Crow and Raven

Flashback Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 07:46:00 +0000

Sunday morning, with border collie and barrels.

A kind and extraordinarily generous neighbor gave me this humongous golden barrel (Echinocactus grusonii) last week. To say I was flabbergasted doesn't even come close. "Are you sure? Are you sure?" He was. His dear wife — she passed away a year ago — had brought this cactus home when it was smaller than a grapefruit, had looked after it for decades, and my neighbor wanted it to go to a good home. I was moved and honored. You can see what wonderful care this barrel has received: it lived in (increasingly large) pots, sheltered from rain and snow, with filtered sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon, until it grew so big that its size and spines became a hazard.

So how do you move a 200+ lb barrel cactus? Believe it or not, we didn't even need gloves. Three men and yours truly used a dolly to get this beautiful barrel into my yard and settled in its new pot, and we were able to do it because I'd had the opportunity to watch a master cactus-mover at work.

Rob Roy MacGregor is a Riverside plantsman and cactus maven, and back in April I watched Rob (with cactus fanatics Aaron and Paul) move big barrels like this one into the bed of Aaron's truck, using not much more than a long piece of old shade cloth. Rob puts the shade cloth around the barrel, and uses the loose ends to maneuver the barrel without risking life and limb, and without harming the cactus. It works! Two strong men with shovels had tried and failed to budge this beauty toward a wheelbarrow (never mind into the wheelbarrow) after it fell out of its old pot, but with shade cloth in hand, we moved it to my place with the dolly, potted it in its new, 24-inch container (with an essential plant caddy), and then potted up another barrel at my neighbor's. Note to self: always keep old shade cloth handy.

Before it came to my yard, this cactus lived for years in a big container at my neighbor's house, in dirt. Not potting mix or cactus soil with pumice added — just native clay soil. Wish I'd thrown a few handfuls into the current container.

So now the girl who swore she'd never have a golden barrel has four of them, three little ones and a very, very big golden barrel, all in my very, very small backyard. "Don't be afraid to use big objects in small spaces," right? One more photo, with Jasper yawning and stretching:

I'm not in the habit of giving names to plants. Anyhow: golden barrels Huey, Louie, and Dewey are in the background. I'd kind of like to call the new guy Jonathan Gold, because he is blond and on the round side and sharp as a tack and thoroughly awesome.

(Both these photos were first posted on my Instagram account. Here's a link.)

Inter-City Cactus Show and Sale 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 06:09:00 +0000

This beauty is a Melocactus. Frost-tender, so I should avoid them.

Great plants and great plant people at the L.A. Arboretum weekend before last for the The 32nd Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show and Sale. Saw many plant-loving buddies, and enjoyed a picnic lunch with Denise of A Growing Obsession. (Denise is one of the nicest, coolest people you could ever hope to meet, and her blog is sensational.) I had a wish list of exactly two plants, and failed to find either one at the sale. Bought a few others instead :~) Also bought about 50 lb of top dressing. A few photos:

Ecninocactus texensis was one of the two species on my want list. You can see why: it's gorgeous, and not huge. It's also hardy to at least 15° or 20°F.

Not much into plants with caudices, but if I were, I'd have tried to smuggle this beauty home.

Uebelmannia pectinifera, endemic to Brazil, turns a deep chocolate or purple color in sun. Fabulous looking but said to be a challenge to grow. Low tolerance for cold.

Dream plant right here: a gorgeous, variegated Ferocactus. Just perfect.

This variegated beauty is a hybrid between a Ferocactus and a Thelocactus, both species native to Mexico and the Southwest.

One Astrophytum...

... three Astrophyta? Plants in this genus are native to the Chihuahuan desert. "Easy and hardy," says palmbob. Good from 125°F to 20 °F.

Echinocactus parryi, high on the want list. Another native of the Chihuahuan desert.

Gorgeous little agave - sorry I didn't get the name of this one.

Agave parviflora v. flexiflora, now on the want list. This variety is native to the Mexican state of Sonora.

Running from a hungry Arboretum peacock. Denise saved me by offering it a small child.

My new Thelocactus bicolor, yet another Chihuahuan desert native, blooming like mad in the truck on the way home. I love the Inter-city show.

Season's Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:41:00 +0000

The Calliandra hybrid 'Sierra Starr' went from bare to blazing overnight.
Click photos to embiggen.

I'm so glad it's spring. You all know what winter was like, and there are no words for how grateful we Californians are for the rain and snow. However. When the weather gets wet and cold (lowest this winter here was around 26 F), I need to protect some plants. And then I need to un-protect them when the sun comes out. Dozens are moved under the patio roof, and another dozen or so are moved inside. This is what my yard looks like, all frost cloth and plastic sheeting and upside down nursery pots, off and on and off and on, from November until early March:

Ferocactus kindergartners under there somewhere.

Precipitation shots. These guys were on their own:

Agave x leopoldii

Mason Valley Cholla, Pink Teddy Bear Cholla

Cylindropuntia fosbergii

Opuntia basilaris hybrid 'Baby Rita.' 'Baby Rita' is standing up straight now. Some opuntias stage a swoon in cold weather.

"Opuntia sp. 'Old Mexico' appears to be a spineless selection of Opuntia gomei, a native just barely to the southernmost coast of Texas and more abundantly down into Tamaulipas. The cultivar name comes from Helen Wynans, a cactus dealer in Brownsville in the 1970's and 80's," says Mountain States Wholesale Nursery. 'Old Mexico' is a favorite of mine - this one was started from a cutting gifted to me at Riverside's legendary, now closed, much missed Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery.

