[ Lost in the Landscape ]

february bloom day

I’ve just returned from a week away and haven’t had a chance to inven­tory every­thing that’s bloom­ing this month. Besides, you’ve seen a lot of it already. Here are a few snap­shots from today of what’s new or what’s changed.

Thanks as usual to Carol at May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing this fun gar­den blog­ger meme. Take a look [ here ] at what else is bloom­ing in other gar­dens around the coun­try, around the world.

My pre­dic­tion: a lot of the colder-climate gar­den­ers will be post­ing on the Valentine’s Day flow­ers they gave or received. I hope you all had a god one. Mid­dle age has struck and I don’t look so hot in my Cupid out­fit any­more. You’ll have to set­tle for flow­ers deliv­ered this way…

February 14 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • in bloom | 24 Comments »

colder than alaska

It’s been a cool sum­mer so far, fol­low­ing on the heels of a sunny but cool spring. I’ve been watch­ing the tem­per­a­tures in the paper for Fair­banks, Alaska, and most days the offi­cial San Diego report has been cooler. In fact it’s been cooler than almost any­where in the US except for maybe Anchor­age in Alaska. Brr.

At my July 4th party I was talk­ing to some­one there with ties to the Scripps Insti­tu­tion of Oceanog­ra­phy, and his thoughts were that this is typ­i­cal for an El Niño year. The phe­nom­e­non that the locals call “May gray” would be slow to get started (as was the case this year), and the dreaded sub­se­quent phe­nom­e­non the we call “June gloom” would drag on longer than usual. All that seems to be happening.

The gar­den natives don’t seem to be wor­ry­ing about the tem­per­a­ture as much as I’ve been. In fact the late-spring bloomers seem to be hav­ing a field day, extend­ing their bloom, look­ing nice at a time of year when they don’t always. Black sage is often done by this time, but there are a few lin­ger­ing flow­er­ing stems.

For stun­ning flow­ers, though, the black sage has passed the baton to Cleve­land sage. Here’s the com­mon and gor­geous cul­ti­var ‘Win­nifred Gilman.’

…and here’s Win­nifred in closeup…

One of local live-forevers, Dud­leya edulis, has had one of the more amaz­ing years that I can remem­ber. Here’s an 18–20 year old plant from above, all cov­ered with flow­ers. In this photo it’s sprawl­ing six feet across from one edge to the other.

The same dud­leya, viewed from ground level as it cas­cades over a short lit­tle retain­ing wall.

The San Miguel Island buck­wheat that I grew from seed two years ago, Eri­o­gonum grande var. rubescens, is finally hit­ting its stride, finally look­ing the pho­tos I’ve seen in books. Maybe the cooler weather will keep it look­ing nice longer.

Among the many non-natives that call my gar­den their home, this is Clero­den­drum ugan­dense, finally perk­ing up after look­ing like a twig until late in May. I think it’s been a some­what slow start for this plant this year, but it always waits until the weather warms to look like a plant you want to keep in the garden.

The com­mon orna­men­tal sage, Salvia ‘Hot Lips,’ is grown for its red and white bicol­ored blooms. I’ve heard that it blooms mostly with white flow­ers when weather turns cold. In the left photo these are the only two red and white flow­ers I could find on three plants. The rest of the flow­ers are white. In the depths of win­ter, how­ever, this plant is often com­pletely bicol­ored, so I’m not sure if there’s any truth to this color change rumor.

Some of the plants that I worry about the most are my Amer­i­can pitcher plants, these Sar­race­nia from the South, where the daily low tem­per­a­tures these days are often run­ning ten degrees above the San Diego day­time highs. For­tu­nately these plants seem to respond more to daylength than to tem­per­a­ture, and the plants look pretty good. Still, they might be taller by now where they originate.

Cool as the days may be, one thing told me for sure that I do not live remotely near Alaska. Mon­day night was the grand open­ing of the first giant bloom of this climb­ing cac­tus, prob­a­bly Hylo­cereus unda­tus. Even if it’s prob­a­bly been slow get­ting started this year, it’s prob­a­bly the best proof that I’m over­re­act­ing. Hardy to not much below freez­ing, one hit of arc­tic cold and you’ll freeze this plant’s tuchas off.

At eight to ten inches across, the only shy thing about this plant is that it only opens as dark­ness approaches. Peo­ple in cold climes covet being able to grow plants like this–or in fact many of our more ten­der Cal­i­for­nia natives.

