Sunday Best – Landon’s Tree
Six on Saturday: el Catedral de Santa Clara de Los Gatos II
El Catedral de Santa Clara de Los Gatos is merely the Mount Hermon Memorial Chapel, which is a more proportionate name that does not trivialize its Memorial status. I prefer it to seem grander than it is. Also, I maintain a strict standard for its minimal landscape. All of its flowers bloom exclusively white. However, most of its flowers have been rather pekid because of aggressive invasion of consumptive redwood roots into irrigated areas. Because I can not stop the encroachment, I removed the soil from four primary planters. Within the front pair of planters, I suspended customized planter boxes. Within the rear pair of planters, I suspended a few nursery cans that contain new plants. Redwood roots can not reach into these planters or cans. The recycled vegetation still looks shabby, but should perform better than ever for this summer.
1. Chlorophytum comosum, spider plant, with Begonia X semperflorens–cultorum, wax begonia, are icky through winter, but should perform better than ever by spring without aggressive redwood roots. Their planter within their planter is visible at the front corner.
2. Picea glauca var. albertiana ‘Conica’, dwarf Alberta spruce, and Buxus sempervirens, English boxwood, are within #15 cans within their planters. Crocosmia X crocosmiiflora are in 4″ pots. It is trashy, but is for their own protection from aggressive redwood roots.
3. Pelargonium X hortorum, zonal geranium, within a #5 can that is obscured to the far right of the items described above, is merely cuttings from what was here prior. They, as well as several more within the cans of the other items, should grow to obscure the cans.
4. Pelargonium X hortorum, zonal geranium, that was here prior to this renovation was abundant enough to provide many more cuttings that we could utilize. These few should obscure these bare bases of a pair of lemon cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Goldcrest’.
5. Collectively, it should look sharp for summer. The Crocosmia X crocosmiiflora is just temporary until the zonal geranium grows to replace it. I do not want their bright orange bloom within this exclusively white garden. Everything in this new landscape is recycled.
6. It only looks puny from across the road because the stone wall is so big and ominous. It will be prettier as the zonal geranium and wax begonia begin to bloom for late spring. The cypress may not conform to a white garden, but their color is foliar instead of floral.
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/
Sunday Best – White Collar
Six on Saturday: Yellow
Only one of these six is as yellow as it should be. Two are not yellow enough. Two are too yellow. One is not yellow at all, but is affiliated with another who is.
1. Yucca X recurvifolia, curve leaf yucca, which is now known by its new botanical name of Yucca gloriosa var. tristis, remains impressively green after transplant, but is related to the rather sickly looking cultivar, ‘Mellow Yellow’, with ghastly chartreuse foliar color.
2. Cycas revoluta, sago palm, which was transplanted with the curve leaf yucca, displays this more predictably yellowish foliar color now. It should develop its more typical richly dark green color and foliar symmetry as it resumes growth with warmer spring weather.
3. Saccharum officinarum ‘Pele’s Smoke’ sugarcane retains its cultivar designation only because I do not know what it is. It is likely a different cultivar, and might be a different species. Its new foliage is yellow because the weather is still too cool for it to be bronze.
4. Citrus X limon ‘Eureka’ lemon should be more yellow than this by now. None seem to be completely ripe. Variation of ripening is an attribute of ‘Eureka’ since, unlike ‘Lisbon’, it provides a few ripe lemons randomly throughout the year. Still, most ripen for winter.
5. Citrus X limon ‘Eureka’ lemon is susceptible to minor damage from citrus bud mite. It may seem to be more than minor, and for this particular lemon, the damage is obviously quite major. However, only a few of the hundreds of lemons of this tree will be damaged.
6. Narcissus pseudonarcissus ‘King Alfred’ daffodil may be a more modern cultivar, but has been naturalized here long enough to be genuine. Although happy to bloom like this annually, bulbs do not multiply, which is why I can not get many flowers in one picture.
