Something Wicked This Way Comes

Perhaps it's too early for the frightening tales associated with Halloween but let me explain the title of this post.  Something Wicked This Way Comes is a novel published by Ray Bradbury in 1962.  I read it as a teenager and became a big Bradbury fan in the process.  It's indicative of the impact the book had on me that its title was the first thing that popped into my head yesterday morning when I saw this:

Despite my efforts to prevent them from digging in the barrels containing Dahlias 'Catching Fire' and 'Karma Prospero' in my front garden, the raccoons wreaked havoc digging for grubs in these barrels (again)

Wikipedia describes Bradbury's book as the story of two 13-year old boys and "their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival."  What better description of rampaging raccoon activity can there be than a "nightmarish traveling carnival"?

The raccoons had rummaged through three half-barrels containing dahlias and assorted companion plants this past weekend, damaging some of these in the process.  In an effort to put them off, I cut up a few empty plastic flats, pinning them in place in the spots devoid of plants.  (There had been more plants in the barrels when originally planted but some declined during our heatwaves and others were torn to pieces by the masked marauders.)  Covering bare soil with plastic flats has worked relatively well with the raised planters in my cutting garden in the past, although I can't claim it's ever been 100 percent effective.

The raccoons dug up the raised planters earlier in the season but, as my summer-season plants declined, I pulled many of them and laid down full-sized plastic flats anchored in place using lawn staples wherever possible.  It's not pretty but it's a moderately effective deterrent.

I did the same on Sunday with 2 of the 5 barrels in the front garden, working around the dahlias and remaining companion plants; however, I had to cut the flats into pieces to fit them in.  I did the same with a third barrel in my cutting garden that the raccoons had dug up twice.

Only the barrel in the cutting garden holding Dahlia 'Lavender Ruffles' was left untouched

Both of the dahlias in the barrels in the front garden that were torn up still have buds and blooms so I'm not prepared to dig up the tubers just yet even though their foliage is already badly mildewed.  I've made another stab at beefing up the protection against further intrusions.  

I repositioned the plastic pieces and added spiky cones dropped by the Magnolia tree around them.  The cones have helped to deter raccoons before.  More would be helpful but I only had so many on hand.

 

If this doesn't work I may need to start nightly patrols of the garden.

In other evidence that all is not well in my garden, I found this last week when I was checking the back slope for sources of irrigation leaks:

We removed our dying mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) 2 years ago but it's been attempting a comeback ever since.  I'd neglected our back slope for 3 weeks or thereabouts only to be confronted with this "seedling," nearly 3 feet tall.  I'd swear it wasn't there when I last deep watered the lemon tree.  This seedling was a substantial distance from the former tree's location and on an entirely different level of the garden.

My husband made quick work of digging it up but I'm afraid he may not have gotten the entire root.  If that's the case, it may be back...

On the good news end, we were on the receiving end of a brief thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately, I was mid-way through my daily walk of the neighborhood.  I got completely soaked before my husband came to my rescue in his truck.  But we got 0.11/inch of rain, which filled my empty 50-gallon collection tank.  I can't accurately estimate how much was collected by my other two tanks but they both accumulated at least a bit!

The rainbow that followed the downpour wasn't vivid but it's there!

 

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

 

Wednesday Vignette: The root of the problem

While working on a project in the front garden, I found I needed my shovel, which I'd left in the back garden.  On the fly, I decided to take a moment to dig up the mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) seedling I'd noticed a few days earlier.  I'd removed a seedling from the same spot just weeks before and, assuming that I simply hadn't gotten the entire root when I pulled it out, I thought all I needed to do was to move the flagstone adjacent to the new seedling to ensure I got the whole thing.  I figured that was a 5-minute task.

The lush green foliage was impressive, especially as it was growing in an extremely dry area where even succulents struggled to survive.  I thought, if I could get enough of the root out intact, I might pot it up and offer it to neighbors in one of my plant giveaways.

