Local oddities

Now that the daytime temperatures have fallen to comfortable levels, I've been spending hours and hours working in my garden every day.  Most of my activities aren't worthy of a blog post but I've come across a few miscellaneous things I found interesting.

While planting a new succulent bed last week, I leaned over the edge bordered by a wood retaining wall built by a prior owner to level the area where it slopes down at a sharp angle.  A very large shelf fungi, over a foot in length, is growing out of the wood.  I'm guessing that it may be the fungus known as "chicken of the woods" (Laetiporus sulphureus) but I'm open to other suggestions.

On a walk through the neighborhood several days later, I happened to notice a very similar fungi growing out of a dead tree on a neighbor's property.  (There's a large Eucalyptus tree growing next to the dead tree.)

The street-side bed containing the shelf fungus growing out of the neighbor's dead tree had a couple of other dead trees I couldn't help wondering about.

Why would someone leave a "stump" like this?  Removing the stump would be difficult but, if you're going to cut down the tree, why not cut the stump to one level as close to the ground as possible?  I can't imagine anyone could expect it to sprout from this base.  Could someone have contemplated using it as a plant stand?

Now this remnant of a dead tree (or maybe a vigorous vine), mere feet away from the other dead tree, has a sculptural quality about it.  It might work for displaying epiphytes.

On the other hand, the same area contained a live pine tree that I've fallen in love with.

I'm not usually drawn to pine trees but this small blue one grabbed my attention.  It's really as blue as it looks in this photo and it's only 2 feet tall at best.  I assume it's an infant but I'm not able to identify it so I've no idea how big it might grow.  My phone identified it as either Festuca glauca (!) or Pinus monophylla but the latter prospect doesn't account for its distinctive color.  A brief online search turned up Pinus peuce 'Pacific Blue' but, if it's that, it's well outside its suitable climate zone.  Any guesses?

 

While passing through a narrow path back in my own garden, I was startled to see something else.

Aloe labworana is flaunting both nice red foliage and its first flowers, which are a startling bright yellow

The Aloe is getting more sun because it seems the variegated Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira' is dying back faster than I'd realized.  I thought it might have another year of flowers in it but several large stems had lost all their foliage in the past month or so, possibly due to our worsening drought.  (I cut away the bulk of the dead branches before taking this photo.)

 

No garden is ever static, or lacking in surprises.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party