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Six on Saturday: A Bit More Color

Since the Fire, my Six on Saturday posts have been rather gloomy. Titles such as ‘Pompeii‘, ‘Revelation‘ and ‘Revelation II‘ are appropriately descriptive. More color is in order.

1. Silvery bark of a silver maple is sort of colorful. Hey, the next five really are more colorful. I planted this tree as a young twigling in the Santa Clara Valley when I was in high school. It had a second trunk, which I layered as another tree for the front garden. This tree is in back. I would like to get a copy for my own garden. This is now an old picture that I got during evacuation.

2. Orangish red bloom is that of ‘Pollack’ zonal geranium, which is grown more for its very variegated foliage. However, this bonus bloom is on a specimen that reverted to be less variegated.

3. Peachy Peruvian lily looks pink to me, but is not quite as pink as the pink sort. There is a yellow sort here too. They certainly are prolific. In 1986, I worked with these as a cut flower crop.

4. White phlox self sowed here last year or earlier, and have performed splendidly. There are more this year than there were last year. It would be excellent to get a few more for next year.

5. Blue annual morning glory grew up with my tomatoes. Oddly, they did not do so well where their seed were actually sown intentionally, in pots on the deck up above the vegetable garden.

6. This is my favorite picture this week. I can not read what, if anything, is written in paint on this rock. It looks like someone enjoyed painting it, and placing it to be found out in the garden.

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 16 Comments

Getting Behind

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Rhody misses his work. (This picture is from two weeks ago.)

All this time off from so much of my work has been great! I am developing a new vegetable garden where there had been only trash and bramble. I get to plant grapevines and a few fruit trees. When finished with that, I will work on grooming all the canned stock in the storage and recover nursery.

I do miss work though. It is also a bummer that while the landscapes are at their best and most prolific with bloom, there is no one here to see it.

Furthermore, there is concern with how the landscapes are neglected. Fortunately, most of what is out there does not even know that it is being neglected. Also fortunately, someone is allowed to mow the vast lawns, since they are the majorly important features that would not survive neglect for long.

Other facilities that I am not involved with are more important now. There is less wear and tear without anyone here. Consequently, there is less need for maintenance. Nonetheless, issues come up. The most important issues get dealt with. Some of the more minor issues get deferred.

Some of the guys of the Maintenance Crew come by occasionally as they work on projects around their homes. Some use the tools here. Some just drop of trash. Of course, Rhody thoroughly exploits such opportunities to catch up on some of his neglected work. He is very career oriented, and takes his work very seriously. The crew helps him with his tasks any way they can.

There is an old whiteboard in an office that has not been used since a system that uses telephones was adopted a long time ago. The tasks listed (below) for Allan were there more than two years ago. Jim’s tasks were completed and erased prior to that, but not added to . . . until recently. The guy who previously used the column to right no longer works here. It is Rhody’s now.

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We all have quite a bit of work to catch up on.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 31 Comments

Horridculture – Antihorridculture

 

Wednesday has been my day for ranting about aberrations of horticulture. I certainly have plenty to rant about. However, there is plenty of other ranting going on nowadays without my help. Therefore, for this Wednesday only, I will forego the ranting. Furthermore, I will forego the horticulture too. I can not remember ever doing that before. This could be something totally new for me.

After Rhody photo bombed one of my pictures that was featured on Saturday, others suggested that I feature more pictures of Rhody. Everyone loves Rhody.

Most of these pictures are devoid of vegetation. The minimal vegetation that is visible in the other pictures is mostly unrecognizable in the background. There are a few redwoods, a few firs, some English ivy and all that riparian mess around Zayante Creek behind the abandoned ball field. They are unimportant in this post.

This post is just pictures of Rhody, complete with captions that all begin with ‘Rhody’.

Rhody really has been a good sport. He has been coming to work without his crew for more than a week. Only a few of them stop by in the morning. One or two rarely come by through the day. We avoid each other.

Rhody misses them very much. He frolics on their sofa where he typically does ‘laps’ during morning staff meetings, and sometimes settles into the rocker chair that he typically avoids when no one else in it. He neglects his favorite thrasher toys, but instead drags around a dirty glove that belonged to someone of his crew. He takes it to bed, but I somehow wake up with it.

We will work in the still unvegetated vegetable garden in the morning. It is right outside, so he will be here if anyone of his crew happens to stop by.

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Rhody found us a new car.

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Rhody still prefers his friend’s work truck.