Lovely Aloe microstigma bloomed for me last year, but not this time around. I've given away all but a handful of aloes - they hate the winter here, and burn in the summer.

I thought the cold, wet weather would never end, and then, overnight, everything started to wake up. The foothills began to turn green - greener than they've been for years. I drove up to El Dorado Ranch Park for a morning hike with a view. (It was 33 F before the sun came over the ridge.) El Dorado Ranch is a beautiful open space preserve a few miles away off Oak Glen Road, with miles of hiking trails through the foothill chaparral. I still fantasize about having a little ranchito (horses, chickens, a donkey...) in a setting like this:

Friend Gerhard Bock stopped by on his way to Palm Springs, and we checked out the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center and Granite Hill Nursery. Visit Gerhard's blog for great photos of Jurupa. I snapped a favorite - this is Ferocactus pilosus, the Mexican Fire Barrel:

On the way back to my place we stopped to visit Rob Roy MacGregor, a Riverside plantsman whose greenhouses are just... well, look at this beautiful specimen:

Agave victoriae-reginae 'White Rhino'

Have to add a couple photos from other road trips. The ridiculous and the sublime:

Pottery Barn's display of plastic succulents, oy.

The most fiery Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' I've ever seen, at a business off the 10 freeway in Yucaipa. Incredible winter stress color. I need to ask for a cutting (though I'm afraid the plant would freeze and die at my elevation).

The Meyer lemon tree lost most of its winter fruit to the cold and wet, but the tree itself is green, thriving, and ready to explode with blooms. Yesterday I heard my first-of-season bee. The tree will be roaring with them soon. I managed to salvage this trio:

The mission fig and the pomegranates are leafing out:

Agastache mexicana 'Red Fortune' is seen here leaning on a cactus I'm more and more convinced is a saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea). It was unlabeled but sold as a cardón (Pachycereus pringlei). For reference, that's a cardón to its left, much skinnier and actually just an inch shorter than its stouter pot mate. I need to repot that cardón:

And here we are this morning. Birdsong, yellow Lady Banks (Rosa banksiae 'Lutea') in bloom, coffee at hand, and my good boy ready for his after-breakfast snooze. Oh spring, I love you so:

Outtake, from earlier. (Cat over there? Gotta scratch. Walker incoming! Plan for the afternoon: toss everyone in the truck and visit that good friend with an acre of lawn.) Hope your Sunday and your spring are wonderful!

Four Shaw Agaves

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 16:48:00 +0000

Agave shawii at the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center.

Plantsman Gerhard Bock of the terrific Succulents and More blog made a dash to SoCal last weekend, and we met over at the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center to check out the plants and the views. We both spent some time admiring two variegated stands of Agave shawii.

Agave shawii is more common in the wild in Baja California than it is here in Alta Cali, where most of the plant's native habitat has been paved over. Here's a distribution map. And here is a page from Calflora comparing shawii's ideal growing conditions to the inland location where I took these photos. Shaw agaves don't like inland heat, and they burn in full sun. At Jurupa, though, conditions (sloping ground, filtered shade) seem to be ideal. The plants Gerhard and I saw last week were beautiful.

The agave in the next photo had a trunk, and towered over his kinfolk:

The variegation on the plant below was wonderful. Hard to tell from this photo, but most of the plants in the colony seemed to be variegated:

I have a little, variegated shawii of my own, acquired a couple years ago via trade with Riverside succulent expert Rob Roy MacGregor. Hope it looks this good someday! Be sure to check out Gerhard's blog for more terrific photos from Jurupa.

Cry, the Beloved Country

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 04:52:00 +0000

Well, there's that: we're not apartheid South Africa. At least not yet, anyway. Rough week!

An incomplete list of pro-women, pro-immigrant, pro-earth, anti-bigotry organizations that need our support. #vinewinesign

A photo posted by vinewinenyc (@vinewinenyc) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:18am PST

Good suggestions. Here's Part Two:

And remember, local organizations need just as much (or more) help as established national ones. #vinewinesign

A photo posted by vinewinenyc (@vinewinenyc) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:19am PST

These are suggestions from NYC. I expect there are many other worthy organizations, activist groups, artists, journalists — some local, some California-centric — that could use support: the local library is high on my list.

You might consider joining others in support of indigenous rights, our water, and our climate on November 15.

Feeling paranoid? (And perhaps you should be, all things considered...) This link is for you.

And this, from Chris Clarke:

This morning I saw a little blade of big galleta grass coming up a foot from the rest of the plant. It is such a small thing. It has so little effect on anything. But there are millions of clumps of big galleta grass in the desert. Each one sending out one shoot binds a little soil, sequesters a little carbon. Working together, they heal the earth.

A photo posted by Chris Clarke (@yucca.brevifolia) on Nov 11, 2016 at 4:31pm PST

In case his words get lost in the shuffle, I'll repeat them:

"This morning I saw a little blade of big galleta grass coming up a foot from the rest of the plant. It is such a small thing. It has so little effect on anything. But there are millions of clumps of big galleta grass in the desert. Each one sending out one shoot binds a little soil, sequesters a little carbon. Working together, they heal the earth."

Forward together, friends.

