Introducing Encelia 'Gimbel's Gold'

Working in horticulture for years, I am always looking for new varieties either in nurseries or out in nature etc.  Wherever I am I keep an eye for variations in habit and foliage.  Two years ago, while in hiking Griffith Park I noticed a strange stem on an Encelia californica, our beautiful and abundant brittlebush.  I snapped a little yellowy stem off of the plant and crammed it into a plastic water bottle.

Fortunately the cutting struck,  and after several months I took many more cuttings from that new plant.  This spring I planted several in the ground to see how they would perform. Below are some photos that I took this morning.  I think 'Gimbel's Gold' is a winner, what do you think?  I can't wait for the plant to be covered in those yellow daisies!  The only drawback is that the variegation only shows on the new growth.

In the category of flowers so large they're silly, relatively speaking of course... Stapelia gigantea

Hi,

It has been such a long summer.  So much for autumn, the heat waves roll on.  I really do want to blog... Sorry for being away for so long.  And for those of you who asked, yes I will be blogging about my trip to Europe.  :)

Sometimes plants bloom even when you neglect and de facto abuse them.  Put sun plants in shade, shade plants in sun, water the dry plants and dry out the water plants. You might think I don't like plants. And there is much justification in the name of testing and discovery.  This is the case of my Stapelia gigantea. Given to me  a while back from my friends Sue and James of The Folly Bowl, I did have every intention of integrating this succulent into the garden, but the spots in the garden keep shrinking. So there it sat on the side yard in partial shade nearly rotting in moist potting soil... for about a year and a half!  Why did I finally take pity on it and move it to the sun? Pity I guess.

So, seemingly out of spite it bloomed this week. I've been watching the pregnant podlike blooms swelling for quite a while, waiting waiting waiting.  Yesterday it happened the alien was swarmed with flies. Yup, carrion scented, just what you want in the garden. Still, its a keeper.

If you want a cutting, let me know.

Tees for tomatoes

Ever wonder what to do with old T-shirts?  This week I was looking for twine and found that I was completely out.  OK nobody panic.  My tomatoes desperately needed to be lashed to their stakes. Being the thrifty man that I am, I went after the stack of tees headed to the thrift store and snipped and ripped my way to tomato tie heaven.

Process:

First cut out the arms and seams until you are left with a clear section of fabric. Then snip on one side and tear.  You have to tear down the warp or the weft, I don't know which is which but you can do a little test before you get to ahead of yourself.  One direction tears neatly (for good ties) and the other direction is hopeless. If you tear down the right side the ties naturally curl up to make a soft bit of rope.  Now you will be ready to stake your veggies.

you're welcome.   ;)

Why not elope with a French cantaloupe?

FINALLY!  After months of waiting my first Charentais melon is ripe.   They're tiny little melons but seem to be pretty easy to grow and kinda cute. They are only a little bigger than an apple.  I've been crouching on the ground for weeks trying to sniff to see if these guys are ready.  Today I detected that familiar aroma and when I tugged ever so gently on the melon it gave itself to me.

FYI I got these seeds from Johnny's.

YUM.

garden appreciation

My friend Mike surprised me with this entry for the word "Garden" on our Drawsomething game.  LOL

Mike's drawing

And here's a shot I just took

Great dinner guests do all the blogging for you....

Wow, what a nice write up.  Photos are great.  And all the concepts are neatly referred back to earlier posts. Now why can't I blog like that.

Thanks Janine!

Laguna Dirt at Cross Pollination

Squash!

B Side

Hey there.

The reason I title this post B side, is that I finally got around to labeling the frames. I put a number on top and a number and A or B on the sides of the frames. In this way the progress of each frame can be monitored without confusing them.

Well, I was super eager to get into the hive today. I've been waiting/hoping for the hive to sort itself out.  Things were going great for the first two weeks then things seemed to not be going not so well...  The workers were making queens which isn't good.  Anyway, I was relieved today to see that they had not started another queen cell.  Other positive signs were present, for one the hive seemed more vigorous if a bit defensive.  There were, or so it seemed, a lot more workers in the hive, and the more bees there are the more work can be done.  Upon close examination I could see that the majority of the cells in the brood frames had eggs or larva in the open cells. I also noticed that she had laid eggs more to the edges of some of the brood frames, so in general it appears that she is laying more.  By the looks of it the queen is really in gear now.

All in all it seems like the hive is sorting itself out and it won't be too long before we are putting the first deep super on the hive.

Here are this week's pics:

by the numbers

does this bee suit make me look fat? LOL

4 B

can you spot the eggs, or the emerging worker bee?

funky frame was moved position and they turned this from brood comb to honeycomb 

same

capped and uncapped brood

Bees update

It's bee-n over a month since we installed the bee package. And when I first wrote about the bees, I thought that everything was hunky dory.  But shortly after the second week I noticed a big drop in activity in the hive as well as many dead bees just in front of the hive. Thankfully my bee mentor Rob came by to take a look. By then it had been a month and all sorts of bee drama was brewing!

When we opened the hive right away we noticed queen cells. this is not what you would want or expect to see with a young colony.  And it seemed like one of the cells was already empty. We thought is this why there seem to be fewer bees?? Then as we inspected the hive I (the novice) spotted a second queen! We think she must have emerged that very day.  We also noticed a bunch of drone cells that were maturing.  Rob also thought that the brood was not evenly laid. Maybe we don't have such a good queen after all....

The following weekend Rob dropped by again to take a look.  Unfortunately we found yet another queen cell in the works. We cut it out to stop them from rearing another queen, possibly for the young queen to take over the one we just installed. Perhaps the workers know something we don't?

In any case the hive seemed more vigorous and there were young worker bees emerging as we inspected the hive.  Hopefully they will soon join the ranks and begin to get this hive in order.

Today the hive was very active and I'm not sure why. hopefully it is vigor and not robbing or some other bizarre behavior I'm unaware of.

Below are some shots from last Sunday

honey and bee bread

the comb that I forced into a frame

backside

brood frame

can you spot the drone?

can you spot the queen?

Garden tour and many thanks

I just wanted to say thinks to everyone who braved the parking to come to this weekend's charity garden tour. We raised over $300 bucks for charity, which I feel is respectable since there were 40 + other gardens for people to leave their money.

How lovely it was to see old friends and new faces enjoying my garden! It was a surprise to see the cottage garden set obviously enjoying my crazy garden.

Thanks again to everyone!