New Urban Gardens

Forager's Project: pinecone wreath

2011-11-30T08:17:00.001-08:00

This 3-foot wide wreath was made for a vacation home in Bear Valley, California. On a walk in that area I found a coil of rusted wire on the side of the road which I used as a base for the wreath. The pine cones and Wolf Lichen were all collected from underneath the property's Jeffery Pine and attached with galvanized wire.

When foraging for natural decorations I always follow my strict code: collect only obvious castoffs or materials from the street or from materials fallen from a plant (no snipping,
no matter how tempting).

No you don't, you bad squirrel.....

2011-08-31T12:41:00.000-07:00

The summer days are ticking by and none of our sunflowers have been robbed by squirrels lately, so I'm thinking my repellent concoction is actually working!

It's so disappointing to go out into the garden and see that the (your choice of adjective) non-native-invasive-but/and-protected-in-Palo-Alto European Gray Squirrels have broken down a branch and chewed off a big flower head, the half-eaten carcass of which will turn up in various comfy squirrel lunch spots around the yard in shambles.

Now that we are growing more food and I'm paying much more attention, I've noticed that squirrels are very picky about ripeness, given the apples, plums and figs, and whatever else in the garden they ruthlessly toss after a testing bite or two. So I concluded that they must have a fairly sophisticated sense of taste. Well…but Patrick saw one of them dragging a small deer antler across the fence top. Must have been for nesting.....

I made an oily liquid that I can paint on the back of the sunflower just where it meets the stem, and including about 2 inches of the stem below. This does not harm the plant.

Thinking that the smell and hot pepper alone would keep them from biting off flowers, I was chalking up a failed garden experiment as one flower disappeared and then another. Then I noticed that after a week, and now two weeks, they are leaving the sunflowers alone.

The application of the concoction is labor intensive at first. You must paint the backs of all the flowers in bloom once or twice as described above, and be prepared to sacrifice a few to the uninitiated squirrels. But it seems that when they get the message, they will avoid the bed of flowers altogether. Bear in mind that this is the first time I've tried this method and it remains untested for the rest of the sunflower season and other years, and on the sunflowers of neighbors. But the results so far are impressive and I thought it would be worth sharing the recipe with you.

Paint-On Squirrel Repellent For Sunflowers:

1/4 - 1/3 cup vegetable oil, the more rancid the better
3 - 5 drops of dishwashing liquid
1 or 2 fresh hot chiles, chopped finely

Combine everything and let it sit covered in the sun for a day or two, then paint on as described above with a small, flat artist's brush.
Label and store it carefully and be sure to keep this away from children. It looks like a pretty juice or Jell-o. As always when handling hot chiles, take extra care to protect your skin and eyes. Wash knives and cutting surfaces thoroughly afterwards.

what hula hooping has to do with garden design

2011-07-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Gyroscopic spinning may not be many people's idea of meditation, but it is mine.

In the hoop I turn the moment over to musicians to work their magic, and just about every muscle I own is occupied keeping the thing going. Any mental dreck that dares to try to make it across my internal dance floor drowns in what is flooding my ears via the iPod Shuffle and the whirling of the hoop. You know, in a hula hoop you can close your eyes and keep turning and turning and you won't drift and bump into things. With all my attention on rocking out and spinning, the weight of whatever I perceive as problems has to sit in the corner while I get to be at home with myself in the hoop for awhile.

What hooping has to do with gardening is related to what landscape architect James van Sweden talks about in his book, The Artful Garden. Interviewing a range of artistic, musical, dance, horticultural and design virtuosos who also garden avidly, he asks them how their skills in one field translate into landscape art and what advice they would give to the rest of us.

He is asking us, and helping us learn how to look at the creation of gardens in a broad way that encompasses more than ornamentation and horticultural conventions, so that we may create living, passionate spaces that express the flow of life. He says,

"What we can translate into our art from other forms--music and dance, or painting, whatever you like--is not just technique. There's also an understanding about purpose. "

and

"Not only will your experience with music and the other arts enhance your gardening, but what you accomplish with trowel and spade will enrich the pleasure you find in other arts."

Hula hooping is fun. A flying and intuitive kind of activity, it later renders its imprint into things as mundane as how I water my newly planted lettuce pots in a careful spiral, or better--allows percolating ideas to break through the overcast of repetitive and analytical thought or the grind of difficult collaborations.

And it makes those 50-foot garden hoses a little easier to lug around.

Potato bag experiment: harvest day!