I moved the flagstone and started digging only to meet immediate resistance.  Digging along the sides of the plant, I discovered the root of the problem and called in reinforcements to help me get it out.

After removing a second flagstone, this is the root my husband uncovered

I can only hope we got the majority of it.  But, if there was one root this size 8 to 10 feet from the trunk of the dying mimosa tree we'd taken down last October, is it reasonable to believe that there aren't other roots like this?  Is this mimosa tree going to haunt me forever?  According to one source, "Silktree...regenerates by sprouting from roots following top-kill or injury."  Halloween is still more than a month away but that citation sent a chill down my spine.

This gives you a better sense of the root's size

This shows the plant growing straight up from the root itself

It seems that the self-sown seedlings I've previously found are the tip of the iceberg.  Let the reader beware when planting this tree!

Needless to say, I didn't offer the mimosa's offspring to any of my neighbors.  It went into the trash.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.

All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Gone but not forgotten

I had two large trees removed yesterday.  It was a necessity, not a choice, and it was painful.  In fact, it was more painful than the removal of our 60-foot Eucalyptus back in 2013 or the removal of one of our peppermint willows (Agonis flexuosa) in 2015, both of which were initiated in response to a neighbor's complaints about impairments to her view of the harbor.  Thankfully, that neighbor moved in 2018 but nothing can stop Mother Nature when she decides a plant's time is up.  Yesterday, we had both our mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) and the large tree-like toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) taken out.  The impact to the garden seems greater than any of the major changes we've made before.

The mimosa has been featured and discussed here many times but, before I summarize what happened to it, let me share a couple of photos of it at its best.

This photo was taken in June 2013, roughly two and a half years after we bought the house.  We still had lots of lawn and even the snorkel spa inherited with the house (heated by burning wood) back then. 

This photo was taken in July 2017, the last time the tree looked good, at least from a distance.  It was already showing signs of stress at this point when viewed close up.

The tree's decline was readily evident by 2018.  Shot-hole borers had damaged major limbs, which didn't properly leaf out.  After discussion with an arborist, we performed major surgery on the tree in an effort to extend its life.  We gave it almost three more years but, this year when it came time for our annual tree service visit, we decided it was time to let it go.

I took this photo on October 27th

The tree had recently leafed out again along a couple of limbs, almost as if in protest to our plans to take it down

The arborist had pointed out that the remaining trunks were starting to cave in, as shown on the left.  The photo on the right shows where the trunk was cut before when we tried to save it.

It's a tree I've had a love-hate relationship with almost since we moved it.  While it was beautiful when it was in full leaf and flower, it was bare much of the year.  It also created a huge amount of litter and self-seeded with abandon.  Even so, I couldn't bring myself to watch much of the removal process.

I snapped this photo through the kitchen window as the last limb was coming down

The middle of the garden seems very empty to me and, although my husband is currently opposed to putting in another tree or even a large shrub in that spot, I don't personally feel the view that it's removal reveals is worth the feeling of exposure it creates.  But that's a discussion for another day.

This shot was taken this morning from the same angle as the one taken on October 27th

The toyon's case is different.  Although like the mimosa it came with the garden, it's not a plant I gave much thought to until the middle of this year when I noticed that its leaves were turning red and what few berries it had were shriveled.  I found one source that suggested that this could happen with native plants like Heteromeles arbutifolia but by August it was clear to me that the huge shrub was dead.

In light of the toyon's rapid demise, it's likely that the cause was the pathogen that leads to the phenomenon known as "sudden oak death."  Like native oaks, toyon is susceptible to disease due to exposure to this pathogen.

I took these shots on October 27th.  When the evergreen toyon was green, it provided a nice neutral backdrop for the garden area fronting it.  The red foliage of the dying plant actually provided an even more attractive backdrop in my view but, by this month, it was less red than brown.