That’s def­i­nite proof, Dorothy. We don’t live in Alaska. It just might feel that way these cool sum­mer days.

July 07 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: buckwheats • Cleveland sage • Eriogonum grande var rubescens • Hylocereus triangularis • in bloom • night blooming cactus • Salvia clevelandii • Salvia mellifera • San Miguel Island buckwheat • sarracenia • summer • temperature | 13 Comments »

gbbd: the garden and beyond

It’s spring, all right. The gar­den con­tin­ues to bloom away man­i­cally, but the out­door places around town have been no slouch, either, when it comes to flowers.

This Gar­den Blogger’s Bloom Day, hosted by May Dreams Gar­dens, fea­tures a gallery of some blooms from the gar­den mixed in with blooms from Mis­sion Trails Regional Park in San Diego.

In the top photo from Mis­sion Trails you can see that the yellow-flowered deer­weed, Lotus sco­par­ius, has col­o­nized many of the sunny areas that burned four and a half years ago. As the land­scape recov­ers, other plants will come in and stake their claims. The sec­ond image from near the top of For­tuna Peak shows that other areas are also recov­er­ing from the fires, though slower than far­ther downslope.

You can hover over each image below for its name, or click it to see a larger photo. While you can prob­a­bly tell what’s a wild plant and what’s in the gar­den, there’s an answer key at the end if you’re into quizzing your­self. (A few of thee are tricky in that they’re local native plants that have been incor­po­rated into the gar­den.)

Answers:
Wild, gar­den, gar­den;
gar­den, wild, wild;
wild, gar­den wild;
gar­den, gar­den, gar­den;
gar­den, wild, gar­den;
wild, gar­den, wild;
wild, wild, wild.

April 15 2009 | Categories: gardening • landscape | Tags: Add new tag • fire • fire ecology • flowers • gbbd • in bloom • Mission Trails Regional Park | 5 Comments »

gbbd february blooms

May Dreams Gar­dens has been host­ing the Gar­den Blogger’s Bloom Day for a while now. This is my first go at it, with a big sam­pling of what’s bloom­ing in the back yard gar­den right now. Sev­eral of the shots are of the same plant, so it might seem like there’s more in bloom than might first appear: When life gives you fewer flow­ers, you look at each one closer!

In the pho­tos above are:

• Ranun­cu­lus Tecolote (white)
• Oxalis pur­purea (white form)
• Oxalis, ran­dom self-sown hybrid
• Salvia nemerosa ‘Snow Hills’
• Aly­sum that has self-sown from a plant­ing 15 or more years ago. The orig­i­nals were white and pur­ple. The new ones come all-white, or mix­tures of white and purple
• African daisy (arc­to­tis hybrids)
• Blue-eyed grass (Sisy­rinchium bel­lum)
• Solanum pyra­can­thum
• Ces­trum fas­ci­c­u­la­tum ‘Newellii’
• Mother of thou­sands (Kalan­choe dai­gre­mon­tiana)
• Pro­tea Pink Ice
• Melam­podium Derby
• Aeo­nium species
• Your basic calla lily (Zant­edeschia aethiopica)
• Euphor­bia lam­bii, in bud
• Euphor­bia chara­cias subsp. wulfenii
• Mizuna, escaped from a veg­etable gar­den plant­ing 10+ years ago
• Alpine straw­berry
• Hopi red dye amaranth
• Heliotrope
• Bird of paradise
• Epi­den­drum orchids (red, orange)

I have a few cool Cal­i­for­nia natives begin­ning to flower in the front yard, and I’ll post more of them soon.

February 15 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • in bloom | 15 Comments »

peak february bloom

The storm was pass­ing, and the after­noon light was per­fect. The suc­cu­lents bloom­ing in the front yard never looked bet­ter. I had to get the cam­era for this one!

In bloom are Aloe arborescens (orange-red) and a cras­sula species or rel­a­tive (yel­low). To the right, not in bloom but still dra­matic, are two clones of a tree aloe (Aloe bar­berae). The low filler plant to the right is the Cal­i­for­nia native coy­ote bush (Bac­cha­ris pilu­laris pilu­laris ‘Pigeon Point’). I don’t nor­mally love the neighbor’s big pointy juniper in the back­ground, but I think it com­pletes this pic­ture nicely.

February 08 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: Aloe arborescens • Aloe barberae • aloes • crassula • in bloom • succulents | 6 Comments »

balboa park’s desert garden

Jan­u­ary can be an amaz­ing month for suc­cu­lents and other desert plants. Many aloes and agaves explode into bloom, and plants with ephemeral foliage are green with leaves in ways you don’t often see them.