2011-06-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

This may look like the picture of garden disaster, negligence and some poor face to face with the garden, but it is a happy success. I let the potato tops shrivel before harvesting, and they've been waiting warm and dry for the momentous harvest day, today.

Here are some facts.

We used two pounds of potatoes to start, and harvested an average of 1 and 1/2 pounds for every 1/4 pound of potato planted. We got twelve pounds of potatoes out of eight bags. In my garden book, this is success. Especially since they were well-formed and disease-free.

Potatoes ranged in size from 1/2 ounce to 12 ounces each. The very tiny and very huge ones were at either end of the spectrum with only about six potatoes weighing one ounce or less and three over ten ounces. Most ranged from four to seven ounces each.

We lost five potatoes to rot. These had formed at the bottom of the bags where the soil had become compacted. If I do this again in bags, I'll add about 15% vermiculite or perlite to the first soil layer, and remove the recycled plastic reinforcement card that comes with the bag. Five potatoes is a lot when your whole crop numbers less than 40.....

The Mollie Stone's bags all suffered degradation from the sun, and ripped when we pulled them up. The Whole Foods bags were thicker and did not suffer this fate so they would make it through another year, but probably not more. But now what do I do with the useless bags that ripped? It would be better to use bags that are made to grow potatoes in, or use another creative and sturdier structure to leave the grocery bags for groceries. Their lifetime as a useful recycled container has abruptly ended unless they can become material for another garden situation. Not going to throw them away just yet.

We planted Viking Blue potatoes with delicate skins and firm white flesh. The bag method of growing ensures that no shovel damage will occur since it just requires a careful dump of the bag into a wheelbarrow to get the potatoes. Easy and fun.

Carefully washed and dried, they will now go into the produce bin in the refrigerator, kept as close to 40 degrees as possible with low humidity. Although I did consider it, I'll stop short at storing them blanketed with straw in the fridge drawer, but I did hear that rosemary tucked in with them will help keep them from sprouting. Ha! As if we will be exercising enough restraint to keep this succulent bit of summer stored for any length of time.

Still growing is another batch of the same variety that we started using the traditional planting method a month later. They are taller and can be hilled up higher than the bagged ones.

Stay tuned for the results of the ground harvest!

You, too, can lift heavy pots

2011-04-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

Having much of our garden in containers, we find ourselves moving them around often. And we have some huge pots! A couple of years ago at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show I picked up a Pot Lifter, and it has become my very favorite garden tool. There is no way we could move some of our pots without it. Like velcro--can't imagine not having it. $30 is a small investment to make for back safety and that surge of macho confidence.

This YouTube video explains it all.

I've noticed it's popularity increasing, and see it now at garden centers. It's also available through amazon.

Potato bag experiment update, and a new garden bed

2011-04-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Just look how much these potatoes have grown since my April 6 post! They grew so fast I was adding soil almost daily to keep up with them. Now the bags are full of dirt, and now we wait. I have high hopes for these grocery bags. They are porous but not too much, strong, and are made of recycled materials that won't break down in water. Here's a great series of 5-minute videos from Taunton Publications on how to grow potatoes:

Homegrown / Homemade: Potatoes - Vegetable Gardener

Last fall we built a small raised bed near the kitchen door for all things allium--the onion family. We planted multiplier onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, chives, and tulbaghia (Society Garlic), which, because of its variegated striped leaves, looks very pretty in salad when cut on an angle into 1/2" pieces. We also threw in some decorative alliums with foofy blossoms, some lavender poppies, cerinthe and alyssum to attract the good bugs.

For the last three years we have been so busy building soil and the garden's structure, that this is the first year we've really had a chance to notice nuances. From last year's plantings we have learned a lot about gardening with an abundance of shade, and are now getting a feel for our garden's rhythms. Every year is a new education!

Garden drama

2011-04-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

photo of Cotesia glomerata, used with kind permission of Dr. L. T. Kok, Dept. of Entomology, Virginia Tech

An Integrated Pest Management class I am currently enrolled in is the reason I know about this short film about part of the life cycle of a parasitic wasp. It is fascinating, and will make you wonder how on earth this situation evolved between the wasp, the caterpillar and the virus.

Of course, I had to share it with my two beloved siblings who, from time to time, try to get me to look at revolting natural wonders. Both of them are smart, funny and quick.

Brother:
"In the 19th Century, some scientists held up this kind of stuff as proof that there was not God."
Sister:
"It would make a non-believer out of me, though I wondered if the caterpillar might be tripping or experiencing accelerated karma balancing."

Then there is this vexing idea to toy with: that the whole earth might be some sort of "host caterpillar" experience.

