Tiny Monsters

It's the little things in the garden sometimes that excite me.  Little things, like the seed pods from Baby Blue Eyes, or Nemophila menziesii Hungry Hungry Hippoeing their seeds off into the world.  It's hard to tell if they're spitting something out or getting ready to take a big bite.  Flashy Spring flowers abound (and I do have plans to highlight my favorites here), but today it's the humble, brown seed pod that captures my fancy.

Ribes: For Those Impatient for Spring

While time ticks by slowly for most garden plants through the remaining months of Winter, California natives have emerged ready for Spring.  Ribes sanguineum, Pink Currant, I'll admit looks rather lackluster at the end of Summer.  Leaves turn rust-colored and sparse.  But come February the garden becomes a fairyland of hanging pink ornaments.  Delicate little earring droplets drip off the edges of branches while hummingbirds rush to visit each one.  Instant enchantment!

Violets and Douglas Iris sit at the Queen's feet, adding splashes of lavender to the scene.  I'll be honest and admit that I can't remember what variety this is.  I'll venture a guess at 'Claremont.' 

This lighter variety grows happily in a large container planted just over the Summer.  I love how lady-like this one is with her pink gloves on for tea!

Ribes speciosum, Fuchsia Flowering Gooseberry, has been going strong since January.  The outgoing, wild sister of sanguineum, this spined, arching shrub shoves out seemingly millions of these racy red drops.  The Summer months find these flowers transformed into fuzzy orange balls, slightly transparent and filled with black seeds.  To call them berries does not do them justice- more like special gifts from space aliens.  I can attest, however that they are sweet and quite tasty, although the seed to fruit ratio is about equal.  The perfect plant for a low-traffic part-sun area of the garden in need of color.  I imagine its brambles could deter roving bands of cats from entering through that hole in the fence you've been meaning to repair.  Or if I've totally lost you there, plant one for hummingbirds who have been known to nest in these.  It's a win-win!







 

Light Up the Night

If you manage the temerity to dash outside this evening, I would highly recommend plugging in a set of non-LED Christmas lights to tuck around the tender plants.  Not only will it protect them from our incoming snow (?!?), but it will also be a nice sparkly alternative to that old Strawberry Shortcake comforter.  Perhaps a quick check to remove dry, flammable material would be a good idea, too.  I can't imagine anything out there still being dry, but what's a suggestion without a disclaimer?  Bundle up and enjoy paging through all the plant catalogs coming through the mail!

Lovely Weather We're Having... Shoreline Edition

Funny how much time wedding planning takes!  I decided to take a little break yesterday, and armed with a chocolate milkshake I traversed to the MLK Jr. Regional Shoreline, one of my new favorite parks for its lack of people and abundance of birds and native plantings.  Imagine my surprise when I found the parking lot half full!  Apparently at high tides, the endangered Clapper Rail and other like-minded birds are displaced from their shore-side homes and take refuge at the end of the dock that extends into the marsh.  Birders of all degrees gathered on the edges with camera lenses bigger than the birds themselves, snapping photos and chatting.  Please follow me through a photo tour.

I'm so in love with the colors of this photo.  And the composition.  And how it takes a bridge and abstracts it into a series of lines and color.  Ok, I'm really proud of this one, even if it was just me documenting something interesting.

This is part of a disc-shaped sculpture- isn't the patina so lovely against the sky?  I wandered around the sculpture on a large expanse of lawn, admiring the new native plantings.  At the blink of an eye, a large bird emerged about six feet away from me seemingly out of no where and flew off to a distance.  The crowd of birders turned their tripods to me and this amazing creature and started snapping away.  "Is that...  an owl?!" I called over to them.  "Yes!"  Wow!  Sorry, Burrowing Owl to disturb you, but you were quite wonderful to happen upon!

Look closely in the bottom, left portion of the photo for the Burrowing Owl, sending me disgusted looks.  Obviously I don't have the sort of camera equipment that others at the park had...

A Crow (?) descends on a post, which for some reason is outfitted with an old satellite.

As I wandered around, I collected a few objects to assemble.  A large mussel shell, a leaf from a Salvia, and a downy feather found in a large, flowering Mallow among the Yellow-Faced Bumble Bees.  I loved it for the textures mixing together and the shadows the feather made on the shell.  It combined senses so well- touch, tactile, sight.  (I didn't feel like tasting was an option).