San Diego’s Bal­boa Park houses one of the prime local col­lec­tion of cacti, suc­cu­lents and other desert dwellers from around the world. The Desert Gar­den, the larger of its two suc­cu­lent gar­dens, was estab­lished in 1976, but many of the plants are senior cit­i­zens much older than the age of the garden.

Aloes star in its Jan­u­ary land­scape, with red and orange torches of flow­ers that dou­ble as hum­ming­bird magnets.

And shown here, lurk­ing in the shad­ows, is one of the local hum­ming­birds, stak­ing its territory.

Among the big, mature spec­i­mens are sev­eral dragon trees, Dra­caena draco. In this first photo, on the near trunk, you can see a red­dish patch where the plant’s red sap has dried. When cut, these plants ooze a fluid that in some Euro­pean leg­ends was pur­ported to be dragon’s blood, hence the plant’s name (draco = dragon).

This is a pub­lic gar­den, and so it’s sub­ject to fund­ing glitches and bat­tles over civic pri­or­i­ties. I’d con­sider the gar­den to be in great con­di­tion con­sid­er­ing those limitations.

One thing I would have loved to have seen, though, would be more plant labels. I encoun­tered so many inter­est­ing species, but very few of them had name tags. I have this thing about need­ing to know the name of a plant–Call me com­pul­sive. But the lack of labels drove me crazy. I real­ize, how­ever, that tags don’t come cheap. And in a wide-open pub­lic gar­den, labels can walk away with pieces of suc­cu­lents in the hands of evil plant addicts.

One of the plants that was labeled was this Natal Bot­tle­brush, Greyia suther­landii. A bit scrappy-looking as a plant, but what great flowers!

Also labeled was the Mada­gas­car ocotillo, Allu­au­dia pro­cera. I loved the spi­ral pat­tern­ing of its spines.

Another prob­lem with this being a pub­lic gar­den is that there are quite a few spec­i­mens where people’s temp­ta­tions to carve their ini­tials in the plant life got the bet­ter of them. This euphor­bia was scarred many times over. But that wasn’t going to stop it from blooming.

After vis­it­ing the gar­den I was sur­prised by how many shots I’d racked up in the cam­era. And for some rea­son, the major­ity of them were ver­ti­cals. Is there some­thing about succulents–particularly the upright-growing kinds that mimic the way a human stands–that scream out for pho­tograph­ing them in an upright orientation?

Some yuc­cas, I think, with spent bloom stems.

Boo­jum trees, Fouquieria colum­naris, native to Baja Cal­i­for­nia. This plant is in the same genus as the Cal­i­for­nia desert’s spec­tac­u­lar ocotillo, which inter­est­ingly isn’t related to the Madas­car ocotillo, above.

Aloes and kalan­choes in bloom.

The main gar­den is a flat, easy stroll over wide decom­posed gran­ite path­ways. As part of a recent expan­sion, the gar­den now also includes this switch­back down into Florida Canyon, also part of Bal­boa Park. The plants along the descent are still young, but should look spec­tac­u­lar in a decade or so.

Not every­one in the world loves cac­tus and suc­cu­lents. They might point to the defen­sive spines many of the plants have, and they might say the sculp­tural shapes of the plants don’t look soft and cozy like leafy shrubs or fra­grant roses. Next to the Desert Gar­den is Bal­boa Park’s rose gar­den. Dur­ing spring­time, thirty sec­onds of walk­ing would take you from the world of cac­tus and suc­cu­lents to a gar­den manic with flow­ers and heavy with the aroma of roses. But on this bright Jan­u­ary day, the adja­cent roses were pruned down to naked stems and pierc­ing thorns. It was the cac­tus and suc­cu­lents that looked warm and welcoming.

The Desert Gar­den is located across Park Boule­vard from the Nat­ural His­tory Museum on Bal­boa Park’s museum row. The gar­den has no walls, no entry fee, and is open 24/7, 365 days of the year.

If the 2.5 acres of the Desert Gar­den isn’t enough of a cac­tus and suc­cu­lent fix, cross Park Boule­vard and take a stroll over to the Bal­boa Park Club, maybe ten min­utes on foot, and take in the parks orig­i­nal 1935 cac­tus gar­den, which, accord­ing to the park’s web­site, was estab­lished “under the direc­tion of [San Diego gar­den­ing leg­end] Kate Ses­sions for the 1935 Cal­i­for­nia Pacific Inter­na­tional Expo­si­tion.” There you’ll find “some of the largest cac­tus and suc­cu­lent spec­i­mens in the Park,” along with a nice col­lec­tion of proteas.

