After a long stretch of very warm, dry weather, the temperatures fell and the skies finally turned gray on Wednesday. Although rain had been in the forecast for more than a week, the chances had been gradually scaled back and, when Wednesday morning started out warm with blue skies and low humidity, I was ready to write off the rain forecast entirely. But by late morning, conditions suddenly shifted.
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| View of the Port of Los Angeles from my back garden as it began to sprinkle |
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| The clouds looked like an abstract painting |
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| As the rain came down more steadily, I placed the rain chain in a plastic trug to catch what flowed off the east-facing roof. Other areas of the house and garage roofs directly feed 3 collection tanks but I try hard to capture every drop I can. |
My November Bloom Day post had already been posted when I noticed two more plants with unexpected blooms.
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| I'd watered the plants in this barrel on Tuesday and noticed no sign of flowers on Hibiscus acetosella 'Haight Ashbury'; however there were a half-dozen or more flowers early the next morning. The flowers are more attractive than I'd anticipated. |
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| In the street side succulent bed, I also noticed that Aloe lukeana had a bloom stalk. It was a gift from Gerhard Bock of Succulents and More when he visited in 2021 and this is the first time it's bloomed. |
On the north end of the garden the persimmon tree (Diospyros kaki 'Hachiya') was offering another splash of bright color - until it wasn't.
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| View of the tree early in the week |
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| I caught sight of movement in the tree from inside the house and went to investigate. One squirrel streaked by as I approached. The second was initially too busy to care. |
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| He did try to evade my camera, possibly thinking his tail functioned as a cape of invisibility. Unfortunately, as I approached from one side, he decided I was too close, dropped his prize, and headed over the fence into the neighbor's garden. |
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| I left the soft fruit in the garden for him and his buddies to eat. I cut 2 persimmons mainly to prevent the squirrels from dropping them onto the Agave ovatifolia below, making a sticky mess. |
The persimmon tree has since been cleared of fruit. 2022 was a banner year for both the
'Fuyu' and
'Hachiya' persimmon trees but this year I never saw a single ripe piece of fruit on the
'Fuyu' and I got fewer than two dozen persimmons from the
'Hachiya'. The squirrels ate or damaged all of them except two I cut during my squirrel encounter.
Blue skies returned Thursday morning.
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| The skyline was (mostly) clear of smog for a change |
I made good use of the break in the rain on Thursday. I moved the rainwater I'd collected in plastic trugs to the largest of my three rain tanks. I spent an hour on our back slope cutting back masses of Centranthus ruber. While I barely made a dent in the work required down there, at least I got a start on the long-needed cleanup while the fire ants were inactive. I received my third (and last!) bulb delivery for the season and got a portion of those potted up, and also sifted the homemade compost in one bin and spread it in the front garden. Whew!
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| I'd of course forgotten how many bulbs I'd ordered |
Another storm is expected to move in late Friday night with light but steady rain through noon on Saturday. The break on Friday should allow me to get the remaining bulbs planted and, if it's cool enough, more work may get done on the back slope. I have a mail order plant delivery due to arrive Friday or Saturday but it may be too much to hope that it arrives on the the early end of that window.
I hope you can enjoy some time outside this weekend, whatever your weather conditions.
All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
Squirrels! It's about time for them to return and completely denude two of our Arbutus unedo trees. Annoying, obsessive little things. The view of the clouds was very pretty. I agree - those hibiscus flowers are quite attractive with that deep maroon color.
ReplyDeleteI've come to mostly accept the squirrels and their antics here. The thing that annoys me most is when they try to bury the unripe guavas all over the place as if they're nuts. They also tear apart the Leucospermum flowers to eat the seeds at their core but at least they wait until the flowers are nearly spent to do that.
DeleteI have great affection for pretty cloud patterns, my iPhone is full of them...
ReplyDelete(Is the large pine tree, left side in second photo, the one that received massive pruning recently?)
Pleasant surprise, the Hibiscus. The bloom is so velvety and saturated. I speculate it may be featured in your next IAVOM :-D
Squirrels! I can't fault them for being themselves. They dig up my garden too. Speaking of nuisance: the rabbits vanished from my garden without any help from me. Very peculiar.
Chavli
The pine trees (there are actually 2 of them) are the ones that belong to the neighbors who live behind us. They haven't been pruned this year but they were pruned back hard last year and a number of people were concerned it went too far but they're looking great again now. However, another neighbor down the street had their pines pruned even more harshly a few months ago and they don't look like they're recovering at all...
DeleteYou may see the Hibiscus flowers next Monday if they make it through the next round of rainstorms ;) The flowers don't seem to last long, though.