Wednesday Vignette: Salvage, and rain for ten minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:49:00 +0000

How much rain did we get? Enough to wash the dust off the leaves of the orange tree, but not enough to wash the trickle-down mud off the leaves of plants below the orange tree. Used the Dramm wand for that. But it was real rain, and that was good enough. Gorgeous sunset last night, and beautiful cloudy day today.

The dark rock in the middle of this photo has been in the family forever. Pallet is from the feed store, circular saw blade from a local salvage/recycle yard, and hanging pots from a long-ago summer in Guanajuato. The manzanita branch was rescued from a lot clean-up near the cabin in Big Bear. Plants: Opuntia 'Santa Rita' on the left, with stonecrop 'Dragon's Blood'; a little Agave bovicornuta; Aloe erinacea (one of the few survivors of an aloe purge, since I can bring him inside for the winter); a cereus monstrose cultivar, one of six pieces a nice gent gave to me after he'd pruned the parent plants; and an Agave utahensis. Below them: Agave isthmensis on the left; little Opuntia basilaris brachyclada (a California endemic native to the foothills of the San Gabriels and the San Bernardinos); and down in the lower right corner, an Agave 'Sierra Mixteca.' The bougainvillea on the right is called 'Camarillo Fiesta,' just the kind of fantasy-of-Old-California name that would pull me in, but I love it for the pink and peach bracts.

This is the first blog post I've written since I retired. I remember blog-writing as an activity hobbled by time-constraint stress, and suddenly it's calm and restful. Amazing. During my last, busy year at work I bought a tablet, which is great for news and Instagram and falling asleep in an armchair at the end of the day, but unimaginable for blogging, at least for me. I want to get back to this.

I mentioned Instagram: you can see my photos here, or of course via the app. The IG crowd now includes Denise of A Growing Obsession, Loree of Danger Garden, Pam of Digging, Reuben of Rancho Reubidoux, and Gerhard of Succulents and More, to name just a few familiars. It's a good bet that your favorite landscape designers, nurseries, nursery owners, shops, national parks, botanical gardens, potters, bird lovers, photographers, and garden authors are on Instagram, along with many other terrific accounts. Warning: time sink.

The Wednesday Vignette meme is hosted by Anna at Flutter & Hum, where she writes today about life's fluctuations. Perfect!

Not drowning but waving

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 20 May 2016 13:55:00 +0000

Calliandra x 'Sierra Starr' at it again with the red blooms. That's Agave murpheyi 'Engard' in the background. #calliandra #fairyduster #agave #inmygarden #patiogarden #nativeplants #southerncalifornia
A photo posted by @weezette on May 10, 2016 at 9:27pm PDT

Everything is crazy busy right now, but in a few weeks I'll be tacking a "re" in front of the just plain "tired," and the pups, the garden, the birds and the blogs will, I hope, be glad to see more of me. I've certainly missed them all. In the meantime, a couple more shots from Instagram.

New growth on (what may or may not be) Cylindropuntia whipplei 'Snow Leopard' -- great little plant from ye olde Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery🌵 #inmygarden #cholla #patiogarden #leafandclay #southerncalifornia #succulents
A photo posted by @weezette on Apr 24, 2016 at 2:06pm PDT

Pollinators are busy😳👍🏽 Opuntia polyacantha var. erinacea 'Grizzly Bear' from @rsabg #inmygarden #cactus #cactusgram #nativeplants #californianativeplants #southerncalifornia #patiogarden #leafandclay #succulents
A photo posted by @weezette on Apr 24, 2016 at 1:53pm PDT

Surprise bloom from a NOID #cactus 😳😍 ID help appreciated! #succulents #succulove #leafandclay #inmygarden #patiogarden #southerncalifornia
A photo posted by @weezette on May 10, 2016 at 9:12pm PDT

That feeling when you're pretty sure someone's watching you 😳 So happy to see lizards in the garden😜 #lizards #inmygarden #patiogarden #wildlife #southerncalifornia
A photo posted by @weezette on May 10, 2016 at 9:51pm PDT

Wednesday vignette: #AtTheH

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 14:54:00 +0000

In a greenhouse at the Huntington. #opuntia #cactus #AtTheH #huntingtondesertgarden #succulove #succulents #california

A photo posted by @weezette on Jan 16, 2016 at 4:27pm PST

I noticed a while back that all the cool kids were tagging their Instagram photos of the Huntington Desert Garden with #AtTheH, and slave to fashion that I am, I started doing that, too. (Yep, I'm @weezette on Instagram.) Turns out that the Huntington folks started the tag themselves, clever souls. And now a photo of mine is on display at the H itself! I about died of delight.

Putting up another round of Instagram prints from the #attheH crew! Check out photos by @_chicadeoro, @adg.photography, @belbodell, @danielbaldwin_, @dinparis2013, @grandiva002, @hannaheunjoo, @jasminerosetea, @jennifer_cole_, @kelly.gajewski, @keonekai160, @kotawade, @krubluk, @mjoyross, @mzpaulas, @odie_allen, @olivermfurth, @pasadenacharm, @renee661, @river_balboa, @rmeadors, @shawnparkin, @sleepywaldo, @stormwalking, and @weezette, now on view in the Mapel Orientation Gallery. Tag your photo with #AtTheH on your next visit, and we might repost—or display in our Mapel Orientation Gallery!