There ends our adventure!  How are you enjoying our respite from rain and gloom?

Where In The World Have You Been?!

Yes, yes- that was quite a blogging sabbatical.  I'm sure you haven't been worried sick about me, but I thought I might explain what I've been up to lately.

Foremost, leaves.  Oh, so many leaves.  Thank goodness for that last storm, battling them off their perches so we won't have to fight them again until next year.

Enjoying the views, from a picnic in Lake Merritt...

...to sunsets right out the kitchen window.

Testing the limits of the amount of plants the truck can hold.  Turns out the answer is lots!

Hosting friends for New Year's.  We created a tableaux to attract various things we wanted this year- riches, travel, love, light, friends.

Mostly I've been occupied by fermenting in the kitchen (that's a positive thing, by the way).  I'm anxiously awaiting my first batch of sauerkraut, made with the traditional juniper berries and a little bit of apple.  I'm continuously surprised by how easy it is!

My second loaf of Sourdough came out of the oven last night and I'm learning so much about the alchemy of bread baking!  Did you know you can attract the natural yeast in the air with flour and water?!  Anyone want some starter?

So as the new year continues, many new things are just waiting to inspire us.  I'm so excited to continue documenting my inspirations here.  It's great to be back!

A Study in Texture

 

Tufts of grass undulate and hopefully hold tasty morsels for a hungry coyote.  I love how this looks soft yet scratchy at the same time.

This building facade in downtown San Rafael seems superfluous, but I find myself fascinated.  How wonderful that the architect decided to add these aerodynamic rock-studded panels.  The repeating pattern sets an imposing tone by visually elongating the height of the building.

First grass, then rocks and now grass with rocks!  I know the owner of this garden meant for the rocks to suppress the weeds, but the harsh edges of the rocks are softened by the thin blades of grass and create layers to the surface.  Serendipity. 

How funny to have come across this composition of gravel and Fescue a week later at Osmosis spa in Freestone.  It's the varying sizes of grasses that really captured my attention, spreading as if they were a contagious condition.

This fuzzy fence at the Pierce Point Ranch in Pt. Reyes combines two of my favorite textures:  weathered wood with the ruffled softness of mosses and lichens.  Here's a detail.

I love the juxtaposition of the deep, clear lines of wood grain and the tiny details of the different plants growing on it.  The closer you get to look at it, the more you see.  It also doesn't hurt that it's following my favorite new color palette that I can only describe as faded dull. 

Updates and New Things to Click On!

Well aren't I just full of news today?  Not only did Idora HQ experience the first Monarch sighting in the front garden (seen here sucking on a Malacothamnus flower), but the website's been updated with pretty new pictures and Facebook folks can now visit a brand new spiffy Facebook page.  (You can also "like" any of the posts you see here with the button dealie at the bottom.)

I forgot how big Monarchs are!  Hopefully this one will enjoy the puny Asclepias fascicularis I planted a few months ago.  An exciting start to the morning and motivation to get all those plants and bulbs in the ground that I've accumulated over the past two months! 

Field Tripping Through Google Images: Veggie Edition

I'm preparing myself for the Winter veggie season and by preparing I mean obsess over my Seed Savers book and dream of having a neat, orderly set of plantings (really this time!  I mean it!)  I keep picturing a little knot garden, but I would substitute boxwood for lettuces or radishes as the delineating boundries and filling the remaining spaces with squares of perky Carrots, Golden Chard and sweet little leaves of Mache, not to mention a bevy of cutting annuals such as red poppies (last photo), Baby Blue Eyes and Collinsia heterophylla.

My favorite method of instant inspiration these days involves sticking a phrase in the Google and clicking on images to see what comes up.  Many times I get quite relevant images, such as this one from the Better Homes and Gardens site:

And sometimes I go careening afield, to wonderfully unexpected places.  This morning, I landed onto Instructables.com to find my next "brilliant" installation against the fence of my triangular vegetable bed.

I picture getting two or three of these to grow the diminutive Mache or maybe even some Nasturtium 'Empress of India' to trail down the sides.  Can you just imagine all the possibilities?!  With a shoe rack of all things!