Somehow I feel more at ease with the state of the world today.

In case anyone gets mad at me for thinking of the world this way, remember that I am not a chemical manufacturer riffing on chlorinated hydrocarbon garden "solutions" originally designed for warfare.

I must warn you that this suspenseful film is gross and will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I saw it first without the smooth, British female voiceover and gripping music. However, I think those two things enhance it and fling it into a rather surreal realm, you know, to keep us watching for those 4+ minutes.

(This has been viewed over a million times:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMG-LWyNcAs

Potato bag experiment

2011-04-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

Having overdone it a bit buying reusable bags from grocery stores, and since they don't fit into my purse like my favorite Baggu kind, and since I would like to squeeze out some more planting areas near our raised beds, I decided to plant potatoes in eight of them this spring.

The bags are held together with large binder clips, and are resting on a couple of 2 x 4s to keep them off the ground. I left the recycled plastic bag bottom card in for stability.

Most bags got only one chunk of sprouter potato; some got two. I started them with a little soil in the bottom of the bag and have been filling them up to their plant necks with compost-rich soil every few days as the sprouts get bigger. I heard that the soil buildup method will make more potatoes, although it does require more time and attention until the bags are full. I am eager to see how many pounds of potatoes we will get out of this area which takes up less than 1' x 6'.

Brand new spring!

2011-03-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

If I were to stroll with you around our yard in the sunny breaks between showers today, here are some new spring joys we would see. The most exciting thing would be the wren house turned native bee nesting box. It has been hanging from a huge Victorian Box tree in the wild back part of the yard, and a wren found it quickly after I set it out last year. I planned this week to clean it out for spring nesting, and found that it has been taken over by native bumblebees! Gladly, I'll just have to make a new wren house.

Columbines started to bloom this week. California Fescue, Miner's Lettuce and Wild Strawberry are all putting on a show. Winter snow peas are bearing bountifully, grape leaves and raspberry canes are popping out, multiplier onions and new lettuces are all coming along. Spring's great momentum is picking up speed!

little cold bees today

columbine

new grape leaves

new raspberry canes

just a few days away from eating time

squirrel-proofed multiplier onions

snow peas

Prayer of healing for Japan

2011-03-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

A little late winter movie

2011-03-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Our magnolia always puts on a late winter show! The finches are frolicking in it these days.

c o l d tonight!

2011-02-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

barely up

It's supposed to be near freezing tonight. Old sheets, curtains and beach towels come out this evening to cover the lemon and lime trees, lettuce pots and fledgling pineapple guava. A couple of weeks ago during the unseasonable warm spell, I planted more lettuces, chard and arugula. Today they get a straw blanket. Will I see you tomorrow, tiny sprouts?

ready for the cold snap

It's not dew, it's...guttation

2011-01-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

What a delicate and lovely phenomenon to have to sport such a heavy name. I learned about it as a kid from one of many casual botany lessons from my father. I distinctly remember him exclaiming, as he pointed out the dewy drops, "The plants are guttating!" Never one to patronize me, he would never use terms like "fairy dew," although I would have enjoyed that.

Being more the artist and less the scientist, I thought, "Oh, cool" instead of "OMG, where's my science book." (Well, back in the sixties no one said, "cool." I probably used the word, "neat" because I was way too haughty to say "groovy.")

These years later, I can recognize guttation and know it has something to do with water pressure in the leaves. Wayne from Athens, Georgia has an explanation of it that no one can rival, which you must read.

Here are some pictures of it from my garden, early one warm January morning recently.


Nasturtium

California Fescue

Burnet


California Poppy

2011-01-08T15:05:00.000-08:00

mâche

2011-01-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

My favorite winter green: tidy, succulent, delicious mâche. Grows well in pots. I keep mine on the deck just outside the kitchen for easy access in the rainy season. As with Miner's Lettuce, I sow the seeds in the fall, and it comes up when it is ready to, providing constant and prolific greens throughout the winter. I always let some go to seed for the next year.

Forager's Project: bountiful Thanksgiving decorations from outdoors

2010-11-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

Rain or shine, every Thanksgiving morning I like to go outside to gather whatever I can find to make decorations for the dinner table. Often there is plenty in the yard, but I always go for a walk around the neighborhood to see what I might find at the curb. The gathering rules are: pick up only what is in the street, no nabbing from neighbors and no snipping.

