Too late to depose the poinsettia and install the leucadendron as the preferred bracts and leaves of Christmas? Please?
Poinsettia has had a great run. Time for some fresh sap. (A sap that’s not caustic.)
If the polls are still open, I nominate Leucadendron salignum ‘Blush.” It’s got green-and-red covered. Zones 8 to 10.
And wouldn’t you rather look at this in your greenhouse/windowsill/garden in January?
I didn’t get around to re-watching Blade Runner for the zillionth time the other night, that gorgeous cinematic meditation on memory.
(“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”)
But these record-breaking rainstorms are doing a fine job of churning up childhood memories of past winter storms.
Fountain from the Children’s Garden at the Huntington Botanical Garden
Memories of the seasonal winter rains of the Los Angeles of my childhood always depict them as biblical in scope. If memory is to be trusted, winter meant a perpetual rainy day schedule at school, which included both the agony of being deprived of playground time (no dodgeball!) and also the sweet relief of an early pickup by mom, maybe as much as a half hour. In other words, an eternity. One year after torrential winter rains, we were treated to the rare and wondrous spectacle of toads spawning in the shrubbery then hopping to freedom down suburban driveways. In spring, forts were built in the lush, tall grass of the empty field located at the end of the street, a negative space that absorbed any activity a childish imagination could conceive, in addition to efficiently absorbing runoff from winter storms. Commerce abhors such vacuums, and that open field, the protean kingdom of every kid in every house in that GI-Bill-mortgaged neighborhood, long ago disappeared under condominium developments.
Aloe distans weathering the storm
Rainfall in Los Angeles County, in inches per annum, shows the wide variability that factors into the county average of approximately 15 inches a year. To shorten it up, I’ve started at 1960, but the link goes back to 1878. Bear in mind, Los Angeles rainfall typically comes in short, dramatic, gully-washing bursts, not light drizzle over extended periods of time.
1960—9.57
1961—5.83
1962—15.37
1963—12.31
1964—7.98
1965—26.81
1966—12.91
1967—23.66
1968—7.58
1969—26.32
1970—16.54
1971—9.26
1972—6.54
1973—17.45
1974—16.69
1975—10.70
1976—11.01
1977—14.97
1978—30.57
1979—17.00
1980—26.33
1981—10.92
1982—14.41
1983—34.40
1984—8.90
1985—8.92
1986—18.00
1987—9.11
1988—11.57
1989—4.56
1990—6.49
1991—15.07
1992—22.65
1993—23.44
1994—8.69
1995—24.06
1996—17.75
1997—10.83
1998—27.85
1999—8.06
2000—11.97
2001—19.60
2002—7.29
2003—13.37
2004—20.10
2005—26.61
2006—11.61
2007—5.66
2008–14.43
The usual state of affairs, I’m told, is Southern Californian hordes invading the Pacific Northwest, or at least such was the case before the great real estate unraveling after 2008. This past week proves that Los Angeles can stay home and still embrace the misty charms of the PNW. Having become accustomed to the ubiquity of their home-grown coffee chain, we’re now getting a taste of Seattle-style weather.
Rain, rain, and more rain. Record rain. Rain interrupted by drizzle and topped with a soupçon of fog. Epic 10-year-tropical-storm rain. A-quarter-of-our-annual-rainfall rain. Rain that brings down the canyon mud that closes Pacific Coast Highway at Malibu. Rain that overflows storm drains and brings the accumulated city filth to the Pacific Ocean (and mystery rashes to surfers who venture out in winter storms). Rains that transform freeways into asphalt Slip ‘n Slides. Last night I had the relatively rare experience of watching a movie (I Am Love) in which the delicious sounds of rain were drumming on screen while those same delicious sounds echoed against our window panes.
All of which means there’ll be more wet plant photos this week taken during lulls between the storms.
Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta.’ This agave relative can handle the increased moisture.
Senecio anteuphorbium turgid with rain.
Winter-red stems of Senecio medley-woodii.