Like the mimosa, the toyon sat atop a fairly steep slope but in this case it was adjacent to the property line, looming above the driveway of our neighbors on the south side.  There was no question that it needed to be removed but, as grinding the stump in that location was problematic for a number of reasons, I was apprehensive about opening up this particular view.

After they toyon's removal, we have an unfavorable view of the facade of a house down the block, a variety of scruffy trees owned by another neighbor off a spur road, and the street than runs through our neighborhood

I'm thinking of ways to screen out the facade of the neighbor's house and those scruffy trees.  I'll cover that in more detail at another time too.

In the good news category, the other trees we had trimmed look spiffy and the collateral damage associated with their annual haircuts was relatively minimal.  We didn't have any of our peppermint willows trimmed this year, nor any of the smaller trees or the citrus trees.

These two Arbutus 'Marina' occupy opposite ends of the front garden

Two more Arbutus 'Marina' in the back garden were also thinned.  The Arbutus rapidly develop dense foliage and, left unattended, they develop a sooty mold.

Also getting trimmed were, left to right, a hedge of Prunus caroliniana, Magnolia grandiflora, and Pyrus calleryana

That's it for me this week.  There's a LOT for me to do in the garden in the coming weeks (and months).  Unfortunately, our temperatures are slated to rise again with yet another, hopefully less forceful, round of Santa Ana winds in the forecast even as fire crews are still working to fully contain the two wildfires that broke out in Orange County earlier this week.  I'm looking forward to reliably cooler weather - and rain of course - but at present I'm not sure when we can expect either.

All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Bright Spots in my Midsummer Garden

It's easy to get fixated on the ugly bits of my garden during summer's seemingly endless stretch of hot, dry weather but, despite the the challenges of our Mediterranean climate and our ongoing home remodel, many, if not most, sections of my garden still look halfway decent.  (It helps that we've yet to have a truly horrific heatwave this year!)  Last Friday, I shifted my attention to the trees that add so much to my garden but this Friday my eye was drawn to some of the plants that manage to flower during this difficult time of year.

As I scanned my garden, I realized that there's suddenly a lot of pink!

Somehow, Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' always manages to surprise me.  Instead of showing up one at a time, the flowers seem to appear en masse.  Yesterday, I looked across my garden and there they were.  The bees are fixated on these flowers and I expect heightened butterfly activity too.

As I mentioned in my Wednesday Vignette, Albizia julibrissin is also now in full bloom

The flowers of Cotyledon orbiculata, more peach than pink, are also making a strong showing at the moment

Several of my roses have thrown out a bloom or two this week too.  This is Rosa 'California Dreamin'.  She's pretty but not vigorous.

Amaryllis belladonna, aka naked lady (left), has made an appearance, as has a single Lycoris squamigera, aka surprise lily (right).  The Amaryllis were gifts from Tammy of Casa Mariposa years ago.   I planted Lycoris bulbs in 2016 and this is the first bloom I've ever seen.

Much of the flower action at the moment is in my cutting garden, which will probably be true until rain returns in October or November.

The blooms of Dahlia 'Otto's Thrill' are absolutely huge.  The view of this first bloom of the season is marred somewhat by the tomato cage I use to support the plant but the stem on this bloom is very short and I didn't have the heart to cut it.

Dahlia 'Hollyhill Karen Lee' didn't impress me when she first began to unfurl her petals but her appearance changes dramatically as she matures

I've long admired the blooms of Amaranthus caudatus when I've seen them featured in the vases of IAVOM contributors but this is the first time I've tried the plant for myself.  I bought 3 plants in 4-inch pots 2 weeks ago and they've already grown nearly a foot.

Not quite everything that caught my eye was a shade of pink.

The Zinnias are kicking off at last.  The first seeds I sowed were those of 'Benary's Giant Salmon Rose' and they're the first to bloom as well.

Last but not least is this noID Scaevola, which has the deepest purple color of any of these I've ever grown.  Now, if I'd only kept the tag...

