I could have waited

One of the plant vendors at the SFF&GS was selling water plants, particularly water lilies. They had my recently purchased hardy miniature, Helvola, all prepackaged in a nice planter for immediate use in a water garden. My helvola, which arrived last week, is a little plant with leaves and roots but badly in need of a pot and appropriate soil. Naturally, I should have realized that I would need soil and a pot but it never occurred to me so when the poor naked plant arrived, I went out to the web and ordered them. They are now on the way but meanwhile my helvola languishes in a saucer of water. I guess its no big deal because my tub isn't here year either.

The only revelation is that I could have gotten my water lily at SFF&GS had I waited and maybe saved a little money. One of the water plant purveyors at the show is from nearby Elk Grove. If I can't get the fertilizer tabs which I neglected to order with my soil and pots -and didn't buy at the show because I ran short of cash for small purchases- from my local nurseries, I can get them from him.

San Franciso Flower and Garden Show

First impressions

Walking from the non-preferred parking area toward the show you cross over the traffic entering the complex. Then you are there, the famous Cow Palace.



Inside is an incredible sight wonderland of vendors, exhibsition gardens and food. (I noticed one attendee complained about the limited fare but there seemed to me to be a wide range of food offerings). For me, a nondescript polish sausage was all I needed to keep me going for 5 hours of gawking and buying.


We drove down from Sacramento leaving at about 9:00 AM. I dropped my wife off at Union Square f or a day of browsing San Francisco art galleries and got to the Cow Palace at about 11:00 AM. Inside, I first passed quickly though the vendors to see what was available and plan later purchases. Then I looked at the display gardens and returned to the vendors for actual purchases. I quickly became very grateful for the check stands because some of my purchases were heavy and all were awkward to carry. By the time I was finished, my wife had left two messages on my cellphone wondering where I was (cellphone coverage in the Palace seems to be spotty). I left about 3:30 PM but with the very heavy traffic and my unfamiliarity with driving in San Francisco, it was 4:30 before I spotted her on the steps of Union Square opposite Macy's. Then to a nice restaurant on the Embarcadero and back to Sacramento.

More reactions and comments later.

If you're going to San Francisco

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

Oh, wait! That's not what I meant to say.

The only possible reason to go to San Francisco this week is to attend the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. OK it's really in Daley City, but back to the point.

If you are new to the show here are your assignments.

And One More

New kid that is.

This is tea rose Sofrano which arrived from the Antique Rose Emporium. I really didn't want it for another week or so, primarily because that is when my other roses are coming. They didn't ask when I wanted it and shipped right when I ordered. Their roses come in gallon pots and can wait nicely for me to hack a hole in the rock pile for it. It would be plenty fine to plant it this weekend which turned warm and sunny. The old roses are sprouting strongly and its the kind of day you want to visit the garden center and buy something. I am holding off for Friday when , at long last, I visit the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. I am hoping for inspiration and some new additions to my garden.

Meanwhile, Narcissus

The most spectacular displays right now in my garden are the narcissus. I have planted the hillside behind my house with bulbs each fall (except last year) and the result is clusters of flowers scattered over the slope. I thought I was planting many bulbs but clearly I could have multiplied my planting by 5 or maybe ten to get really spectacular results. Still what I have is beautiful.

Last year I was thinking of planting some whites. I am still thinking. When I see all the yellow flowers, it seems that white would detract. Maybe just a few.

I also planted lots of muscari, thinking how nice the blue flowers would be against the yellow. I don't know how they do it for the pictures but in my garden the muscari bloom after the narcissus and they are dinky little things. I probably need to read the fine print.

New Kids

I couldn't resist some new plants. I am a sucker for bromeliads despite a poor track record. Here (middle) is a Dyckia x 'Icicle seedling'. Beautiful color.

Next (bottom) Bilbergia nutans. It's not so spectacular but I think I can grow it and get some color on my patio during off season. And finally (top) Aloe lineata.

These little guys are my first order from Yucca Do and I am impressed. I have been browsing their online catalogue for a few years and finally succumbed.

I have long hoped to find a better landscape plan than agapanthus for my area. They look good in spring but in summer here they turn into crispy critters. Low growing aloes would give the same effect and survive the summers looking acceptable. I haven't yet determined if the dreaded landscape cops approve of aloes so, for now, my new guy will be in a pot.


Sorry for the strange labeling and layout. Who knew what blogger would do?

Cymbidiums

I had a large collection of cymbidium orchids which were easy to grow in coastal LA. Naturally I brought them all along with our move to the idyllic Sierra foothills along with rubber trees (ficus elastica), brugmansia, various cacti and miscellaneous other plants in pots which I had accumulated over the years in Southern California. I even rented a small truck to haul them up after their four month exile to my son’s San Pedro front yard.

