap it if it lets me move it to a pot. It is a placeholder until I get my mitts on a proper Don Mario. I stole a cutting from Armstrong and am trying to root it now. I'd have bought the plant but it was trellised and even with my professional discount of 25% would have been $33.00. [Ed.: Oh btw the boug is La Jolla, a respectable red.]

Plants I have bought but have not planted:
Lonicera halliana, a long time favorite

Solandra but not maxima. Some minor species

Aphelandra iforgettia, looked nice on the Kartuz web site

Fucking African thing with colored leaves, begins with A...Acalypha wilkesiana. I have a soft spot for this crazy plant and pretty much buy it whenever I see it. It is fussy about water and heat but I nurse it along. I have two right now, of different leaf types, and both are doing well.

Several scented dianthus, in dark purply variegated forms

Uncountable cacti and succulents, the bulk of which were acquired from Steven Hammer in Vista or buy buying overgrown 1 gals from Altman's at Armstrong using my 25% off card, and dividing like mad.

Two small Camphor trees. Got to start somewhere. $8/each in 5 gallon size. I moved one up and am now having a slow race to see if the transplanted one does better. This is my favorite non-spectactularly-flowering tree btw. The race is going well for the one in a larger pot.

Two Junipers which I will return to Lowe's as soon as they don't look as though the boys have been peeing on them for several months. I will get there sooner if I can get the boys to stop peeing on them.

Some bizarre Solanum thing that looks like an eggplant and blooms with purple and white trumpets. I looked it up and it is quite poisonous.

Two bizarre chile plants whose varieties remain a mystery

a pomelo which I bought because...I forget. I hope they taste good

a gorgeous Agapanthus of a small variety with indigo flowers that droop. Not your grandfather's Agapanthus.

the arm of a large cactus that I found on a sidewalk in Hawthorne. Variety unknown until it blooms. oh but the parent plant has several weird hairballs, grey, stuck on it.

Things I brought with me and which are still in pots:

the biggest Kalanchoe in the universe (tm)

somethings that might be Stapelia which I got at the Arboretum [Ed.: they are Huernia]

[note to self: join local cactus club]

Home grown avocadoes from my two Monrovia trees. One got bad scale so I pulled off all its leaves and bathed the stems in alcohol and applied heavy mulch to soil. [Ed.: is re-leafing now.]

a coral tree (crista-galli) that my folks grew from a shoot; it started de-leafing so i finished the job and am hoping it'll come back. It also got alcohol to the trunk. [Ed.: Late Sept., it is making new leaves from lower part of plant; former branches are rubbery and might die back.]

I'll write more later. I want to go outside and water now.

Sometimes known as Black Calla, but actually...

2008-03-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

...Arum palaestinum, the Palestine Lily.

Like many others, I was lucky enough to find this plant popping up on its own. It was already emerging when I bought my place in Monrovia. I moved in during January, and noticed apparent Calla foliage under the fig tree. Ho-hum, I thought, expecting the standard white lily.

Then the thing bloomed. Wow. Luckily I was working at a nursery at the time, and a co-worker helped me ID the plant.

Since then I have found out that it is rare and coveted; currently 8 people on DavesGarden.com are seeking bulbs, and the volunteers at the Los Angeles Arboretum lit up when I promised them plantlets. (Gloria, I have not forgotten!) Apparently it was popular during the Victorian era. I can't see why it would ever have lost popularity.

But if you knew what I've been through with this plant...how many times it looked as though I were trying to eradicate when I only wished to preserve it. How did such misfortune befall my garden? Oh, I had help!

I mentioned offhand to my roommate, in 2004, that I really ought to dig up and pot some of them so the dogs wouldn't destroy them. Came home from work and found out that roomie had drilled a hole in one of my vintage cache pots (beyond "Grrrrr!"), dug up ALL the Arums he could find, and stuffed all of them into the one pot. I nearly flipped my lid, but did what I could to re-pot and salvage.

In 2005, I made a temporary cross-town move and took several plants with me; upon my return, I took the plants back to Monrovia. By summer they had dried out and died back and basically looked like pots of dry soil...which is why Francisco, my sometime-helper, threw them all out. Indeed, he did. (In 2007, he threw out my Dracunculus vulgaris, which had also died back to nothing in its pot.)

The following year I was thrilled to see a healthy flush of growth from the original site of my Arums; obviously we hadn't completely destroyed the motherlode. But then Francisco's brother Lino came to do an annual clean-up. I forgot to tell him to leave the lilies alone, and he sure didn't. The area was bare when I got home from work. That was 2007.

This year I was relieved to see sprouts emerge from the ground and turn into plants, and also to find some new plants elsewhere on the property. Of my struggling group of plants, only one blossom was formed this year, but she was a beaut, as you can see.

And this year, you will be happy to know, I didn't touch the little buggers. And no one who wanted to live out the week did so, either.

Fingers crossed.

It's wise to grow sage

2008-03-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

I have two kinds of sage growing on my property right now. They are both good looking, aromatic plants that perform well in hot, hot Monrovia. One's for cooking, one's for looking (and smelling).

