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!

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. 

Monsoon season in Arizona

Monsoon II from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Breathtaking. Watch in full screen if you can.

Some variegates

Late summer. Blazing hot some days, raining hard on others. Everyone's happy.

Loree Bohl of Danger Garden really does grow all the coolest, spikiest plants, and last week over at Plant Lust she wrote about some of her favorite spiky variegates. She inspired me to take inventory, and it turns out I may have more variegated agaves than not. How'd that happen?! 

Because honestly, I love non-variegated agaves. I think they're gorgeous. The shapes of the leaves, their colors and patterns, the variety of lateral and marginal spines, the bud imprints... check out this Agave isthmensis: 

And this A. cupreata with its copper spines: 

[Digression: Bud imprints always remind me of Mesoamerican design, like the Xicalcoliuhqui pattern, and figurative art, like this seal from the Olmec archaeological site San Andrés: 

Everyone in Agaveland cultivated agave. The Xicalcoliuhqui pattern was inspired by bud imprints, if you ask me.]

So anyhow, I started looking around the garden and there were variegated plants everywhere. New ones, like the 'Cornelius' and the little 'Butterfingers' (both gifts from a friend up north -- thanks, Tom!), and the A. victoriae-reginae 'Golden Princess' (pupping!) from Tony Marino, maker of cool rock pots: 

I thought I'd killed this A. gypsophila 'Ivory Curls' (because I tend to kill gypsophilas, though I love them so much). Not dead yet:

Here's a 'Cream Spike.' Not happy in full inland sun, picky about water, one of my favorite agaves:

A very small 'Cream Spike,' saved after the parent plant went belly-up last winter. Thrive, little dude! I love the tiny bud imprints:

Wiki says that Agave murpheyi is "found growing only at a few dozen archaeological sites of the ancient Hohokam Indians in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico. It appears to be a cultivar grown by the Hohokam for food and fiber." Here's a terrific article on A. murpheyi, pre-Columbian Indian cultures, and the son of Mayahuel himself, Howard Scott Gentry: "There, amid the palo verde and the mesquite, the bur sage and the barrel cacti, a prehistoric Hohokam plot had persisted at least half a millenium after being last tended. The same plant -- the identical genetic stock that had been transplanted here in prehistoric times -- had reproduced vegetatively on its own, clinging to the same terrace where it had been originally placed." Agave is life...  

My big Kissho Kan:

With 'Creme Brulee' leaf in foreground:

And a little Kissho Kan, lower leaves still pockmarked from a hailstorm last year:

Variegated opuntias! Opuntia monacantha:

Opuntia cochenillifera:

Agave americana var. striata:

This is the only A. angustifolia marginata that survived last year's snowy winter. His siblings turned to mush :~(  He'll get more protection this year.

Not a variegate, but I'm including this one because the spines are so big and striking and white. Titanota from Granite Hill Nursery:

'Tradewinds':

More white. A. toumeyana var. bella:

A. shawii. Got this one in a trade (thanks, Rob!):

'Rum Runner,' from the Huntington. Looks delicious:

I left out a few: 'Shira ito no Ohi,' 'Fireball,' 'Snow Glow'... They refused to be anything but blurry. (My fault for being such a poor photographer.) So here's another shot of white spines -- an unnamed hybrid dyckia:

Interesting weather we've been having. One day last week I took the scenic route home from work:

Preview of El Niño? Just in case, I'm ordering some Self-Inflating Sandless Sand Tubes. And of course I'll be stocking up on plants: Fall Planting Festival at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden's Grow Native Nursery, Claremont - October 3-4, 2015. Can't wait :~)

We plan, God laughs

Calliandra 'Sierra Starr.' 

Summer vacation got off to an odd start. There was/is a massive wildfire in the mountains. My tiresome cough became more tiresome. Plumbers turned the water off and spent two days on the roof of my house, looking for a faulty pipe. The Cactus and Succulent Society of America held its biennial conference a stone's throw away, and I missed the whole thing. 

On the other hand, IT IS RAINING on the fire right now. Rain! Last weekend I went to Reuben's Open Garden and had a terrific time. I have new meds for the cough. The plumbing issue is fixed (crosses fingers), and I have a garden to tend and nurseries to visit all summer long, and the Inter-City Show and Sale is only six weeks away. The dogs are happy to have me around. The cabin is still there. There are books to read and hikes to take and plants to repot and a Leap Second to celebrate this week, and over a month of summer vacation left. Life is fine.

Some shots from the last, thoroughly disorganized month or so: 

Calliandra 'Sierra Starr' again. Lovely pale branches, and wonderful flowers. A hummingbird magnet.

I hit the sale at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden — should have been there earlier in the day, but still found plants and pots to bring home.

Made a run up to the cabin to get things ready for my sister's summer visit. Stopped at the dam to take a photo before heading down the hill.

Waiting to be potted up: Trichocereus grandiflorus, top left; barberry hybrid from RSABG in the middle; Baja Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia hastata) on the right; my favorite salvia, S. pachyphylla, in the middle; and Echeveria 'Roundleaf' at the bottom.

Wish this were my place, but no... it's the Armstrong Garden Center down the street from Rancho Santa Ana. Succulents looking much better this year, and a better selection. All with neonicotinoid labels, unfortunately. That's an Agave ovatifolia north of center. I was tempted! Should really experiment with the 'cram-it' approach at home...

My Palo Verde (Parkinsonia aculeata) bloomed! Love the flowers. The smaller Palo Verde is also growing, um, fast (I hate to say "like a weed," but they are crazy common in these parts). In a year or two they should provide some nice filtered shade for my frying pan of a patio.

Blooming Yucca rostrata at Cherry Valley Nursery, a fave stop.

Epic fail :~(  I raised three little parryi pups from tiny nubs and they were doing so well... Damp May, hazy June, and then the Death Star (™Pam Penick) returned with heat and light at full blaze,  and after half a day of that, all three pups were fried. I might be able to save one, but I'm afraid the others are goners. Must build some arbors and create some shade.

And then, a little miracle! This Fouquieria splendens was leafless and dying: waterlogged roots, a pot with the wrong kind of soil, awful drainage. Last month I uprooted it, discovered the damage, and called Rob Roy MacGregor to see what, if anything, could be done. As you can see, the ocotillo bounced back (and is fully leafed out now, and sending out new shoots). Thanks, Rob! (Now I need a really big pot.)

Echeveria subsessilis (possibly 'Lime').

Clouds over the hills west of home. This country is green in winter, hot and dry and burned brown in summer, and I love it.

Not clouds. Took this photo near Sand Canyon Road, looking east at smoke from the Lake Fire. That pyramid-shaped mountain on the left is Mt. San Bernardino. Nearly 50 square miles of forest have burned. Hope it rains the rest of the week.

I love this NOID agave Agave 'Mateo' (hybrid, possibly between A. bracteosa and A. lophantha) from the Granite Hill Nursery. Big thanks to Hoov B in comments for the ID! Seeing what it might look like in a clay pot...

Goldflame Honeysuckle (Lonicera x heckrottii 'Goldflame'). Aw, I just love this one. Hope it isn't in too sunny a spot. Another hummingbird magnet.

Grevillea 'Long John' just keeps blooming away. The hummingbirds love this one, too.

And now to attack that pile of magazines next to the armchair. Spitting rain outside now — chance of thunderstorms the rest of the week. Hope a gentle rain falls on the Lake Fire area all week long.