Category Archives: Plant Portraits
busy, busy
It’s spring. Feeling a little pressed for time yet? Join the club. Some of what I’ve been up to the past few weeks include: Cutting sweet peas from my mom’s vines. Buckets and buckets. Mine planted at the community garden … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, clippings, cut flowers, Plant Portraits, plant sales, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Achillea millefolium 'Sunrise', Agave macroacantha 'Blue Ribbon', Buddleia 'Cranrazz', Cotyledon orbiculata, Linaria 'Licilia Peach', Merrihew's Sunset Gardens, Rosa x odorata 'Mutabilis', Sweet peas
8 Comments
status update Rudbeckia maxima 5/2/16
Another example of the odd juxtapositions that occur in my garden from year to year, due to an unremitting curiosity about plants I just don’t get to see locally: Lights, laundry shed, giant coneflower! The cabbage coneflower, Rudbeckia maxima, known … Continue reading
an hour in San Francisco Botanical Garden in April
At the Friend Gate, Ageratum corymbosum Bartlettina sordida (thanks, Mr. Feix!) with a Fuchsia magellanica. Or maybe thymifolia. I didn’t check. No time! A few weeks ago I had the rather condensed pleasure of visiting San Francisco’s Botanical Garden in … Continue reading
Bloom Day hangover/Foliage followup April 2016
The distinctive measured pace of a garden this time of year, compared to the frenetic pace outside my front gate, is what I find so compelling: the syncopated intervals between birdcalls, the varying rhythms of arrival and departure of hummingbirds, … Continue reading
Fatsia japonica ‘Spider’s Web’
Love it or hate it, Fatsia ‘Spider’s Web’ can now be found locally in Southern California. Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar is carrying it in affordable one-gallons. Fatsias grow like weeds here in dry shade, so when Southern California … Continue reading
Wednesday miscellany
Progress report on Rudbeckia maxima. Snails love this rudbeckia, so I’ve been cutting out a lot of chewed-up lower leaves. Believe it or not, it seems to be forming bloom stalks already. Zone 10 can be a topsy-turvy home for … Continue reading
in a hothouse
…or a greenhouse, hoop house. Located on Long Island, NY, visited in June 2013. What I remember most was the all-engulfing moistness of the environment. Evapotranspiration so intense as to make one giddy. Which is undoubtedly why I lingered for … Continue reading
Posted in garden travel, Plant Portraits, pots and containers
Tagged greenhouse, tender perennials
6 Comments
Senecio glastifolius
I posted this photo Mitch took back in April 2010 under the title “Unidentified Giant Composite.” Garden designer Kelly Kilpatrick (Floradora Garden Design) helpfully provided its true name. Annie’s Annuals & Perennials has been an off-and-on source for this giant … Continue reading
Occasional Daily Weather report 3/7/16 (palms on fire!)
from The Los Angeles Times Marty, both parakeets, and I were jolted awake a little after 6 a.m., when the predicted storm slammed into town, escorted by raucous thunder, lightning, and high winds. (Nothing wakes increasingly deaf Ein.) In a … Continue reading
end of month February 2016
Since it’s the last day of February, I suppose it’s time to admit defeat and clear out all the drafts that never made it to proper posts. There’s the draft post tying in to last night’s Oscars, where I muse … Continue reading