Posts Tagged ‘flower’

An entry from last year

First of all, thank you to my friend Alice for point­ing out that the Rose Parade is never on a Sun­day; there­fore it will be held Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 2nd. For those of us who like to see sparkling fresh flower cov­ered floats, I rec­om­mend going out to Pasadena Sun­day night some­time after about 9pm. All the floats are pulled up on Orange Grove Avenue in front of the Wrigley Man­sion wait­ing for the parade to start the next day. (What did you think, they wait until the last minute?) They are spotlit and it is a fes­tive scene…and you can get really close and see the detail. I took these pho­tos last year between about 10:00pm and 1:00 am. I can only tell you my expe­ri­ence, and hope that noth­ing has changed. I drove north on South Arroyo Park­way and parked as close as pos­si­ble to Orange Grove Blvd. between East Col­orado Blvd. on the north and East Del Mar Blvd. on the south. The streets are closed off to the east so you will have to walk up a hill but you will see some great old homes. Take some hot choco­late, have an adven­ture and let me know how it goes! Happy New Year to us all!!!

Another 2011 float

On the Web:

• Thurs­day, 1/​5, Los Ange­les Cac­tus and Suc­cu­lent Soci­ety talk on “Places you’ve never heard of, plants you’ve never seen” 7pm @ Sepul­veda Gar­den Cen­ter, Encino (www​.lacss​.com)

Sat­ur­day, ¹⁄₇:

- Rose prun­ing work­shop @ Los Ange­les County Arbore­tum, Arca­dia (www​.arbore​tum​.org)

- Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens sem­i­nar held in Pomona on Sam Mal­oof exhibit and sea­sonal gar­den­ing (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)

The O’Keeffe com­pound, Abiquiu, New Mexico

I had a deli­cious expe­ri­ence vis­it­ing the Geor­gia O’Keeffe stu­dio in Abiquiu, New Mex­ico this past week­end. Located about an hours’ drive north­west of Santa Fe, the Span­ish colonial-​era com­pound was the painter’s per­sonal home and stu­dio; Ms. O’Keeffe also painted nearby at Ghost Ranch. As the brochure states: “ Tour­ing her per­sonal home and stu­dio in Abiquiu gives you a remark­able, first­hand glimpse into the way she lived and views of the land­scape she loved. She cre­ated some of her most famous and iconic works here.”

Geor­gia O’Keeffe’s studio

Geor­gia O’Keeffe, who died in Santa Fe in 1986 at the age of 99, was one of the most impor­tant artists in the 20th cen­tury, and a pio­neer of Amer­i­can Mod­ernism. I espe­cially love her flo­ral paint­ings and land­scapes. She was coura­geous in her con­vic­tion that women could paint as well as men, a belief not widely held when she started painting.

The court­yard she painted so many times

A favorite quote of Ms. O’Keeffe’s:

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to some­one else.

On the web:

• Sept. 1 — 11: The Pot­ted Store/​Los Ange­les: Storewide Sale (www​.pot​ted​store​.com)
• Sept. 2 — 4: City Farm­ers Nursery/​San Diego: Mas­ter Chain Saw Carver George Kenny carv­ing demo and auc­tion (www​.city​farm​er​snurs​ery​.com)
• Sept. 3: Hunt­ing­ton Library and Gardens/​San Marino: 28th Annual Suc­cu­lent Plants Sym­po­sium (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)
• Sept. 5: Des­canso Gardens/​la Canada: Redis­cover the Cal­i­for­nia Gar­den talk and tour (www​.des​canso​.com)

Fan­tas­tic fresh arrange­ments graced the lobby of our hotel in Cairo on my recent trip to Egypt. Upon closer inspec­tion I real­ized the long stemmed roses were inter­spersed with long stemmed orna­men­tal kale — some­thing I had never seen done before. Really cre­ative, and thought provoking.….I won­der what other ways there are to use kale? I can def­i­nitely see using pink or red roses instead of white.

Orna­men­tal kale (Bras­sica Oler­acea) is a fall and win­ter bloom­ing form of cab­bage in which cen­tral leaves do not form a head. Closer to wild cab­bage than the type in the super­mar­ket, it is edi­ble but mostly used dec­o­ra­tively as the grow­ers use pes­ti­cides since orna­men­tal kale is not rated for human con­sump­tion. Won­der­ing how to get such long stems, I searched the Inter­net. Not sur­pris­ingly, Sun­set Magazine’s won­der­ful Fresh Dirt blog offered this advice on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2009: Plant (the orna­men­tal kale) about 6″ apart. After they reach 6″ tall, prune off the lower leaves until each plant gets that long stemmed, flower at the top look.

Freshdirt​.sun​set​.com

On the Web:

Sat­ur­day, ¹²⁄₄
Gar­den­ing in the Shade: From Trade-​offs to Pay-​offs /​1:00 — 3:00 pm /​a class with hor­ti­cul­tur­ist Carol Born­stein
Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion
10459 Tux­ford Street
Sun Val­ley, CA 91352
818−768−1802
Fee $30.00; pre-​registration required

Mr. Garner’s Dahlia field in Michigan

Ooh la la dahlias! It’s impos­si­ble to think of dahlias as any­thing but fem­i­nine. They are the “Can Can” girls of the flower world, with their curly petal pet­ti­coats and seduc­tive bright col­ors. I’ve been hav­ing a love affair from afar with these girls until recently, when I took the plunge. A dahlia now graces my front porch. It looks like the pur­ple and white beauty in the very left hand cor­ner of the photo above.

Dahlias are tuber­ous rooted peren­ni­als. They grow best in the sun, but appre­ci­ate after­noon shade in the hottest areas. Alas, dahlias need reg­u­lar water, and are much beloved by snails and slugs.

If you are for­tu­nate to have enough flow­ers to make a bou­quet, the best results will be pro­duced by doing the fol­low­ing: Cut your flow­ers in the early morn­ing or evening. Place the stems in warm water (100 degrees) for 1/​2 hour, and then use a vase filled with cool water. Dis­play in a cool loca­tion to extend vase life for about a week. Change the vase water daily.

If you would like to see more on Mr. Garner’s dahlias, go to the archives @ the right under Gar­den Travel/​page 4.