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Rhody in camo.

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Rhody found it, . . . but doesn’t know what it is.

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Rhody likes the beach, . . . but can’t find the ocean. (It is a few miles away.)

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Rhody gets to second base and beyond, past the outfield of the abandoned ball field.

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Rhody is easily amused. I don’t get it.

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Rhody is still intent on finding . . . it.

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Rhody can be such a ham.

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Rhody knows how cool he is.

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Rhody misses his staff who can’t come to work yet.

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Rhody misses them a lot!

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Rhody still works hard at being cute, even though there is no one here to see it.

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Rhody is done with pictures for now.

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Rhody thinks the camera smells . . . interesting.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

March 22, 2020 – Memorial Tree Update

As I promised earlier, this is the update from Felton League.

tonytomeo's avatarFelton League

Before

If it continues with the healthy growth it exhibited after a seemingly slow start last year, the still small Memorial Tree of Felton Covered Bridge Park should be happy now, in its fifth season. It was pruned, groomed and relieved of weeds last Friday. Its first dose of fertilizer will be applied today, before fresh new foliage starts to develop. New binding should remain until autumn.

The last update for the Memorial Tree was on August 10. An update regarding its horticultural concerns posted earlier this morning on my other blog, where this post will be reblogged to. This little tree has certainly been through some difficult times. It is gratifying to see that it is recovering and doing well. As it grows, it becomes more resilient and less susceptible to damage.

The Memorial Tree is actually the fourth tree to be planted on its spot since Felton Covered…

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GREEN

Felton League is my other blog, about the distinguished Community of houseless and socially marginalized people in Felton. This article, from Felton League, is about GREEN, so might also be of interest here.

tonytomeo's avatarFelton League

GREEN, Greening Residential Environments Empowering Neighborhoods, will be planting at least fifty-two street trees in Los Angeles in less than three weeks, on January 18. Sadly, none of us will attend this year.

Only one of us attended the first tree planting project by GREEN twenty-two years ago. One may not seem like an impressive number, but it was half of the two who started what has become an annual tradition. Back then, we were committed only to plant thirty trees, and then planted about twice that many by the time the project was completed.

Now that GREEN has organized an impressive crew of local volunteers, it is not so important for any of us to go all the way to Los Angeles to help. Besides, we can be more helpful here, by growing some of the trees that GREEN will eventually plant.

After all, the first large…

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Merry Christmas!

After 1,001 posts, I am taking a break . . . sort of. Really, I have been up all night on Christmas Eve, finishing my gardening column for next week. Now that I have finished, there is not sufficient time to write something for the blog within the next few minutes before midnight, (when I schedule my articles to post). I know I could post something after midnight, but will instead reblog this post from two years ago. I know that it is Wednesday, when I write something within the ‘Horidculture’ meme, but that somehow seems inappropriate for Christmas. Since I established this blog on September 1 of 2017, and did not post anything for September 2, this is only the second day that I did not post something new.

 

Update: After sending the gardening column out late last night, I was informed that the King City Rustler has been distributing it to the Morgan Hill Times, the Gilroy Dispatch and the Hollister Free Lance, for monthly publication. (Editors select from weekly articles.) I wrote for these three newspapers until the column was discontinued from them a few years ago. I was not aware that they were again publishing it. Nor do I know how long they have been doing so. It was a pleasant surprise.

As much as I dislike the tradition of exchanging gifts for Christmas, this was a rather delightful gift.

I really should see if the articles are being distributed anywhere else that I am not aware of. It would be nice to find that they are being published in Ventura County, which is the only coastal county between San Jose and Los Angeles that I have not yet written for (that I am aware of). It is difficult to know what newspapers are doing nowadays.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P71225Does anyone else think that it is odd that Baby Jesus got only some frankincense, myrrh and gold for His first Christmas? I mean, it was the first Christmas ever, and that was the best that anyone could do? Well, maybe those gifts were something important back then. Maybe it was a good heap of gold. It just seems to me that three ‘wise’ men could have procured better gifts. More than two thousand years later, some of us are disappointed if we do not get a new Lexus on Jesus’ birthday, after He got only frankincense, myrrh and gold. (Get your own birthday!)

Although I do not remember my first Christmas, I know that my parents and others got excellent Christmas gifts for us kids when we were young. Our stocking that hung over the fireplace were filled with a mix of nuts, mandarin oranges, cellophane wrapped hard candies…

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Six on Saturday: No Fleas

 

Fleas are supposedly repelled by society garlic. The ungracious name of fleabane implies that it is something they are none too keen on either. There are no fleas here with whom to inquire.