A photo posted by The Huntington (@thehuntingtonlibrary) on Feb 19, 2016 at 2:59pm PST

Instagram is chock-full of gardeners and plant nerds (gardenerds, as Piece of Eden puts it), and great for fast posts when you've been under the weather and tired from the day job, *cough*whoopingcough*cough*. Not that I'm counting the days until spring break or anything. So looking forward to getting back into the swing of things — tons of stuff to do in the garden, and the weather is beyond perfect right now.

More vignette goodness hosted by Anna over at Flutter & Hum.

Maguey with Virgen de Guadalupe

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 17:42:00 +0000

It's her day. (Read up on Mayahuel here.)

And Chet is eleven! Read Julie's wonderful post here. "Get outside. Smell the air. Look around. Cover ground." Heartfelt amen to that. Happy Birthday, Chet Baker!

Cold snap, and two new opuntias

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 07:00:00 +0000

Opuntia sulphurea, on a roll.

With temps below 30F for a few nights, many of the new and/or not-so-hardy plants were crammed under the patio roof...

and covered with frost cloth each evening. Old nursery pots came in handy as covers, too (see far right).

The sun room (odd name, since its windows face north and east) is filled with tender plants, and the garage holds a few more.

Nighttime temperatures for the next ten days or so are expected to be in the 40s F. No rain expected until late next week.

I brought two new opuntia species home from the Mexican Hat nursery. The first is Opuntia sulphurea, shown in the top photo. It's native to Argentina and Bolivia, and has stout pads with long, twisted spines. It's not supposed to be frost hardy, but a Gates C&SS friend who lives a few blocks from me has a big potted O. sulphurea that shrugs at our occasional mid 20F temps and snow. (If it grows in the "high Andes Mountains" one would imagine it to be at least frost tolerant, but several sites rate its hardiness only to zone 9b [25F].) After I bought the plant you see in these photos, the good folks at the nursery tossed in another sulphurea for free — thanks, Mexican Hat! Those twisty spines:

Wiggly: Opuntia sulphurea.

A few links:

Opuntia sulphurea at CactiGuide.
First page of an article from the C&SS Journal on O. sulphurea (October 2013).
Photo of a beautiful plant at the Huntington, via Dave's Garden.

My other new opuntia also has amazing spines, but in this case they are long and straight as knitting needles. The parent plant was growing in the ground at the Mexican Hat nursery, and a kind helper sliced off these paddles for me:

Opuntia quimilo, drying out in the garage with some cholla sections. Weird blue tint on spines produced magically by garage window.

The quimil is another native of South America. Cold hardy to zone 8, maybe. Spines are reported to reach from 8 to 16 inches in length. (Longest spines in the photo above are >4 inches.)

Lots of cool information about the quimil in this post (in Spanish). To wit:

O. quimilo is said to be a favorite hideout of black widow spiders.

The paddles are used as a folk-medicine treatment for venomous snakebites. (Paddles are also used to make a poultice for healing wounds.) It'd be kind of depressing if a black widow bit you while you were trying to break off a paddle to treat your venomous snakebite.

The quimil is a staple of this creature's diet. The pecarí quimilero was apparently known to science only through fossils, and was thought extinct until it was "rediscovered" in the 1970s. From the Wiki link: "It uses its tough snout to roll the cacti on the ground, rubbing the spines off. It may pull off the spines with its teeth and spit them out. The kidneys are specialized to break down acids from the cacti."

Are there any popular North American songs that employ cactus as metaphor? Here's a good one from Argentina. Free translation:

I'd like to be a quimil
rough and stiff-spined
so that no one would shake me
looking for ripe fruit.

It was 38F when I took the dogs out this morning. Spring can come anytime, if you ask me. Thanks to blogger and plantswoman CHACO from Argentina, whose post provided such a wealth of information on the quimil. How intertwined are the lives of plants and people...

The good, the bad, and the ugly (Wednesday vignette)

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 00:18:00 +0000

Huey, Louie, and Dewey.

Lock, stock, and three golden barrels: Patty, Maxine, and Laverne? Rock, Paper, Scissors? Gödel, Escher, Bach? Chico, Harpo, and Groucho? Faith, Hope, and Charity? Tinker, Evers, and Chance? Shake, Rattle and Roll? Wynken, Blynken, and Nod? Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy? Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics?

I'm here all week, folks. Try the turkey! Heartfelt thanks today to the Gates Cactus & Succulent Society. Kind friends, patient mentors, plants for sale each month, field trips, trades, great guest speakers, and rescue opportunities with nice plants available for a song: all courtesy of Gates. (Need a pickup truck for a rescue? I'm your girl.)

One of the loveliest things about Gates is their willingness — eagerness! — to rehome plants. That's a blessing for a gardener or collector who lives by the adage "Prune with a shovel" (™ Clair Martin, former Huntington rosarian). If a plant isn't working in my 20 x 50 foot space, it's gone. Thanks to Gates, plant and gardener part as friends. Farewells are painless when good homes are waiting in the wings.

The top photo was taken in July, and now, in late November, only the dudleya at upper left, the tiny trio of barrels barely visible at far right, and the golden barrels — all three of them from a rescue operation — are still here. Negative space? New plants? A nice puzzle for winter.

The Wednesday Vignette meme is hosted by Anna over at Flutter & Hum: follow the link for much vignette goodness. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Thanksgiving Week

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 22:46:00 +0000

Love this parryi. Brought him home from the school garden two years ago, after the district banned spiky plants. Sun, snow... he doesn't care. Errant leaf is from one of the recent Santa Anas. On the right is Salvia mexicana 'Limelight.'