Mystery cotyledon from flea market that resembles “Cotyledon orbiculata cylindrical lime green leaf” (found at Lifestyle Seeds website)
Big storm predicted for tonight. Perfect night for baking cookies and re-viewing Blade Runner, which does great movie rain.
There’s not much of a system in place here yet to collect the annual average of 15 inches of rainfall that arrives fall/winter in Southern California.
This light but steady drizzle over the past couple days has already brimmed one 33-gallon trash barrel, but the other trash cans are too beat up to hold water.
All I want for Christmas is a 500-gallon cistern.
(Copper firepot/dipping basin/feline watering hole, dyckias, and furcraea.)
The standard formula reveals what astonishing amounts of rainwater can be collected by homeowners.
An easy trick to remember is to divide the square footage of your roof by 2. That’s roughly the amount of rainwater that can be collected from one inch of rainfall.
(1 inch of rain on a 1,000 square feet (93 m2) roof yields 623 gallons of water)
(Chondropetalum tectorum’s elegant rainwater collection system)
I bet my neighborhood is not unique in offering examples of a wide variety of garden styles. There is ample representation from the meticulous lawn-and-hedge contingent, a style that dovetails nicely into holiday decorating. Many argue that lawns, while not really ever put to much practical use by their owners, can be important for adding a psychological “breathing space,” but I have noted a practical adaptation in use during the holidays which must be acknowledged in their defense. And that is their utility as the perfect launchpad for oversize, inflatable holiday decorations. No photos of this style are available, since the snowmen and santas are currently collapsed in a heap on their lawns and come to life only at night, something like this snowman:
It seems poor taste to mix a snarky tone with that lovely little movie, but that’s the holidays for you, a whiplash ride between the high and the low.
Back to the survey of neighborhood garden styles. Another popular local garden style might be described as “If it’s free, it’s going in the ground.” This style can derive from sentiment or cost effectiveness, or maybe a combination of the two. Whatever its origin, it can be identified by heavy reliance on florist gift plants, such as chrysanthemums and, yes, the poinsettia, such as this example of a poinsettia reaching tree-like proportions one street over from mine.
Over 8 feet tall at least, the renegade poinsettia somehow shakes off the growth hormone hangover and re-acquires its natural rangy growth habit.
The poinsettia has to be my least-favorite euphorbia, but I appreciate the culturally rich tradition giving rise to its becoming synonymous with Christmas.
When asked only for a show of leaves, my zone 10 garden in December can give a much less angst-ridden performance than, for example, yesterday’s post, which was drawing solely on flower output. Today I realized I forgot to include some things in bloom, like anigozanthos, among others. That’s probably because, overall, drizzly, moisture-beaded leaves are winter’s revelation in my zone 10 garden.
Mangave ‘Bloodspot’
(Actor Slim Pickens riding the bomb in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.)
A December Bloom Day post begs for a little goofiness. No other word describes prowling a drizzly garden for photos in non-existent light searching for non-existent blooms.
The roster for this month is pretty thin. The paperwhites are budding. (The single most important factor for success with bulbs is foresight, foresight, foresight.)
Erysimum linifolium ‘Variegatum’ loves zone 10 winters.
The bracts of the ‘Waverly’ salvia color up duskiest in December.
Amicia zygomeris surprisingly putting out lots of fresh growth through winter, as well as these almost hidden, pale yellow, bruise-like flowers. My first year growing amicia, planted in fall, a favorite of the late Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter. Any plant that flourishes in zone 10 winters is instantly suspect for being unable to endure zone 10’s dry summers.
I’ve been deadheading Queen Anne’s Lace, Ammi majus, to bulk up the plant for spring, but it insists on throwing out blooms.
Being a cloud-forest sage, Salvia chiapensis prefers the cool temps in fall, winter, and early spring.
Pelargoniums. (If Kathy sees this, she’ll know I’m stealing Filoli’s scheme of potted pelargoniums for the porch steps.)
The reed-stem orchids, epidendrum, are throwing a few blooms. They’re blooming like crazy all over town, which they might do here if I wasn’t so stingy with fertilizer. Run-off into storm drains is behind the stinginess, not money.
