Category Archives: journal
summer & dieramas
The SoCal garden churned through a lot of attempts at growing dieramas. I’d figure they’re South African, I’m zone 10, we should get along famously. So many plant fails are due to faulty assumptions. Matching growing zones is only the … Continue reading
Posted in climate, journal, Oregon garden
8 Comments
two gardens in late May/early June
I spent two days at the end of May in Long Beach (garden USDA zone 10), readying the house for some friends’ upcoming stay. (The second day, May 30, topped 95F — what a homecoming!) The profligate weediness in the … Continue reading
rainy May
Believe it or not, I was worried I might miss the tail-end of the rainy season when returning to the coast in early April. I was hearing reports of a dryish winter, and I seem to remember 2024’s summer dry … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Oregon garden
11 Comments
tuning up; notes on spring cleanup
I worked for 20 years in a profession famous for repetitive stress injuries to the wrists (court reporting) and never suffered from one and could only wonder what it must feel like to those having to wear wrist splints as … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Oregon garden
6 Comments
Lunaria annua ‘Chedglow’
In a very mossy, narrow bed against the Oregon house, north-facing, street-facing, this dark-leaved strain of honesty sown from seed was planted out last summer. Germination was quick and robust — I had dozens of seedlings. This spring these biennials … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Oregon garden, Plant Portraits
6 Comments
abandonment issues
With just one week until we depart for Oregon, the Long Beach garden has finally taken a shape that feels horticulturally logical to me, according to my tastes and the slim resources it will have available in my absence. A … Continue reading
Erodium pelargoniflorum and other indispensable reseeders
Erodium pelargoniflorum is commonly described as a perennial, but it behaves as a late winter/spring annual in my zone 10 Long Beach CA garden. It reseeds as prolifically as California poppies, and sheets of seedlings carpeted the front garden every … Continue reading
fence project status
(A quick recap. Creeping fig, Ficus pumila, covered the south CMU wall of the back garden since we bought in ’89. Clinging tightly, it grew tall and thick and provided excellent evergreen privacy. A couple years ago, the neighbor on … Continue reading
infrastructure week in the SoCal zone 10 garden
Now that the back garden has been (mostly) cleared and sorted, it’s a little weird to find that some of the remaining plants have now turned into nameless strangers. Especially the aloes. The one pictured, with the elegant scroll-worked leaves, … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Los Angeles garden post 2024, succulents
9 Comments
Bilbergia ‘Violetta’ (my how you’ve grown!)
In November 2020 I moved a couple pups of Bilbergia ‘Violetta’ under Grevillea ‘Moonlight,’ along with a large astelia and other odds and ends. Only the bromeliads and Callisia fragrans survived. (The callisia aka Basket Plant or False Bromeliad, also … Continue reading
Posted in journal, Los Angeles garden post 2024
10 Comments