Much for me to be thankful for. Family, friends, beautiful weather, home, health, the whole week off for dogs and gardening and walks and tamales. I'm very fortunate: all loved ones and I live safe and sound here in the most beautiful region on earth.

Over to you, Pope Francis:

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this
earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.

And a favorite quote from a rabbi: "Our prayers are answered when we are moved to do all that we can."

********

Looking south into the sun this morning. The cholla at upper right, behind the Opuntia basilaris in the old feed trough, looks like an x-ray of itself, spines translucent in the sunlight. That's a little Russelia equisetiformis in the foreground.

Last Sunday, looking north at the same group. That broken pot was one of my favorites :~( I am never throwing it away. To the left of the cholla is a new Opuntia azurea, the second one I've brought home from a UC Riverside Botanic Gardens Plant Sale. Love those spines.

I stumbled across this Gymnocalycium chiquitanum over at the Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery and couldn't leave without it. It should look more like this. (Scroll down a bit). Beautiful flowers. Needs new soil and a sip of water. Think I'll keep this one inside for the winter.

The closing-shop sale at the Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery was mostly rained out last weekend, and so there are still a few days to visit and grab some very nice plants. There are BIG golden barrels (>2 feet across) for $50 and under, a gorgeous big Aloe marlothii, a huge Agave titanota, and lots of smaller plants. The nice people running the sales will help you dig up plants (if necessary — lots of choice stuff in the ground) and help carry them to your vehicle. No need to bring the wheelbarrow! Cash only. Black Friday freeway traffic will probably be insane, but towards the end of the week I'd like to drive back to the Mexican Hat for one last visit, maybe buy two or three more plants... two big golden barrels to flank the front door...? Hmmm...

Links:

From Agaveville comes Capturing Cacti Before They Disappear: Q&A with Cacti Curator John Trager.

Few things are more beautiful than a Monarch chrysalis, but I'll nominate a Monarch chrysalis hanging on an agave leaf. From a local blog, too: click here, then scroll down and click to embiggen. Also check out this link from the comments: more about the native vs. tropical milkweed debate, by a UC Davis professor. ("Ideologue"? Ouch. Big native plant advocate here, and wouldn't plant tropical milkweed, but look at my patio: I just bought two cactus from Bolivia, for Pete's sake.)

Meanwhile, east of the Mississippi... Julie Zickefoose is an artist and author from Ohio. She has a wonderful blog that I've been following since Chet Baker was a pup. Right now she is getting her garden ready for winter. Japanese maples, sweet potatoes, the story of 'Rio Samba' and the zinnia... and Boston Chet warming himself by the fire. Love that boy.

In the background as I blog, inimitable Chavela Vargas is singing the milonga-candombe 'Negra Maria.' True sad song (and yet so danceable) set during Carnaval in Buenos Aires. Great mix: milonga and candombe from Africa, adopted by descendants of Europeans in Argentina and Uruguay, where these musical influences were crucial to the birth of the tango. And speaking of tango, here's the awesome Gabriel Missé dancing with Analía Centurión at a studio in New York City. Skip ahead to 15:10 and watch them go all Corny Collins Show to Little Richard's Long Tall Sally. (Can't miss Little Richard's all-white 1956 audience.) In my fantasies, warring factions and evil despots hear this song on the radio, and they all put down their weapons and start to dance.

It was a dark and stormy night (Wednesday vignette)

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 15:35:00 +0000

Overpotted, bare root, waiting for a real pot...

It was cold (mid 30s F), it was blowing a gale (the Lady Banks rose fell over), and there were intermittent downpours, so before it got dark I rounded up the possibly/probably-less-hardy kids and put them under the patio roof. Sharing shelter with the ones above were a tabletop's worth of others, and a box of paddles from the Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery — that's a humongous Opuntia 'Old Mexico' on the left ("previously known as (and may still be listed in various places) Opuntia gomei 'Old Mexico', but recent genetic tests indicate it is a spineless form of Opuntia stricta," says Xenomorf), next to a ginormous Cow's Tongue (Opuntia engelmannii var. linguiformis).

I think I need a bigger pot.

Those two are ready for potting. Next week is Thanksgiving vacation, and the weather should be quite nice for working in the garden. Getting colder, though. I'll have to set up frost cloth central in a week or two.

The Wednesday Vignette is hosted by Anna over at Flutter & Hum — visit the link for much vignette goodness.

Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery: Wednesday Vignette

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:39:00 +0000

Echinopsis photobombs an opuntia -- or is it the other way around? Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery, Riverside, California.

When a California succulent nursery has a week-long sale and you're there and you hear someone say, "A man from Arid Lands [not to mention others from Tucson, Las Vegas, Reno] was here yesterday," you know right off that the nursery must be a legendary one, with specimen plants (small ones, too), a wide selection, rarities, and happy surprises. Harvey Welton's Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery has been all that for nearly fifty years. And "Mexican Hat Cactus Nursery"? Best. name. ever.

Harvey is selling everything this week, and closing shop. The sale runs through Monday, November 16. Cash only! More info here. Hope I get a chance to go back one last time. Big thanks, Harvey!

The Wednesday Vignette meme is hosted by Anna over at Flutter & Hum.

