In a Vase on Monday: Rain-sodden Blooms

We got rain this weekend!  Up through Friday, all I'd heard from the weather forecasters was that we had a chance of rain over the weekend.  Even Saturday morning, as it started to drizzle, the prediction was that our area would receive, at most, a quarter of an inch of rain.  As it turned out, we received more than an inch and a half over the course of Saturday and Sunday.  When I returned home late Sunday afternoon after an outing to celebrate a friend's birthday, I found everything was well soaked.  Some flowers fared better than others.

These Narcissus blooms had been hammered

Given the state of the Narcissus by the back door, I decided that I'd best try to use them in this week's arrangement for "In a Vase on Monday," the meme sponsored by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.  I chose to pair the Narcissus with the winter "blooms" of Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder,' which, also battered by rain, were leaning into the driveway.

While clipping stems of Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder,' I decided to take some of the yellow blooms of the Aeonium sitting alongside it too

Here's what I came up with:

The vase contains:

• Aeonium flowers (no ID)
• Erysimum linifolium 'Variegatum'
• Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder,' with yellow bracts and cones masquerading as flowers
• Narcissus (no ID)
• Solenostemon scutellairiodes 'Honey Crisp' (currently on its last legs)

Close-up of Aeonium flowers

Close-up of Leucadendron "flowers"

But there were other flowers in need of saving too.  The Calliandra haematocephala, missed by the gardener's hedge trimmers during the holiday period, are sporting more blooms than usual so I clipped a few of those as well.  They don't last long in a vase but they don't stay fresh on the shrub long either.

In addition to the Calliandra stems, this vase included:

• Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola'
• Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl'
• Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Fire Fingers' (also on its last legs)

Flowers and buds of Calliandra haematocephala (aka Pink Powder Puff)

Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' is just coming into bloom

Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl'

Both vases found places where they can receive proper admiration.

Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what she and other bloggers have come up with this week.


 All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Homage to a Yucca

Last month I published a post recounting the sad story of the Yucca elephantipes (aka Y. gigantea) seated at the bottom of our back slope on the boundary between our property and that of a neighbor.  After watching the Yucca grow taller and spread further along the slope, my husband tried to trim it back.  That effort, and the Yucca's resilience in making a quick comeback, led my husband to declare war on the plant (much as he'd done many years ago with a Bougainvillea that, no matter how frequently it was trimmed, grew out across the driveway at our old house to scratch the car he'd painstakingly converted from gas to electric power).  When our neighbor came by to discuss the possibility of cutting the Yucca back, my husband mounted a campaign to remove it.  Although he has been known to blink at what I spend on plants, he didn't blink at the price quoted to cut the massive plant down to 2 feet.  (I, on the other hand, nearly had an apoplectic fit.)  Even the neighbor was surprised when we informed him that we (I'm using the royal "we" here) wished to proceed.

In about 6 hours, the Yucca went from this:

Yucca, photographed looking down onto the back slope in November 2014

To this:

The same area, photographed December 5, 2014

No one was happy about how the landscape service left the Yucca.  Instead of 2 feet tall, it was between 4 and 5 feet tall in places.

The huge, irregular stumps left behind

In addition to being ugly, the stumps were too tall to cover with soil to speed decay and prevent the plant from growing back.  Yet, they were also too low to provide privacy between the 2 properties.  A representative from the landscape service quoted another choke-worthy fee to cut the stumps flush with the surface of the soil.  We agreed to the plan but recently got another quote from a different tree service representative, who claimed his team could get a stump grinder down the slope to eliminate the risk of regrowth, something the original service claimed was impossible.  We accepted his proposal.

The new team arrived on Tuesday, just as I was leaving for the day.  My husband told me that getting the stump grinder down the relatively steep slope proved more difficult than anticipated by the new service.  Fortunately, the neighbor on the other side of us agreed to allow us to move it through the back of her property.

With that obstacle removed, the team got to work.  I came home that evening to find the work half-done, with the crew scheduled to return early the next morning - in exchange for a still larger fee.