Society garlic could be propagated by division into smaller clumps or individual shoots. However, it is not popular enough for a position in an irrigated landscape. The aroma is quite strong.

Fleabane got shared into other landscapes just because it happens to work well here.

1. Society garlic, Tulbaghia violacea, was removed from one site before it could be installed into another. It got heeled in temporarily at the nursery, where it replaced old foliage with new.P91221-1

2. It got relocated to a permanent location now that the rainy season started. It looks shabby from the move, but will recover efficiently. Once established, it will survive without irrigation.P91221-2

3. Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus, that cascades so nicely over this low retaining wall gets cut back annually so that it does not get shabby from mild frost over winter, or overgrown later.P91221-3

4. The fleabane is appealing, but so is the granite behind it. The roots remain in the wall, to regenerate through next year. Only rooted stems at the base or on top of the wall get removed.P91221-4

5. Rooted bits got plugged above a low concrete wall nearby. It can not root into concrete, but can cascade over. Unrooted debris got buried in this shallow trench above another granite wall.P91221-5

6. There is not much to see after it got buried. It will grow like weeds and start to cascade by spring. Over a few years, it will root into the granite wall, just like the wall it was removed from.P91221-6

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/

My plan to collect apples on time this year worked out no better than it did last year. The original article from last year was reblogged to another blog yesterday, along with a brief update to explain the current situation. Hey, I may as well reblog it back here too. These might be the only apples I write about this year. via My Private Heritage Tree

Posted on by tonytomeo · 9 Comments

Horridculture – Pesticide

P90828Pesticides are a topic that I do not talk much about. There really is not much to say about them. Only a few are used at the farm, and only while certain destructive insects or perhaps mites are active. Even less pesticides are used in the landscape. It is not that I have serious issue with them. They are just not as useful for controlling pests as proper horticultural techniques are.

Plants that we would expect to require pesticides simply are not welcome in our landscapes. We know that snapdragons and hollyhocks are very likely to be detrimentally infested with rust. Therefore, we grow neither.

Roses live in some of the landscapes only because we do what we must to help them avoid infestation by the various pathogens that they are susceptible to. They get pruned aggressively in winter so that their new growth grows faster than aphid and mildew that try to infest them in spring. Their fallen foliar debris that fungal pathogens overwinter in gets raked away cleanly.

On rare occasion, we find weeds that we would like to kill with herbicide; but we can’t because they are too close to riparian environments. With two creeks and two streams flowing through here, many of the landscapes are too close to water. We must instead pull the weeds that we can, and hope that more aggressive cover crops overwhelm what remains before they recover.

One of the few insect problems that we sometimes notice is the thrip on the rhododendrons. They are sort of always there, but had been tolerable. Aggressive pruning to stimulate vigorous new growth, and also improve air circulation, should have inhibited the thrip. Instead, the damage has been worse than it has been in a very long time. It was necessary to spray insecticide.P90828+The pictures above and below show the worst of the damage caused by thrip. The picture below compares damaged foliage on the left to undamaged foliage on the right. Thrip rasp the foliar surfaces so that they can lap up the juices within. The process causes silvery discoloration, and ruins the foliage. Young damaged foliage is likely to get crispy around the edges, or get shed.P90828++For this sort of damage, I do not mind using insecticide. However, I have doubts about this particular insecticide, or whatever it is. It is supposed to be three in one; insecticide, fungicide and miticide. How is that even possible? Insects, mites and fungi are physiologically completely different. Anything that kills all three must be very nasty stuff! Yet, it is somehow safe for bees?!

There are several active ingredients, but I do not recognize many of them. I suppose that some could be insecticidal, some could be fungicidal, and some could be miticidal. The label does not explain the functions of the various components. None are hazardous enough to warrant a use permit like we need for agricultural pesticides. This product is available at the hardware store.

I do not doubt that this nonselective ‘pesticide’ is safe for bees, even though it is supposedly formulated to kill just about anything that might bother the rhododendrons. However, since it will not kill bees, and bees are insects, I do sort of doubt that this product will kill many other insects, including thrip.

 

Incidentally, I am sorry for the delay of posting my weekly ‘Horridculture’ rant, which should have posted yesterday. It normally posts on Wednesdays. The article that posted yesterday really should have posted today instead.