Posts Tagged ‘gardeners’

Mys­tery bloom and Trikke at the beach

Carpe Diem is a phrase made famous in a Robin Williams film — it means “seize the day” in Latin. Trikkers say “carve diem” because carv­ing is what you do on a trikke — you move your body in rhythm to pro­pel your­self, sim­i­lar to a skater or skier. What does this have to do with gar­den­ing? Absolutely noth­ing. But since I have this forum I’ll use it to tell the world about my healthy addic­tion! Actu­ally, we gardener’s all seem to grav­i­tate towards the same things, includ­ing but not lim­ited to the out­doors, plants, ani­mals, books, travel…So I believe I can slip trikking in there some­where. I first learned about trikking in an arti­cle in the Los Ange­les Times health sec­tion. I was struck with how enam­ored the prac­ti­tion­ers of this unique form of exer­cise were — to the point of addic­tion. I now fully under­stand their love for trikking — there is some­thing about the free­dom of move­ment expe­ri­enced on this 3 wheeled cam­ber­ing device. Plus the Trikke folds up, it’s low-​impact, never bor­ing — even Jimmy Carter does it! There is a whole lot more info on www​.trikke​.com.

Now…who can tell me what this gor­geous plant is.….Pleeeeeze? Go to com­ments below and put me out of misery.….I’m won­der­ing if it is a native? Either way I must have it!

Mys­tery bloom at beach

Go to http://www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​2​r​u​K​P​i​E​A​zz4 to see Pres­i­dent and Mrs. Carter on their Trikkes.

On the web: Sat­ur­day, July 30 events…

• Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery, Ven­tura (Ven­tura Nurs­eries on left): Make your own suc­cu­lent wreath workshop
• Sheri­dan Gar­dens, Bur­bank (East Val­ley nurs­eries on left): 10% to 40% sale
• Anderson’s La Costa Nurs­ery, Encini­tas (San Diego nurs­eries on left): see the amaz­ing Rex Bego­nia “Escar­got” on their web­site (www​.ander​son​sla​costa​nurs​ery​.com)
• The Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion for Wild­flow­ers and Native Plants, Sun Val­ley (East val­ley nurs­eries to the left): Show­ers to Flow­ers with Kim­berly O’Cain and Hyper­t­ufa con­tainer workshop
• Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada/​Flintridge (www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org): Sus­tain­able Gar­den­ing workshop
• Worm bin work­shop @ El Cora­zon Com­post Facil­ity, Ocean­side (www​.enros​.com)

The photo says it all…

A trip to Detroit would not be com­plete with­out a pil­grim­age to the mecca that is known as Detroit Gar­den Works. Why are there not sim­i­lar stores to this gardener’s Dis­ney­land in other large cities? That is because Deb­o­rah Sil­ver, the tal­ented owner of DGW, lives in Pon­tiac, Michi­gan and her store would not exist with­out her vision and, more impor­tantly, enthu­si­asm. A fine artist, Deborah’s gar­den­ing voca­tion started when work­ing at a nurs­ery. Grad­u­ally she cre­ated Detroit Gar­den Works, The Branch Stu­dio, a “made in Michi­gan” arti­sanal man­u­fac­turer, and Deb­o­rah Sil­ver and Com­pany, her land­scap­ing com­pany. In her “spare” time she blogs about her work on Dirt Sim​ple​.com.

It’s hard to describe what a great gardener’s par­adise DGW is. Every­where I turn I am inspired, by the plant­i­ngs, the stat­u­ary, foun­tains, antiques! I espe­cially love the orbs and I’m going to have one in my gar­den some­day. Most every­thing is avail­able online — Deb­o­rah isn’t afraid to ship any­thing! Check it out — where else are you going to find Thome­son Cud­worth Com­pany lawn edging?

www​.detroit​gar​den​works​.com, www​.the​branch​stu​dio​.com, www​.deb​o​rah​sil​ver​.com

Dog sculp­ture from The Branch Studio

Deborah’s real dog is not for sale..