"I don't think it woke up"

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 03:37:00 +0000

teeny tiny northern pacific rattlesnake sitting on a leaf pic.twitter.com/Lb2iyzzKtH
— Bryan D. Hughes (@rattlesnakeguy) November 5, 2015

Great photography by Bryan Hughes: click (and then click again) to embiggen.

Late vignette: Wildlife Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 14:29:00 +0000

Big voice on this little guy.

When I moved here two years ago, the first wild critter (birds aside) that I spotted in the yard was a treefrog. I'm delighted to hear (and see) them more and more often in my garden. You can hear lots of them singing in the arroyo. They live in surrounding gardens as well, and are occasionally swept down into my yard when an uphill neighbor forgets to turn off a dribbling hose. This little one, spotted at night next to my new Opuntia robusta, is a Baja California Treefrog (Pseudacris hypochondriaca hypochondriaca). Love that Latin name — I might borrow it if I become a rap artist. Treefrogs in the inland foothill chaparral? Yep. From the great CalHerps site:

The name "treefrog" is not entirely accurate. This frog is chiefly a ground-dweller, living among shrubs and grass typically near water, but occasionally it can also be found climbing high in vegetation. Its large toe pads allow it to climb easily, and cling to branches, twigs, and grass.

The Baja California Treefrog's range overlaps the range of the California Treefrog. Different voices! The Baja California Treefrog makes the classic "ribbit." You can follow the links and compare their calls.

The Wednesday Vignette meme is hosted by Anna over at Flutter & Hum.

Snapshot: rainy and cold

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 05:03:00 +0000

A few of the little ones huddled together under the patio roof.

It's snowing in the mountains — in fact, it's snowing a few miles from my house. Rain started at my place about an hour ago. Temps here aren't expected to dip below 40F or thereabouts, but I'm glad I have stacks of frost cloth in the garage. Took this photo a little after 8:00 PM tonight.

Merlin Tuttle and The Secret Lives of Bats

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 04:25:00 +0000

Breathtaking. "Bright colors of painted bats blend well with dead leaves where they roost. Vespertilionidae, S and SE Asia." All photos by Merlin Tuttle.

¡Feliz Día de los Fieles Difuntos! Rather than whine about last week's Santa Anas (worst ever, say people who grew up here in the foothills) or the ongoing clean-up (Sisyphean) or express endless and well-deserved appreciation to the local cactus club members who rehomed some of my plants on Sunday afternoon (room for more opuntias and agaves, yay!), I want to talk for a minute about bats, and about Merlin Tuttle.

Dr. Tuttle is the founder and president emeritus of Bat Conservation International. Because of his work on behalf of bat conservation around the world, bats (and plants, and humans) live much, much better lives. That mosquito carrying the dose of West Nile Virus that had your name on it? A bat ate her. (Bats eat thousand of metric tons of insects in the US each year.) Those avocados (cashews, coconuts, bananas, etc.) you can't imagine living without? Bats pollinate them. Saguaros, glories of the wild and of many gardens, wouldn't exist without bats. The saguaro opens its flowers at night for them:

"A lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) pollinating saguaro cactus in Mexico."

And bats also pollinate agaves. Raise a glass of your favorite reposado to the bat!

"Lesser long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris yerbabuene) pollinating agave (source of tequila) in Arizona."

And raise another glass to Merlin Tuttle. "Mr. Tuttle is fueled by a ferocious curiosity fed by a stiff dose of crazy," writes Julie Zickefoose in the Wall Street Journal review of his latest book. It's the best kind of crazy: he's determined to learn more, discover more, protect more, educate more, and his adventures along the way make Indiana Jones look like Barney Fife. Saving bats, it seems to me, is a way of saving the world, and I'm so happy that The Secret Lives of Bats is getting lots of attention. Check out the New Yorker review, and the Mother Jones review, then run to Amazon and get a copy.

***

(There's an old documentary floating around called The Secret World of Bats that features Merlin Tuttle and his work for Bat Conservation International. I've shown it to students every October for over twenty years. I realized with kind of a pang that last week's showing will probably be the final one. Not that I'd forego retirement just to keep playing this ancient video for people, but still. Bats are awesome, and Merlin Tuttle is awesome. I can't wait to read his new book.)

La cadena

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 13:53:00 +0000

Heavy: a vignette for Wednesday.

This wonderful, ginormous (logging?) chain was at a fave local salvage yard on Tuesday afternoon. $15 or $20, can't remember. Too bulky for my little garden, and not exactly right for my design sensibility (such as it is), but oh, I was tempted.

For the Wendesday Vignette meme hosted by Anna of Flutter & Hum.

Weekend before a plant sale

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 04:08:00 +0000

Ay caramba, such low light this morning. Do not adjust your screen!

This is Agave 'Little Shark' — or is it? (Louie's says 'Little Shark.')

What an odd day! Cool (65F) this morning, and so overcast that 8:00 AM looked more like an hour before sunrise. Rain off and on. It's a perfect day to curl up with tea or coffee and catch up on reading. Give me a good read, a sturdy tea kettle with a whistle you can hear a mile away, and a mug of chai, and I'm set. (Latest issues of Atomic Ranch and Garden Design Magazine are waiting.)