January 11 2009 | Categories: gardening • photography • places • plant profiles | Tags: Balboa Park • Balboa Park Desert Garden • cacti • desert plants • drought-tolerant landscaping • in bloom • succulents | 3 Comments »

my new year’s plant

If there’s a plant that says New Year’s Day to me, it’s the com­mon jade plant, Cras­sula ovata. The rea­son why is a lit­tle embar­rass­ing, and I’m trust­ing you not to tell any­one else.

Grow­ing up, my fam­ily would spend the morn­ing of New Year’s Day gath­ered around the tele­vi­sion set­ting, watch­ing the Rose Parade. Over­taken by mis­guided jags of inspi­ra­tion, I’d make my own lit­tle parade floats out of lit­tle card­board boxes and what­ever flow­ers were available.

My fam­ily lived in the same val­ley as Pasadena, though inland a few miles. The two loca­tions essen­tially shared the same cli­mate pro­file, some­thing around Zone 9B. Don’t believe the pro­pa­ganda about the Pasadena area hav­ing gar­gan­tuan fields of roses bloom­ing every­where in Jan­u­ary. Yes, you’ll find roses, but not in the same num­ber as other flowers.

Instead, at my par­ents’, the plant that was depend­ably cov­ered with flow­ers on New Year’s was the jade plant. They had a cou­ple plants in the back yard that were about as tall as I was, and they sup­plied more than enough lit­tle starry white flow­ers to com­pletely cover my artis­tic creations.

Now, all grown up, I have a jade in the front yard. This year, with the bizarrely warm fall we had, the plant was con­fused and started bloom­ing in Novem­ber. Here’s how it looked yes­ter­day. Not totally cov­ered in flow­ers, but with plenty of flow­ers to go around–unless some­one needs to build a major float.

So, with that photo, let me wish you a happy New Year’s! May 2009 bring you piles of flow­ers and inter­est­ing plants and good times with peo­ple who care deeply for you!

January 01 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: Crassula ovata • in bloom • jade plant • New Year's Day • Rose Parade | 7 Comments »

monday floral quiz

Here’s a lit­tle help­ing of some of what was bloom­ing in the gar­den today.

I wanted to have a lit­tle more fun with the pic­tures than show­ing you a slideshow of the gar­den. Only the first one, Camel­lia sasan­qua ‘Cleopa­tra’ with an atten­dant ant, is a basic straight­for­ward shot. The rest are cropped and then col­laged together. See if you can guess what every­thing is.

There’s an answer key at the end.

The answers (top to bot­tom, left to right):

Camel­lia sasan­qua ‘Cleopa­tra’
Paper­white nar­cis­sus
Alyssum
Plec­tran­thus ver­ti­cil­la­tus (Creep­ing Char­lie) flow­ers
Epi­den­drum hybrid, red
Solanum pyra­can­thum
Thai basil blooms
Straw­berry blos­som
Melam­podium Derby (vol­un­teer from last sea­son)
Epi­den­drum hybrid, orange
Salvia micro­phylla ‘Hot Lips’
Ces­trum ele­gans
Gail­lar­dia pul­chella (Blan­ket flower)
Salvia nemorosa ‘Snow Hills’
Rotheca myri­coides ‘Ugan­dense’ (But­ter­fly bush)
Heliotrope
Zin­nia vol­un­teer from 2007 sea­son, finally show­ing itself
Salvia cacali­ae­fo­lia (Ivy-leaved sage) with cater­pil­lar
Stre­litzia regi­nae (Bird of par­adise) from below
Salvia sagit­tata (Arrow-leaved sage)
Oxalis pur­purea

November 10 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden • photography | Tags: flowers • in bloom • quizzes | 1 Comment »

what elephants eat

Polit­i­cally I’m fairly far afield from the Repub­li­can party, but I’m think­ing that one of my plants must be a card-carrying mem­ber. Por­tu­lacaria afra marked the open­ing of the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion a cou­ple weeks ago by qui­etly com­ing into bloom.

So what’s the con­nec­tion between the Repub­li­cans and this plant? Ele­phants.

