Steven Michael Ralls Memorial Tree is mostly camouflaged by the surrounding forest.

Steven Michael Ralls got his Memorial Tree this morning, three years after he passed away on May 2, 2017. The circumstances that coincided for this event were impossible to ignore. Just like the other Memorial Tree, which was installed to replace an oak that was missing from a parking lot island, the Steven Michael Ralls Memorial Tree also has a practical application.

The small tree is a young Monterey Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa, that needed to be removed from one landscape, and was waiting in the recovery nursery to be installed into another. Of course, a Monterey cypress in no easy tree to accommodate. It is too big and too dark to be compatible with most of the landscapes into which we add smaller and mostly deciduous trees.

However, it happens to be ideal for obscuring…

This is not exactly visually appealing.

Fences are necessary. They contain children, dogs and minor livestock. They exclude deer, cattle and others who are unwanted within an enclosed space. Some obscure unwanted scenery. However, even the more ornate sorts are more functional than aesthetically appealing.

That is why hedges are popularly grown to obscure fences that obscure outside scenery. Climbing vines take up less space than hedges, but are likely to damage the fences that they are intended to obscure.

Where I lived in town, the garden in back was surrounded by fences. I loathed them. I grew a grapevine on one. Another one was outfitted with a trellis of twine for pole beans to climb. Tall zonal geraniums obscured at least the lower half of the fence behind the laundry yard. I would have preferred no fences at all.

There were no children or dogs to contain. Nor were…

The usual suspects.

There is significant traffic right outside. It is one of the three busiest roads around. No one here really minds, because we are mostly too busy with something else while we are here. We are accustomed to it as part of the ‘scenery’. The noise sometimes makes it necessary to shout to each other, or take a telephone call somewhere else, but is not too much of a bother otherwise.

However, the scenery that those in the traffic see from the road might be slightly less than appealing. Industrial buildings surrounded by pavement, building materials, work vehicles and all sorts of associated items are all that are in here. Next door, there is a herd of dumpsters! It is a view worth obscuring. Bay trees and box elders that used to screen the view are too tall now.

I should have planted these five Arizona cypress in…

It is not as bad as it looks.

No, this is not wheat. It is the larger of the two Mexican fan palms that I dug and canned more than a week ago. ‘Wheat’ refers to the unpleasant phase that it is now going through. It is a long and awkward story about how it became known as the ‘wheat’ phase. All that anyone should know is that it refers to the color of the fading foliage. It fades from green to golden brown, just like ‘wheat’.

I say that the explanation is awkward because it involves an old skit by an offensive comedian on HBO in 1986, when the renowned landscape designer, Brent Green, was my college roommate.

Yes, we will just leave it at that.

Anyway, this is not at all unexpected. It is a normal process. I just wish it could be avoided. Every time I dig…

This is the backside of some of the better junipers!

Junipers have a bad reputation. They earned it at a time when they were too common. Too many were installed into situations that they were not appropriate for. As they grew, they were unpleasant to handle. If not handled enough, they became overgrown and shabby. Once that happened, there were nearly impossible to prune back into confinement without being ruined.

I was never one to completely subscribe to that bad reputation. There were just too many junipers that I really liked, particularly the Hollywood juniper and the Hetz blue juniper. There were a few that I disliked, and I still loath the common tam juniper, but they were in the minority, and happen to be the same sort that are becoming more scarce.

For landscape situations that they happen to conform to, there really is no reason for junipers to…

Lunaria annua is known more for coin shaped seed pods than bloom.

Money plant, Lunaria annua, which some may know as ‘honesty’, is honestly not a wildflower here. It is neither native nor naturalized. Yet, it seems to grow wild on roadsides, in drainage ditches, and around the perimeters of some of the landscapes. It certainly produces enough seed to naturalize. It just would not have done so in this climate without a bit of intervention.

Many years ago, someone who maintained the landscapes here started sowing seed for money plant. I do not know if he was the first to sow the seed, or if he collected it from plants that someone else grew. He collected seed annually to disperse randomly by simply tossing it out wherever he though it might happily grow into more money plant.

Since money plant wants a bit more water than it gets…

Mudslide!

The only reason we developed a small vegetable garden here this year is that we have been unable to go to work for about a month. Without my second most time consuming employment, I had time to clear a small unused space (which was not nearly as simple as that sounds) and sow seed for vegetables. It was a late start a month ago, but not too late.

In fact, there was still time to do it before the last storm to go through. I know that sounds trivial, but as a Californian who is accustomed to gardening in a chaparral climate, and sometimes where there is no water available, planting prior to a storm ‘seems’ to be rather important. I know it is not. Water is available here. Otherwise, I would not grow vegetables.

Not only was there a storm, but there was a second storm later! Of…

If I put a spider plant in the pot on the right, I may never get it out.

Clay pots have been around for a very long time. It is impossible to know for how long exactly. It is logical to say that they have been around long enough to evolve into the perfect shape for their function. Although the dimensions and proportions are variable, the basic design characteristics of the simplest and best engineered clay pots can not be improved on.

Clay pots are circular from above and below for a few reasons. Such a shape is easily formed on a potters’ wheel. It is more structurally sound than a form with flat sides and more corners. The space within is evenly distributed around the vertical center, without more remote corners. Although roots will circle within, there are not so many corners for them to congregate in.

Drainage holes…

Honey badger don’t care. Neither does the gopher who did this.

Deer do not eat all plants. There are a few that are toxic to them. There are more that deer simply dislike. With a minimal bit of research, it is not difficult to find a few lists of plant species that deer are supposed to avoid. The problem with such lists though, is that deer do not read them. Only toxic plants are reliably safe from deer.

It would not be so bad if only deer were a bit more cooperative. They would be welcome in gardens if they ate only weeds that no one wants anyway. We all know that they can eat weeds, they just choose not to do so while they are in our gardens.

For that matter, gophers would not be such a problem if they ate only weeds, and aerated only soil that needs…

Would these hanging potted plants even be noticeable if they were not circled?

Container gardening is overrated. Perhaps not so much now as it had been while it was more of a fad a decade or so ago, but it is still overrated nonetheless. Most plants are happier in the ground than they are in confinement. They want to disperse their roots freely to where the goodies are, and not contend with the unnatural temperature fluctuations of contained medium.

There are only a few exceptions for which containment of potted plants is an advantage. Houseplants are the most obvious exceptions. Also, plants that are sensitive to frost can be relocated to sheltered situations for winter if contained. Potted orchids and other flashy bloomers can be prominently displayed while blooming, and then returned to utilitarian locations as they finish.

The justification for the hanging potted plants in the picture above escapes…