This coming weekend is the 33rd Annual Friends of U.C. Riverside Botanic Gardens Fall Plant Sale, or, as I like to think of it, a perfect Saturday. (I've been cutting and pasting from their sale list, but an FYI: they always have some small/young succulents — Aloe erinacea, for example — that aren't listed.) First I'll hit the sale, then Wild Birds Unlimited in Riverside to see what's new, then Gloria's Nursery for a big pot and a cactus (lots of opuntia love right now), then Louie's Nursery to look around (they have a nice succulent selection), and then the scenic route home. I feel a bit like E.B. White's Wilbur (who planned a perfect day down to the last slop — only to have it ruined by rain [though I've done all this in the rain, and it's still quite wonderful]). Oh, and Sunday is the Brannaman Roping Finals in Santa Ynez, but that's a whole nother post.

This weekend I'm dealing with the "one in, one out" rule of gardening in a small space. Are there any plants in my garden that should really go to new homes? Why yes, there always are! Since my garden is mostly in containers, and since the Gates folks are happy to rehome succulents, moving things along is a relatively easy process, thank heaven. In theory, this will make more room for the opuntias and native shrubs I hope to nab at UC Riverside. Plants on the way out have been moved to the side yard, awaiting the judge's final decision...

Here are photos of some of the more or less permanent fixtures in my yard these days, plant-wise, along with a few new additions. Warning: lots of photos.

Aloe africana. The tree in the ground behind it is a walnut: a native walnut tree in a two foot wide strip next to the house. To be fair to previous occupants, a bird probably planted it. The arborist offered to put it (where else?) in a pot for me.

A tiny Mangave 'Bloodspot.'

And not far away, a smallish Agave bovicornuta.

Bunper crop! The Meyer lemon was a neglected shrub when I moved in, but it's much happier now, and will be even happier after the arborist removes dead wood and tidies everything up. ("You have a Meyer lemon!" said the arborist. "Oh, no," I said to the arborist. "It's just an ordinary lemon." [dies of shame]

It's a Meyer lemon.

[Although I grew up surrounded by citrus groves, and love them, citrus fruit seems to trigger arthritis flare-ups, and I've avoided citrus most of my life. Need some lemons?])

Gone suburban. This Thanksgiving Cactus is in a hanging basket next to the lemon tree.

Morning light is wonderful through the leaves of Grevillea 'Long John' — I'm just afraid this plant would be happier in the ground. Probably needs more sun. And I'm afraid to prune it, which is ridiculous, since in general I'm a lop-branches-off-with-abandon kind of person. We'll see how it does this winter.

Agave montana. It survived last winter's snow with no protection, but I'm bringing it under cover this year.

In the pot ghetto (oh, who am I kidding — my entire garden is a pot ghetto): a new, NOID agave from Jurupa. 'Baccarat'...?

Finally potted: Agave victoriae-reginae 'Golden Princess,' from Tony Marino of the Gates club.

The beautiful foliage of Eucalyptus 'Moon Lagoon.'

Opuntia basilaris, the king of the glochids. Seriously, this cactus sits back and sneers at puny humans through a cloud of dispersing glochids. Great flowers!

Vision of a dream come true at Louie's Nursery. I want an entire wall of big opuntias. Working on it.

Also at Louie's, a perfect Agave guiengola 'Crème Brûlée.' As Gerhard has written, guiengolas bruise if you look hard at them. This one is well-protected and gets just the right amount of sun — mine (below) gets too little. Must get an arbor...

My 'Crème Brûlée.' I love these guys, and as luck would have it, they're big puppers: see below.

One of three pups on this plant.

Opuntia nursery. The school district groundskeepers tore out a big variegated opuntia that was thriving (seven feet high) behind a friend's classroom at work. I managed to salvage a few pieces, and have four or five pots with little variegated opuntias now. It looks like Joseph's Coat (Opuntia monacantha var. variegata).

My gnarliest-spined titanota has a pup!

Please grow up to look like your mom.

Orostachys iwarenge. Such a cool little plant! Found this one at Hunter's Nursery up at Big Bear Lake last summer, and as directed put in it a wide, WIDE pot so that it would have room to sow seed and be bigger next year.

Dies after flowering (Noooo...!!), but comes back from seed each year. (All right then.)

Looks like a fairy garden. Right, Annie's Annuals?

Yucca gigantea. This plant was on a neighbor's porch in Big Bear, of all places, looking dead as a doornail, and I got it when they sold their cabin. Took months for it to show signs of life, but it's thriving now. No intention of ever putting this thing in the ground.

Nearby, some Aloe arborescens going nuts.

And in front of the aloes, a California fuschia, also from Hunter's Nursery in Big Bear. The galvanized bucket was a salvage find, and my welder put a nice hole in the bottom. Now, what plant to put in it?

That flower reminds me: I finally got a hemidemisemi-decent snap of the first Aloe elgonica bloom.

Baby elgonicas.

One of several good-sized elgonica pups I separated from the mothership. Original big plant came from fave Gloria's Nursery in Riverside.

The leaves on Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi 'Variegata' are bordered with the loveliest hot-pink ever — the camera refuses to catch it [/no photo skills].

A new titanota from fellow Gates club member Rob Roy MacGregor.

And another titanota [note to self: do a post on your titanotas], this one a Kelly Griffin variety called 'Stacked.'

A million pups on this Aloe suprafoliata...

... and none on this one [a rescue plant from a Gates salvage operation]. A meaningful difference, suggests palmbob [last comment]. I love to see this oldster blooming.

How cool to be small enough to build a little web in this well-armed Aloe marlothii? Which, by the way, is as green in real life as his relative below, just washed out in this early morning photo.

