The rain keeps coming

I had plans to get a lot done in the garden this week.  Yes, we expected rain on and off but, given our history, I thought it would be mostly off.  

While my backyard was relatively sunny on Friday, December 30th, the view in the distance suggested rain was imminent

However, there was little rain until the evening hours of New Year's Eve, when it pounded our roof

 

On Tuesday, the forecasters gave us a 15% chance that a "weak system" would deliver a trivial amount of rain, forecast to amount to 0.03/inch.  Even mid-morning, when we'd already accumulated a quarter inch of the wet stuff, they were predicting the showers would soon pause before an atmospheric river moved in on Wednesday.

Yet we were socked in that morning

and remained that way throughout the daylight hours

The rain continued without a pause and, as evening fell, we couldn't see the lights of the harbor at all

I can't even remember rain as steady as that we received yesterday.  All my rain collection tanks have been full since the minor deluge we experienced on New Year's Eve.  I'd already emptied the plastic trugs of the rainwater I'd collected from our rain chain onto soil in the driest areas of my garden but they quickly filled up again.  

 

As another, bigger storm is on its way collecting more rainwater without a place to store it seemed pointless

I stopped collecting rain yesterday morning, which is a first for me since the drought was declared and I started actively storing rainwater.  Watching all that extra water flow down the rain chain into a drain made me feel guilty.  I hope it makes the people in charge of water policy in California feel guilty too.  I keep hearing about desalination of sea water as a possible solution to the state's ever-worsening drought but building and operating the plants to do that is extremely expensive and the process itself presents ecological hazards.  We've made some inroads in encouraging residents to conserve water (although I think there's a lot more to do there) but rainwater collection and water recycling on a city, community or water district level needs far more attention.

The steady rain continued into the evening hours.  I even skipped my neighborhood walk for the first time in over two months.  I got very little done in the garden beyond a little pruning here and there before Tuesday's rainstorm, although I finally dug up the 'Lavender Ruffles' Dahlia tuber that produced its last flower for Christmas.

The size of the clump of tubers offers a clue as to why this particular dahlia was so prolific

While I relish the rain we're getting, I don't want to ignore the fact that Northern California has already experienced significant negative impacts from the earlier rainstorms, resulting in widespread power outages and flooding.  Flood watches and high wind warnings have already been called as the state turns to face the next storm beginning today, predicted to be the strongest of the season.  According to the current assessment you can find here, it's also likely to have a much greater impact on Northern California than the southern part of the state.

We certainly got more than the 0.03/inch forecast for Tuesday.  How we'll be impacted by the next storm remains to be seen.

All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

The Little Things That Make Me Happy

A beautiful sunrise.

With a long day of plant shopping ahead of me, I was up early on Saturday and out the door before 8am to meet up with a friend 50 miles away for a longer trek to 3 of our favorite garden centers in Carpinteria and Santa Barbara

I took a dozen quick photos of the view looking southeast toward Angel's Gate, the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles, but the 2 shown here are my favorites

Rain.

We got 2 solid days of light rain.  I took this shot looking southeast between showers.

This was the mid-afternoon view looking northeast.  The rain was never heavy here, although there were flash flood warnings in some areas to the south and east of us.  We had several breaks in the rain yesterday and even, briefly, sun and patches of blue sky.

The garden got about 2/3rds of an inch of rain by 8pm yesterday.  Scattered showers were projected to continue into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Our 2023 "water year" total to date, counted from October 1st, is 1.03 inches (26mm).

All 3 of my rain collection tanks are full, although my husband emptied water from the spa into my 265-gallon tank in October when he cleaned it out so not all of that was rainwater.  I also filled the plastic trugs shown here, some twice.  I used it to top off the fountain and to water pots and areas covered by roofing.  I'll empty the rest in the perpetually drier garden areas later this week.

My cat.

Pipig is blissfully happy on this loveseat in my home office.  There's a heating pad under that pink afghan blanket. 

She gets up only occasionally to eat and use her box, although she usually finds me to demand attention at least twice a day.  She's still fairly spry but, at 15 years old, I suspect she's got a touch of arthritis so the warmth is probably comforting.

She acknowledges me with a subdued, barely audible chirp when I come by rather than her usual more insistent vocalizations

Even the small garden chores I managed to squeeze in between interludes of rain this week made me happy.  The biggest one was finishing planting the bulbs I'd ordered (with the exception of seven Hippeastrum in need of pots).  Three hundred sixty-eight bulbs is an all-time record for me, and not one I envision coming close to matching ever again.  But I took care of some smaller projects too.

I've been collecting leaves from our deciduous trees and yesterday ran them through a Leaf Hog vacuum to chop them up before dumping them in my compost bin

I bought surprisingly few new plants during my Saturday trip but I got some of those planted, as I also worked at planting what I'd purchased over the summer.  I lost a few plants in this area, including 2 Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' and 2 Phylica pubescens, so I resorted to adding more succulents here, including a small Agave ovatifolia 'Vanzie'.

I finally got around to potting a few things too, including this noID Stapeliad  (maybe an Orbea) given to me by one of the plumbers who worked on our pipe replacement in September

As long as I shut out the political news for a time, all is well.

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

Fire and rain

The time has come to deal with the Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' in my cutting garden.  It's a colorful attention-grabber but it's out of control and my efforts to prune it into submission have only made things worse.

Photo taken yesterday

You can barely tell that it's growing out of a strawberry pot

 

It started as a small plant in what was originally a vegetable garden.

This photo was taken early in 2012 after I'd planted my first vegetable garden in the raised planters that came with the property we acquired in December 2010

In March 2014, it was still relatively small

By the time I converted the vegetable garden into a floral cutting garden, the plant's size was already beginning to concern me (Photo taken March 29, 2018)

 

Several months after the photo taken in March 2018, I pruned the Euphorbia back to reduce its size for the first time.

Before and after shots are shown on the left and right respectively.  The cuttings I left at the edge of the driveway for neighbors disappeared quickly.

 

The pruned plant responded by growing taller and bushier.  I've cut it back at least once a year since then but it's just gotten larger and larger.  This year, it's flowering too.

Photo taken yesterday

The tip of virtually every pencil stem bears a flower.  I believe this is the first time it's flowered.

I've already planted cuttings here and there throughout my garden over the years, some of which are also growing into beasts.  A mature plant can reach 8-10 feet tall, which isn't something I want to see in my cutting garden.  Much as I appreciate the plant's cheerful color, I think it's time for it to go.  Another giveaway is pending.

In other news, we got rain as predicted on Monday, almost three-quarters of an inch in fact.  It brought our seasonal total, calculated from October 1, 2021 (the official start of our "water year"), to 7.7 inches.  That's not a lot, and it's well short of the 15 inches Los Angeles "normally" receives, but on the other hand, it's nearly twice the amount we received during the prior water year.

My 50 and 160 gallon rain tanks are full and my 265-gallon tank is three-quarters full.  As the latter tank is fed by rain sheeting off the smallest roof surface, I collected overflow from the rain gutters and the rain chain in a plastic garbage can and plastic trugs, moving what I collected to the largest tank as those containers filled.  New water use restrictions are pending as our local water supplier moves to "stage 2" of its Water Shortage Contingency Plan in response to an executive order from California's Governor requiring stricter conservation.  The rainwater I've collected provides me a little flexibility in caring for my garden but the truth is that it won't last long.  Our rainy season generally comes to an end in early April and, with the exception of a wayward tropical storm in summer, we won't see any more rain in Southern California until October at earliest.

 

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