In its native habi­tat this plant can be good for­age for ele­phants. (And I’m sure you know that the ele­phant is the sym­bol of the Repub­li­can Party.) Accord­ing to a treat­ment on this species by Robert J. Baran, 80% of the diet of ele­phants in South Africa’s Addo National Park con­sists of this plant. Hence one of its com­mon names, “ele­phant bush.”

Out­doors in San Diego the plant is ridicu­lously easy to grow. Full sun, occa­sional sum­mer water (ca. every 2–4 weeks) and well-drained soil are all it asks. If you want more of the plant, break off a chunk and set it some dirt. Instant new plant.

Its flow­er­ings are rare here, how­ever, and it’s easy to miss the lit­tle pink puffs of smoke that hover over the plant for a cou­ple weeks.

The plant in the pic­ture is maybe ten years in the ground in this spot, and is about four feet tall. Some reports say it’ll get three times this size, but you can eas­ily break off any chunks that offend you. So far so good in this loca­tion. And in pots it’s much more con­strained. (The ugly fence in the back­ground and its trans­for­ma­tion into some­thing much more fab­u­lous will be the sub­ject of an upcom­ing post…)

The plant report­edly also does well indoors in colder cli­mates. Its easy-growing nature has caused a lot of peo­ple to call it as a vari­ant of the clas­sic beginner’s jade plant (Cras­sula ovata). But aside from the cur­sory sim­i­lar­i­ties the plants are in com­pletely dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies. If you’ve been lucky enough to live where it’s warm enough to see them both bloom you’ll def­i­nitely believe that their rela­tion­ship is pretty far apart.

Mealy­bugs haven’t been an issue with this plant for me out­doors, but they seem to be an occa­sional prob­lem when it’s grown indoors in bright sun. Shade-grown, over-watered suc­cu­lents seem to attract the crit­ters. Try a brighter spot, and cut down on the water­ing if the lit­tle beast­ies are a problem.

Over­all, this is a happy plant that eas­ily crosses party lines. But you might want to keep it out of sight when the ele­phants come to loll about in your koi pond.

September 17 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden • plant profiles | Tags: elephant bush • in bloom • jade plant • Portulacaria afra • spekboom • succulents | 1 Comment »

my favorite yucky flower

One of my favorite weird plants has bloomed for the first time this year. For much of the year Stapelia gigan­tea grows low to the ground, form­ing a dense suc­cu­lent mat about eight inches tall. But in the sum­mer and fall it perks up and pro­duces these amaz­ing flowers.

The pro­por­tion of the size of the flower to the size of the plant almost reminds you of alpine plants, where the flow­ers start to dwarf the plants they grow on. (Pro­por­tion­ally, imag­ine a rose bush four feet tall pro­duc­ing a rose four feet across…)

The flow­ers are a pale cream-to-icy-green color, with dark rose squig­gly lines run­ning all over them. And the flow­ers are cov­ered with fur.

I could stare into the spi­ral vor­tex of lines at the cen­ter of one of these flow­ers for hours…

And did I men­tion that if you stick your nose into the flower the aroma might remind you of ham­burger left in an unplugged refrig­er­a­tor for a cou­ple days? Although the cam­era scared them away, you can imag­ine that flies find this the most irre­sistible flower. It’s no sur­prise that one of its com­mon names is “car­rion flower.”

The genus Stapelia has other stinky flow­ers, though most with the excep­tion of S. gran­di­flora have much smaller flow­ers. A num­ber of closerly related gen­era in the Stapeliae tribe also have stinky but amaz­ingly intri­cate and beau­ti­ful flow­ers. Hoodia gor­donii, the plant that has become pop­u­lar as an appetite sup­pres­sant, also belongs to this same group of plants.

Grow­ing Stapelia gigan­tea is easy–actually, too easy in Hawaii and Aus­tralia, where it’s con­sid­ered a weed. Basi­cally give it bright light (it might not bloom in shade), pro­tect it from freez­ing, and sup­ply it with light to mod­er­ate water. (It tol­er­ates not being watered for two or three weeks, thanks to its suc­cu­lent stems, but it’s hap­pi­est with some mois­ture.) Mine is grow­ing well in a shal­low clay pot about eigh­teen inches in diam­e­ter, in reg­u­lar pot­ting soil.

If you or some­one you know has a young­ster attracted to crawl­ing, scary bugs, turn them on to this plant. They’ll be a gar­dener for life.

September 07 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: carrion flower • in bloom • Stapelia gigantea | 10 Comments »