Tulip Report/Queen of the Night

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Denise

Sounds less zombie-ish in French: Reine de la Nuit

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Amazingly long stems, over 2 feet, planted in a shallow bowl.

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With ‘Double Beauty of Apeldoorn’

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This will most likely be my final tulip report. A couple pots of bulbs had deformed flowers, short stems.
So the winners this year for tulips amenable to forcing, undergoing 6 weeks of prechilling for this zone 10 February/March display are:
Queen of the Night, Brown Sugar, and Double Beauty of Apeldoorn.
Mail-ordered from Bluestone Perennials in summer of 2010 for delivery in fall. Good price, excellent quality. Order in summer, July/August, for the best selection.
Upon arrival, stash bulbs in an empty vegetable crisper in the fridge. I always plant the bulbs the day after Thanksgiving, an easy date to remember.
The stunted losers were a grab bag of mixed bulbs bought at a local nursery, an impulse buy. An impulse to be resisted next year.

Cheap, easy fun, like doodling with crayons.

(Edited to add: ‘Apricot Beauty’ forces well, too, just wasn’t a personal favorite.)

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Smellovision

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Denise

Here it comes…

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Did you get a whiff? No? Maybe scoot your chair just a bit closer.

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Smellovision didn’t work so great in 1960 either. I cut this bunch of sweet peas last night from my mom’s first garden, a single raised bed we keep planted for her. Fresh spinach from the little garden for dinner too. The sweet peas were sown last fall, just a couple plants. (At age 82, my mom’s first sweet peas. I felt awful for selfishly prying this bunch away from her but recovered nicely as the scent filled the car on the ride home.) From a mixture by Renee’s Garden “Early Blooming Velvet Elegance,” a day-length neutral blend. They’ve been in bloom for over a month. The bi-colored lavender was a nice surprise.

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Hortus Obsessus

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Denise

Spring planting must be on just about everyone’s minds now, right? I shop at Annie’s Annuals all the time, fill my cyber basket to overflowing, then walk away from the computer. The walking away is pure character building.

At least that was my m.o. until local nurseries started stocking AA’s plants. Aaaagh…Now I routinely come home with such judiciously selected purchases as this Puya chilensis, armed to the teeth, destined to grow 15 feet wide, taking as much as 15 years to bloom.

Annie, have mercy!

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A smaller Puya mirabillis would have been a much better choice for my tiny garden. But so hard to walk away when confronted with a plant in glorious leaf and spine, not just pixels. I’ve been longing for a new puya, these exotic but tough terrestrial bromeliads. A flourishing Puya alpestris planted not far from this P. chilensis, near a pathway edge, died last summer, never having bloomed. A mysterious death. I can still vividly recall that unique smell — the word putrefaction barely conveys the odor of its death throes. So my gravel garden may have some obscure anti-puya attitude. A soil pathogen? Too crowded? I pulled out a big swathe of the beautifully easy calandrinia for the new guy, whose mature size of 15 feet wide makes him more a contender for a botanical garden. Or maybe the hell strip? What a hellish thought — I couldn’t do that to my neighbors.

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Tulip ‘Double Beauty of Apeldoorn’

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Denise

This is some of what I’ll be spending my tulip money on next year.

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This is the second year in a row I’ve purchased and prechilled this flamboyant double tulip. What a fine Easter present (to me).
Maybe fewer bulbs to a pot for next year. These flowers are huge.

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It’s probably not necessary to write that there are no big spring bulb displays in Los Angeles.
In fact, many Southern Californians only know spring as the time of year to retrieve their flip-flops from under the bed.
I like the way these tulips announce spring, loud and gaudy.

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Warming Up

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Denise

Colors to take the chill out.

Arctotis
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New leaves on cotinus

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Angelica stricta ‘Purpurea’ in pot with bromeliad Aechmea recurvata ‘Aztec Gold’

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McNally’s Egyptian Revival

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Denise

This morning’s LA Times had a piece by Sam Watters via his Lost LA column on the neo-Egyptian den mapmaker magnate Andrew McNally had added to his Altadena mansion after being wowed by Egypt’s display in Chicago’s 1893 World Fair.

(I had to check if World Fairs still exist, and they do. Start saving your pennies now for the next World Fair, Expo 2012, to be held in Yeosu, South Korea, themed “The Living Ocean and Coast.”)