I was not sure that they would survive the first winter even though I knew that cymbidiums can manage in nearby Sacramento. They all survived but not one bloomed the first year. Then I worried that they would not survive the summer. They did even though I had no shade in my newly landscaped yard.

I now was confident that I could keep them alive but the next challenge was could I persuade them to bloom. Blooming them had never been a trick in SoCal. I used the bloom and grow fertilizers in the appropriate seasons and the orchids responded appreciatively. I maintained this practice after the move but got no blooms in the first two years. This year was to be my final try. I would either have some blooms or give up on cymbidiums and focus on something more appropriate for my climate.

This year I had two plants bloom. The first was my miniature green flowers variety (Sweetheart 'King Arthur'). It has always grown like a weed and flowered like a champion so I was not surprised that it would be the first to step up. In addition it is an early flowering variety which sets buds up in the fall for winter flowering. As a result it had many bloom stalks formed before it got cold and the blooms actually opened in January despite some pretty cold weather. Those blooms are still on the plant but way past beauty.

The surprise was the second plant, another miniature, only red (If I knew the variety once, I don't any longer). This year the stalks popped up about December and just last week opened. The flowers are a bit stressed looking but much better than no flowers at all.

I can only speculate what might have made the difference but this encourages me to hope for even better results next year.

My first thought is that I moved the plants from an exposed location on the retaining wall to a more sheltered location under one of my maple trees and in front of the retaining wall. There they receive shelter from the hot summer sun and perhaps some protection from the winter cold. I will keep them where they are.

On another front, now that it seems that I am having success with them, I plan to repot a few of the most pot bound plants before the summer heat.

One final thought is that my normal month for beginning the bloom fertilizer is October. I plan to switch in September to see if I can get more blooms.

Descanso Gardens and deja vu

Day trip to LA to see the tax guy and the Hertz folks set me up with a convertible. OK it was a Toyota but still, tooling down the Hollywood Freeway from Bob Hope to Hollywood with the top down was a blast. The only thing missing was Randy Newman singing 'I Love LA'.

Anyway, I left the afternoon open to see something before flying back to Sacramento and decided on Descanso Gardens. In all my 30 years in LA, I only made it to Descanso once before. Yesterday was the perfect day. Camellias blooming everywhere, sunshine, what more could you want.

They have a corner devoted to California natives. None were blooming but just looking at the plants brought back memories of my bulldozed front yard at my old house. I had a huge ceanothus 'Concha' which was a spectacular blue background for the small brick patio which our son built for us. Next to it was a fremontadendron which was also a spectacular display in spring. I had lehua plants, good sized specimens of jade plant (crasula), some low growing aloes and a red banana screening the patio and french doors to my wife's office from the street. This was perhaps my best gardening effort at the old house. It wasn't really planned. I added things I liked from my frequent trips to the nursery and it gradually came together. Unfortunately when it was beginning to look its best, I had to take an out of town job which eventually led to our move.

Where I live now, there are plant police who continually look for forbidden plants in my landscaping. (Doesn't seem very American, does it?) Every thing the landscaper planted was approved but who knows about the things I pick. Nevertheless, I do add plants and think about how to make my new yard better despite the constraints. It's probably time for a post on the dredded homeowners association but not today. Maybe tomorrow.

Roses Present

Year 1

We moved into our house in July but did not get the rear yard landscaped until December so my first year to contribute to the garden was 2005. I mentioned earlier that I had asked the landscape designer for some roses. He allotted three spaces on the side of the yard behind the retaining wall that steps up from my level yard to that of my neighbor's. There were three holes hacked in the rocks with gallon pots as filler.

I had decided to be more adventurous with my new roses and ordered three Mutabilis to fill the holes. I was still trying to take the measure of the plantings and understanding what they might look like when mature so I was cautious about further ground planting. I wanted another rose, however, and decided to grow one in a pot. After considerable pondering, I selected an Austin rose, Symphony which was described as a yellow .

Mutabilis was an inspired choice. (I later found that it is one of the 10 best plants for the area selected by the UC Davis Botanical Gardens.) Two of the plants took off right away while the one in the center languished and eventually died. (Water from apparently natural sources bubbles up randomly in my new yard causing some drainage problems which I will document later but the central rose was planted right on top of one of them.) The survivors are always in bloom (except when I force dormancy) and are now about 6’ x 6’.

Symphony was disappointing; not very vigorous and bleached out to white in our scorching summer weather. It lasted two years then petered out.

Year 2

By this time it was clear to me that the beds around the level area of my back yard could stand some more plants and so why not some more roses. I added two roses, Mme. Cecile Brunner (the regular one – not the climber) and Midnight Blue. They are both small and I hoped would be complementary. I am still waiting for them to grow up.