The scene at the start of the second day of work

The lattice and pots beyond the stumps sit on the neighbor's property

The tree service increased their price, in part, due to our request to also grind out the small stumps higher on the slope, off-shoots of the original Yucca (circled area)

After another 9 hours of work on that second day, all that was visible was sawdust and mud:

View of area as of January 8, 2015

The sawdust left behind after grinding the stumps is fluffy and very moist, creating a spongy surface, which may take a while to dry out

Now what remains is to determine what we should plant to create a new screen between the 2 properties.  I've proposed planting 3 Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Silver Sheen' but the neighbor has yet to respond.  Although we believe the Yucca, or most of it anyway, was inside our property line, I want to ensure that the neighbors are comfortable with the choice.  They've told us the Yucca was already tree-height 34 years ago when they moved in and I know the wife was upset by its removal.  The privacy issue is also greater for them - we're impacted only when we're on the back slope but they face the newly bare area every time they go into their backyard.  The Pittosporum, a handsome if unexciting plant, has the advantage of being fast-growing, reaching a height of 6 feet in as little as a year.  In a group of 3, it should provide an effective screen, while allowing light and air to move easily through it.  It's also moderately drought tolerant.

While I do like the increased light and improved views of the harbor from the back slope, I'm nonetheless sad to see the Yucca reduced to a soggy mass of dust.  And I know that the hummingbirds and I will miss the flowers.

But I can always visit the handsome, well-maintained Yucca elephantipes at the local botanic garden, just 5 miles away.

 All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Do you love succulents? May I suggest a book?

I have well over 200 garden books, despite the fact that I donated a substantial number to a local library when we moved 4 years ago.  I love each and every one but I've never felt the urge to gush about one on-line, until now.

Back in October, when a friend and I made a mad dash through 6 nurseries in San Diego County, I picked up a copy of Jeff Moore's new book, "Under the Spell of Succulents," while visiting his nursery, Solana Succulents.  I was impressed as soon as I opened the book but I remained mum about the book because I decided to buy 3 more copies as Christmas gifts for friends.  I didn't want to ruin the surprise.

Front cover

Back cover

The subtitle on the book's cover describes it: it's an introduction to the wide variety of succulents available in cultivation.  It's loaded with beautiful photos - there are few pages without one or more and, unlike the succulents you find in most nurseries, the featured plants are labeled.  The book contains chapters on a variety of subjects from common topics, such as container and vertical gardens, to the special qualities of selected succulents, such as crests and caudiciforms ("fat plants").  Interspersed between the chapters are sections the author refers to as "interludes" which describe different genera.  Among other topics, Moore describes succulent theme gardens, including the use of succulents to create undersea style landscapes.  In fact, Moore gained a reputation for these landscapes when he designed an exhibit for the Del Mar Fair in 2002 and a permanent display for the San Diego Botanical Garden.  You can find photos on his website.  Coincidentally, when I visited his nursery, I picked up an octopus-like succulent, Dyckia marnier-lapostollii.

This is not a how-to book, although the author does offer advice based on his experience.  Its clearer purpose is to share the enthusiasm the author clearly feels for these plants.  The tone throughout is casual, akin to a discussion one might have with a garden club speaker.  There are no pretensions or heavy-handed lectures, just obvious enjoyment in these plants and a desire to share them. 

If you're interested in the book, you may face a challenge getting hold of a copy.  It's not available from Amazon or another large book retailer.  The softcover book is self-published.  You can contact the author directly through his nursery to purchase a copy or pick one up by attending events at which he is scheduled to speak, including one on January 12th sponsored by the San Diego Horticultural Society.  I bought the copies purchased as gifts for my friends on-line through a San Diego area bookstore.  

Note: This review wasn't requested by the author or any representative of the author and I wasn't compensated in any way for offering an opinion.  My purpose is solely to share a resource other succulent enthusiasts may appreciate.

 All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: Peppermint Packs a Punch

I really hadn't a clue what to cut for a vase this week.  We've had a cold snap, with nighttime temperatures closing in near freezing but never quite reaching that point.  But that's cold for us!  While I had no damage here, there were no new flowers bursting forth demanding their moment of glory in a vase either.  I clipped a flower here and a flower there but nothing clicked.  I briefly thought of just stuffing what I had in a vase and calling it done but then I though of the Euryops 'Sonnenchein' tucked down in the area I call my glen.  On the way to clip a few stems, I passed the Pelargonium tomentosum, also known as peppermint geranium, which I'd previously thought of using in one of my Monday-morning vases but hadn't.  Those additions changed a sad arrangement into this:

Very cheerful, don't you think?  Here's what I included:

• Ageratum houstonianum 'Blue Horizon
• Anemone coronaria 'Mona Lisa Deep Blue'
• Aster x frikartii 'Monch'
• Euryops 'Sonnenschein'
• Lavandula multifida (aka fernleaf lavender)
• Leucanthemum x superbum, ruffled variety
• Pelargonium tomentosum

The Ageratum looks much better than it did when I planted it last April

The Anemones also like the colder weather

I bought a second Aster in November and wish I'd picked up a third

The Euryops flowered with a flourish within 2 weeks of our early December rainstorms

The ruffled Leucanthemum, a gift form a friend more than 3 years ago, are slowly making an appearance

The peppermint geranium (Pelargonium tomentosum) can hold its own in a vase

The arrangement captured Pipig's interest for a nanosecond, albeit not long enough for me to catch a photo of her inspection.  She was quickly diverted by something outside I could neither see nor hear.

