Posts Tagged ‘fruit’

A cac­tus vignette

My first night in New Mex­ico was spent at the home of col­lege friends Tom and Betsy. They live in Albu­querque, in a charm­ing area called Cor­ralles. Betsy is an artist and the vignette above is a great exam­ple of her artis­tic eye.

New Mex­i­cans can teach us a lot about los­ing the lawn! This is their front yard; the back is sim­i­lar. It’s a whole dif­fer­ent world of gar­den­ing there.

I really covet this big boy! He sur­vived a hel­la­cious light­en­ing and thun­der­storm the night before. I have never been so fright­ened in my life! It sounded like War of the Worlds out there. (We never get thun­der­storms where I live.)

On the web:

• Des­canso Gardens/​East Val­ley: ⁹⁄₁₇: Organic Veg­etable Gar­den­ing (www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org)
• The Theodore Payne Foundation/​East Val­ley: ⁹⁄17: Gar­den­ing with Cal­i­for­nia Native Bulbs @ 10am, Chu­mash Heal­ing with Native Plants @ 12pm (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• Los Ange­les Arboretum/​East Val­ley: ⁹⁄₁₅: New Roots talk with Emily Green and 9/17:Organic fruit and veg­etable gar­den­ing (www​.arbore​tum​.org)
• City Farm­ers Nursery/​San Diego: ⁹⁄₁₈: Grow­ing and pre­serv­ing herbs (www​.city​farm​er​snurs​ery​.com)
• San Diego Fall Home and Gar­den Show: 9/​16 — 18 (www​.fall​home​gar​den​show​.com)

Inside Rolling Greens

Scrolling through the nurs­ery web­sites on Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com, I have come across some ter­rific con­tent in unex­pected places that I would like to share. Always remem­ber that nurs­eries often put coupons and sale notices on their web­sites. I’m divid­ing the sites into two sec­tions; the first one follows:

East Val­ley:

• www​.sgnurs​erynews​.com (San Gabriel Nurs­ery): a newslet­ter, monthly advice, pho­tos of exotic plants they carry
• www​.theodor​e​payne​.org: see the great classes they give on native gardening

West Val­ley:

• www​.papay​a​treenurs​ery​.com: videos on how to prune spe­cific fruit trees like curry leaf and che­r­i­moya; “ask Alex” fea­ture; in the news/​miracle fruit; guide for choos­ing rare fruit trees for your yard.

Los Ange­les:

• www​.arm​strong​gar​den​.com: Gar­den­ing from A to Z answers many of your ques­tions; a Save Water fea­ture; Gar­den Guides help gar­den­ers at every level; a gar­den forum.
• Mick​ey​har​gi​tay​plants​.com: a beau­ti­fully designed web­site with music that will take you to the trop­ics; check out the links, you will be surprised!
• www​.rolling​green​snurs​ery​.com/​: a gor­geous web­site with music.

Orange County:

• www​.lagu​na​nurs​ery​.net: news and events; owner Ruben Flo­res offers a free walk­ing tour in the Laguna area most Sat­ur­days at 10am.
• www​.Cal​i​for​ni​a​na​tive​plants​.com (Tree of life nurs­ery): Guest speaker series, lots of native plant information.
• Trop​i​calvibe​.com: Lots of infor­ma­tion on palms, and their selec­tion and care.

To be continued.….….

On the web: Pot­ted storewide sale; 9/​10 — 9/​19; 20% to 75% off; www​.pot​ted​store​.com

Bot­tle tree @ RBG

I am vis­it­ing my brother Scott and his wife Kate in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. They live in Wal­nut Creek, about 25 miles east of San Fran­cisco and at the foot of Mount Dia­blo (site of a recent con­tro­versy con­cern­ing the name “Mt. Devil”, but that’s another story). There is a trea­sure right down the street from their house, the very first project of the revered Gar­den Con­ser­vancy. That would be Ruth Ban­croft Gar­dens, ded­i­cated to the preser­va­tion of as fine a col­lec­tion of water con­serv­ing plants as you will find on the planet. Started by it’s epony­mous founder in 1971, the 3 acre gar­den is located on a fruit farm owned by the Ban­croft fam­ily since the 1880’s. I have always found suc­cu­lents easy to love for their form, color, ease of pro­poga­tion and most of all archi­tec­tural good looks. The suc­cu­lent and cacti col­lec­tion @ RBG is thrilling for it’s con­trast­ing tex­tures, forms and col­ors, espe­cially in the spring.

The bot­tle tree (Brachy­chi­ton Rupestris) shown above is lit­er­ally a giant suc­cu­lent. Using it’s trunk for water stor­age, the Aus­tralian native is slow grow­ing up to 40′ in height; it doesn’t dis­play the bot­tle shape until 15 years along. The good news is that if you have more money than time the bot­tle tree can be trans­planted very easily.

Ruth​ban​croft​gar​den​.org