Archive for the category 'in the garden'
October 28th, 2011
Spent the morning in the yard, crossing a few things off the autumn To Do list.
These late autumn mornings are bright and cool. The sun is throwing long shadows on the north side of things now and I can take pictures at 10:30 that look like my best 6:30 AM shots in summer. Gotta love that.
The roses we moved to the front bed in February are nicely settled in and still blooming bravely at Halloween!
The Bonsai Garden we started last April is progressing beautifully, too. The moss / buttermilk experiment seems to be working! If you look closely (click to enlarge) at these shots you can see the greenish tinge beginning to bloom on the bricks. I’m hoping that by spring there will be something substantial in the way of moss growth to enhance the under carriage of this display, hiding the bare bricks and making the setting seem more like a natural forest floor.
We moved the bar-B-Q up under the shelter over the back door so we can cook out, even in the rain, and put the bistro table out with the green chairs. This is a great spot to sit and think, or just sit, even as the days grow progressively shorter and cooler. We’ll still be enjoying this area in December – when it’s not foggy or rainy. And, the grapefruit tree keeps it protected enough that the hanging baskets will last until Christmas too. Or at least I hope they will.
We cleaned up the area around the birdbath; moving the spider plant basket out of the shade and putting the overweight sedum basket on the steps in a pot. And finally, we moved the plumeria inside for the winter.
We’ve always had a pot or two of plumeria in our garden, but this summer is one of the few times we’ve had flowers. They are native to climates far milder than our hot zone 9, so we felt quite blessed by the showy, smelly pink blooms. It’s probably because they were babied in the porch all last winter that they rewarded us with flowers. Let’s just hope they do as well this year.
So…that pretty much takes care of our immediate need to prep for cold nights. The forecast is 47 degrees tonight, and anything under 50 is not good for the orchids, plumeria and other tropicals. Happy Autumn little garden.
May 28th, 2011
We spent this morning working in the yard…cleaning up after last night’s heavy wind. COLD wind, I might add. This weekend promises near record low temps for the Central Valley! 65 degrees is forecast for Sunday’s high!
D is still working on cleaning out the grapefruit tree for the coming season. That means barrels filled with limbs and hundreds of fruits that someone should be eating. It always makes me sad to see so many beautiful pink grapefruit wasted, but I know from experience that when our daytime highs hit the 90’s the flavor becomes so bitter as to be inedible. Oh well. There are already hundreds of marble sized fruits formed for next season. I guess I’ll be able to wait until October to enjoy that beautifully sweet treat again.
While I was sweeping paths and picking up leaves D came asking, “how can I help?” My suggestion was, “Go get the camera and take some shots of all these wonderful fuzzy flowers while they last.” I’d love to be able to paint pictures of the guava and St. John’s wort but I can’t imagine capturing them with any accuracy…so photos will have to do.
Here they are…
St. John’s Wort
Hypericum perforatum: St John’s wort is the plant species Hypericum perforatum, and is also known as Tipton’s Weed, Chase-devil, or Klamath weed. It was used by Native Americans internally as an abortifacient and externally as an anti-inflammatory, astringent, and antiseptic. St. John’s wort has long been used as a herbal tea and is also a common flavoring agent in Japanese udon noodles. The flowers and stems of Hypericum perforatum have been used to produce red and yellow dyes. Thank you wikipedia.org
Pineapple Guava
Acca sellowiana, a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, is native to the highlands of southern Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. It is widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree in New Zealand, and can be found as a garden plant in Australia and Azerbaijan [It does beautifully in our central California garden, too]. Common names include feijoa pineapple guava and guavasteen. It is an evergreen, perennial shrub or small tree, 1–7 meters (3.3–23 ft) in height, widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree. The German botanist Otto Karl Berg named feijoa after João da Silva Feijó, a Portuguese botanist born in the colony of Brazil. Thank you widipedia.org
May 23rd, 2011
and the lavender…
This morning was “lavender harvest” in the garden. I have two – no make that three- varieties in my small herb beds; French, English, and something identified by the Home Depot tag as French Lavender that is so different from the real deal even I can see it was miss-labeled.
Anyway, I just spent a couple of delightful hours preparing this season’s crop of the stuff. I trimmed back the plants to a reasonable / manageable size and pulled out the volunteer bushes.
I gave away some of the fresh flowers, with instructions for drying, to the sweet little lady from down the lane. She’s 83 years young and had never seen the fresh flowers before. She immediately fell in love with the fragrance.
“This is nothing like the bath soap and lotion my friend gave me.”
Too true. Nothing compares to the fragrance of fresh French Lavender flowers. She was so taken with them, she also went home with one of the bushes I had laid out for whomever to pick up.
In years past, I have taken the time to make Lavender Bottles or stripped the dried stems and sewn Sachets. This year I plan on Potpourri (my favorite mixture here) because it will give me an excuse to drive up to Three Rivers and gather some of the dried Pearly Everlasting flowers I love so much.
I’ve been drying some sage, chive blossoms and rosemary, too. The plan is to put together a few dried herb collections similar to these I made for the English lavender harvest a few years ago.
I’ll use bundles of each, fasten them to the bamboo rack with raffia, add a few baby roses and have a sweet reminder of today’s work for the rest of the year. This is a rack of English lavender I dried last season, but you get the idea.