With thanks again to Julie at Gardening Jules for the new moniker, I also have an "experimental vase" this week:

Senecio cineraria and Pelargonium peltatum (aka ivy geranium)

(Julie, I finally looked into how to shrink the size of the photos used in my posts so let me know if this post loads more easily for you.)

These are my contributions this week to Cathy's challenge to construct a vase from materials in one's own garden.  Visit her at Rambling in the Garden to discover what she's found and what other contributors have to offer.  Although we complained mightily about the cold here in Southern California, it has been a lot colder in other bloggers' gardens so some participants are pushing the limits to come up with creative options (if the ground around them isn't covered by snow).  As for us, daytime temperatures are expected to get back up close to 80F (26C) by mid-week.


 All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Liebster Award!

I opened the comments section of my blog yesterday afternoon and discovered that I'd been nominated for a Liebster award by Anna of Flutter & Hum.  I was thrown.  I have an awkward relationship with awards.  On the one hand, I'm flattered to no end but, on the other, I'm flustered.  As I do with any compliment I receive, my immediate inclination is to convey my unworthiness to receive it.  You like my shirt?  "It's old and was a gift from someone with better taste."  You're impressed with my garden?  "You should see my neighbor's garden - she has done a bang-up job on hers."  I've won awards at intervals during the course of my life, some academic and some career-related, but I've never been able to simply accept them without some kind of disclaimer.  The funny thing is, just the other day, I was thinking that, at this point in my life, I should be able to accept compliments with grace instead of denials.  I don't generally make new year's resolutions but, if I were to, this would have been on my list.  So, 3 days into the new year Anna gives me an unintended push to make good on my unspoken admonition to myself.  Thanks, Anna, for the kick in the behind, as well as the recognition!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Liebster Award, as I was before this, it has been described as an on-line chain letter with some rules.   The rules vary somewhat but, in this case, in accepting, I've agreed to:

• Link back to Anna's blog;
• Answer 11 questions she outlined in her award post; and
• Nominate 5 other bloggers to receive the award, continuing the cycle. 

With another word of thanks to Anna, both for reading my blog and for recognizing it with her nomination, here are my answers to her questions:

1) Why do you blog?  Originally, my blog served as a distraction.  It gave me temporary relief from the stresses of family events by shifting my focus to the pleasure I felt working in my garden.  Over time, it became a way of tracking changes in the garden and connecting with others who had similar interests.  It's the experience of community associated with blogging that keeps me posting now.

2) What makes you happy?  Right now, rain!!!  

3) If you could live anywhere, where would you live?  There's a lot of the country - and the world - that I haven't seen yet but, based on my experience to date, I'd live in the Pacific Northwest.

4) If you had to lose one of your senses - which would it be?  Hearing, vision, touch, smell or taste?  Taste.  It would offer a benefit of sorts by eliminating any reason to eat sugars and starches and all the other things that aren't good for me.

5) What does your perfect day look like?  Blue skies (following a night of rain), cool temperatures, good friends, and a trip to one of my favorite nurseries, preferably with one of my friends doing the driving.

6) If you had to pick only one cuisine to eat for the rest of your life, which one would you choose, and why?  Chinese - it includes lots of vegetables but everything is tasty.

7) What book are you reading right now?  I usually have more than one book going in different formats.  I just finished "Under the Spell of Succulents" by Jeff Moore in soft-cover and started "Practical Botany for Gardeners" by Geoff Hodge in hard-cover.  I'm listening to "Dust" by Martha Grimes on a USB drive in my car and I'm reading "The Last Time I was Me" by Cathy Lamb on my iPad.

8) Which is your favorite movie? "Ghostbusters" (the original)

9) Do you have a favorite color and if so - which?  Yellow is my favorite color, with green and blue close seconds.

