November 12, 2016

Cry, the Beloved Country

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



Good suggestions. Here's Part Two:

A photo posted by vinewinenyc (@vinewinenyc) on


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:



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.


September 21, 2016

Wednesday Vignette: Salvage, and rain for ten minutes


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 GardenPam of DiggingReuben 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!


May 20, 2016

Not drowning but waving



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.









February 24, 2016

Wednesday vignette: #AtTheH



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.




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.