The pump­kins every­one is gaga for!

These are THE pump­kins every­one is gaga for! Cre­ated by Laura Eubanks of San Diego, they are the per­fect com­bi­na­tion for a South­west­ern Thanks­giv­ing. I took Laura’s class at Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery in San Diego last Sat­ur­day, and now I’m going to share what I learned. First of all, it’s easy to get ter­rific results! Assem­ble the fol­low­ing: clear gel craft glue (Laura uses Aleene’s brand), a glue gun, spray glue, a pump­kin with a bowl shaped top, moss, small and mini suc­cu­lents, seeds, pods and dried buds (can be col­lected under trees).

Glu­ing on the moss

As you can see, the moss is ordi­nary — spray the top of the pump­kin well with the spray glue. You don’t want to glue any­thing on the sides as they won’t stick: con­fine the moss to the top. The moss should be ¹⁄₂ ” thick, pat­ted down.

A sam­pling of the materials

Now you are ready to start glu­ing on the larger suc­cu­lents and buds with the clear gel glue. The larger pieces should be glued first, towards the cen­ter. It’s best to have no stems or cut them very short and to have a vari­ety of col­ors if possible.

Next glue in the smaller suc­cu­lents, buds, pods, etc. with the same gel glue. Tuck lit­tle pieces in all over, mix­ing up the col­ors. You can see the first photo for guid­ance. It’s best to have a lot of stuff as that makes the pump­kins inter­est­ing. Seeds and pods around the perime­ter should be attached with a glue gun.

The pump­kin should dry for about 12 hours. Laura rec­om­mends the fol­low­ing care: keep out of direct sun­light, Mist with tap water once a week, keep indoors for up to one week at a time, best out­doors in a semi-​shady loca­tion. Laura had a pump­kin last for almost 9 months, although there are no guarantees!

Laura is sell­ing these along with Christ­mas pump­kins on her web­site, www​.design4seren​ity​.com. There is a lim­ited deliv­ery area as they are too heavy and frag­ile to ship. Laura and hus­band Greg Eubanks are both Mas­ter Gar­den­ers, and they offer “design and imple­men­ta­tion of inti­mate gar­den set­tings.” In addi­tion, Laura is a Mas­ter Com­poster (!), gar­den lec­turer, and con­ducts work­shops. Thank you, Laura, for your gen­eros­ity in shar­ing your pump­kins with my readers!

Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery is a won­der­ful neigh­bor­hood busi­ness in Pacific Beach, a sub­urb of San Diego. They are get­ting geared up for the hol­i­days with exten­sive offer­ings. Their web­site is www​.sdgreen​gar​dens​.com. They have a ter­rific suc­cu­lent col­lec­tion for sale, as well as some of Laura’s pumpkins.

On the web:

Fri­day, 11/​4 — Sun­day ¹¹⁄₆ Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery (see above) will be hav­ing their Annual Hol­i­day Open House with refresh­ments and a 15% dis­count on gift shop items. Fri­day 4 — 7pm, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day 8am — 5pm. (858) 483‑7846

Con­tin­u­ing my low coun­try trip, the next stop after Charleston was Savannah.More of a “real” work­ing city than Charleston, Savan­nah is home to the ter­rific art school SCAD (Savan­nah Col­lege of Art and Design), and has a very “lived-​in” look. There are lit­tle restau­rants and bars in every square (and some alleys). We enjoyed tour­ing the famous 22 squares, or vest pocket parks, with Jonathan Stal­cup, a local archi­tect who restores and sells his­tor­i­cal struc­tures (www​.archi​tec​tural​sa​van​nah​.com). The high point of the day was the urban for­est of South­ern live oaks, or quer­cus vir­gini­ana (ques­tion: if Eliz­a­beth the 1st hadn’t been a vir­gin what would they have named every­thing?) It must be such a priv­i­lege, liv­ing with these gor­geous trees. The heav­i­est of the native hard­woods, these trees were used for struc­tural beams and ship build­ing. Some of the old­est trees are over 1000 years old, with 35′ cir­cum­fer­ences and a height of 55′. They are uni­formly draped with tilland­sia usneoides, mis­named span­ish moss. My sis­ter Mary Lynn and I picked some to take home, ignor­ing the chig­ger warn­ings. The next day we had some bites and the tilland­sia went back on the trees!
On the web:

Tues­day, ¹⁰⁄₂₅:

• Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens, San Marino: Lec­ture on prop­a­gat­ing, grow­ing and car­ing for figs (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)
• San Diego Botanic Gar­den, Encini­tas: Suc­cu­lent wreath class (sdb​gar​den​.org)

Thurs­day, ¹⁰⁄₂₇: The Arbore­tum, Arca­dia: Prop­a­ga­tion work­shop with Dave Lar­rom (arbore​tum​.org)

Sat­ur­day, ¹⁰⁄₂₉:

• ***** Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery in Ojai (aus​tralian​plants​.com) is extend­ing their sale to Sat­ur­day, 10/​29 — Click on box to the right!*****
• Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion for Native Plants, Sun Val­ley: Native plant hor­ti­cul­ture with Lili Singer and Low Impact design class on man­ag­ing rain and irri­ga­tion water (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery, Ven­tura (nopali​tonurs​ery​.com) : Plant­ing, prun­ing and water­ing native plants in the fall /​free with preregistration.

