Category Archives: Plant Portraits
sweet peas at the community garden
Seems all I bring home from my little 10 X 10 plot lately is sweet peas and fava beans. Not exactly a practical daily diet, but nourishing enough each in their own way. More on the mysteries of fava beans … Continue reading
more poppy drama
Ferocious winds all day Monday left the poppies leaning, some struck down entirely by Tuesday morning. I was clipping off broken branches and thinning, trying to trim their sail should the winds return, when Marty walked through noting, “Hey, that … Continue reading
Posted in creatures, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits
Tagged Annie's Annuals & Perennials, annual poppies, bees, Papaver setigerum
7 Comments
Geranium maderense ‘Alba’
I wasn’t sure I’d get blooms this year. Oh, there were plenty of self-sown seedlings from the one plant I brought home after it flowered, but with biennials, those plants that bloom in their second year, I always lose track … Continue reading
Posted in Occasional Daily Photo, Plant Portraits
Tagged biennials, Geranium maderense 'Alba', island of Madeira
4 Comments
studies in orange
(Agave “Mr. Ripple’ gets his portrait included because, as Van Gogh wrote, “there is no orange without blue.”)
tuesday clippings 3/26/13
Nothing too thematic, just some odds and ends. To prove I left the plant sale tables briefly and did a lap in the show room at the recent Orange County CSSA show, here’s a Dyckia ‘Brittle Star’ hybrid that won … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, clippings, Occasional Daily Photo, plant crushes, Plant Portraits
Tagged Agave americana var. striata, Dyckia 'Brittle Star', Geranium maderense 'Alba', Isoplexis isabelliana, Melianthus 'Purple Haze', pittosporum, poppies, Prostranthera ovalifolia 'Variegata, tillandsias
8 Comments
it’s show time
Last week I planted out in the garden the remaining plants I brought home from last summer’s travels. All winter I eyed these purchases nervously, as though they were exhibits in a trial of my weak character. I knew they … Continue reading
Posted in garden travel, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged bromeliads, Cassinia X ozothamnus, Echeveria multicaulis, Euphorbia ammak, Far Reaches Farm, Hechtia epigyna, Neoregelia 'Devroe', Neoregelia 'Punctatissima Rubra' x 'Tigrina, Orange County Cactus and Succulent Society, pitcairnia, plant sales, plant shows
3 Comments
hello, poppy
The first poppy opened this morning, Papaver setigerum. (Not that I was hovering nearby, waiting for the event or anything.) Of all the annual poppies I’ve grown, including the many varieties of the — shhh, ixnay — “opium” poppy, aka … Continue reading
passionflower progress
The garlic passionflower, P. loefgrenii, is supposedly one of the smaller, less-rampant species, described as a 10-footer, but that’s the size it’s reached in just its first year in my garden. The vine is planted against the eastern boundary fence, … Continue reading
Jardin Majorelle, Morocco
What I know about Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion designer, as opposed to his enormous, well-known cultural celebrity, is limited to sewing up some of his “rich peasant” and stunning Russian collection designs off of Vogue patterns in high school. … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged bleu Majorelle, Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, general director Jardin Majorelle, Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson's The Principles of Gardening, Jacques Majorelle, Jardin Majorelle, Madison Cox, Marrakesh, Morocco, Robert Pogue Harrison, Suzy Menkes, The Principles of Gardening
7 Comments
back in the garden
I’ve still got a big cosmic hangover from visiting the California Science Center last week. “Hubble 3-D” was at the IMAX theater. My brain was not built for IMAX movies, so what with the 3-D glasses and sitting too close … Continue reading