The Philosophy of Bees

Just when I thought I was soo cool and knew all about the little visitors in my garden, this little green bee popped up and turned me into a gaping novice.  Oh.  My.  Stars!  A Metallic Green Sweat Bee!  In my garden!  Frantic snapping of photos insued, hence the blurry photo below.  Note also the white insect egg cases in the flower pom-pom in the background of the photo above.

Can you believe the color combo that Nature so effortlessly arranged?!  The pink Eriogonum and green Agapostemon was a good call.  It brings up the old philosophical question, "If a Green Sweat Bee lands on an Eriogonum and no one is around to take a photo, is the bee totally awesome?"

A Confession

Blog, I have to tell you something.  I...  I've been cheating on you.  It's true.  My unquenchable desires to create a park in my neighborhood have driven me to start a blog for the Idora Park community and I just haven't been able to spend as much time with you as I'd like. 
I'll make this work!  I can have two blogs at once!  Just don't be hurt, okay?


Friends of Idora Park

Getting Us Through the Gloom

This has got to be one of the gloomiest summers, but how can anyone let that bring them down when the sunflowers are so exuberantly making up for the lack of sunshine?!  This Titan sunflower is stretching to grow so big, it's shape has become curved!  I'm looking forward to finding little birds munching on the seeds later in the season, too.  Happy foggy Thursday, everyone!

Plant List: Dreamy Cottage Gardens

 English-style cottage gardens seem to be a popular style amongst many gardeners and who can blame them?  The British transcend garden geeky-ness to a level not seen elsewhere.  However, many of the plants that thrive across the pond take way too much water and fertilizer in these parts.  But us Californians are in luck- we've got an army of gorgeous flowery natives that not only run rampant in our meager garden conditions, but provide just as much flower power as the old garden standbys.  In fact for the last few centuries, many of our natives have gone abroad to fulfill the envies of British plant geeks.  A list for your amusement:

Penstemon palmeri (above) sends a rocket of soft pink, fragrant flowers into the mix.  The shape of the flowers look like a snapdragon that takes its vitamins, yet still creates a romantic ambiance in the garden.  What a wonderful contrast it would make with Monardella villosa!

Instead of surrounding the garden with the traditional yew hedge, consider a Calycanthus occidentalis.  The broad leaves provide a contrasting backdrop to the water lily-like crimson flowers, which smell like a barrel of red wine.  It goes deciduous in the winter and typically will require more water than the more drought-tolerant natives.  Takes shade! 

Platystemon californicus is a tiny-flowered annual that creates a pool of cream-colored flowers, puddled amongst the bases of larger flowering plants.  Pair with annual Phacelia or perrenial Penstemon heterophyllus for a shot of blue/white contrast.

Ceanothus became popular in the English garden in the mid 1800s and has become a staple for British gardeners.  A Ceanothus going from the dry, arid Californian landscape to the cold, drizzly British one attests to its stiff upper lip of adaptability.  Just remember, however that they're not overly fond of water.  Prune one into a small tree as a focal point or have a shrub in the background, waiting for the bevy of bees to visit in early Spring.

 
We can't neglect the old British garden favorite lavender, right?  While not native, lavender adapts well to our Mediterranean climate and does give the bees a run for their money.  Have you considered, however replacing the lavender with Salvia clevelandii?  The photo was the best I could do- I'm enjoying the scent so much whenever I run into her that I forget to snap a decent picture!  She's in the upper portion of the photo, floating above the Eriogonum grande rubescens, Erigeron karvinskianus and a lovely pink Echevaria (note:  last of these two not native).  The hummingbirds flip out over this one, but I plant this one for me more than anything else.  Yum!

Hangover in the Garden

You know the kind of night out where the next morning you wipe the crust out of your eyes, grab your head and wonder what.  in.  the.  world.  happened?*  Well, that explains the current state of the front garden.  The photo above shows the garden in full party mode.  Yeah, more Clarkias!  This is amazing!  Par-tay!

And now?  Well, see for yourself...

Aaah, make the pain stop!  You'd think that as a garden designer, I would have pages of sketches and scaled drawings detailing what goes where, charts to indicate bloom times and colors, etc.  I do those kinds of things for all my clients, but as the shoemaker's children run barefoot, my garden sits in the summer sun helpless.  Dried Clarkia petals litter the ground as a reminder of the swell time and I promise myself that this is the last garden hangover.  Never again!  Sketches and drawings, trips to the nursery and thoughtful transplantings on the way. 