And fewer calo­ries! Who would have thought that suc­cu­lents and pump­kins could mix! Mas­ter gar­dener Laura Eubanks did. She will be giv­ing a sem­i­nar at Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery in Pacific Beach on Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 22 at 2 pm on the cre­ation of these beau­ties. Laura was kind enough to give the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion for those of us who can­not attend: “We won’t have need to cut into the pump­kins as all of the suc­cu­lents are glued to a thin layer of sphag­num moss which, in turn is glued to the top of the gourd! With a lit­tle TLC, the suc­cu­lents will root right through the glue and into the moss. I have suc­cu­lent topped pump­kins from last year!” Inge­nious! Green Gar­dens will also be sell­ing some of the suc­cu­lent pump­kin cen­ter­pieces at the nurs­ery. (www​.sdgreen​gar​dens​.com) If you are not famil­iar with Green Gar­dens, take a trip to check it out! It’s a gem of a nurs­ery that offers espe­cially cre­ative shop­ping dur­ing the holidays.

HOLD THE PRESSES: 10/​16/​2011 — I will be able to attend the pumpkin/​succulent class on Sat­ur­day. I’ll take pho­tos and sup­ply instruc­tions so you can make these at home!

A 5 foot baby!

I took this on my recent tour of the Low Coun­try with my sis­ter, Mary Lynn. Not a great photo, but I didn’t want to get any closer. As per Wikipedia, since 1948 there have been more than 275 unpro­voked attacks on humans in Florida, of which at least 17 resulted in death. There were only nine fatal attacks in the U.S. through­out the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but alli­ga­tors killed 12 peo­ple from 2001 to 2007. In May 2006, alli­ga­tors killed three Florid­i­ans in less than a week. This photo was taken at Mid­dle­ton Plan­ta­tion out­side Charleston, South Car­olina. I was thrilled to see this guy out of the water as I had seen 3 in the water pos­ing as float­ing logs — not very excit­ing. I think he (or she) might be more of teenager than a baby. There were all sorts of fam­i­lies stand­ing around which didn’t phase him, but some­one closed the top on their stroller and bam, he was out of there!

An inter­est­ing fact: the range of alli­ga­tors is increas­ing north­ward along the Atlantic Coast towards Vir­ginia. Look out, Wash­ing­ton, DC! Our politi­cians may not be at the top of the food chain much longer!

And finally, I leave you with these words of wis­dom from nat­u­ral­ist and TV per­son­al­ity Jack Hanna: “The best thing to do is just leave them alone. Alli­ga­tors want to be away from you just as much as you want to be away from them.”

On the web:

Sales:

• The Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion for Wild­flow­ers and Native Plants Annual Native Plant Sale, Octo­ber 14 — 15 in Sun Val­ley (San Fer­nando Val­ley) (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• San Diego Botan­i­cal Gar­den, Encini­tas: 29th Annual Plant Sale, Octo­ber 15 — 16 (www​.sdb​gar​den​.org)
• Jun­gle Music/​Encini­tas: owner Phil Bergman has posted a “new arrivals” sec­tion on his web­site show­cas­ing new palm trees, cycads and trop­i­cal plants (www​.jun​gle​mu​sic​.net)

Classes, etc:

• Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens, San Marino: every­thing you wanted to know about Gingko, Oct. 11/ Iris: the Rain­bow Flower Talk and plant sale, Octo­ber 13/​Flower Arrang­ing: the Crafts­man Esthetic, Oct. 15/​Orchid Sale and Show, Octo­ber 14 — 15 (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)
• Des­canso Gar­dens, Flintridge: In Praise of Grasses event and Paint your Gar­den with Wild­flow­ers lec­ture, Octo­ber 15 (www​.des​canso​.org)
• Potted/​Atwa­ter Vil­lage is spon­sor­ing a weekly con­test for best ter­rar­ium with a grand prize of $500.00 (www​.pot​ted​store​.com)
• Los Ange­les Arbore­tum, Arca­dia: lec­ture on Nat­ural landscapes/​Garden Spaces with Amy Net­tle­ton, Octo­ber 12 (www​.arbore​tum​.org)
• Fuller­ton Arbore­tum, Fuller­ton: Eat the yard: Organic Edi­ble Gar­den­ing Part I, Octo­ber 15