{"id":49959,"date":"2013-12-19T18:32:47","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T22:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=49959"},"modified":"2017-09-09T14:26:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-09T18:26:14","slug":"ghosts-of-gardens-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=49959","title":{"rendered":"ghosts of gardens past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleaning out old photo albums releases lots of ghosts of gardens past. Do I feel guilty and as greedy as Scrooge over all the plants that have come and gone? Not a bit. I do notice that I’ve become more of a climate realist, following the rainfall patterns, with less emphasis on masses of summer-blooming plants during what is typically our dry season.<\/p>\n

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Some of the ghosts are huge and come armed with hooks. The only time I bother to find some gloves and wear them is preparing to do battle with an agave. (That’s a knife in my hand.) I doubt I’d wrestle with a monster this size again. The only way to release the kraken was to break the pot. Actually, this agave is still alive and kicking, but in my neighbor’s garden.<\/p>\n

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The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
\nIt isn’t just one of your holiday games;
\nYou may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
\nWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

T.S. Eliot was absolutely right.<\/p>\n

The garden has lots of kitty ghosts too. Jones, our tabby, as of about a month ago, is no more. Also known as Joseph, aka Professor Joe B. Tiger aka Beaner. We think he made it to over 20 years’ old at least. What a cantankerous beast he was.<\/p>\n

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More ghosts of plants past, like the beautiful but invasive feather grass, Stipa tenuissima, which has been systematically expunged from the garden. The cats particularly loved this grass — to sleep on, to hide behind, to play in like their own personal Serengeti.<\/p>\n

\"G.<\/a><\/p>\n

The yucca is one of the few plants still around today. With anthemis and the ‘Bill Wallis’ geranium.<\/p>\n

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Yucca, coronilla, agastache. I need to find that pig-ear cotyledon again.<\/p>\n

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I probably have a tenth of the containers I once kept. Holy mole…<\/p>\n

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A dwarf form of Vitis vinifera ‘Purpurea,’ the golden-leaved Persicaria amplexicaulis, fuchsias, plectranthus, pelargoniums, etc., etc., all ghosts now.<\/p>\n

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At some point things started getting shrubbier and grassier, more structural, but always planting so densely that the intention became buried. Did a love of plants spoil the design? Oh, heavens, yes, absolutely. There will always be other gardens to visit and admire for their strong design. I still need the plants. In the background are two “golfball” pittosporums that were clipped into spheres, a shape that they seemed to outgrow weekly. Clipped structure is such high maintenance. Definitely not for me. The dark-leaved shrubs in the foreground are Lophomyrtus x ralphii ‘Red Dragon.’<\/p>\n

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Better view of the golfball pitts. They always stubbornly inclined more to a light bulb shape than spherical.<\/p>\n

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The yucca engulfed by Geranium ‘Dragon Heart.’ <\/p>\n

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The summer I let white valerian take over.<\/p>\n

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The tawny, strawberry-blonde tresses of Stipa arundinacea (Anemanthele lessoniana) have been a long-time favorite. Sedum nussbaumerianum pushes these colors even harder.<\/p>\n

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This grass and anything burgundy, like amaranthus or ricinus. Yum.<\/p>\n

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Same color as the stipa but now in Libertia peregrinans. What a good year 2011 was for Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain.’<\/p>\n

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Alstroemeria ‘The Third Harmonic,’ wonderful in vases, atrocious in the garden. Tall and unsteady, needing sturdy support (high maintenance)<\/p>\n

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I can’t even remember the names of some of the many succulents that passed through the garden. This pom pom was rampageous.<\/p>\n

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The many adventures in moss<\/p>\n

\"Chromatella<\/a><\/p>\n

I miss the scent of the roses almost as much as their flowers. Chromatella’s was deep and complex, with notes of tobacco. <\/p>\n

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Some things never change. The garden is as overstuffed as it ever was. 2013 will be remembered as the year the eryngiums bloomed well. Onward to 2014!<\/p>\n

<\/big><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleaning out old photo albums releases lots of ghosts of gardens past. Do I feel guilty and as greedy as Scrooge over all the plants that have come and gone? Not a bit. I do notice that I’ve become more … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[28,2137,36,27],"tags":[1383,1318,3248,3245,74,641,301,834,285,3246,3247,724,159,1382,1119,60],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-cZN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49959"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49959"}],"version-history":[{"count":155,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80422,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49959\/revisions\/80422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}