Sunday Best – Flowering Quince (January 31)
Six on Saturday: Eric
Ericaceae is a prominent family here. Rhododendrons, azaleas and pieris inhabit several of the landscapes. Manzanitas, madrones and, within some situations, huckleberries, are common within the surrounding forests. Even two of my associates, although unrelated to Ericaceae, are named for two members of the family that are popular for landscaping. Half of my Six for this Saturday are azaleas. Just one other is another ericaceous species. Later, I can get better pictures of azaleas as well as rhododendrons. Several impressively large rhododendrons bloom spectacularly in season. Heather would be nice, but is quite rare. I know where abandoned fields of it grew wild, but I have never seen it available in nurseries.
1. Heath is a masculine name. It is of the Erica genus, though; and Erica is the feminine form of Eric. Heather is a similar but feminine name, but is of a different Calluna genus.
2. ‘Coral Bells’ Azalea, like all azaleas, is of the Rhododendron genus, so like heather and heath, is in the Ericaceae family. All of them are also related to madrone and manzanita.
3. Azaleas generally bloom for early spring. These that bloom somewhat too early during the rainy season can get a bit thrashed. They would be prettier if they could delay bloom.
4. Florist azaleas are delightful as fully blooming potted specimens, but generally do not adapt well to landscapes. This specimen is floppy, but otherwise performs impressively.
5. Heather is named for Calluna, which, actually, I have not seen in many years. It grew as a cut flower crop in Montara more than half a century ago. It was abandoned by 1980.
6. Rhody is short, and his name is short for Rhododendron. But of course, he is a terrier, so ignores me regardless of what I call him. He can actually ignore me in four languages!
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 – Pseudopalm
Strelitzia nicolai, is giant bird of Paradise. Unlike the more familiar bird of Paradise, with basal foliage and its distinctive orange flowers, this species develops several tall trunks and less colorful but interestingly large white flowers. We recycled several into one of the landscapes here from a home garden in Morgan Hill about two years ago. Originally, they were three somewhat mature groups, with rather tall trunks. Then, they were divided into individual trunks and pups. Ultimately about sixteen were installed into the landscape, with a few spare pups canned as spares, just in case some of the others do not recover from their division. I predicted that those with tall trunks would not last long before replacing themselves with basal growth, and then shedding their unusually tall trunks. Not only are they not developing basal growth yet, but their upper foliage on top of their lanky tall trunks is actually growing and developing into new foliar canopies. They sort of look like silly palm trees that are getting less silly as they continue to grow. I mean that they actually look rather appealing, and probably look more appealing to those who do not know what they should look like. They seem to be pretending to be faux palm trees. I can do nothing about their behavior, and even if I could, I would not. I want to see what they do next. I suspect that they will eventually perform as expected. I also suspect that, because they are already so tall, that, for as long as they retain it, their upper foliage will never be as lush as it would be if lower. That is normal for the species, and how those who maintain such specimens know when to cull the taller trunks by cutting them to the ground.
Six on Saturday: This
“This” is the first word of each of these six entries for Six on Saturday this week. There is not much variation among the coast live oak, coastal redwood, California bay, California black oak, big leaf maple and whatever else might be visible in these pictures. Half these pictures happen to feature specific coast live oaks. Therefore, I omitted botanical names. I wanted to show some of what is happening at the new home site, but there is not much to show, and there may not be much to show for a while, except for Rhody.
1. This is where the old home was. The forest wasted no time reclaiming its space. I miss the old home very much, but it was too deteriorated to salvage. I knew it was temporary.
2. This is where the new home will be built. It is less than fifty feet to the west, and faces more to the west instead of south. The upstairs office studio will face into the redwoods.
3. This lofty coast live oak stands high over the new home site, but leans to the north and away from where the house will be. It is the biggest of several big oaks in the grove here.
4. This silly coast live oak leans parallel to the driveway. The contrastingly vertical trunk to its right is the same that is on the right border of the first picture of the old home site.
5. This grand coast live oak arches elegantly over the driveway. It can be seen across the upper left corner of the previous picture. It is about perpendicular to the horizontal oak.
6. This is how I manage the overgrown and overly combustible vegetation here. It needs to be planned in accordance with the weather that has been too dry for much too long.
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 – 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)
Tony Tomeo 