Copper Canyon Daisy, Tagetes lemmonii ‘Compacta’
Some succulents in bloom.
Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’ harassed by one of the predators of winter.
This one came labeled as Echeveria elegans ‘Grey Red’
Amidst all the drizzle and grey, it looks like there’ll be roses for Christmas this year.
May we all ride Old Man Winter as joyfully as Slim Pickens atop the bomb and trust to expanded garden pickings ahead. Happy Bloom Day!
One of those drizzly, grey days where one mumbles phrases from Conan Doyle’s The Musgrave Ritual:
‘Where was the sun?’
‘Over the oak.’
‘Where was the shadow?’
‘Under the elm.’
Not a bad day to keep to the couch and stream the Granada production with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. And if by some unfortunate confluence of events you’ve managed to miss these adventures, you have the whole winter ahead of you to catch up. For the holiday season, you could do no better than starting with The Blue Carbuncle. Fairly soon, you will be thoroughly familiar with every painting, Persian slipper, bookcase, and settee in Holmes and Watson’s sitting room as they are waited on hand-and-foot by Mrs. Hudson, smoke pipes, play violins, administer the occasional 7 percent solution of cocaine, and stare at the fireplace while deciding their course of action before bursting out the doors of 221B Baker Street into the teeming, muddy streets of Victorian England. I can never decide what I envy more, their adventures or a housekeeper like Mrs. Hudson.
Apart from tools, very little gear is required to garden. It can be done in your bathrobe, coffee cup in one hand, spade in the other.
No special shoes are required. Hats and style of clothing mostly depend on how much sun one feels comfortable taking on board.
Granted, my experience has been confined to zone 10. Very little rain, very little mud — except for one unpaved path leading to the compost bin.
Perhaps this is one of gardening’s basic PR problems. People regard pursuits that require uniforms much more seriously.
I often head out to the garden in the very clothes I wore in a somber conference room earlier the same day. Pretty much, anything goes.
Today all that has changed. Without any further involvement on my part, other than passing my mailing address on to Valerie Easton, my Khombu boots arrived today. With these fleece-lined rubber boots, I instantaneously feel a member of that elite group of gardeners who practice the craft in appropriate and suitably practical footwear.
My only other piece of gardening uniform has been this jacket, heavy cotton now frayed at the elbows, about to be sent to a local seamstress to be used as a pattern to make another in new fabric. It has large patch pockets for shears and seeds, deep underarm gussets for maximum freedom of movement, and sleeves that can be buttoned to the wrists for repotting agaves or rolled up to the elbows for cooling down. The scarf is just a photo prop serving to hide stains.
It is a beloved garment many years old. I feel as loftily purposeful in this jacket as Christiane Amanpour setting out to interview heads of state.
And now with the new boots, I’ve got all the gear I need. Thank you, Plant Talk!
Phlomis can be such fine plants year-round, with many kinds suited for gardens colder than my zone 10 garden.
The familiar Jerusalem sage, Phlomis russeliana, is hardy to 0-10F. Mine came labeled as P. aurea, but it’s not showing much of a chartreuse cast to the leaf. Though phlomis are renowned for being sun-lovers, this one is obviously enjoying winter’s cooler temperatures and intermittent rain. With pink flowers, it’s most likely P. italica, which is what I called it in a June Bloom Day post. I appreciate the staying power of the subshrubs. It’s already apparent that the scabiosa in bloom in June are no more, as is the rehmannia, the catanache, the Lysimachia purpurea, and I haven’t planted much to replace them. I pulled the gaillardia to give its spot to a grevillea.
Looks like 2011 is sizing up for a very meager June Bloom Day post.
Phlomis are tough plants but not without issues. A phlomis grown in the gravel garden in near-xeric conditions collected scale in its leaf axils during the summer but is shrugging them off as summer’s stressed growing conditions recede. And I do think phlomis would prefer better circulation than I give them. Some plants don’t mind tight quarters, but not this one.
