Wednesday Vignette: Diverting views from the back garden

Coastal Southern California doesn't experience the onset of winter in the same way as other parts of the country but after a sharp cold snap and three solid rainstorms, the seasonal shift is becoming more obvious even here.  Here are a handful of photos I snapped from the back garden looking out toward the harbor over the past week.

A relatively clear view of the Los Angeles harbor as one rainstorm moved out of the area last week

A rainbow following the storm that ended on Sunday

The snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains to the east late yesterday as the sun began to set

The sun glinting off buildings in Long Beach and the cities beyond, giving them a pink glow

The moon rising through pink clouds at sunset

Meanwhile, in the garden itself, there's still work to be done - and I'm not the only one doing it.

This is Argiope aurantia, aka the golden garden spider, the zigzag spider, and the writing spider among other names.  It may be the biggest spider I've ever seen (outside of a tarantula) and it startled me when I came upon it.  It will bite if harassed but, this late in the season it's intent on procreating and watching over its young as long as it can.  A hard frost will kill it but, as we don't get those, can she hang around until spring?  

This post is actually a feeble attempt to divert my thoughts from surgery my cat Pipig is scheduled to have this morning.

"You're going to do what?!"  I'd feel better if she understood but can anyone explain cancer?

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


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

In a Vase on Monday: More Grevilleas and Leucadendrons

We got rain last week and there's more coming this week!  The air is fresh and clear and my plants have been thoroughly cleaned of dust and grime.   Everything looks prettier, even the usually smog-infused horizon.

This was my view of the Port of Los Angeles Saturday afternoon once last week's storm passed

Late afternoon brought a rainbow

And this was the sky as evening fell on Saturday

The rain hasn't instantly produced much in the way of new blooms but I still found enough to inspire me to fill 2 vases.  My Grevillea 'Superb', a year-round bloomer, is simply loaded with flowers at the moment and the availability of a single rose in a similar hue clinched the color scheme for my first vase.

We could get as much as 4 inches of rain between Monday and Thursday (more than we received in total last year) and I doubt the rose could make it through those storms unscathed.  I need to get started on pruning my roses in any case.  (The sunset showing on the TV screen in the background when I took this photo was a complete fluke.)

Back view

Top view, showing off the flower-like bracts of the Leucadendron

Clockwise from the upper left: Grevillea 'Superb', Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' (my go-to foliage filler), berries of Nandina domestica, Rosa 'Joseph's Coat', noID Leucadendron (probably 'Blush'), and my first bloom of Papaver nudicaule (aka Iceland poppy), recently planted from plugs

The pink Alstroemeria in the backyard border have already produced a few flowers but they were past their prime before I noticed them.  When I saw two more flowering stems plastered against the ground by the last rainstorm, I decided to use them as the starting point for a second vase.

I sought out plants with touches of pink and yellow to complement the Alstroemeria

I almost prefer this back view without the Alstroemeria

Top view: Many of the paperwhite Narcissus were also plastered to the ground by the last storm so they got cut

Clockwise from the upper left: noID Alstroemeria, Coleonema pulchellum 'Sunset Gold', Leucadendron salignum 'Chief', noID Narcissus, and Pyrethropsis hosmariense (aka Moroccan daisy)

For more Monday vases, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

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

More rain!

I'd planned another post for today but Mother Nature unexpectedly put on a major show this week and it warranted some attention.  Our third rainstorm of the season moved in late Tuesday, slowly built up steam on Wednesday, and finally gave us a thorough soaking on Thursday before moving eastward.  The rain was heavy at times and, for several hours yesterday, it looked as if we were cocooned in a cloud.

The effect was pretty in an eerie kind of way as neighboring houses simply disappeared

The usually bustling Los Angeles harbor was invisible and also silent

Even the birds were silent but then my failure to refill their feeders may have something to do with that

The clouds gradually lifted late in the afternoon, once again revealing the Los Angeles harbor below us.  As sunlight crept in, a rainbow appeared, arcing over the harbor, and I took my camera outside to capture it.

The rainbow created a complete 180 degree arc but I was unable to get a shot long enough to capture all of it

While I was out and about, I noticed what at first looked like smoke wafting over the fence that separates my cutting garden from the back garden.  Intense sunlight hitting the wet fence was causing water in the wood to evaporate in the form of steam.  I tried to capture the effect with my camera but was only minimally successful.

