Aroma

I watered some pots this morning.  We were promised rain, something we are getting used to in these parts,  but only a shower here and there hit us.   While I was giving the smallest plants a bit of water I was caught by an unmistakable odd aroma.  All you knowledgable gardeners will know the aroma I mean,  one that is listed in old English tree guides as "indecent". Many trees have this smell, most of the ones I can think of have prolific small white flowers that scent the air with their dubious attractant. Carob is the worst one I can think of, I personally can't stand the smell and am thankful that none grow near me.

So, as I caught this whiff on the air I started to hunt it down.  I was shocked when I sussed out the culprit,  my old friend Geranium maderense.  Why in all these years have I never smelled it?  Anyway it isn't as strong as the carob tree, and it is in full bloom.  What a glorious plant, smell or no.

A year on: a picture is worth a thousand words

Here's your virtual tour through the garden this morning.  I'm kinda shocked myself seeing the before and after photos.  One year later...

Enjoy!

Before!

Before!

This morning!

Yes, Tweedia again.

OK.  So not only did I lie about a tour through the garden being the next post, I'm also going back to Tweedia.

But I have a good reason.  I had a friend in the garden in the dying light of the afternoon and was struck at the beauty of this little perennial, again.  So, I grabbed by camera.

If you want to know more about my thoughts on this plant you can go back to my previous post:  non-secateur.blogspot.com/2010/09/plant-of-week-tweedia-caerulea.html

But for now you can just enjoy this little guy blooming his heart out.

Remember when...

Jeeze.  I think I'm officially old.   And there are so many meters... grandpa ear hairs, the memory loss, but the thing I really notice is the speed.  Where does the time go?  Time is so weird. On one hand I feel like this has been the longest year of my life having my first home and garden... but on the other it went by in a flash. And 2011 is already whizzing by.

In any case I was thinking today about the age of the garden, not quite a year old yet.  I'm amazed at how full and mature it looks. I ponder on what will the next year bring, the next ten. How will the areas change over time? Will I get bored and change them? Will the hedge ever satisfy my need for privacy on this populous street?

Remember when the garden looked like this? Weedy uncared for Bermuda lawn, flat and without a single surprise.  What a year.

Next post... a tour today...

Mid April 2010, boardwalk in place, with no plants? How perfectly ridiculous it looks! Look at the haystack of weeds and Bermuda grass.

Plant of the week: Osteospermum 'Nuanza Copper'

I must say I have been a victim of prejudice, my own.  For years I wrote off Osteospermums as the common freeway daisy.  Of course the diversity of South African composites is vast. But there really wasn't much choice until the last few years. And yes there were some intriguing cultivars but I resisted them for their resemblance to the osteos of the past. Last year I gave in when a sad looking 4" plant came into my possession.

The plant was Osteopermum 'Nuanza Copper', I had seen the flowers many times and loved the muted purple and copper tones. Some of the flowers will be coppery then finishing purple.  It didn't do much at all last year. But about two weeks ago it sprung into action. I will tell you with full disclosure that the actual habit of the plant is poor,  weak and unbalanced. But if you can put up with that then you will enjoy the blooms.

Today I bought several plants of different cultivars in the same purple and orange tones.  We'll see how they do as well.

Plant of the week: Sedum 'Lemon Coral'

As a busy "been there, done that" gardener I find that I can sometimes limit myself. I think you will know what I mean. There are so many plants and varieties that we can grow in Southern California. At some point you really have to develop a screening mechanism.  It's like being at a crowded party, you just can't listen to every conversation, you must choose, you must ignore.  But just like that party, you may miss out on a good joke or some gossip.

A year ago, my gardening buddy Suzanne foisted a handful of cuttings upon me. Now, let it be known that I respect her opinion as a gardener and horticulturist.  But that doesn't mean we should agree on everything.  So when I saw that little pile of golden succulents I thought (as most would) that it was Sedum rupestre 'Angelina', a plant I first became aware of when I was living in England 7 years ago. So I planted that plant already,old hat, right? At least that's what I thought. And plants get re-marketed all the time, one year one name, another year another name.  Anyway I thought it was more of the same, but I did as I was told and just set the cuttings in a 6" pot of soil and put them aside.

Not long after I planned to forget about these plants did I notice a glow on the makeshift plant table near my potting bench.  This Sedum was luminous and it had grown-in like it had been there for months.  Some months later it was given a home in the new garden in the front yard. And I continued to admire it!  Little by little I have become addicted to that golden glow.  It's a bit like shag carpeting to which is really fun (just shag carpet in the garden not at home, sorry Austin Powers). Now I will tell you that like most all plants it does go through it's little ups and downs.  When it's not rapidly growing it's more green and when it is fed and happy it shines.

Recently I did a whole (little) area of it in the garden, see photos below. Now I'm convinced I need acreage.  Oh, I have plans, yes I do.

close up

more ground giving over to golden shag carpet

Plant of the week: X Graptoveria 'Fred Ives'

Looking around my garden on Friday I started to notice how well things were starting to fill in.  It's such a joy to take a few wee cuttings from a friend's garden and watch them come into their own.

Such is the case with this plant of the week: X Graptoveria 'Fred Ives'.  This plant really fills that lush flower-like succulent category. It has this beautiful silver pink color that seems to really blend well with a lot of greens and grays in the garden. It doesn't get leggy like many Aeoniums so the maintenance is quite minimal. And as I have done in my garden, it's possible to employ them and ground covers . And as I said before that rosette looks like a wax flower, a flower that's more than a foot across. In the photo below they appear to be singles but soon there will be many heads of pups hugging the ground.

I just love heterosis.  Don't you?!

A path to concrete happiness

I finally did it! After weeks and weeks of having them out on the ground, I set my paving stones.   This is the third and final path through the front yard.  I went back and forth on how it should turn out.   Being in my concrete phase I decided to make the stones myself. And having nature held up in high esteem,  I settled on doing a reptilian theme, using reptile vinyls to create the patterns.  I experimented with acid stains and was very pleased with the results.

So yesterday,  listening to Miike Snow, and  drinking a beer in the afternoon sun,  I fixed those babies in place.  I'm happy with it, what do you think?

Concrete creativity

Alright, I'm going to let you in on a secret.  I'm a creative compulsive.  There I've send it, it's out there.  I own it!   Every few days I have to create something.  But lately in the garden my focus has been concrete,  molding concrete.  First it was the balls, then ball towers and now it's relics.  I want to create the sense that the garden, which is not quite a year old, has roots in an ancient culture.  This ancient culture's artifacts are being brought to the surface by Whiskey Creek, my little pond and dry stream bed.  So amongst the balls and stones there are also Buddhas and Quan Yins.

So, how did I do it?  Well still doing it.  I went "old school" and made my molds out of natural latex.   It takes a while and yes it is a bit messy but the results are really fun.  I set my molds in sand on my work table,  get them all ready and then get the concrete mixer going. Did I mention I have a concrete mixer? Originally I had justified the purchase by thinking I would mix custom batches of potting soil. That never happened but I'm so happy I bought it.

Anyway my plan is to keep doing more and more heads until I have hundreds.  Piles and piles.  Here's a look at a couple of areas of the garden where I'm starting to see progress. And a shot of the molds on some stakes in the garden, it kinda looks like some gruesome scene.

Don't you want some latex?

Slathered in latex

Heads on pikes, yikes!

Quan Yin and Buddha

First big Buddha!

More

and More!

Spring Fever: A propagator's vice... Update!

Howdy.

Just a quick update. The Asclepias seeds arrived today!  I sowed half of each of the packets immediately and put them onto the heat mat.  Will let you know when they start to pop!