That's it from me this week.  Have a pleasant weekend!


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: An Incongruous Pairing

I'm never particularly happy with my garden in late summer and, even though this summer has been milder than some, it's no exception.  Everything looks dry.  Plants that were flowering beautifully one week are withered beyond recognition the next.  It doesn't help that construction tools and debris related to our ongoing home remodel clutter much of the area surrounding the house and dust covers everything, including plants.  I've responded by developing selective vision.  To the extent possible I focus on what's looking good, ignoring what's dusty, dying or dead.

This week, my selective vision had me focusing on the "blooms" of Leucadendron 'Blush' in my front garden.

This Leucadendron's colorful bracts always make me think of rose buds

Can you see it?

While inspecting the Leucadendron, I noticed the Phormium tucked into a corner next to it.  It was one of the very first plants I installed in my new garden after moving in more than 8.5 years ago.  It's in bloom!  None of my Phormiums have ever bloomed so I count this as a special event.

I planted it sometime during the first quarter of 2011.  I wasn't keeping records of my plants then but I think this is Phormium tenax 'Atropurpureum'.

The flowers appear in clusters at intervals along the tall bloom spikes

But what's the blue thing just visible in the first photo of the Phormium above?  Here's the larger picture:

A port-a-potty set up for the use of construction workers sits directly next to the Phormium at one edge of our driveway

It's unfortunate that the Phormium doesn't have an opportunity to shine as part of the landscape on this occasion as it should.  On the other hand, who knows?  Maybe the port-a-potty provided the favorable conditions it needed to bloom.

Before I close this post, it seems appropriate to include an unrelated postscript here.  I've featured the mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) in our backyard garden in at least two prior Wednesday Vignettes.  The tree's future has been in question since we removed half its limbs last year following an infestation by shot-hole borers.  It was late to leaf out and late to bloom but here it is at last in all its glory:

There are still a few dead branches that could be pruned out but, all in all, the tree looks like it has some life left in it yet

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: Patience

I've been told - repeatedly - that patience is a virtue.  I can't claim that it's one I possess to any great degree but I'm working on it.  Some plants in my garden test my patience, like the peonies that fail to bloom year after year.  However, I haven't pulled them, at least not yet.  My mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) tests my patience too.  In mid-April I posted a Wednesday Vignette showing the first leaves on the tree after the major surgery we subjected it to last December.  In earlier years, it's had full leaf coverage as early as late April but, after my initial excitement about its first leaves, it's been slow going again this year.  To be fair, we've had an unusually cool spring, which may have contributed to the delay.

While the leaves close to the tree's base are fully developed, the leaves in the upper canopy have been slow to unfurl

But the good news is that almost all the branches have at least some leaves, which I wasn't able to say last year

So perhaps the major surgery that involved removing half the multi-trunked tree was successful in halting the damage done by the shot hole borer beetles.  Fewer branches should also mean less debris to clean up when this notoriously messy tree sheds both leaves and flowers later in the season.  Patience - it provides perspective.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: Watching and Waiting

I've been on leaf watch for a couple of months now, anxiously waiting for signs that what remains of our large mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) still has the will to live after being cut back by half in December.

Back in 2016, the tree looked like this by the end of April:

Fully leafed out

And in early May 2017, it looked like this:

A lighter leaf canopy but well-covered

Last year, the first leaves didn't appear until well into June and half the tree (the part that was cut away in December) never leafed out at all.  Right now, the tree looks like this:

With all the rain we had this winter, I'd hoped to see leaves appear early this Spring but then it's also been cooler than usual here, with only a few really warm days of 80F or higher.  This morning, I noted the first signs that maybe the tree will survive its battle with drought, shot-hole borers, and the loss of half its trunk and branches last December.