I love my herb garden. I love to share the LOVE.
May 9th, 2011
What a strange spring this has been! Friday we spent several hours working in the garden preparing for our normal Central Valley temp. By mid afternoon it was almost 90 degrees…close to average for us.
Today! It’s COLD. Cold with wind and rain again. Cold being 55 or so with piles of clouds stacked up against the mountains and a winter storm warming for the high Sierras. Who expected that?
April 15th, 2011
The Japanese Maple tree that grows between our outdoor rooms is in bloom right now. The tiny propeller shaped blossoms first set on a couple of weeks ago.
April 6, 2011
The outdoor rooms…see the Maple barrel?
Today the flowers have fallen and only the ‘pellers remain.
Some days, just being in the garden, looking at its wonders, I can totally understand the verse in Romans that says:
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Romans 1:20 (New Living Translation)
April 14th, 2011
I have a bookmark bearing this quote: “When life give you lemons – make lemonade.” Early this morning there is evidence of spring, and the promise of another crop of lemonade in the garden. The Meyer lemon we planted last summer is all but bursting with flowers. I know the green fruit should probably be picked and discarded before the new lemons begin to set on, but so far I haven’t had the heart to do the deed.
This exquisite iris, blooming next to the front steps, just outside of my office window is the reason I took the camera to the garden this morning.
I love the soft lavender and cream against the backdrop of dusty miller.
These are old plants and sorely need to be divided. It would be such a shame to lose them for lack of care. I just hate to tear up the bed, leaving the scars of transplanted chromes over the summer.
Oh well. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It’s beautiful right now, and I’ve always been one to look at things in the moment.
Speaking of “in the moment” I got a couple of shots of the wisteria today, too.
I just wish there had been one of those big bumbling black bees in the flowers…instead of that fly in the lemons.
Ha…isn’t that the way it goes?
Full circle for this post…”when life gives you lemons…
Have a beautiful day,
e
April 7th, 2011
It’s raining! It’s pouring. D took this shot through the back door glass. It’s surreal how quickly the weather can change in the garden.
Oh well…rain just means the best laid garden plans go array and must be put aside for another day.
April 6th, 2011
The bonsai garden is prepared! Now all it needs are some ferns and mosses to take away the rawness. Grow…grow…grow!
After stacking the bricks and blocks to a variety of heights, adding some really big rocks, some stepping stones and about four cubic feet of potting soil we added plants meant to become ground cover. I’ve had Parma Violets around the yard here and there for years with no real rhyme or reason to where they grew. I moved the plants here. Next I added several clumps of maidenhair fern. I’m just hoping and praying there will be enough strong light to give them what they need. Then, finally, I gathered up all of the bits of moss I could find, threw it in the blender with a pint of buttermilk and smeared the mixture all over the bricks. Grow…grow…grow!
This pink Camellia stands about 24 inches tall, including the pot, blooms profusely each spring and is hardy outdoors in our temperate winters. I’m not exactly sure how old it is, but I know we brought it with us from the BIG house when we moved into the cottage in 1996. You do the math.
Here’s the Japanese Maple in fall color back in December 2001. You can see, by comparing it with the photo above how much it’s grown in the past decade. This tree must be at least twenty years old by now. It came from the BIG house, too. And I know it was several years old at the time of the move.
Other trees in the collection include a Ginkgo, a Cape Jasmine, a Gray Pine and a huge Jade plant. There is a Mimosa growing up in the greenhouse who will be added to the display once he proves himself strong enough to stay outdoors in the elements.
I’ll keep you posted on how the under-plantings grow. Taking D’s green thumb into account this little display garden should be spectacular next spring.
April 6th, 2011
Kai Li, D and I are looking at the possibility of preparing a place for his bonsai trees to be displayed to better advantage. See the bricks stacked in the path behind Kai’s behind? Well, we’ve looked at that particular space over the past several months, wondering what to do with it, wondering if it would be a good place for ??? Today we’re thinking with a bit of ground cover, a few stacks of square bricks, some ferns and some moss it could be ever so effective. The idea cost us a mere seventy-five dollars!
We went out to dinner for my birthday. I wanted Japanese food, so we decided to try a restaurant we’ve never tried before. Big mistake. Lovely garden…the food? Not so much. The price…astronomical for what was served. Oh well. It’s just one more restaurant we’ve been to TWICE. The first time – and the last time.
But the gardens…now I can SEE what we need to do to really make an eye-popping place for the bonsai. So…hooray for the $75 idea!!
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
April 3rd, 2011
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature –if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you –know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Spring…I know it’s here when my Rosemary Standard is in full bloom, and the chives are green as grass. I love, love, love this old tree. It’s been the harbinger of spring in my herb gardens for the past 20 plus years…fifteen of them here in the cottage and for at least six years before that at our BIG house across town. It occupies the center of the four-square herb beds D built for me during our first season in the cottage…and the bees LOVE it too. I’ve often wondered what the honey they make this time of year would taste like. There’s not much else in bloom right now so I’m guessing Rosemary Honey would be pungent and aromatic and good for enhancing the flavors of salad dressings and cream sauces.
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