Tony Tomeo

Posted on November 19, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo

Almost RAIN!

Goodness, this rainy season started a month earlier than it did three years ago. I suppose that it is still within the normal range.

Tony Tomeo

P91123K There have been only three hints at precipitation since last spring.

The (sideways) picture above shows the same dampened hood of a Chevrolet that provided the illustration for a post on another blog on September 30.

The picture below shows a similarly dampened but different windshield from that which provided the illustration for a post on November 16, regarding a bit of precipitation two days prior, on November 14. P91123K+

All four pictures here were actually taken just after a very brief rain shower that happened just after midnight on November 19. I tried to be artistic with them, but I am not a photographer.

The picture below demonstrates how difficult it is to hold the camera steady while getting a close up picture of rain dripping from a lumber rack at night. Do digital cameras automatically extend exposure to accommodate for the darkness? Is it blurred or merely…

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Posted on November 19, 2022November 18, 2022 by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Six on Saturday: Zinnia

Zinnia are enviable. They seem to perform exemplarily for everyone else and everywhere else. They have never done well for me though. I can not explain why. I stopped trying to grow them many years ago, but I encounter them at work, where the other horticulturist grows some as warm season annuals. This year here, some performed reasonably well as bedding plants, and a few more bloomed impressively within a pair of half wine barrels. They are done now that the weather is cool, but I got a few pictures of them as they were removed and replaced with pansies for winter.

1. Yellow is a primary color, but the scarcest among the few prolific zinnia that grew in a pair of half wine barrels through summer. Only one of the ten zinnia here bloom yellow.

2. Orange is a secondary color between yellow and red, but is a bit more abundant in our barrels than either yellow or red. Maybe three or so of the ten zinnia here bloom orange.

3. Red is another primary color, which is beyond orange from yellow. Perhaps two or so zinnia bloom red, but they are less profuse than those that bloom pink, orange or white.

4. Pink is not really a color, but is merely a tint of red, or red mixed with white. Only two of the ten zinnia here bloom pink, but they are bigger and more profuse than the others.

5. White should be my favorite, but to me, seems to be mundane relative to other colors. Two of the ten zinnia bloom white, but they are neither prominent nor prolific in bloom.

6. Rhody is as unimpressed with our unusually florific zinnia as he is uncooperative with my attempts for a good picture of him. Fortunately, even a bad picture of Rhody is good.

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 November 18, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo

Colorado Blue Spruce

Colorado and Utah share the same stately state tree; the Colorado blue spruce, Picea pungens, which is native to the Rocky Mountains between Arizona, New Mexico and southern Idaho. Colorado blue spruce are stoutly conical trees that grow slowly to eventually get more than seventy five feet tall. Where they need to compete with other trees in forests, the biggest are nearly twice as tall with trunks nearly five feet wide. However, because they grow so slowly, and do not get much bigger then they need to, well exposed trees stay proportionate to home gardens for many decades. Many shrubby compact cultivars actually stay less than ten feet tall. Foliage can be grayish green to silvery pale blue. The stiff and sharply pointed needles are about three quarters to an inch and a quarter long, and densely set on relatively rigid stems.

The elegant silvery blue foliage of the Colorado blue spruce is striking either in front of or behind darker evergreen foliage, like that of redwoods or junipers. These stout and densely foliated trees make any garden look a bit more woodsy.

Posted on November 17, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo

Winter berries provide more color as autumn foliar color finishes.

Pyracantha, although inedible, is likely the most colorful of the winter berries here.

Seasonal color is as variable as the weather. Just as the many different spring flowers bloom differently every spring, and the autumn foliage color is different every autumn, the colorful berries and fruits that linger on many plants through winter respond to the weather. Then, the various birds and other animals that devour them do so at different times, and at different rates every year.

Pyracantha (or firethorn) is probably the most reliable for an abundance of brightly colored red berries. Old varieties with orange or even yellow berries are very rare, perhaps because they are comparably wimpy. Unfortunately, because they are so colorful, and also because they ripen before many of the migratory birds have gone, the berries often get eaten by birds soon after they ripen.

