{"id":62817,"date":"2015-02-15T21:55:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T01:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=62817"},"modified":"2017-09-12T13:43:27","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T17:43:27","slug":"bloom-day-february-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=62817","title":{"rendered":"Bloom Day February 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloom Day — you know the drill.
\n(And if you don’t and somehow stumbled here unwittingly, just calm down and see May Dreams Gardens<\/a> for some helpful background by Carol.)<\/p>\n

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

I bought this Banksia ericifolia from a newish nursery in Hollywood several months ago with one bloom already fully open and several promising if smallish buds. I ain’t superstitious, but taking photos of rare, newly acquired plants in bloom just seems an invitation for a jinx on their health and longevity. So I’ve waited a few months before posting photos of these stunning bronze candles that seem made of chenille. <\/p>\n

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

I bumped into the nursery while in search of some craigslist planters and failed to record its name, but it’s fairly close to Sunset Boulevard and Gardner. I should be able to find it again, since those are my old stomping grounds. I used to live basically on top of the intersection of Sunset and Gardner, about a half block away. (The best way to get into Hollywood? Follow Bette Davis’ advice, “Take Fountain<\/a>!” A little local, show-biz humor…) The banksia is in a large wooden container that is in the semi-rapid process of falling apart, so it will have to be moved at some point. Gulp…beauty in peril!<\/p>\n

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

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

Old faithful, Pelargonium echinatum. Scalloped and felty grey-green leaves with firework bursts of flowers suspended mid-air. Looks a lot like the cultivar ‘Miss Stapleton’ which is a suspected cross of two species. Summer dormant. <\/p>\n

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

The related Erodium pelargoniflorum, a spring annual here, isn’t reseeding as extravagantly in the drought, which is fine with me.<\/p>\n

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

The unnamed aloe along the driveway is looking more and more like Aloe ‘Moonglow’ — which I recently bought again for the back garden, label intact. There was more peachy color to it in previous years, when it wasn’t smothered under the Acacia podalyrifolia. I limbed up the offending acacia last week and promise to try harder for a less blurry photo next time. <\/p>\n

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

Abutilon venosum, found at Tropico in West Hollywood, crazy in bloom this February<\/p>\n

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

Veltheimia bracteata, a South African summer-dormant bulb. Really the easiest thing to grow, if a bit slow to bulk up and get going.
\nThe emergence of the leaves in fall are a reminder to start watering again.<\/p>\n

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

The flower today, a bit more filled out.<\/p>\n

I find some of the summer-dormant stuff easier to deal with in containers, which is where the veltheimia has been growing for over five years. Unless I failed to record an earlier bloom, this would be its first year to flower.<\/p>\n

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

Aloe ‘Always Red.’ Seeing its first bloom, I did a photo search to double-check possible mislabeling. You call that red? Yes, apparently they do. Supposedly a ferociously long-blooming aloe.<\/p>\n

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

Sometimes a succulent’s flowers can be an annoyance (hello, Senecio mandraliscae), but not with Sedum nussbaumerianum, which are nice complement to the overall plant.<\/p>\n

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

Only one plant was allowed to mature this spring from the hundreds of self-sown Nicotiana ‘Ondra’s Brown Mix’<\/p>\n

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

Ah, those fleeting moments when everything is in balance, before one thing outgrows its spot and stifles another. Balance usually lasts about six months in my garden.<\/p>\n

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

Still waiting for the deep red color to form on the leaves of Aloe cameronii. A continued regimen of full sun, dryish soil should do the trick.<\/p>\n

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

A species canna from Tropico in West Hollywood<\/p>\n

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

Buds forming on Leucadendron ‘Safari Goldstrike’<\/p>\n

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

The ‘Little Jean’ kangaroo paws again, with phlomis, cistus, and euphorbias, self-sown poppies filling in. Maybe there’ll be poppies for March.<\/p>\n

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

Bloom Day — you know the drill. (And if you don’t and somehow stumbled here unwittingly, just calm down and see May Dreams Gardens for some helpful background by Carol.) I bought this Banksia ericifolia from a newish nursery in … 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":[63,25,898,27],"tags":[4097,4100,4095,3630,4075,4096,4099,589,4098,1996,493,159,208],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-glb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62817"}],"version-history":[{"count":74,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80482,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62817\/revisions\/80482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}