That fuzzy blur above the top of the fence was stream

As the sun began to dip, a second, fatter rainbow appeared.

You can read about what makes some rainbows look wider than others here if you're interested

And, like the end of any good fireworks display, Mother Nature's performance ended with a stunning sunset.

We got nearly 2 inches of rain over the course of the 3 days, with most of it arriving yesterday.  Our seasonal total to date is 4 inches which already exceeds the paltry amount we got last year.  (Our "rain years" are measured from October 1st through September 30th.)  Unfortunately, the rain caused havoc in the areas recently impacted by fire here.  Mudslides precipitated yet another round of evacuations and for a time snow closed the major highway artery between Southern and Northern California.

Highway 5 is open again but the mountains to the northeast of us were dusted in snow this morning

Today's Los Angeles Times included an article speculating on what this storm, much stronger than originally anticipated, signifies about the balance of our rainy season.  NOAA has been predicting a good chance of a moderate El Niño this year.  The Times referred to this week's storm as indicative of a "wanna-be El Niño" and said that the season suggests a "battle between El Niño and the blob," a persistent patch of warm water in the northeastern Pacific that in years past has prevented rainstorms from reaching Southern California, driving our drought.  That sounds like the title of a horror movie, doesn't it?  We'll hope this particular movie is a bust.  For those of you to the east in the storm's path, I hope it treats you gently.  Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.


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

Wednesday Vignette: Rain effects

Yesterday, I started a very different post focused on our recent rain.  I was happy to see the first real rainfall since last March.  According to one account, this has been the driest start to our winter rainy season since 1930.  My rain barrels were empty and I'd been forced to run our irrigation system during a period that usually finds it off more often than on.  After frequent fizzled forecasts of rain dating back to November, I turned a deaf ear on the rain forecasts I heard last week so, when a gentle rain started on Monday, I was delighted.  I wasn't even annoyed when I got drenched in a brief deluge as I headed across a parking lot to the grocery store or when I discovered that my beautiful Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana) had been stripped of all its blooms overnight.

The photo on the left was taken Sunday afternoon.  The one in the middle was taken Tuesday morning.  The Bauhinia's flowers (right) blanket the area below the tree and petals are scattered throughout the garden.  I'd been puzzled by why the tree was so floriferous this year and now I have the explanation: until now we'd been virtually rain-free.

My joy over the rain dimmed markedly when details came in on the mudslides in Santa Barbara County, still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of the Thomas Fire, now classified as the worst in California's recorded history.  At least 15 people were killed by mudslides there that swamped houses, throwing some off their foundations, and burying everything in their paths.  Two dozen people are still missing and dozens more were injured.  Mudslides are a fact of life in California following major wildfires but it's easy to underestimate their force.  Santa Barbara County issued a mandatory evacuation order for 7000 people but many ignored it.  Following a year of heartbreaking natural disasters, here's another one.  Mother Nature can be brutal.

The rain here wasn't nearly as heavy or intense as it was to the north of us.  Our roof-top weather station recorded just over an inch of rain over a 2-day period.  Most of it came down slowly.  Late afternoon sunshine on both Monday and Tuesday produced rainbows.

This rainbow appeared over the Los Angeles Harbor late Monday afternoon

On Tuesday, the rainbow sat closer to Angel's Gate, the spot through which ships enter and exit the harbor.  A cruise ship, the Island Princess, sat in port (left) awaiting departure.

I wondered if I could catch the cruise ship leaving port with the rainbow shining over it but Mother Nature and the Island Princess did not conspire to make that happen as I stood there shivering and snapping more photos.

As the sun went down, the rainbow gradually faded into the surrounding clouds.  The Island Princess turned on its lights but remained sitting at port, eventually heading to Fort Lauderdale under the cover of night (with scheduled stops in Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia and Aruba).

There's another chance of light rain 8 days from now and several more opportunities in the long-term forecast over the next 2 months but it doesn't look like like we'll have the kind of rain we had last year, which is probably fortunate for the burn areas.  In my own case, everything is thoroughly soaked and the irrigation system is off.  I estimate I've accumulated a little over 320 gallons of rainwater among my 3 barrels too.  That will do for now.

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


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