Damn squirrels! Our weather changed abruptly here as well. We're bright and sunny now, but supposed to start raining this afternoon & into tomorrow. We'll see. Oh, I have a table of bulbs as well, lol. I need to work on catching the rain as you do, I just put buckets wheelbarrows out - I think I could do better. The rain chain is a great idea.
ReplyDeleteThe rain chain came with the house but the property owners that installed it used it to channel water away from the house and down into the canyon. I found I could collect an amazing amount of water using it with plastic trugs and/or trash cans but it is labor intensive to move the water into larger tanks. It's not something I imagine I'll be able to do 10 years (or less!) from now. I'd connect another tank to the gutters on the east side of the house if there was a place for it. None of the tanks are particularly attractive.
DeleteThe Hibiscus bloom is gorgeous. Such a deep intense red. It's very kind of you to feed the squirrels. We had a similar year but it was the birds that ate everything: apples, raspberries, sasktoonberries, cherries and even my gojis. I don't mind sharing but it would be nice if they shared. Hope your plants arrive soon enough to benefit from the rain.
ReplyDeleteSquirrels are dedicated opportunists, Elaine. The birds have been less troublesome here but then I don't have the wide selection of tasty berries that you do!
DeleteHah! Funny coincidence--My order from Scheepers arrived yesterday--three Hippeastrums each in one of those burlap bags and a packet of Brodiaea californicum 'Babylon' bulbs.
ReplyDeleteThe rain far less than forecast, but the 0.59"we got is still wonderful--the air so fresh and clean. It looked like a tricky forecast of warm air from the south meeting a cold front from the north--tough to know where they were going to meet. As always, grateful for every drop. --hb
Arg, part of the comment missing--the hibiscus flower--what an incredible red! And squirrels--grrrrr! --hb
DeleteThat IS a coincidence! Not so much Scheepers shipping schedule as the similarity of our orders. I got 7 Hippeastrums (I thought I'd only ordered 5!) and a packet of 25 Brodiaea 'Pink Diamond' bulbs. I'd ordered 2 more Hippeastrum from a different vendor so I've gone overboard again but maybe one or more will end up as Christmas gifts ;)
DeleteOur rain was less than yours - 0.42" in total. The second storm that blew through this morning was a bust, delivering just 0.05" but, as you said, every drop is appreciated. As we got sun in the afternoon, I managed another hour+ on the back slope and planted 5 of the 9 plants that arrived from Annie's today.
I hope the weather goes your way. I can't remember when it wasn't raining with us... it seems to have rained for most of the year!
ReplyDeleteWe got a little less than 1/2 inch of rain over a 4-day stretch, which actually isn't bad for us, Nikki. We're much more used to long dry periods than you are I expect. We're generally dry from early April until November even in good years. Tropical Storm Hilary threw us a bone in September this year but that kind of event is very usual.
DeletePesky squirrels! I imagine it is tough to protect persimmons while ripening on the tree. Can they be picked just short of being ripe and then ripen inside?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got some rain, every drop counts. I love the rich color of your hibiscus blossom! Eliza
The persimmons can be ripened inside, in fact I'd recommend it in the case of the 'Hachiya' fruit as it needs to be mushy to be edible and it'd make a mess if it was allowed to fall from the tree when it's reached that stage. Neither my husband nor I care much for persimmons so, with the crop lighter to begin with this year, we were okay leaving most of them to the squirrels. I still have two I need to give away ;)
DeleteThe combination of hibiscus and coleus is inspired...and appropriately psychedelic!
ReplyDeleteHa! It's true that the flowers on that Hibiscus did a lot to explain the cultivar's name :)
DeleteI was watching your forecast and (I'm sorry) trying to pray away the rain. We landed in Burbank late Wednesday and drove to Thousand Oaks to visit Andrew's family, returning home last night. Thankfully there was much sun to be had and the rain fell mainly in the evening/night Friday.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm glad your visit wasn't marred by heavy rain, Loree, but I can't say I wasn't disappointed by our total. Nonetheless, I relished what we got and 2 of my rain tanks are full, The biggest one, which has the smallest roof surface (because it would be unsightly plunked at the front of the house), didn't collect much even with my efforts to manually collect and move water to it. For reference, the heaviest rain is supposed to kick in courtesy of El Nino in January through April ;)
DeleteI missed this post of your Aloe lukeana flowering. It looks like the flowers were a lighter orange? I have two lukeanas: one is a light orange, the other are dark orange, almost red.
ReplyDeleteAt maturity, I'd say the Aloe flowers were a coral-orange, more vivid than the November photo reflects, Gerhard. The flowers were fading by the time GBBD came around in December so I didn't post the later shot I'd taken in early December.
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