Some big storms a few days ago blew down a lot of eucalyptus and fir branchlets, and many other fallen leaves are still bright and colorful. Here was my pile of raw materials:

No need for water. I started with a scrap of foam building insulation and pressed holes in it to hold parts of the arrangement, then started to lay branches over it as a base, with some upward-curving branches and definitely no branches poking out toward any guests! Keeping it low so guests can see and talk over it.

Adding some beautiful oak leaves that had blown into our yard...

Now to fill in with eucalyptus, the smaller bits and pieces and some more upward branches. I decided to edit the colors to brown, blue-green and gold:

These will tie in nicely with the tablecloth:

Table set!

Now to use the leftover plant materials. Some for the hallway buffet:

And some for the mantel:

As I arranged these gentle things yesterday I thought a lot about my aunt, Martha Dale, and my friend Dolly Steyer, who both passed away this week. The passing of these two beloved women has caused me to appreciate even more the ephemeral beauty of the fall and these leaves and twigs that today, have already faded and curled. In their memory I made what I hoped would would please our guests. To honor my Aunt Martha, whose mashed potatoes were always divine, I made some I know she would have liked.

Grow It! 8 Compelling Reasons for Growing Some of Your Own Groceries

2010-09-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Grant Wood, Spring in Town, 1942

More people than ever are breaking ground for food gardens, and here are eight inspiring reasons why:

Better taste. Homegrown food has superior taste, freshness and nutrition, especially from organic, high-quality soil.

Better health. Homegrown produce is pesticide-free and more nutritious. Gardening is good exercise, meditative and calming.

Higher quality of life for kids. A garden draws the family outside more. Children are highly receptive, and a garden sparks their imagination and curiosity.

More control. You become the food producer, not just the consumer. You know exactly how it was grown, freshness is guaranteed and you control the cost.

Less waste. Packaging is greatly reduced. Unused green matter gets composted and returned to the soil.

Reduced fossil fuels in the food chain. Petroleum based fertilizers, plastic packaging and trucking are eliminated.

Increased property values. Well-kept, water-efﬁcient yards with curb appeal and excellent soil boost home value and become jewels of the neighborhood.

Stronger connection with nature. We become aware of natural laws and cycles and the interdependence of all life forms through the seasons. Many natural wonders await when we are outside to witness them.

A bounty of help is available for aspiring vegetable gardeners. Blotanical is a worldwide hub of garden bloggers that is a rich source of tips, lore, humor and how-to pictures.

Also, a new and exciting website for the rapidly expanding community of gardeners in California has launched and is looking for contributors. The site, Your Garden Show, was created by a Master Gardener and an Emmy-award-winning producer and is designed to be easy to use, fun, and inspires new and seasoned gardeners to share their experiences. More information about YourGardenShow.com can be found in this online press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/gardens/plants/prweb4073104.htm. More and better gardeners means better public health and stronger communities!

The Ten-Minute Apple Peeler Hack

2010-09-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Gravenstein was loaded and Patrick picked all the apples.

Not really thrilled ( especially Patrick) with the idea of peeling and coring them all, we decided to look into mechanizing our task a bit with an apple peeler.

We have to get things done fast at our house, especially if we are smacking our lips at the prospect of apple pie. So we looked on the internet to see what kinds of peelers are out there.

We had a few choices. We could spend more at Williams Sonoma or mail order and have to wait a few days, or go straight to Bed Bath and Beyond and get one for $19.99. We went to BB&B; "What could possibly go wrong?"

After just a few apples, the main cutter/corer part started to bend down and out of the way as the apples were twirled through the mechanism. "What?! What kind of sorry piece of equipment is this?!!" Fortunately the part had a wing nut on it, but the directions had no information about gladly offering to sell replacement parts.

With the intensity of yellowjackets aiming for a picnic lunch, we just looked at ourselves and our big bucket of apples, then headed for the Small Hardware drawer in the garage (yes, we do have a drawer labeled like this). We found a flat L-bracket that Patrick quickly cut a piece off of with a hacksaw (because he is so good), drilled out the hole to make it big enough to fit the offending part's base screw, then outfitted the weak and wimpy thing with a brace strong enough to withstand any Behemoth & Beyond apple drilled through it.

Things went fine after that.

We made our pies. And applesauce, too.

play the Name The Hardware game

Make Something: Patrick's Gate

2010-06-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Dreaming about turning the dog run into a chicken palace, we (my husband Patrick and I) cut an entry hole in the dog run fence to fit this salvaged arbor. There was a hole there for awhile, but I finally came up with a 2-door gate design for it. It's mostly recycled wood, but what we didn't find at Whole House Building Supply in East Palo Alto we bought: hinges, carriage bolts and the hardware cloth mesh. The crosspieces with holes were leftover edge trimmings from recycled doors we made a greenhouse out of. (Bear in mind that whenever I use the term,"we" when talking about ripping out fence sections or building greenhouses, that generally means "Patrick.")