Esmer­alda and new­born baby Gnat

What can one say about moth­er­ing and nur­tur­ing? Moth­ers aren’t always nur­tur­ers and nur­tur­ers aren’t always moth­ers. How­ever I find that gar­den­ers are always nur­tur­ing their plants and often the envi­ron­ment. Moth­er­ing a plant? Why not? My suc­cu­lents are like my kids. They seem almost human to me because the dif­fer­ent kinds have so much personality..brash, prick­ley, shy, cun­ning, gre­gar­i­ous, intro­verted and totally frustrating!

But get­ting back to Esmer­alda and Gnat, they are moth­ered by Susan of www​.far​m​girl​fare​.com. This wise and witty blog fol­lows Susan’s unique per­spec­tive of going from city to farm. Go on and if you like what you see, subscribe…you will not be disappointed!

I lost my mom in June of 2005 but I’m blessed with my won­der­ful mother-​in-​law Ruth. I never thought I would be a mom but I lucked out with my won­der­ful daugh­ter Holly.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who nurture!!

My suc­cu­lent babies

On the Web:

Ander­sons La Costa Nurs­ery, Encini­tas: 20% off on all fruit trees thru May 12 /​ander​son​sla​costa​nurs​ery​.com

May 7:

Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion, Sun Val­ley: 8 am: A birds eye view of native plants /​10 am: 3 part Native plant design /​theodor​e​payne​.org

Venice Gar­den and Home Tour, Los Ange­les /​Venice​gar​den​tour​.org

City Farm­ers, San Diego: Rais­ing Tilapia as sim­ply as pos­si­ble, 1:30 — city​farm​er​snurs​ery​.com

Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada: Iris Walk and Talk 11 am.…..Flower Mart Tour 7am — 2pm.…..May 8 Var­i­ous Mother’s Day events includ­ing brunch/descansogardens.org

May 7 & 8: Gera­nium Show at the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum –arbore​tum​.org

May 9: San Diego Hor­ti­cul­tural Soci­ety meet­ing: The Alchemy of Plants and Gar­dens: Source of Life and Inspi­ra­tion — sdhort​soc​.org

Con­di­tions in the Pacific Ocean seem to be shift­ing toward the return of the La Niña weather phe­nom­e­non, the lesser-​known rel­a­tive of the El Niño weather anom­aly, accord­ing to fore­cast­ers at the Jet Propul­sion Lab­o­ra­tory in Pasadena. What does that mean for SoCal gar­den­ers? Experts say a lot less rain in an area already plagued by drought conditions.

“Right now, I’d say the dice seem loaded for an immi­nent La Niña,” Bill Patzert, a long-​range fore­caster at the Jet Propul­sion Lab­o­ra­tory in Pasadena told the San Diego Tri­bune. “It’s not a good sign. La Niña is what I call the diva of drought for the Southwest.”

The U.S. Cli­mate Pre­dic­tion Cen­ter said a large num­ber of com­puter mod­els indi­cates “the onset of La Niña conditions.”

La Niña is char­ac­ter­ized by unusu­ally cold ocean tem­per­a­tures in the Equa­to­r­ial Pacific, com­pared to El Niño, which is char­ac­ter­ized by unusu­ally warm ocean temperatures.

In the past sev­eral weeks, ocean tem­per­a­tures have dropped significantly. And from Bill Patzert, “For those who think in terms of “nor­mal” rain­fall for Los Ange­les: “Nor­mal is a cycle on a wash­ing machine.”

The pre­dic­tion map below is from the National Weather Ser­vice site. The first map is for Sep-​Oct-​Nov/​2010 and the last map is for Aug-​Sept-​Oct/​2011. The white areas are nor­mal rain­fall, the green above nor­mal, and the brown areas are below nor­mal. I’m tear­ing out my lawn as soon as I can afford it.