Salvia officianalis is cooking sage. It leaves are normally a silvery grey green, with a texture like that of a baby lizard's skin. A little rough, but not crusty. There are variegated types that include cream and pink shades; these are pretty in the garden, and taste just as good as the normal variety in food. I'm not much of a cook, although I have gained considerable skill as an eater in my lifetime. But I do remember I dish I used to make with garden sage. It was a simple cheese ravioli, wading in fresh sage leaves that had been sauteed in butter. I'd had it at a restaurant and found it simple to make at home.

Note: If you really love cooking, or want to learn how to cook, please visit my friend Caroline's site, "Cooking Up a Storm." (http://cookbad.blogspot.com). She and her partner (they are "CookBad" and "AteThat" to their fans) try out a new recipe every day, and report the results with photos and musings. Stick with them for things you're going to put in your mouth; I'm just here to tell you how my garden grows. But I share my produce with Caroline, so look for some of my avocados in starring roles in some of her upcoming daily updates.

Back to Salvia...

The other sage I grow is Salvia clevelandii. This is a very waterwise choice for the So Cal garden. Its leaves are similar to those of the cooking sage's, but smaller and more narrow in their proportions. It blooms annually, with sweet little purple blossoms. It's not known to maintain especially good form, and sometimes will benefit from being cut back in the fall to branch out and leaf out again in spring. This keeps it from sort of falling apart, which it does once it gets too big, due to brittle stems.

S. clevelandii is one of those plants that can stop you in your tracks and have you asking, "What is that wonderful smell?" Especially in the morning, it simply exudes a fresh almost minty scent that can be sensed a yard or two away from the plant itself.

These are two low maintenance, unthirsty, and good looking plants. They both fit well in a perennial border, though clevelandii won't tolerate wet soil for long, and the cooking sage makes a nice container plant. There are also many purely ornamental varieties in the genus, and if I plant them, I will write about them. When I start a new garden I always toss in some kind of sage; for visual interest, culinary accents, and fragrance, sage will not disappoint.

What's not to like?

2008-03-20T06:58:00.001-07:00

New Zealand Flax. I will say one bad thing about this plant, but it isn't the plant's fault: Some varieties are far too big for their locations in a garden.

Now to the good stuff:

New Zealand Flax is a terribly well-behaved plant well-suited to water-wise gardens in southern California. You see it everywhere--just a spiky blast of colored foliage that might be light green, dark green, pink, red, crimson, almost white, or yellow. These many colors are often mixed and matched as longitudinal stripes on the strappy foliage.

The plant is exceptionally easy to propagate; just pull a pup off the side of a mature plant, making sure the pup has some roots. Stick it in the ground and nurse it along with water for a few weeks, and it's bound to make it.

NZ Flax can be under two feet tall, or up to what, eight feet or more? Be wary of varieties named Guardsman or Godzilla. (As far as I know there is no Godzilla flax, but there should be.)

Some flaxes are stiff, pointy, and upright, while others are curvy and weepy. None of them has the eyeball-piercing potential of a yucca or an agave, though, so the spiky fierceness is more for show.

They bloom in a most interesting manner. An upright spike emerges and branches out into an interesting articulated sort of candelabra of buds. Each of these will open to an unimpressive flower, but the overall shape makes up for the lack of showy floral interest.

What if you have a flax that looked cute in the pot, but is now taking up more sapce than a VW Beetle? Only one thing to do: part it out. Dig it up (easy task), divide it into smaller chunks with roots, and put an ad on craigslist. It'll be gone in a weekend. Heck, root the chunks in pots and sell them on craigslist!

When I worked as a garden designer, some clients rejected this plant for being too spiky, or looking like a cactus. Hmmm. It might not have a place in every garden, but it has a several in mine, where it adds color and form and never, ever, causes me a moment's worry.

Tell me, then, what there is to dislike about New Zealand Flax!

Starting the plant inventory

2008-03-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is for people who love plants. I like them better than most anything, and frankly I don't care if they are in nursery pots or botanical gardens. I like to watch them grow. I love saving ones that are almost dead. Propagation fascinates me. I eat plants every day, I love them so much!

The first plant I will describe is a tree. Pittosporum undulatum, commonly known as Victoria Box.

The tree easily self sows, is not terribly long lived nor especially attractive. It drops annoying sticky seed pods on the ground.

It has a fragrance that is hypnotic in early spring, sometimes late winter. When I worked in a nursery, people would come in in early spring asking if we knew what the wonderful smell they were smelling was! They'd want to buy one, but we didn't sell them. The plant is a commonplace, old-fashioned, and somewhat messy green nothing...so why try to sell them?

The best place to buy this plant is San Gabriel Nursery. You can discuss with their workers whether the fragrance of Pittosporum undulatum is better than Sweet Olive, but trust your own nose! Sweet Olive might be more refined (okay, it is in fact better), but it does not project across your whole garden that way the Pitt does.

Note to Ms. Eastman: This tree is growing along the fence on the south side of your driveway, on the neighbor's side. It has dark green leaves with wavy edges, and small creamy white flowers. They might be blooming already.

Happy impending spring!