Category Archives: Plant Portraits
saturday’s clippings 5/12/12
Quote of the week: “I can’t believe I burned down a tree older than Jesus,” philosophized a 26-year-old woman who torched a 3,500-year-old bald cypress known as The Senator last January, one of the 10 oldest trees on earth, while … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, Bulbs, clippings, journal, Plant Portraits, shop talk, succulents
Tagged ' Amicia zygomeris, Anemanthele lessoniana, Anigozanthos 'Yellow Gem', Argyranthemum haouarytheum, Cotinus 'Grace', Cra, Crassula expansa subsp. fragilis, Hesperaloe parviflora, Nancy Ondra, Nicotiana 'Ondra's Brown Mix', Ornithogalum dubium, Pennisetum 'Princess Caroline', Ricinus communis 'New Zealand Purple', Salvia canariensis var. candissima, Salvia wagneriana, Stipa arundinacea
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Huntington plant sale swag
Sunday’s plant sale at the Huntington was the best I’ve attended in many years. The succulents and cactus sale tables are always reason enough to attend, but the herbaceous stuff has been unexciting in recent years bordering on the moribund. … Continue reading
freeway wildflowers
Two Sundays ago, on Earth Day, in fact, I bounded out of bed early to head for a strip of wildflowers I’d been watching gain momentum for weeks and which looked to be approaching peak bloom. Instead of driving miles … Continue reading
Posted in garden visit, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged aloes, California native plants, Centuarea cyanus, Cistus purpureus, Escholtzia californica, Kalanchoe beharensis, kniphofias, Layia platyglossa, Mediterranean climates, Mimulus aurantiacus, Pennisetum alopecuroides, Pennisetum messiacum, Phacelia crennulata, Red Bunny Tails Fountain Grass, scorpionweed, Verbena lilacina
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the clematis club
I’m referring to a club in the informal sense, with really only one criterion for membership. And that is to push on past the inevitable early disappointments associated with growing clematis until one is found that will bloom in your … Continue reading
Occasional Daily Photo 4/21/12
Some mornings the poppies do an especially fine job of arranging their blooms throughout the gravel garden. Orange notes from Papaver rupifragum and dyckia (I know I keep referring to this bit of garden as the “gravel garden,” which it … Continue reading
Posted in Occasional Daily Photo, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged Dyckia species, Papaver rupifragum
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Foliage Followup April 2012
Grasses and agaves, yes, of course, solidity and movement, so why not grasses and aloes? A youngish Aloe marlothii and the evergreen cold blue steel blades of Blue Oat Grass, Helicotrichon sempervirens. I can’t imagine keeping a plant in the … Continue reading
Bloom Day April 2012
April deserves a thorough Bloom Day post, but if I’m to get this in before midnight it’ll have to be brief. A big change here is that the poppies of Troy, Papaver setigerum, are over sooner than I’d like. I … Continue reading
Posted in Bloom Day, Bulbs, Plant Portraits
Tagged Albuca maxima, Digitalis 'Goldcrest', Dutch iris 'Eye of the Tiger', Geum magellanicum, Lotus jacobaeus, Papaver rupifragum, Papaver setigerum, Pelargonium 'Splendide', Salvia chiapensis, Salvia littae, Salvia macrophylla 'Upright Form, Scrophularia calliantha, Sideritis syriaca, Stipa gigantea, Thunbergia alata, Thunbergia gregorii, Tweedia caerulea
8 Comments
when the world gets too koyaanisqatsi
I heard this phrase a couple weeks back and thought it an instant classic, the perfect shorthand for those moments when life gets a little too fractured, too fragmented, too…out of balance or koyaanisqatsi, referring to that 1983 art house … Continue reading
Posted in garden visit, Plant Portraits
Tagged Centaurea clementei, Dustin Gimbel, Godfrey Reggio, koyaanisqatsi, sonchus species
4 Comments
friday’s clippings 4/6/12
I trust we’ve all safely arrived at the doorstep of this spring weekend relatively intact. My car is in the shop from a minor crash a few weeks back, my first since I can’t remember when, and the rental has … Continue reading
Posted in Bulbs, Cinema Botanica, clippings, creatures, journal, Plant Portraits, shop talk
Tagged Abbey Hotel, Allium schubertii, alliums, Bonhams, Chateau Marmont, Chelsea Hotel, Colony Collapse Disorder, Irish wolfhound, Jean Shrimpton, Rob Walls photographer, Rose 'Bouquet d'Or', Terence Stamp
3 Comments
hellebores in the rear-view mirror
To write that hellebores are a much-desired plant for winter gardens is stating the obvious. I grow nothing but H. argutifolius, the Corsican hellebore, and have become a repetitive bore in constantly blogging my adoration for it, but I do … Continue reading
Posted in Bulbs, design, Plant Portraits
Tagged caulescence, Helleborus argutifolius, Scilla peruviana
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