Another aloe pup! This is a David Verity aloe called 'Spiney,' and you can read about its parentage here.

Nooooo...!! Disaster strikes. This is not my big Kissho Kan (thank the powers), but a nice medium-sized one. For the heck of it I did minor surgery, removed the rotted leaf, sprayed with straight (rubbing) alcohol. Damage seems localized. No symptoms of mites, as far as I can tell. If it can't be saved, there are many pups, including one that is very light-colored.

More disaster: mealy bugs attacked my oldest agave, a twenty year old A. parryi var. huachucensis. Those are dead mealies — I alcoholized 'em. When the leaf opens a bit more I'll clean things up with a toothpick. Poor parryi!

All this disaster is too much. I need to see a pug.

Lily to the rescue! Here's my sister's pug, Lily, watching the nightly news up at the cabin. Whew! Everything is better now.

If you've made it this far, thanks for looking! Have a good week and a great weekend, whether you're in Santa Ynez, or at that other plant sale (hint: it's in San Marino), or racing me to the opuntias at UC Riverside.

Bookend: a slightly later-in-the-day, slightly better shot of Agave 'Little Shark,' with its beautiful dark spines and leaf margins. I love this one.

Vignette for Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 04:23:00 +0000

Between a rock and a hard place. The equivalent in Spanish may be more fitting here: entre la espada y la pared [between the sword and the wall].

That pretty sedum with pink flowers, surrounded above by stones and spines, is called Sunsparkler® Dazzleberry. (I am not making this up.) I love it.

Thanks to Flutter & Hum for creating and hosting this weekly meme.

Hummingbirds, a cactus, and John Gould

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 14:48:00 +0000

Buffon's Plumeteer, now White-vented Plumeleteer, from John Gould's A Monograph of the Trochilidae or Humming Birds, Vol. II. "The figures are of the size of life."

He was the son of a gardener. "Scanty education," says Wiki. John Gould was also a gardener himself (employed at Windsor in his teens), and a taxidermist, an ornithologist, an author, a publisher, an artist, and the first Curator and Preserver at the museum of the Zoological Society of London:

His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould's work is referenced in Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species.

A number of birds are named for him — check out the amazing Dot-eared Coquette (Lophornis gouldii). Gould collected birds in Australia and Tasmania, but didn't see much of the west. This killed me a little:

Throughout his professional life Gould had a strong interest in hummingbirds. He accumulated a collection of 320 species, which he exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Despite his interest, Gould had never seen a live hummingbird. In May 1857 he travelled to the United States with his second son, Charles. He arrived in New York too early in the season to see hummingbirds in that city, but on 21 May 1857, in Bartram's Gardens in Philadelphia, he finally saw his first live one, a ruby-throated hummingbird. He then continued to Washington D.C. where he saw large numbers in the gardens of the Capitol. Gould attempted to return to England with live specimens, but, as he was not aware of the conditions necessary to keep them, they only lived for two months at most.[Quotes from Wiki.]

Poor creatures.

Gould never traveled to South America, so I imagine the plants in his illustrations were drawn from botanical collections. I wonder why he chose that cactus. (Echinopsis?) This species of plumeleteer is a forest bird, I think, though the print above looks like savanna or desert (one reason I bought a copy of it ages ago, at the Huntington). Unimaginable challenges for naturalists back in the day, and now anyone with a bit of tech can find information on DNA sequencing and dozens of photos and videos of the birds in habitat. We're lucky, and luckier still if we can see hummingbirds any time we look out the window.

White-vented Plumeleteer (Chalybura buffonii) photographed by Ron Knight in Colombia.

Gould's Jewelfront (Heliodoxa aurescens) photographed by Joao Quental in Perú.

Gould's Inca (Coeligena inca) photographed by Phillip Edwards in
Machu Picchu, Perú.

Botanical illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 14:47:00 +0000

Opuntia robusta et al by M.E. Eaton [Mary Emily Eaton]

(1873-1964).

This site (via the Opuntiads group on Facebook) is a real rabbit hole of a time sink. Three more by Eaton:

Opuntia ficus-indica.

Cylindropuntia spinosior.

Opuntia phaeacantha.

And down the rabbit hole we go:

Agave victoria-reginae.

Carnegiea gigantea.

Many of the prints are available in large resolutions. Have a favorite botanical (or zoological) illustrations site to share? I'd love to see it. Off to look at hummingbirds now:

Singing the blurry vignette blues

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 14:29:00 +0000

On the old crate: a shot for this meme.

The other afternoon I was trying to take photos of an Aloe elgonica and its new little bloomstalk [ay caramba, what a disaster — remind me never to attempt a Bloom Day post] when I spotted this jumble. I meant to photograph only the tephrocacus segments but wound up with a bit more. (Slightly less blurry than the aloe, yay!)

The plant tag is from fellow Gates club member Rob Roy MacGregor (club meeting tonight, plants will be sold, note to self: take cash); the all-metal trowel has been in the family for as long as anyone can remember; the old garden-claw/hand cultivator and transplanter-style trowel were gifts from my sister; and the folding pruning saw is another tool that's been in the family since the Flood. Cactus, plant sales, gardening and fambly, how about that :~)

One for the Wednesday Vignette meme hosted by Flutter & Hum.

Monsoon season in Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Luisa) — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 05:01:00 +0000

Monsoon II from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Breathtaking. Watch in full screen if you can.