Berries of the various cotoneasters are not quite as colorful, and many ripen slightly later, so they are not so efficiently stripped by birds. Cotoneasters are now more popular than related pyracantha because there are so many varieties with so many different growth habits. Larger types grow into large shrubbery while prostrate types grow as ground cover. Cotoneaster also has the advantage of lacking thorns.

The native toyon can provide large clusters of similar red berries, but only if it is allowed to grow somewhat wildly. It is unable to bloom and subsequently produce berries if regularly shorn. Yet, even in the wild, toyon is unpredictable. Because damp weather can cause berries to rot before they ripen, toyon may be unproductive for many years, and then produce remarkably colorful displays of berries when least expected.

Hollies are the most familiar of colorful winter berries, but are not as colorful as pyracantha or the various cotoneasters because they are almost never provided with male pollinators that they require to develop fruit. Fortunately, their remarkably glossy and prickly foliage is appealing alone.

Flowering crabapples are grown for their impressively colorful pink, white or nearly red spring bloom, but some types also produce sparse and minute red, orange or even yellow crabapples that stay after the foliage turns yellow and falls. English hawthorn lacks the flower color of flowering crabapples, but has more abundant and colorful red or orange berries that linger into early winter after the foliage is gone, or at least until birds find them.

Posted on November 16, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo

Horridculture – “One Of These Things . . . “

The California sycamores in the pictures are bigger after three years, but not yet big enough to justify the removal of the London planes.

Tony Tomeo

P91120 Remember this from Sesame Street?

One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn’t belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Identifying a blue balloon as different from three red balloons might be construed as discriminatory, but was fun back before we went into kindergarten. So was selecting the bigger bowl of Big Bird’s birdseed from three small bowls; or the beanie from three pairs of sunglasses; or the letter from three numbers. It is not so fun now, when conformity to a landscape is important.

In the picture above, one of the four prominent trees in the foreground of the walkway and rail fence, excluding the obscured middle tree, is different from the others. They are all the same age. They are all sycamores. They are all happy and healthy. They were…

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Posted on November 15, 2022November 8, 2022 by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Cork Oak

This is a tree that takes some time to impress. Bloom is uninteresting. Foliage is no more distinctive than that of coast live oak. Instead, the most spectacular characteristic of cork oak, Quercus suber, is the boldly striated and uniquely spongy texture of its mature bark. Such bark takes a few years to develop, but gets so thick that it seems significantly older.

As its name implies, cork oak had historically been the exclusive source of bark for corks and cork products. As modern and more practical materials diminished demand for such bark, cork oak became more popular as an evergreen shade tree. It is quite happy within the arid chaparral climates of California. In fact, it behaves much like native oak species.

Mature cork oak trees generally stay less than forty feet tall, even if their trunks are wider than three feet with their unusually thick bark. Without excessive irrigation, their roots are notably complaisant. Low branches are more visibly sculptural than high branches. With pruning for adequate clearance though, trees with high branches are striking street trees. Foliar and floral debris is quite messy during spring bloom.

Posted on November 14, 2022November 8, 2022 by tonytomeo · 16 Comments

Firewood Is Old Fashioned Technology

Chimney clearance pruning is easy to overlook nowadays because, for various reasons, chimneys are becoming obsolete. Modern homes lack them completely. Some chimneys of older homes succumbed to earthquakes. Because of simpler and cleaner alternatives for heat, remaining chimneys and their fireplaces, as well as firewood, are almost passe.

Ironically, chimineas and fire pits have become a fad. Most modern fire pits use propane for fuel, but a few use firewood. Although such fire pits and chimineas burn less firewood than fireplaces, they are ridiculously less efficient. Their warmth simply escapes into the atmosphere. Relative to the volume of wood they burn, they generate much more smoke.

Nevertheless, whether for fireplaces, wood stoves, fire pits, or chimineas, firewood is not yet completely obsolete. Some households only rarely use small quantities for ambience fires. Some households still use more significant quantities to supplement home heating. A few households rely on firewood as their primary or exclusive source of home heating.

