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Flowering Wonders

The packet of wildflower seeds we planted late spring, continue to produce a few blooms.  We scattered some of the seeds in the side yard with the sunflowers and the dwarf lemon and they bloomed for months.  We still have cosmos flowering in the large pot outside our sliding-glass bedroom door.

Cosmos

To keep that color going throughout our moderate winter, I plant cyclamen each year.  They were one of my mom’s favorites, and always remind me of her.  A friend gave me a red cyclamen for Valentine’s Day one year, and it bloomed for a month on my coffee table.  When the plant seemed to fail, I moved it outside, but it continued to “decline.”  Little did I know then that this plant is a tuber.  It was simply going into its dormant stage.  We have some planted outside near our laundry room and they make me smile each year when they re-emerge.

Cyclamen

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Mid-Autumn Garden

Broccoli in the Ground

My plan was to start broccoli from seed this year, but I temporarily misplaced the seeds when they fell behind the recycling bin. I planted starter-plants instead to give the garden a head start, next to the still-flowering tomato plants. In Canada the tomatoes would have been toast by now, but they continue to produce through the first “frost” here in sunny San Jose.

Last year we planted fava beans, then tilled them into the vegetable bed before they produced any beans. I learned that the small white nitrogen nodules that appear around the roots enrich the soil. The plants themselves act as a cover crop, reducing erosion from rain and wind. This year, the broccoli will act as a covering winter crop, but will hopefully produce some greens for the dinner table as well. Three out of four of my family members will actually eat broccoli, not bad in our household of picky eaters.

Winter gardens are easier to tend in a variety of ways: fewer weeds, fewer garden pests and if the weather cooperates, scattered showers throughout the growing season.

We’ll see how it grows!

Flowering Tomatoes

Tomato Plants Gone Wild

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California Autumn

I’m originally from Canada, so it took me awhile to appreciate the subtleties of a California autumn. Our boys wore shorts on Halloween night and I walked home from a party earlier that week in a sleeveless costume. In Ontario our Mom insisted on coats, even though we grumbled at the injustice of our “spoiled” ensembles.

We planted a carefully placed Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis) as a reminder of this lovely season. It gradually produces ocher, amber and other golden shades, before the wind sweeps the leaves to the grass below. Our lone tree sits on our suburban lot, but it reminds me of my early roots. In my imagination our tree resides in a New England forest, surrounded by others dropping leaves on the earthen floor. Our Pistache is easily viewed from my kitchen sink and my home office, a wistful reminder of another time.

I do love spring, with the warming sun and wonderful rebirth, but in my heart of hearts, its autumn that firmly takes hold.

Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis)

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Garden Log: September 17, 2011

Yesterday was all about garden clean-up. It felt great! Tidying the beds and pruning the shrubs appeals to my organizing side.

Here’s what I did:

  • I removed the seed heads from the sunflower stalks and set aside three of them

    Late-season Wildflowers

    for the squirrels.

  • I stripped the remaining leaves from the stalks, and placed them in the side yard to dry. We’ll use them in our “haunted house” on Halloween.
  • I cut a handful of wildflowers and put them in a  vase.
  • I pruned the dinosaur topiary in the children’s garden.
  • I continued my search-and-destroy mission for the invasive plant taking hold in the side yard.
  • Finally, I pruned the Hardenbergia and Jasmin. That job was long past due.

Dinosaur Topiary

I love this time of year when the days shorten, the air crackles and the leaves, even in sunny California, start to turn. The squirrels are busier, the geese are settling in at the neighboring schools and the light winds knock down the end-of-summer smog. Good riddance to that.

Although it’s no longer “PC” to light a wood-burning fireplace,  I must confess to my weakness for that smell. Our fireplace is long gone, but I lift my nose to the wind and catch a drift from the neighborhood hold-outs.

It’s sweater weather. Time to get the broccoli seeds in the ground.  What’s happening in your garden?

Gourmet Squirrel Food: Only The Best For Our Friends

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Sunflower Seeds

I just came up the driveway and startled a pair of squirrels who were halfway up the sunflower stalks.  In prior years, the sunflower stalks snapped and drooped early from the increasing weight and the seeds were quickly polished off.  This is the first year they’ve remained standing, due in part to my bungee cord fix.  I gathered the stalks together like a bunch of broccoli and secured them with a pair of bungees.  They’ve supported each other beautifully.

Bungee Cord Fix

I ran inside for the camera and went back to check on the plants.  The squirrels are pulling out the seeds in little groups, shelling them from their perch and littering the flower bed with shells.  I’m reminded of friends in the past who’ve tried giving up smoking:  they would leave little piles of sunflower shells in various locations, just like the squirrels.  I doubt the squirrels are trying to give anything up.  They’re just staying true to the genetic code that says “fall is coming; time to stock up!”

Flowers in Bloom, Seeds Will Soon Set

A Full House

A few flowers in the center and missing seeds on the outside, combine to look like the close-up of some bug.