The first leaves: I could swear they weren't there yesterday

All are on the lower branches but, when I looked up and squinted, I saw a few more touches of green higher in the canopy

We'll have to see if the warmer temperatures expected in the coming days speed things up.  It'd be nice to hang on to the tree a few more years yet.  For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Tree Trimming Trauma

As views of the Los Angeles harbor are valued here, good neighborly relations dictate annual tree trimming.  I don't have all our trees trimmed each year but we tackle at least half of them annually.  While we've done some of the trimming ourselves, especially in our early days in residence, I now hire all or most of the job out.  I trust the crew we use each year but I still dread the collateral damage that routinely accompanies the process.  This year, two specific areas were also of particular concern.

If you read my blog regularly, you may know that our mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) has posed challenges.  It's a messy tree to start with, dropping litter in the form of flowers, leaves and seedpods almost continuously.  It's bare of leaves for at least 4 months of the year and, in 2018, it didn't leaf out at all until late June.  Of even greater concern, half the tree never leafed out at all.

This was the tree in late January this year, after its last trimming.  It was showing signs of damage due to shot hole borers and, in response we took out a few good-sized branches but left the tree's vase-like shape intact.

This was the tree in late July when it finally flowered.  You'll note that while the back half of the tree looks normal, the front half was largely bare.

I consulted an arborist in October and made the hard decision to remove three major limbs on the front side of the multi-trunked tree.  I was afraid the tree would look freakish after major surgery like that but I'm not ready to cut the whole tree down quite yet.  As it turned out, the tree doesn't look too bad when viewed from the front, although I can't say it looks entirely normal either.

View of the front of the tree from the back door after surgery

 

When viewed from the side, it's much more apparent that half the tree is gone

This cut makes me nervous.  I hope it heals over quickly.

The other big change was made on the south side of the house, where I elected to take out one of the two tree-sized Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) and thin out the second.  Both sat along our property line at the top of a sharp slope.  We also cut down an extremely tall leader on an adjacent shrub (Auranticarpa rhombifolium).  My main concern in this case was to avoid any damage on our next door neighbor's side but, happily, that didn't prove to be a problem.

The photo on the left was taken in January and the photo on the right was taken this past weekend after the smaller Toyon was cut down and the larger one was thinned.  The smaller tree was growing almost on top of its parent, which wasn't good for either in the long run.  The neighbors across the street had also expressed concern that the mass of foliage impaired their view.  The upside of thinning the foliage is more light for the plants in my succulent bed and, as this area sits atop a slope, there's no significant loss of privacy.

The rest of the tree trimming was relatively straightforward.

All 4 of our Arbutus 'Marina' were thinned, which helps improve air circulation and prevents the sooty mold that can sometimes afflict these trees

The Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana, left) received a light trim to remove the dead twiggy stems and a limb trailing over the roof.  The trimmers managed to leave most of the flowers alone.  The Magnolia grandiflora (right) looks pretty bare at the moment but I know from experience that it'll quickly fill out.

The ornamental pear (Pyrus calleryana) was suffering from fire blight.  They trimmed out the affected leaves and thinned the foliage.  I'll need to inoculate it against blight in the spring.  This can be a messy tree too but regular trimming helps and, under current drought conditions, I'd prefer to avoid losing a mature shade tree I might not be able to easily replace.

Other than a laurel hedge, that's everything that was touched in this round of trimming.  I've spent a couple of hours every day this week cleaning up the affected areas.  The crew does a good job at picking up the debris but they never get everything.  Wind also shakes down branches that were cut during trimming but didn't immediately fall to the ground.  Pots and garden furniture moved out of the way has to be put back.  A lot of mulch gets picked up during the tree trimmers' clean-up too so I spent time replenishing that.  (Next year I'll remember to hold off on mulching until after this annual exercise.)  And of course some plants below the trees, particularly those sitting atop slopes, get squashed and must be either removed, replaced or cut back to allow them a chance to recover.  I'm mostly done...

It'll be a busy weekend for me as Christmas is just around the corner and we're hosting family and friends on Saturday.  However you're spending the weekend, I hope it's a good one.


All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party