Snow is extremely rare here. It falls every few years in my neighborhood, which is about 1,500 feet above sea level, but this is nearly nine hundred feet lower. For the Santa Clara Valley, just over the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has not snowed since 1976. A forecast that included a possibility of snow was quite a surprise. Actual snow early Thursday morning was more of a surprise. It resumed overnight and into Friday morning with thunder and lightning. Of course, almost all of it melted, so that it was no more than two inches deep. I can understand why those who contend with it regularly during winter dislike it. Yuck! Rhody stayed inside all day.

1. Clivia miniata, Kaffir lily is the most recent and shameless acquisition from Craigslist. Someone in Santa Clara wanted them thinned, so I got a trunkload, totally without guilt.

2. Clivia miniata, Kaffir lily really was justified! More than two dozen split and groomed shoots are a bit more than enough and very appropriate for this shaded and narrow bed.

3. Jericho was not the inspiration for this landscape. It merely succumbed to all the rain. The upper few courses of stone got hastily but futilely removed as the wall began to lean.

4. Digitalis purpurea, foxglove does not do much now, and is merely incidentally to this strange picture anyway. Snow from Thursday and Friday is the major development here.

5. Canna is likewise incidental to this picture of what seems to be snow, but may merely be hail, which remained after the snow mostly melted. Canna are still dormant anyway.

6. Snowman of three handfuls of slush and sticks is here just so that I can brag about the snow here. However, I find that snow is cold, wet and icky. I can see why it is unpopular.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

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36 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: SNOW?!”

    1. Palm trees are actually more resilient to it than redwoods and firs. They just fold up. Redwoods and firs drop limbs that get too heavy with accumulated snow. It is very dangerous because these limbs fall from hundreds of feet up.

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  4. I’m chuckling because we’re buried in about six inches of fresh snow plus it’s 17 degrees below freezing right now (normal, more or less) so no Six from me today. I agree that slush is gross, but kinda sad you have such a hate for snow in general; I’ll be out on my snowshoes this afternoon, enjoying a trek thru the woods and fields…

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    1. Actually, I do not hate snow. I am not adequately acquainted with it to hate it. My primary concern is that it can cause major damage if it gets heavy in the trees. Redwoods and firs that are not acquainted with snow drop limbs that are unable to support the weight.

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      1. Totally understand. Even if our trees are ‘acquainted’ with snow, a large and heavy fall will cause damage. The Christmas blizzard here toppled many conifers, and even on a young an vigorous b;pack pine I have several branches snapped off from the weight.

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      2. Goodness, even I know how flexible black pines are. Is it a common Japanese black pine or an Austrian black pine! Austrian black pine is rare here.

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      4. Oh, that is rad! I consider the Japanese black pine to be almost . . . boring, not because it is actually boring, but because it was almost common years ago. Austrian pine is rare here, but possibly because of its susceptibility to smog years ago.

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  5. And here I am wishing that we had gotten more snow this last round. Not all snow is wet, but California snow nearly always is unless you are up in the mountains. We only got a dusting last night, which was welcome after the horrid sleet that last week brought us. Hopefully the drought conditions continue to improve in CA. Last I looked, there were no more areas considered to be in extreme nor exceptional drought, though nearly all of CA is still in some level of drought. SAw foatage of the concrete lined L.A. river – never saw so much water flowing there! Quite impressive!

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    1. Well, California is remarkably diverse, with more climates than most of the other Contiguous States. That is why the entertainment industries were based here. The deepest daily accumulation of snow ever recorded in America is in California. It is almost a World Record. The driest American climate is also here. So is the hottest climate. So, snow is not so unfamiliar in all of California. It just happens to be very rare here and in most regions to the South. The drought myth is a bunch of hooey though. The deserts and chaparrals were here long before anyone was documenting the weather. The millions of people who dislike dry climates or want to use water as if it is an inexhaustible resource should not have migrated here. A ‘drought’ is an atypical weather pattern. The aridity here is climate, not weather. If it happens more or less annually, it is not atypical.

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      1. Hi Tony,
        I grew up in San Diego, so I know what you mean! The biggest issue with water in California is that so many people want to live there and it is a good climate for agriculture if you can find the water, but as much as I would have loved to return to my “home”, the water issue and the cost of living put it out of my reach. It’s OK, I have enough friends in the area that I visit often. Once I was driving to work and thought there was ash falling from the sky. (you know, fires) Then I realized it was a few random snowflakes that were evaporating on contact. That was the only time I saw snow in San Diego proper, not at any elevation to speak of. My midwestern husband laughed at me when I wanted to drive to the mountains to see the snow. Rain here today – soggy but not so cold.