10) Which is your favorite place to visit?  I haven't had an opportunity to travel much lately but a trip to Carmel and Monterey in California is my favorite get-away.

11) Name five famous people (dead or alive) that you would love to invite to a dinner party at your house.  That's a tough one!  I was tempted to select a literary or garden-focused group but as a variety of views can create the most lively discussions, I'll go with: Jon Stewart, Beth Chatto, Dan Hinkley, Louise Penny, and Richard Feynman.

Selecting 5 blogs to nominate is, by far, the hardest part of accepting this nomination.  There are so many blogs I read regularly and love.  Some of those bloggers have already received this award or have declared themselves "award free" and others have been blogging for an extended period.  The guideline for selection is under 1000 followers but, in many cases, I wasn't able to determine the number of followers.  As the sub-title on the award logo says "discover new blogs!," I focused on blogs I admire that came into being within roughly the past 3 years:

• Angie's Garden Diaries
• Crumbs
• Practical Plant Geek
• Rambling in the Garden
• Rock-Oak-Deer

Angie, Amy, Evan, Cathy and Shirley: If you wish to accept the award, answer the following 11 questions in a post on your blog and select 5 nominees of your own to answer 11 questions of your choice.  I leave it up to your discretion whether you use the number of followers or some other criteria in making your selection.

My questions to those accepting the award are:

1) Why do you blog?
2) Words or photos?  Which do you labor over more in constructing a blog post?
3) What is one thing someone who knows you only through your blog would be surprised to learn about you?
4) What have you read in the past year that impacted your outlook, be it with respect to gardening or life in general?
5) If you had to chose, what is your favorite among the plants currently in your garden?
6) What plant do you covet that you don't currently have, or which wouldn't survive in your climate?
7) If you could pick up and move anywhere, where would that be and why?
8) If you knew in high school what you know now, what career would you have selected for yourself?
9) What plant have you killed at least 3 times, if any?
10) What do you like best about your own garden?
11) Name your favorite public garden.

Best wishes to all my nominees.  The nicest thing about this award is the opportunity to share my appreciation of your blogs.  Thanks again to Anna for facilitating that!


 All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wide Shots - January 2015

The monthly wide shot meme was launched by Heather of Xericstyle in 2013 and I have joined in with photos from my garden since September of that year.  This month I thought I'd change things up a little and focus on two areas of my garden: my "new" front yard and an area I call the "glen," which I don't often show.

As anyone who has read my posts over the last few months knows, the front garden has undergone a major change.  We removed roughly 800 square feet of lawn surrounding our central walkway this fall and, after lots of work preparing the area, I began planting it in late November.  It's still a work in progress but it's coming along.

Usual view of the front of the house from the driveway

The area to the left (north side) of the front door walkway

The larger area to the right (south side) of the front door walkway

View of the same area, photographed from the south side garden

Although the front garden is far from finished, I've begun thinking about my next project, one that was originally on my mental list to tackle in 2014 but which dropped to the wayside when efforts shifted to the front garden and the street-side succulent bed last year.  I want to make the area I call the "glen" (for little reason other than I need to call it something) more usable.  The area sits inside a hedge (or what used to be a hedge) along the street on the southwest side of our property.  It's accessible by two separate dirt paths.  One path slopes down from the arbor in the south side garden and the other runs behind the Xylosma hedge on south side of the driveway entrance.  I've fiddled with the area off and on since we moved in but, since I mutilated the Pittosporum hedge that formerly hid it from view and planted a succulent bed along the street in front, I think I need to do more to transform the area, starting with building an extension to the existing dry-stacked wall.

This photo shows the path into the area from the upper level

The path leads toward the street, disappearing behind the Xylosma hedge that formerly connected to the Pittosporum hedge

For unknown reasons, the low dry stacked wall holding back the slope ends halfway through the space (roughly in the middle of this photo).  I added some rocks and rubble collected on-site to extend the wall our first year here but that isn't doing the job.

I've added succulent cuttings above the wall and, more recently, planted a small succulent cutting bed  at ground level (partially visible here in the right foreground)

I'll close with collages showing the seasonal progression of other areas of the garden I usually include in my wide shot posts.