*Special note to Grandma:  I don't really know what that's like, I'm just guessing what that's like...

Show and Tell: Tea Party Terrace

I've been sketching up a storm lately and just had to share this one.  We decided to go ahead with the other design, so this one will just live in my mind for the time being.  The privacy screens have frosted glass panels and open spaces to allow for light, but to obstruct the view of neighboring houses.  The dry-laid stone terrace has Armeria maritima popping through the spaces and Penstemons, grasses and succulents create a colorful border.  Anyone for a tea party?

Plant of the Week: Britton's Liveforever

When the annuals start looking crispy, Dudleya brittonii stays cool as a cucumber.  A sweet rosette of gray-white leaves, this succulent glows radiantly when paired with grasses and small-leaved natives.  From Baja, she's sort of pushing the boundary of CA native, so not on the wishlist of the purists out there.  Pink tinged stems rise Winter to Spring, bringing little yellow flowers with them.

Sun:  Part shade or morning sun is ideal.
Soil:  very well drained, containers with lots of lava rock are recommended if you're worried about garden soil conditions
Plant:  Anytime
But it:  Cactus Jungle!  Great nursery with bonus whippets.  I also wonder if the Dry Garden carries them...
Good for:  rock gardens, succulent gardens, white & gray gardens, contemporary gardens, planting into rock walls, adding alternative textures

Sea Scenes on the Seashore

Asilomar, on the Monterey Peninsula sits at the edge of the world, buttressed by kelp forests and craggy pools filled with fluttering sea urchins.  An exploration at low tide yielded eye candy to give my brain a sugar coma!  The dunes surrounding the beach received careful restoration and became a moonscape of soft gray-greens and off-beiges.  Pops of pink Sand Verbena and yellow Lupines looked florescent against the theme of neutral tones.

Life imitating cartoons?  That's what this seaweed seems to be doing, nestled in rocks with mussels.  I love their chunky "leaves" and it has me thinking of the fun (and tribulations) of creating a seaweed garden!

A trio of miniature sea urchins sat in the mouth of an anemone.  I'd never seen any this tiny and the patterns of the shells look almost Elizabethan.

Snarls of seaweed dotted the sand and I couldn't get over the colors and textures.  Who knew that yellow-brown could look so lovely when paired with cola and green?  (Is that why the '70s happened?)

Is this a limpet?  The memory of my 6th grade tide pool class fails me.  The shape evokes the pine cones on trees twenty yards away.  I love how this and the mussel colonies convey a message of community through adversity as the waves crash against them. 

Unfortunately, the photos of the little red and green crabs gurgling very threatening bubbles at me and the pools of anemones, starfish and hermit crabs didn't convey the richness of the experience.  All the more reason to take a day trip again!

Inspiration: Musical Compositions From the Creek

Imagine a wee bit of an adventure, roaming a creek bed and recording the sounds discovered there.  Part documentary, part art exploration, I tagged along with my friend Hugh to record the sounds of the creek in Leona Canyon.  I can't find the name of the creek now, but it does seem to be part of the Sausal Creek watershed.  Here's a fabulous teacher's guide that discusses the native plants found there, along with information about the Native American tribes who lived there.

Hugh has embarked on a special project of recording the sounds of the creeks in Oakland and composing pieces from & inspired by them.  Such a different experience for me to focus my attentions on a sense I rarely use when hiking- sound!

 I watched in wonder as Hugh "tuned" a creek with a special under-water recording device.  Moving stones in and out of the flow, he composed a fascinating sequence of sounds that had me mesmerized!  

Inspired by his project, I hopped about with new eyes- in the last few years it seems I have focused more on recording rather than discovering.  I found myself fascinated by the shadows of the waterbugs, the colors of the leaves glistening in the creek and the silhouette of hemlock flowers against the sky.

The shadow of fern fronds on a creek-side boulder suggest a frilly lace collar being dried and starched for the next tea party.

Beneath the dried and windblown grasses, little caches of fuzzy seed heads seemed like an ideal place for a bunny to be napping in the sunshine.

So much hemlock growing along the trail, which through the lens of a native plant geek is a horrible shame, but with the artists' eye they majestically filled the sky with pattern.