Heather worked ‘VERY’ late. Labels got switched on two cultivars of passion flower vine. We got another banana tree with no plan. A walnut replaced a palm. Palms did nothing. Oh my!
1. Musa acuminata ‘Popoulu’ banana ‘tree’ arrived in the mail as this tissue culture plug with a crease across it. It will recover, but its blemish is annoying. What is more amiss is that this is the twentieth cultivar of banana here, but we have plans for none of them yet.
2. Juglans nigra, black walnut was a typical understock for the English walnut orchards of the Santa Clara Valley. It is somewhat naturalized nearby, but not here. Where are all these seedlings coming from? Why did this grow in a can for Costa Rican bamboo palm?
3. Chamaedorea costaricana, Costa Rican bamboo palm is what should be in the can of the black walnut seedling. I brought enough rhizomes from Brent’s garden for about ten #5 cans and about as many #1 cans, but after a year, this is the only specimen that grew.
4. Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ Hakone grass had never performed particularly well. A few other small perennials were added nearby to compensate. Now, the Hakone grass is growing lushly enough to overwhelm some of the perennials that were added to assist it.
5. Passiflora caerulea ‘Constance Eliot’ passion flower vine went into a landscape after it impressed with purple bloom. Of course, it was expected to bloom white like the original that provided the cuttings. This specimen was expected to bloom purple like its original.
6. Heather is a very proficient mouser. Rodents had been a major annoyance prior to her arrival. They are now no bother at all. However, a rat was observed within this particular shop. Heather apparently went in to investigate, and consequently spent the night there.
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/
Tony Tomeo 
Lots of mysteries. I’m glad I found out who Heather was, fantastic photo at the end. What does Rhody think about her?
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Rhody used to like to chew on her head. It was weird. Now, he sometimes brings her one of his chew toys, and slaps her with it. He does not understand that she does not want to play with it. She sometimes brings him a carcass of a moth or small lizard, but does not understand why he is uninterested in it. This is another picture of Heather, looking in through the same sort of window that she was looking out of above.
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Fantastic photo of Heather!
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Oh, I posted this link for the wrong comment. Well, here it is again. This is a better picture of Heather looking in the same sort of window that she is looking out from in the picture above.
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Heather looks a little scary. The Passionflower are a little unpredictable.
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I suspect that the rodents relocated because Heather is so scary. I do not care why they are gone. I am just pleased that they are gone. The passion flowers would be more predictable if I had labeled them properly.
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I get “volunteer” black walnut seedlings, and sometimes in really strange places. But they aren’t really volunteers at all. They were all planted! Planted by squirrels.
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Well, yes, they do that. I suppose they do that here also, but I can not figure out where they get the walnuts from.
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Oh, no tree near, that’s strange. My neighbor has a huge old tree near the edge of my property (too near, too old, the tree scares me recently) and there are walnuts all around here in the late summer and fall. I pull out little trees regularly.
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I would like to use these seedlings as understock for English walnuts later, although I can not confirm that they are common black walnut. They might be (Northern) California black walnut.
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Squirrels are in their glory right now here. Black walnuts on the ground everywhere. In the spring, I’ll be looking for seedlings……everywhere.
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Black walnuts, which were originally imported as understock for orchards, were also planted to shade some of the old roads between towns here. The problem is that the walnuts can break windshields. Crows drop them onto the roads for cars to run over so that they can eat the pulp, but sometimes, they drop them onto cars instead.
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Oh yea, they are hard and heavy, especially when they’re still in their green shells. I have the shell material all over one part of my yard from the neighbor’s tree. But no more walnuts, cos the squirrels have them all gathered up and “hidden”.
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Do you mean the hulls? Squirrels store them in their shells. Otherwise, shelled walnuts do not last for long. The hulls can be toxic to dogs who eat them. They stain everything they land on.
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