Photo from Archives of Pasadena Museum of History
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As I sleepily scan through Mr. Watters’ short piece, that name snags me. McNally. Drumming fingers on desk…McNally, McNally…oh, that McNally!

Last August MB Maher and I stumbled onto this fabled property and had a brief outdoor tour. A brief and odd outdoor tour. (Post here.) At the time, McNally was just a name on a map to me. The Egyptian Revival parlor referenced in the article was contained in a 25X25 foot addition. Perhaps the wing containing the octogon-shaped fantasy room is off to the right in the photo below, not captured by MB Maher’s photo.* Mr. Watters says the Neo-Egyptian furnishings no longer survive, a shame to dismantle such single-minded whimsy. I wonder if this man famous for maps traveled anywhere outside the U.S. other than the passage to get here from Ireland to become a printing shop apprentice for $9 a week.

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The porch.

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Not an Egyptian Revival urn.

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The now birdless aviary.

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I wish I’d had one of Mr. McNally’s Road Atlases with me yesterday. The GPS was worthless.

(*Edited: From the Wikipedia entry: “In 1894 the one and a half story Smoking Room was added to the southeast corner of the house.” My emphasis.)

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Occasional Daily Photo/Begonia luxurians 3/4/11

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Denise

The Palm-Leaf Begonia droopily luxuriating in the past couple days of mist and one overnight of a good, soaking rain.

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Departing visitors from Massachusetts said they never want to vacation in February in Southern California again, that it’s a “different” cold, but cold just the same. (So many words for snow, maybe we need more words for cold.)

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Occasional Daily Photo/Beschorneria 3/3/11

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Denise

More impending drama. The first beschorneria to bloom in my garden. I think it’s B. septentrionalis but won’t know until it blooms. The narrow leaves look a little yuccoides, and there has been some wild hybridizing going on among the species by clever people like Tony Avent and Martin Grantham The only other beschorneria in my garden was purchased last year from Annie’s Annuals, Beschorneria x ‘Martin Grantham Hybrids,’ with leaves 3 times as wide as the one pictured. This one about to bloom was probably bought from Hinkley’s Heronswood’s catalogue, and how long ago has that been, but I must have moved it every single year since purchase. These agave relatives would seem to want a bit of ground and sky to themselves. Not asking a lot, really. So just before it would disappear forever, smothered under exuberant surrounding foliage, I ‘d rescue, replant. Repeat 3 or 4 times. Moved last year again when painting on the west side of the house commenced, replanted in a very open, gravelly strip against the east fence. Voila! Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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Poppies Unbound

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Denise

My first poppy of spring, P. setigerum, self-sown Dwarf Breadseed Poppy or Poppy of Troy.
Nothing unfurls like a poppy. Sure, roses and peonies have more petals, so the process is more complicated and, therefore, some might say more thrilling.
Irises may possibly surpass poppies for dramatic unfurling, but poppies have the amazing seed capsule architecture that follows. And that long, sinuous stem.

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The Spanish poppy, P. rupifragum, has more petals to manage and won’t be fully open until tomorrow.

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Just two glimpses out of almost a hundred species distributed all over the world.
I wonder if poppies hold a special attraction for women. An ancient attraction, going back to 5,000 B.C.
The Minoans, who exalted all things feminine and fertile, paid tribute to a Poppy Goddess.
Now, there’s a spring hat for you.

(photo from A Chaotic Orbit of Planet Gaia)
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Cue the Ice Cream Man

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Denise

The twilight opening of the door to the enchanted photographic realm of “magic hour” is announced by the canned tunes of the ice cream man plying his cold confections 365 days a year. If I’m home when that tinny music floats down our street, around 5:00 o’clock this time of year, I make a mad dash for the camera and head outdoors.

Rusellia equisetiformis spilling off the back porch
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Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’
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Erysimum linifolium ‘Variegatum’
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Queen Anne’s Lace
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more tulips budding
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There’s no time to grab an ice cream and photos, it’s strictly either/or, before the door has swung shut on another fleeting magic hour.
If only the truck sounded like this Ice Cream Man. But then I’m sure I’d chuck taking photos and head straight for the ice cream truck.

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