I took this photo of ranunculus at the 2011 San Francisco Flower and Garden Show (which is coming up again this week, March 20-24.) Who knew ranuncs came tissue-petaled in cinnamon brown and pale peach? Last fall I tried like mad to find a selection of tubers with colors similar to these with no success [...]
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After all the mid-summer catalogue busywork, the list making, the dreaming in color, the potting soil mess, the ritual chilling of the little bundles of bulbs from September to November like some demented grocer, in other words, the really fun part of the whole tulip affair, some seven months later comes the sober truth. Will [...] I admit I’m a vulgarian, if there was any doubt left. By February I’m starved for brash and garish, even though it violates the subtle order of nature that has spring unfolding with a delicacy that builds by degrees to a late summer, over-the-top crescendo. I go straight to over-the-top, and containers of [...] The tulips are planted, and now the vegetable bin in the fridge is once again restored to its rightful purpose of chilling vegetables. I went beyond the required six weeks of prechilling this year, but overchilling is not the problem that underchilling is. I think this year is a new record, 12 pots in total, [...] My zone 10, winter wet/summer dry climate makes it possible to grow nerines in the ground, and they start blooming late October/early November. These stems were cut about two days ago. Nerine bulbs are never offered for sale locally but can be had from specialty bulb growers. All of my bulbs were generous gifts a [...] August is not a month to be trifled with. Spring comes so early here, with winter more a brief, rainy intermission than a season, that by August I really need to 1) loosen compacted clay soil that refuses to absorb another drop of moisture 2) add some compost/manure 3) water thoroughly 4) mulch again. Yes, [...] I find vacations in the Pacific Northwest have a lot in common with Chinese food; after being home for a few days, you’re hungry for another serving of Puget Sound, please. I’m sitting at a table in my garden in Southern California, staring up at a piercingly blue sky, like a child’s crayon drawing of [...] Thin stands of crocosmia are what’s left of the formerly generous clumps of fast-thickening cultivars with names like ‘Star of the East,’ ‘Solfatarre,’ ‘George Davidson.’ They pop up now as anonymous singletons in surprising locations every year, always some shade of orange, always signalling that things are really going to start heating up temperature-wise, color-wise, [...] Trumpet lily ‘African Queen’ this morning. Gladioli love Southern California. My grandmother always grew lots of them to cut and take to church, which is possibly why most gladiolus hybrids will always have an air of the sanctimonious for me. I am the furthest thing from a plant snob and would never write off entirely any genera, especially a summer-blooming bulb, [...] |
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