Don’t worry. He is not really deceased. He is just making good use of the lawn. The well foliated trees in the distance are a clue that this pictures was not taken recently, although it illustrates the current weather conditions accurately. We all want to be out in it, whether getting lazy in a local park, walking on the beach, or just staying home and working in the garden.

It seems that almost everyone else is contending with less pleasant weather. The summer in much of Australia had been historically hot. Much of Europe got some nasty storms. Parts of the Southeastern United States of America that get snow only on rare occasion got more than they have in recent memory.

We are certainly used to our share of pleasant weather through winter. We can only see snow in the distance on top of Mount Hamilton. Frost only happens a…

So the spelling is a bit . . . off. Ignore the ‘E’ before ‘If’ and the ‘n’ after ‘grow’. They are crossed out . . . sort of. ‘wont’ means ‘want’. ‘haf’ means ‘have’, as in ‘have to’ or ‘need to’. It made sense at the time, more than four decades ago. Perhaps I should rephrase it.

If you want your garden to grow, you must talk to it.

You must talk to your garden in order for it to grow.

Your garden requires regular discourse for healthy growth.

This concept dates from a time of big Boston ferns and spider plants suspended by coarse macrame with big wooden beads. Coleus and rubber tree were popular house plants too. Remember terrariums? There were big flowered daisies, tam junipers and big petunias in the yard. A group of three European white birches was cool, as if it was somehow unique…

Halston was quite the rage when I was a little tyke.

I did not know exactly what that meant.

I can remember elegant ladies wearing Halston pill box hats. From the back seat of the new 1967 Chevelle, I could admire my Mother’s, while my younger brother on the other side of the car got tangled in our flower child Aunt’s abundant and long hair blowing in the wind.

Although I had never seen a Halston before, I could determine from hats made from them that they were soft, fuzzy and cylindrical. I knew that apricots, walnuts and oranges grew on trees, so I would sometimes look into unfamiliar trees, including the silk oaks next door, to see if I could see Halstons ripening in them.

My older sister eventually explained that Halston was they guy who made the hats. He was very busy. His hats were very popular. Apparently…

That is irrelevant here though. These are pictures of one of my ‘gardens’ in Brookdale, for comparison to pictures from the Jungalow. The pictures are no better than those of the Jungalow. ( https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/brent-is-an-idiot/ ) There is nothing to show anyway. It is just a forested vacant lot on Melwin Avenue. I have no pictures of the lower vacant lot on Logan Avenue where I grow my fig trees, berries, quince tree, rhubarb and a few other odds and ends. There is no landscape there either. It is just a vacant lot where I grow a few odd plants that I do not want to plant in riskier situations, where they might be in the way of other development or gardening. The fig trees can not produce good fruit in such cool shade, but will likely make plenty of cuttings for new trees elsewhere. Perhaps someday, I will have better…

He might be the best landscape designer in West Hollywood, but he is an idiot nonetheless. Besides that, he takes worthless pictures. That is why I do not have any good pictures of his Mid City Los Angeles Jungalow garden to post. I will share a few of what I have, but they really do not show it off like it should be. ( https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/dreamscape-at-the-jungalow/ )

Of course, the prettiest thing in the Jungalow garden is Grace, my niece. This is an old picture. She is learning to drive now! Oh my! She gets here cuteness from her mother; and she looks more like both of her grandmothers than her parents.

She is adorable and knows how to use it.

This ‘Charles Grimaldi’ Angel’s trumpet is the same one that provided the flowers for an illustration in Sunset – Western Garden Book, although I do not remember in which year.

The Jungalow is my colleague Brent’s bungalow home, surrounded by a jungle of a landscape, just about a block off of the Santa Monica Freeway in Mid City Los Angles.

This picture very effectively illustrates that Brent has no business taking pictures . . . and that he should have had a V-8.

The landscape really is spectacular though. You might have seen bits and pieces of it in Sunset Magazine or other horticultural magazines. Pictures of specific flowers and plants were used to illustrate the Sunset – Western Garden Book.

Brent likes his garden to be spectacular. He uses it to trial a few plants before using them at the homes of clients, and to demonstrate how effectively his home garden functions as a lush jungle oasis in the middle of the city. The dense hedging obscures views of neighboring homes, and muffles the sound of the Santa Monica…

They are excellent at weeding and vegetation management too, particularly where brambles are too thick to get through. They also convert unwanted vegetation into useful fertilizer. Goats are remarkably versatile and useful machines around the garden.

The goat in this picture is no ordinary goat. She is a pygmy fainting goat. Her kind were bred to faint when startled, in order to keep a predator occupied instead of eating other more desirable livestock in their herd. What a strange job description! When we went to Oklahoma a few years ago, we stayed on a farm with quite a herd of these small and pleasantly mannered goats.

It was winter while we were there, so there was not much to do in regard to vegetation management or gardening. There were a few blackjack oaks near the homes that I pruned up for clearance and just to neaten them up a bit…

Los Gatos is named after bobcats. More specifically, it is named after an interchange that was named after bobcats; La Rinconada De Los Gatos. There are a few theories about how and why it was named after bobcats. The most popularly accepted theory involved the remarkably violent demise of everyone involved, leaving no one to document it as accurately is it has been repeated for generations. Don’t question it if you ever hear it. It is quite entertaining. I prefer to think that we do not need an elaborate excuse for naming our town after native wildlife. The bobcats were here. People noticed them. BINGO – La Rinconada De Los Gatos.

Regardless and contrary to what my colleague Brent would tell you, ‘Los Gatos’ does not mean ‘The Ghettos’ in Spanish.

Other towns in California have horticultural names. Some are named for horticultural commodities that were grown there. Others are…

Perhaps I should elaborate on the ‘litter boxes’ in the ‘Six on Saturday’ post earlier this morning. As I already mentioned, they are in the same parking lot as the Leo and Leona sculptures. They were formerly inhabited by Italian cypress trees that would now be like those nearby if they had survived.

This is no joke. Someone really selected the tree that provides the least shade for hot pavement, and attracts the most birds to do what birds do on parked cars.

Because they were installed as large boxed specimens, and were watered generously enough to maintain swampy conditions in the surrounding soil, most of the cypresses could not disperse their roots fast enough, and consequently got blown over onto parked cars in their first or second winter. The survivors took many years to get established, and were bound to big and unsightly lodgepole stakes for years.

Rather than…

Wire haired terriers know how it works. They wear wiry hair through summer to shade their skin while allowing cooling air circulation. Their softer and fuzzier undercoat that develops in autumn provides better insulation from cold weather through winter.

Beards are not naturally so adaptable, but can be manipulated to function better. Thick beards might insulate and deflect wind through winter. Short beards may not work as well in that regard, but might absorb warmth from sunlight if still darkly colored. As weather gets warmer in spring, beards can simply be removed to optimize cooling air circulation, and eliminate the extra insulation. However, long and gray beards can provide shade without absorbing much warmth from sunlight.

Have you ever noticed that plants that live near foggy coasts or in the lower levels of shady jungles and forests are the darkest green? They want to absorb all the sunlight they can…