Counterclockwise from the top left: The back garden in April, July, and October 2014 and, top right, in January 2015

Counterclockwise from top left: The southeast side garden in April, July, and October 2014 and, top right, in January 2015

Counterclockwise from top left: The dry garden in April, July, and October 2014 and, top right, in January 2015

Counterclockwise from top left: The back slope in April, July, and November 2014 and, top right, in January 2015

The first project of the year will be to address that hideous stump at the bottom of the slope.  The tree service that cut the Yucca elephantipes down to its current height of 4+ feet will be back in mid-January to try cutting it closer to flush with the surface of the soil.  We'll then do our best to expedite the stump's decay and construct a living or man-made screen to create privacy between us and our neighbors on the other side of the stump.  There's always something that needs doing in a garden.


All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Second Blogiversary Retrospective

Yesterday was the second anniversary of my first blog post.  In 2013, blogging was mostly a distraction from turbulence in my personal life.  In 2014, it became more pointedly about the garden itself: what I liked and didn't like about it, what I planned to change, how those changes were implemented, and the challenges we faced along the way.  All through the process, I appreciated the comments, suggestions, commiseration, and support I received from those of you who do me the honor of reading my posts.  When I started blogging I never anticipated the sense of community the process creates.  That has become the most important impetus for continuing.

As I looked back on this year's posts, I realized just how much has happened in the garden this year, some of which was planned but much of which was not.  In some cases what started as small decisions, made without much deliberation, led unintentionally but perhaps inevitably to much bigger projects.  Pruning the unsightly Pittosporum hedge along the street is a case in point.  That hedge bugged me from the time we moved in 4 years ago.  However, for the first 2 years, I left the pruning to the garden service that took care of the lawn.  In 2013, I cut back a few of the hedge's shrubs.  The new growth looked better so, in January 2014, I took things a lot further.  Too far, as it turns out.  Portions of the hedge haven't recovered.  But, on the plus side, cutting back the hedge led to the creation of a street-side succulent bed, allowing me to significantly expand my already burgeoning succulent collection.

From left to right: Hedge before pruning; hedge after pruning; wide view of succulent bed; and a close-up

While I was busy mutilating the hedge, my husband decided that the wood-fired "snorkel spa" we inherited with the house wasn't worth the effort required to maintain it.  He dismantled it, we cleared out the gravel beneath it to open up yet another planting area, and my husband made a patio table out of the spa's wood shell, giving us a new seating area in the backyard.

From left to right: Original spa; dismantlement in process; cleared bed; area after planting (September); and completed patio table

Taking out the grass on the south side of the house in 2013 had created a choppy flow from that area into the backyard.  To address that we decided to extend the small bed surrounding the fountain in the backyard to form a connection to the south side yard.  That work began in February.  The new area was planted in March and April.

Counterclockwise from top left: Area prior to project; work begins; additional soil is delivered; bed ready for planting; initial planting (March); and the new bed at the end of May

With the creation of the extended fountain bed and the bed formerly occupied by the spa, the remaining grass area in the backyard became more of a pathway than a lawn.  We removed another semi-circle of lawn next to the north end of the patio in September to improve the flow of that pathway (and give me still more space for ornamental plants).

From left to right: Area before lawn removal; after lawn removal; and after planting (October)

As the summer progressed, we accepted the difficulty of maintaining our front lawn in the face of California's severe drought.  Rather than try to restore the half-dead lawn, we elected to take it out.  The grass was removed in September but my husband and I spent much of our free time in October and November digging out grass roots, sod netting, and rocks; adding soil amendments; and laying flagstone paths.  Planting began in December and is ongoing.

Counterclockwise from top left: Early stage of soil preparation; what one neighbor referred to as a burial mound; one of 2 topsoil deliveries; laying the flagstone paths; the area to the left of the front walkway after planting; and, on the top right, the partially planted area to the right of the front walkway

Along the way:

I lost my beloved garden companion, Ming, in March after a long struggle with a disease we couldn't defeat

I faced regular visits by raccoons (aka Satan's minions) who tore out virtually every plant I put in, often more than once (Note: As shown on the far right, I finally captured a photo of one of the cheeky culprits on Sunday night outside the dining room window)

We lost the privacy provided by the huge Yucca elephantipes that sat on the boundary between us and a neighbor: the first 2 photos on the left were taken before the Yucca was cut down and the last were taken afterwards (Further work on the 4 foot tall stump is planned for mid-January)

So what will 2015 Bring?  I'm not sure but I suspect our garden will continue to change, along with our expectations of it.  Whatever those changes may be, I hope you'll continue to join me on the ride.

Upper left: Sunset photographed from the front yard; Small photos: Views snapped from the backyard over the course of 2014

All material © 2012-2014 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party