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      2. I still enjoy living here, and intend to never leave, although I would prefer about a million who now live in the Santa Clara Valley to return to where they came from. I am offended by ANY complaints about ANYTHING here by ANYONE who is not native. As a native, I have so much more to complain about than anyone who chose to come here. This is still an excellent place to be, and I certainly could not have expected it to not change during the more than half century that I have been here. The weirdness is the most difficult aspect of local culture. (I hate to label it as ‘liberalism’ as most of us do, since it is SO weird that it is objectionable to those of us who consider ourselves to be liberal.) It is illegal to smoke tobacco in public, but smoking marijuana is not questioned because it is considered to be ‘medicinal’ (as if we should share our medications with those around us). Rest rooms for men and women might be construed as discriminatory, since they do not accommodate all the other countless genders, and we invent more all the time. Seriously, I used to get pulled over so regularly that I considered keeping a guest book in the glove box, for all the officers who thought that my old American sedan is suspicious enough to pull over. (We are supposed to drive new electric or hybrid SUVs that are either foreign or Tesla.) I only get pulled over less frequently now because I so rarely go to town. Yes, I could do without the extreme weirdness, but still would not want to relocate anywhere else.

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      3. Haha Yes, I know what you mean. I guess some people are not happy unless they are complaining! I would live there in a heartbeat, but since I can’t, I enjoy visiting. I did not pay much attention to plant life in San Diego when I lived there, I suppose because as a kid, it was just the background, not the main attraction for me. It is fun to rediscover my hometown as an adult with a gardening habit. I am always one to look on the bright side – maybe I can’t live there, but I have plenty of friends and family to visit, and where I live now, while I can’t garden outdoors year round I dob’ t have to pay for water for the garden, between ample rainfall and a couple of rain barrels, maybe I water with the hose once or twice a summer, and then, only my precious garden, not the grass that I would tear out in a heartbeat if the husband didn’t have that Midwestern tendency towards grass that he never sets foot on except to mow. Weird.
        Last time I drove my own car in San Diego, I did not get pulled over until Kansas. So far the car has gotten us pulled over once each, for being too zippy. No tickets yet, fingers crossed!

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    1. Gee, when it snowed here in 1976, we were not allowed onto the grass because no one knew if we would damage the vascularly active grass below the snow. The snow was so shallow that it melted from the paved surfaces. It was a once in a lifetime event for us, and we could not enjoy it.

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  7. How novel to see snow in your area! We’ve been watching the storm on the Weather Channel and I wondered whether you would have any snow accumulate. At least we have some drought busting in California for a pleasant change. My daughter had more than half a foot on the Oregon coast and was thrilled to have it for the first few hours. Looks like a beautiful new bed of Clivia. Great find! Change is the only constant. I hope you enjoyed the beauty of snowfall, if only briefly.

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    1. The snow was shallow here, but a bit deeper higher up. Although the water used here is stored in the snow in the Sierra Nevada, almost none of the local precipitation is stored. Agricultural reservoirs are very rare and very minimal. The drought is a bunch of hooey. Much of the climates where the majority of the water is consumed are desert and chaparral climates. Such climates are naturally arid. As I mentioned to someone else, a drought is an unusually arid weather pattern. If it happens almost annually, it is not unusual. It is the natural climate.

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    1. Oh, I am SO pleased with the Clivia miniata! I was supposed to bring quite a few back from Los Angeles, but retrieved only a few minor shoots, and some of those grew from genetically variable seed. These new shoots are genetically identical, and more robust that the others.

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  10. Wow, look at all those Clivia! I hope we’ll see them again when they bloom!

    Your snowman is cute. I’m a northern girl; I like the snow and miss it when we have a winter such as this one. Generally I AM tired of it by the time March rolls around, but today I find myself very much looking forward to the 7 inches we expect overnight!

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    1. These Clivia are not expected to bloom this year because they were just split and relocated. However, at least three of the shoots have well developed floral stalks emerging, and a few more have small floral buds. Although I doubt that the buds can mature, or that even the well developed stalks will finish bloom, it is not totally impossible. I suspect that at least a few will bloom for next year. I want to confirm that they are the traditional bright reddish orange, but will be pleased with whatever color they contribute. The few shoots that I brought back from the Los Angeles region were scraps from various cultivars, and some might have grown from seed, so could exhibit significant genetic variability. A single specimen of three at the recovery nursery has a nicely maturing floral stalk, so should bloom nicely, although it may be the only one.

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  11. It is interesting to hear your reaction to snow. It can be quite nice… in December for example, at the Christmas markets with a mug of hot mulled wine! But heavy wet snow has brought down a lot of evergreen trees and branches here recently so I know the nasty side of it too!

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  12. Pingback: Six on Saturday: Canna From Heaven – Tony Tomeo

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