I wanted climbing roses in my front courtyard where there is what we like to call the bell tower over the gate from the front yard. I planted Mermaid to grow up the north wall and out of the top of the bell tower into the front of the house and Ginger Syllabub to grow up the one freestanding pillar of the tower. Mermaid is incredibly vigorous but so far has not given a big show of blooms. GS is slower growing, not a vigorous bloomer and the promised yellow-apricot flowers wash out to white. She needs to step up this year or I will be looking for a replacement.

Finally, I ordered two Hot Cocoa’s late in the season and planted them in front of the Mutabilis. (I had really wanted Hot Cocoa and so I rationalized that the colors would go together. They don’t go well but I like them anyway). They have yet to really look good, partly because my maple trees have begun to actually provide some shade. When I planted them, the trees were only nine feet tall and the idea that there would ever be shade in the yard never crossed my mind. I am hoping that this year will see them vigorous and blooming up a storm in spite of the maple.

Year 3

I planted Graham Thomas. It is supposed to be tall and gorgeous. By this year it is tall and spindly. The few flowers I saw last year actually stayed yellow but beyond that, it hasn’t won my heart..

Year 4

Stay tuned.

A Great Idea

The Garden Wise Guy shows a clever idea about how to select plant companions.

This is Brilliant

You would think that a Missouri farmboy like me would have thought of this but thankfully Pam did. This is just what I need for my water lily. Now that I live in the sticks, I should have no trouble finding just the one.

I can relate.

Another transplanted gardener copes and prevails.

Rocks

I was prepared for differences when I moved to my new house. The yard is smaller. It has a steep slope for most of the backyard. The front yard belongs to the Homeowners Association. These were all issues that I recognized from the first. I may not have appreciated their full impact but they were not surprises.

What I failed to anticipate was that my entire yard is a rock pile. I do not mean that there are rocks embedded in the soil in my yard. There is no soil. I mean a rock pile. The first clue was the jackhammer the landscaper used when he installed my plantings.

Even recognizing the reality, it didn’t hit home until I decided to embellish the bones of my landscaping with some seasonal interest. In this case some narcissus. My slope was just begging for some splashes of spring color and I ordered an assortment of bulbs intended to provide a long season of color. In my enthusiasm, I must have ordered 100 bulbs, imagining that planting them would be easy.

In fact, it was a pain. First I had to pry out all the rocks where I wanted bulbs. (I don’t really mean all, just those in the first eight inches.) These rocks I stacked on the side of the bed for later disposal. When this was done, I had a hole for the bulbs but no soil to fill it. For this I used a compost mix from the nursery which I blended with the small amounts of clay holding the rocks together. Then I planted the bulbs. Needless to say it took a long time to get all 100 bulbs in the ground. I have to admit that part of the problem was that I did not have the wits to purchase some decent digging tools. I bought a shovel before I understood how useless it would be in my yard. I had a small garden trowel to pry up the rocks and I added a screwdriver to my tools early on but they were inadequate. Only this year did I purchase a pick which makes the task much easier.

The bulbs have done well, returning every year but last year I lost the will to add more, first because of the digging and second because I can’t remember where they are after the foliage dies. I feel inspired with my new pick to go back to the catalogues next fall to add some more.

maintenance

Sun today although it is still coldish and I finally got into some maintenance. First, the roses. I sprayed them all with a dormant spray. I need to spray again and then prune. I always seem to get into a competition with the gardener. He usually gets to them first. He did cut the Mutabilis' back which is what I would do anyway but I may shape a bit after the spraying.

Then I cut off a few lower branches from my three young maples. As they grow, I cut the lower branches each year. This is the third year and I may be finished.

My first narcissus are just about finished and it looks like it will be a while before the next group comes on. They are just breaking ground. I do have some crocuses popping. Spring is on the way.

Roses Past

When we moved into our last house nearly 30 years ago, I inherited a rose garden occupying half of the strip between our driveway and our neighbor’s yard. At that time the neighbors had a tall evergreen hedge which screened our view of their yard and provided a background for the roses. I had never really thought about growing roses because they seemed demanding, ugly as garden plants and not very exotic. (After all I was in Southern California after a Midwestern upbringing and education. You can grow roses in Missouri but not hibiscus.)
Anyway, we had other more important priorities and so the roses stayed. Eventually, I decided that since they were there; why not give them a little attention. I learned to prune them and provided some occasional fertilizer. They responded by not dying and providing a springtime show – some a better one than others and gradually I considered adding some more interesting varieties. I don’t remember the ones that either died on their own or were ripped out but two were with me until the bitter end after which the new owner ckeared every plant in the front yard and replaced them with a grass lawn livened up with one palm tree carefully placed in the center. Oh well….

Survivors

The roses that survived my reign at the old house were good credible varieties that I would never have selected. They kept being good enough that I hesitated to cull them. They were also hybrid teas (well I guess Queen Elizabeth is not really and HT but close enough) which I never even consider anymore.