For unrelated reasons, the availability of firewood has declined with its demand. Orchard trees that were still relinquishing their space decades ago are now gone. Also, wildlands are now farther from large urban regions where most people live. Wood from demolished buildings is more likely to become chipped mulch than to become available as firewood.

Fortunately, most tree services sell firewood that is a byproduct of their work. Such wood is generally a mix of various species, so may include some degree of softwoods, such as pine. Rural tree services are more likely to be able to provide specific types of hardwood, and are also more likely to be able to deliver it. Their softwoods might be less expensive.

Tree services prefer to leave wood where they do tree work, and actually charge a bit for removal. Cut rounds of logs should be firewood length, but need splitting and seasoning. Inadequately seasoned or damp wood generates more smoke than properly dried wood. It should stay sheltered from rain. Palms and yuccas are impractical for use as firewood.

Posted on November 13, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Rose Hips

Oh, there were certainly more of these when this posted three years ago. Since then, much of the overgrowth was removed, and remaining vegetation was pruned back accordingly.

Tony Tomeo

P91117 Chopped dried rose hips can be purchased from a supermarket in town that stocks an impressive variety of useful bulk herbs. They are used as a dietary supplement and remedy for several minor ailments. Although most of the copious vitamin C they contain while fresh is ruined by drying and storage, they are still popularly used as a remedy or preventative for colds and flu.

It would be reasonable to assume that the rose hips that are available in markets would be from a species that has been cultivated and developed for a few centuries. After all, rose hips have been used as an herbal supplement for a very long time. Surprisingly, those that are available in the local market here are from the common and native California wild rose, Rosa californica.

That means that those that grow wild on the outskirts of the landscapes here produce the same…

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Posted on November 12, 2022November 5, 2022 by tonytomeo

Not Quite Rain

Well, the rainy season started a bit earlier than it did three years ago, since we already got a few minor storms.

Tony Tomeo

P91116K Most of us here agree that the minimal bit of precipitation that fell from the sky on Thursday was not real rain. There are a few different theories about what it actually was though. It could be considered to have been drizzle. It alternatively could have been heavy fog or mist. Some of us make up silly names for what it was, such as fine rain, dusting, spritzes, sprinkles or mizzle.

Is it just me, or do those last three sound like inane kitten names? ‘Dusting’, sounds dirty and dry, which it was not.

Whatever it was, it was the second occurrence of such precipitation since the rainy season ended last spring. Something similar happened on the last day of September. I wrote about it in my other blog, with a picture of it on the hood of a parked car, rather than the windshield. I think it…

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Posted on November 12, 2022November 11, 2022 by tonytomeo · 11 Comments

Six on Saturday: Memories II

Like my Six on Saturday from last week, these Six are described in reverse chronology of their approximate acquisition. My first two were acquired only within the last two years, so do not yet have much history with me. The last was actually acquired prior to the first of last week, and in conjunction with the second of last week, so is not exactly compliant with chronology. The fourth and sixth would have been more interesting in bloom. They all represent memories for me regardless, like almost all of the inhabitants of my simple garden. I notice them more at this time of year, while I work with them more.

1. 2021 Cycas revoluta, sago palm is another of several excellent items that I got for free on Craigslist. It got cut into too many pieces for relocation. All but a few are now rooted.

2. 2020 Gladiolus murielae, Abyssinian gladiolus is native to Abyssinia, not an abyss. It came here from the garden of a neighbor though. I had wanted to grow it for a few years.

3. 2015 Haemanthus albiflos, white blood lily came from a garden of an elderly client in Santa Clara who was quite fond of it. That is why I am so fond of it, even if unimpressed.

4. 2012 Lonicera albiflora, white honeysuckle is one of many souvenirs from Oklahoma. Most were seed. This and only a few others were live plants. It has grown very well here.

5. 1990 Chamaedorea seifrizii, bamboo palm was one of the first houseplants that I took from Brent when I moved into my apartment in town after the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

6. 1982 Pelargonium hortorum, zonal geranium without a zone gets big and weedy with hideously bright pink bloom. It grew wild with the crocosmia #2 of the Six for last week.