Season's Greetings

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!

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 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

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

Cold snap, and two new opuntias

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...

Thanksgiving Week

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)

 

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

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.

Weekend before a plant sale

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.