Yes, we get it too. It took a while, but we finally got it just like most of everyone else in North America and the Northern part of the Norther Hemisphere. It is not much to brag about, but it is enough to melt the big feral pumpkin vine that I wrote about earlier ( https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/too-late-for-pie/ ). It has actually been frosting for a few nights. I just got around to getting this picture this morning.
Now that the foliage is melting and collapsing, a leak is now visible in the exposed valve manifold that was obscured in the previous picture. It did not get cold enough to freeze the pipe, so the water was dripping freely. This confirms the earlier theory about where the pumpkin vine was getting water from.
Two pumpkins are also exposed by the collapsing foliage. They were not visible earlier. Unfortunately, they are too under-developed to mature and ripen. A neighbor will likely take them and set them aside on the porch, just in case they are able to finish ripening. It would be nice if they did. The vine certainly put a lot of work into them!
While taking this picture, I was reminded why people who live with cooler weather dislike it so. First of all, and most obviously, it kills things. The season is over for pumpkin vines, which is not a problem. The problem is that so many of the citrus, avocados and other plants from mild climates that we grow so easily here get damaged or killed by frost in other climates.
The second reason to dislike cool weather is that it is too cool, maybe even cold. It is uncomfortable to be out in long enough to walk over and get these pictures of the pumpkin vine and pumpkins. I am glad that it does not get much colder here.
It is about time that someone reintroduced this technique! Blue Princess holly is now available together in the same pot as its male pollinator, Blue Prince holly (Ilex x meserveae ‘Blue Princess’ and ‘Blue Prince’). With careful pruning to prevent one from crowding out the other, both can coexist and provide profuse, bright red berries every winter, indefinitely. As the plants grow, their main trunks will eventually graft together.
There are some things about plants that we might be better off not knowing about. For instance, their idea of sex is even weirder than that of humans! Generally, flowers of ‘monoecious’ plants have male parts and female parts that do what they must to produce seed, which is often contained in some sort of fruit structure. Some plants can pollinate themselves. Ick! Others require separate but compatible pollinators.
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” That old margarine commercial was lame back in the 1970s, but the quote is so true. Inadvertent interference with the natural process of wildfires has unfortunately increased the combustibility of the flora of forests and wildlands throughout California. No one really meant to interfere with the process. It is just what happens when we need to protect our homes and properties from fire.
The Latin name is easy to confuse with the sacred flowers of an aquatic perennial from tropical regions of Asia, or a funny looking British sport coupe. Lotus berthelotii is a diminutive terrestrial perennial known as parrot’s beak. It gets only about a foot high, and spreads to only two or three feet wide. It cascades nicely from hanging pots, and is actually rarely planted out in the garden.
Now that winter is only two weeks away, and many deciduous plants are defoliating and dormant, it may seem as if there will be less work to do in the garden. After all, not much is growing. The funny thing is that this is the best time to sneak up on some of them, and prune them while they are sleeping. Depending on what is in the garden, winter can be just as busy as any other season.
Just a few feet downhill from where the old valley oak had lived for centuries (
Now that I have been watching a few other blogs for three months, I notice that some people write some very interesting or at least entertaining articles about topic that are not directly related to the main topic of their respective blogs. Most are just like old fashioned slide shows (remember those?) with cool pictures from around the neighborhood, travels, home projects, or whatever might be interesting. I have not done this yet; but I happen to have a bit of free time at the moment, so thought that I would post these three pictures of the historic Felton Covered Bridge. Although I am technically from Los Gatos, my home is in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Los Gatos and Felton. I also have history in Felton, since my grandparents and my Pa used to live here.
This is the southwestern of the four sidelight windows on the Felton Covered Bridge. If crossing from the end in the upper picture, it would be on the left side toward the far end. It is the best window in the house. Rhody to the lower right might be mistaken for a rodent ( 
This is the view from that same window. That wet thing below is the San Lorenzo River. The black spots in that wet thing below are ducks. Once the rain starts, the San Lorenzo River really looks more like river than a creek. This last spring, in the San Lorenzo River right below the Bridge, we scattered the ashes of a good friend, Steven Ralls, with whom I went to Oklahoma (to the right in the illustration – 
After reading so much about the exquisite foliar color that most everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere gets this time of year, I must admit, I can get rather envious of those who experience four seasons instead of just two. The abundance of spring in the Southern Hemisphere does not help. Why have I not found a garden blog from Ecuador or Indonesia so that I have something to point and laugh at? It just isn’t fair.