Queen Elizabeth

In my garden it was a gangly teenager with ok but not beautiful flowers. It did keep blooming.

Chicago Peace

Just did enough to survive although it was on my list.

Additions

The Dark Lady

My first Austin. It had a nice deep red color and the flowers were attractive and full but it didn’t bloom a lot. I treated it like a hybrid tea which probably didn’t help. I was just getting to understand Austins when we moved.

Evelyn

My second Austin. Lovely flowers and a reputed wonderful smell although I can’t remember being overwhelmed. It was just getting going when we left.

Souvenir de Malmaison

My first old rose, a Bourbon. Slow growing and just coming into its own when we left but with beautiful flowers.

Mme Cecile Brunner

I mistakenly ordered climbing which because a huge rambling mound in my rose bed. Lots of blooms.

Scentimental

I was trying here to get some blooms. I also planted a grouping of three to get some mass. It worked well but made the overall look of the bed rather odd.

French Lace

Same planting as Scentimental. I loved the color and shape.

Things I learned

Over time I got better at pruning but only at the end did I begin to understand that not all roses are hybrid teas and since I kept eliminating the hybrid teas and replacing them with other types, I had to develop some sensitivity which is not a normal behavior for me. (I am still learning that as you will hear in my NorCal rose report sometime soon)

I also explored better fertilization adopting a four week cycle of fertilizers, Epsom salts and something else I don’t recall and a Spring tonics of alfalfa pellets. I got good growth but I think my pruning sabotaged the effort.

I never got to the point of thinking I was a rose expert but I was beginning to feel competent. So much so that when I was telling the landscape architect what to include in our new backyard plan, I told him I wanted some roses. He blocked out space for three.

How is it working out three years in to the new yard. I'll get back to you.

Water Lily

Some action on my resolutions. I ordered a dwarf hardy water lily for my courtyard. It is supposed to be an excellent variety for growing in a container. Knowing nothing about water lilies I take the word of the purveyor and purchase Helvola. Now all I need is a big pot.

History

We are beginning our fourth year in a new house located in a severely CC&Red community in the Sierra foothills. Before we lived 3 blocks from the ocean in a rural seeming suburb of Los Angeles. We enjoyed frequent fog and very temperate weather. It never froze and seldom got to the high 80's. My gardening was limited by time and budget (for two years I was working in Sacrmento during the week and driving home for the weekends) but I had a few roses, some cacti and succulents and a bunch of cymbidiums. I was growing a living hedge of lehua to enclose a front yard patio off my wife's home office.

Finally, we decided that a new house near Sacramento would make life better for us all and we selected our plan and lot and the builder started building. We selected a lot with an upward sloping back yard. There is a 15 foot level yard, then a retaining wall and maybe another 30 feet of slope. We selected the lot for the privacy and the idea of looking out to see a green slope from our house.

We found a landscape designer and he developed what is proving to be a very nice plan as it grows in. Three maple trees are just getting big enough to shield us from the incredibly hot setting sun in the summer but are bare and let light and warmth in for the winter. The hillside has Canary Island Pines and an African Sumac (the designer specified a Crepe Myrtle but I had never seen one that I thought was attractive and asked for something else). There are strips of pittosporum, raphiolepis and grevillea with manzanita filling in the bare spaces and rosemary billowing over the retaining wall. We have a dry creek bed meandering down the middle of the lot but ran out of money for a water feature.

On the flat area we have a crescent of lawn, a lemon tree and some small shrubs (mostly pittosporum. The beds surrounding the lawn were largely bare to begin with and four years later are not much better. I have tried to introduce some plants and had some success but more failure which I will recount at some later time along with some of my problems with the slope.

For now this will give you an idea of the kind of gardening I had leaned at my former house and some idea of what is coming as I relate my growth as a foothill gardener.

2008 Resolutions

For this year I am resolved to accomplish some goals set when we moved into our new house in 2004 and some new ones.

The old ones are:

1. Build the raised bed for vegetables on the side of the house- mostly tomatoes
2. Increase the substance for the flower beds on the level area of my backyard

The new ones are:

1. Grow a water lily in a pot in my courtyard
2. Create some ambiance in the afformentioned courtyard

New Direction

In my previous life as a blogger, I focused on politics with occasional detours into my garden. Having realized that I offer little in the way of new insight into the political follies and recognizing that rage is not attractive and seldom useful, I am redirecting my blog energy to the documentation of my steps and missteps as I learn how to garden in the rocky Sierra foothills.

Look for posts reprising the last three years interspersed with my plans for the next year and updates on my successes and failures.

Obscene Amenities

Amenities International produced this short video to showcase the luxurious accommodations enjoyed by US military personnel in Iraq.



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