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Cats Among the Plants

Without further ado…

Life Among the Ferns

“I tawt I taw a puddy tat…” ~ Tweety (Looney Tunes)

Kitty Hammock

This better be important...I was napping.

“Nature abhors a vacuum, but not as much as cats do.”                         ~ Lee Entrekin

=^. .^=

“Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, “I’ll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?” ~ Bette Midler

=^. .^=

“Meow is like aloha – it can mean anything.” ~ Hank Ketchum

=^. .^=

“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.”                ~ Author Unknown

=^. .^=

Slinky Takes a Walk on the Wild Side

Just Visiting

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Pumpkin Bounty: Last Call

True to their genetic roots, our pumpkin vines are coming to a natural end. The leaves, once vibrant, can now be crushed into a fine powder, dusting the garden floor. The vines snap like celery, hollow stems that spent the season bringing energy to the fruit. From seed to pumpkin in 90 days. It never gets old!

We harvested 25 pumpkins this season, with just a few young stragglers left on the vines. Nights are cooler; fall beckons. We gardeners, however, never give up hope. We’ll keep on tending the baby fruit until the end. Our crop produced several varieties this year, a few planned and at least one surprise: a blue-green Jarrahdale.

From Seed to Fruit

My son harvested the last great pumpkin, a hearty, healthy orange. We have a table in our entry way, now laden with fruit. As the season draws near, we’ll set them out along the stone wall in the front garden. My husband will then carve the larger ones with pride and they will finish the season as Jack O’ Lanterns, admired by the plethora of families that come calling on Halloween. We’ll collect and dry the seeds to plant the following year and the cycle begins anew.

Good Side/Bad Side: Hard to Decide

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”

-Henry David Thoreau
 
ΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦ
 
“There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”
 
– Linus by Charles M. Schulz

Orange, White and Blue

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Pruning at a Price

I got ahead of myself on Monday and I’ve paid for it all week.

I love pruning. It appeals to my organizing side: tackling a rambling shrub or vine and bringing the wandering branches back under control. Taming the beast, so to speak, at least temporarily. After reading up on the additional sun needed for my winter garden, I got down to business. The hardenbergia hadn’t seen a hard prune in six years. It was time. Pruning would allow additional sunlight to shine on the garden beds as summer waned.

Up and down the ladder I went, in the morning before it got too hot; again in the evening before dark. My neighbor helped from the other side of the fence while my husband sharpened tools. My youngest son pulled twigs from the lattice and eventually we tamed the vine. Over the years the vines “braided” themselves around each other, up along the fence, through the cat fencing and around the supports. Pruning felt like the dismantling of a puzzle.

Braided Hardenbergia Vines

Empowered by my success, I tackled the Pittosporum next. My boys started new schools Monday, so I was employing the “busy hands” technique to keep from worrying.

My inner obsessive gardener took hold and I sawed, chopped and trimmed branches for an hour and a half.

Pittosporum

Satisfied with my progress and sticky from sap, I finally relented. Sadly, it was too late. My neck ached, then throbbed and by day’s-end I was miserable. I employed the usual “cast of characters” including a hot bath, topical analgesic and a couple of naproxen.

The next day I felt worse. I tried ice, more analgesics and even slept wearing my trusty cervical collar that night. By Wednesday a migraine moved in and I finally called my chiropractor. Darn if she wasn’t out-of-town!

Five days later I’m almost myself again. It’s hard to give up or give in to your body’s woes; to admit that you aren’t as young as you once were. Age and a series of auto accidents have robbed me of my once-nimble neck. It’s time to call in the pruning professionals. The price for the pleasure of pruning is officially too high.

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Sunflowers: From Seed to Tower in an Hour?

Not really, but it seems that way when a tiny seed produces a nine-foot plant in 90 days.  It’s August, and our flower season is coming to an end.  It’s been glorious.  We planted our neat little row in our front, side-yard next to the garage.  With each day’s comings and goings, we’ve marveled at the spectacle of the sunflowers growing and reaching skyward.

Slideshow: 90 Days in the Life of a Sunflower

The Weight of the Seeds Pull the Flowers Towards the Earth

“The Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame
To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame;
It was not sleep that made him nod, he said,
But too great weight and largeness of his head.”
~ Abraham Cowley

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Wildflowers

We have a patch of earth that we share with our neighbors, affectionately know as the children’s garden.  It’s evolved over time from a large, overgrown shrub, to a variety of plants including some transplanted azaleas, a dinosaur topiary and an assortment of experiments.  This time last year, my son wanted to turn the plot into a “hot tub” so he happily dug down as deeply as he could, before eventually abandoning the idea.

This past spring we planted a row of sunflowers, as close to the border as possible for maximum sunlight, then filled in the area behind them with a packet of wildflowers from our local nursery. The birds and squirrels helped themselves early on, leaving the earth pock-marked with overturned pockets of soil.  Here’s what survived:

Children's Garden