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/
Horridculture – Invasive Species
Many exotic species that became aggressively naturalized here escaped from home gardens and landscapes before anyone who enjoyed growing them was aware of how invasive they could be. Although I am aware of this, I was not particularly concerned with it while I lived within a suburban area in town through the 1990s. If I chose to grow something there that had potential to be invasive, it had no place to escape to. I mean that, from my suburban home garden, it could not migrate into a natural ecosystem to naturalize into it. Even if seed from something managed to get into the suburban drainage system, which flows into Los Gatos Creek, it would not be the first. I mean that anything that could naturalize there had likely already done so from seed from the countless other home gardens and landscapes in town. I have not lived within that suburban neighborhood for a very long time, though. I need to be more careful with what I select to inhabit my home garden. For example, the yellow flag iris and montrebetia that I enjoy growing at work can not inhabit my home garden, from which each has potential to escape and naturalize into the wild. The montbretia seems to be sterile and noninvasive, and I have been acquainted with it since childhood, but I just do not trust it. Another variety of montbretia that has inhabited my downtown planter box since before my time, and that I have been acquainted with for many years, also seems to be sterile and even less invasive than my first variety. After all this time, it was tediously slow to migrate outwardly, and provided me with only a few spare bulbs. Nonetheless, I can only enjoy it within the confinement of the downtown planter box.
Sunday Best – Seventh For Saturday (Yesterday)
Six on Saturday: Downtown Planter
While away from work and home, and tending to errands downtown, I got these pictures from my downtown planter, which inadvertently became something of a Memorial.
1. Cuphea hyssopifolia, Mexican heather is not my favorite component of the downtown planter, but remains because it was installed by someone who was here prior to my time. A uniquely confined colony of montrebia that I will discuss on Wednesday also remains.
2. Senecio cineraria, dusty miller and the stonecrop below are from the garden of a now deceased client so can only be removed if a bit of it gets established in my home garden. It and the Mexican heather above are the only two of these six which are not succulents.
3. Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’ stonecrop is being displaced by the unidentified species of Aeonium below, but is also already established in my home garden. I expected it to be displaced eventually when I put it here several years ago. It is gratifying to see remnants.
4. Aloe, as the Aeonium at the bottom of this list, is unidentified. It and both of the last six are from the garden of the deceased mother of a deceased friend who happened to be a direct descendant of Spanish explorers who were the first to arrive where Monterey is.
5. Aeonium arboreum, tree houseleek is the most striking vegetation within the planter, but is also occasionally disfigured by theft of its most sculptural stems. A darkly bronzed cultivar from the same special origin was taken piece by piece until none of it remained.
6. Aeonium is as unidentified as the Aloe above. It initially resembles the tree houseleek, also above, but remains low, dense and mounding. It is the most abundant vegetation of the planter, so was the primary culprit of the displacement of the stonecrop, also above.
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/
Sunday Best – Wintry Weather
Six on Saturday: No Flowers
The ‘Week of Flowers’ theme was fun for the past several weeks, but the beginning of the rainy season is rather important locally. I suppose I should have gotten more interesting pictures instead of rotting stumps, a leaky gutter and a bare cottonwood tree. Hopefully, they are not as bad as this sounds. If the first five are, the sixth might compensate. There really are no flowers, though.
1. Winter is the rainy season here. It is probably appreciated more than in other climates because it is the only time that significant rain falls. If a thunderstorm passes through in summer, it might start a fire without enough rain to put it out. Anyway, gutters still leak.
2. Rain was sufficient to finish defoliation of this grand cottonwood out back. The foliage had been bright yellow for quite a while. It does not need much chill to develop splendid color. Windy weather typically dislodges the last of it. This year, rain finished it off first.
3. Mushrooms grow as the forest dampens through the rainy season. These are growing from a coast live oak stump that has been rotting for several years, but is somehow quite sound. I have been unable to dislodge it, even as the roots rot enough for the soil to sink.
4. Mushrooms that are growing from a rotten toyon stump are weirder, but could be the same sort at a more advanced state. I should recognize them since they do this annually. Some hideously big mushrooms grew elsewhere, but are already melting into black goo.
5. The madrone stump that was maintaining the integrity of the top of this embankment has been rotting for many years. Actually, I am impressed that it remained intact as long as it has. It looks worse from the other side. I could post a picture of that on Wednesday.
6. Heather would not cooperate for a picture against the clear sky between rainy weather a few days ago. She really just wanted to roll around on the sunny pavement, which was still damp and probably cold. She is impressively tolerant of this sort of embarrassment.
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/
Sunday Best – Home for Christmas
Tony Tomeo 