Whole House is our candy store.

At my insistence Patrick agreed to build my design with lap joints, even though the curves made it rather hellish given that we are sans-table saw and some other helpful Norm Abram kinds of tools. However, Patrick rocks.

We used leftover paint from our house trim to paint the gate. I love this creamy red because it is sort of pink, sort of rust, and bright without being too bright. Kind of like cream of tomato soup. It works beautifully with a wide range of red and orange flowers. Kelly Moore Paint Co. came up with the name "Truffle Trouble," haw.

Make Something: Mini Greenhouse for Sprouting Seeds

2010-06-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

I wanted some sunflowers, and I wanted them fast.
Searching through my Little Bowl Drawer in the kitchen, I found a dome and a bottom for a mini seed sprouter. The dome is the egg-yolk sized mixing bowl from a set, and the bottom is a votive holder from the thrift store. Lucky me, they were just the pair.

I soaked the seeds overnight. (Caution–never let seeds soak more than 24 hours.) Then I wrapped them in a damp paper napkin saved from a trip to the coffee shop. Within two days they were sprouting, and are now in pots stampeding out of the soil.

Garden Blooper Day

2010-05-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Waxing nostalgic over all my experiences in the garden, I would like to say–in italics–just how much I have learned from them, including these highlights below. I can tuck them in to the Garden Wisdom hat band and some day I may get to wear it.

1. I have planted Ivy, Pink Jasmine and Wire Vine thinking I would be the boss.

2. I planted Chalk Dudleya and Eriogonum longifolium in heavy clay.
3. I encourage purple finches to nest near the house. (present tense)
4. I cut a downspout off the house with the Sawzall so I could attach flexible tubing for rainbarrels.
5. One time I thought I could run a laundry basket quantity of old but wet bulbs through the shredder.
6. A few times I thought I could run grasses through the shredder.
7. I thought the shredder was a little more heavy duty.
8. I thought I could string mini-lights in the trees and the squirrels wouldn't chew through them.
9. Not realizing that Green Zebra tomatoes were a late crop, I tore them out too soon. ( This is one of the best ones, don't you think?)
10. I thought I could remember where all the drip tubing around the plants is located.
11. I left my Stevia plant out all winter thinking, "This is California, it'll make it."

I would love to hear if anyone can top these.

No existential angst today

2010-05-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

How could I feel woebegone about anything today when tiny seeds have leapt out of the soil in two days; a fast forward toward becoming lush lettuce greens for me to enjoy in a few short weeks?

Eye on water

2010-05-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Memory serves me well with help from relatives as I piece a picture together of growing up with water conservation at the forefront of daily life. The water saving habits that were practiced one hundred years ago on our farm in eastern Illinois have followed my family through the present generation, and are coming in very handy here in California these days. (View the
May Department of Water Resources allocation update and the DWR final snow survey of April 30, 2010)

Two vital things at my grandparents' farmhouse there were, in my childhood estimation, enormous and mysteriously out of sight but also holding sentry at every turn of the faucet handle: the cistern and the septic tank. It was OK to bathe, do laundry and wash dishes with a minimum amount of the heated cistern water, but we cooked, drank and brushed our teeth with water from the well–capped with a long, cast iron pump handle polished smooth and bright from decades of coaxing the water by hand up to its faucet. Before electricity, water was hand carried into the house. By the time I was born an electric water pump had been installed and well water was available in the house. Frugal usage habits and the squeaking hand pump outside remained. It was hard work for kids to muscle up several pumps to make the water whoosh out at what I thought was an alarming rate, but we did it for the thrill, and sometimes to help. The well was set away from the graceful white clapboard house next to the root cellar, the clothesline and the dinner bell. The cistern, I learned only recently, was a round, underground cement tank used frequently in plains homesteads in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was underneath the house to store collected rainwater, and was the only source of water for the house until the well was drilled years later.

According to my aunt who was born in the house during the 1920s, there were drought years when the cistern went dry and water was trucked in from town. But from its beginnings as a log cabin in the 1800s until its sale and subsequent disintegration in recent years, no municipal water was ever connected to the house.

Funky House Finch-ness

2010-05-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

People maybe were thinking of house finches when they coined the term, "bird brains," although upon giving this further consideration, I sadly realized there are way too many derogatory attributes foisted on animals and then applied to humans for humor or otherwise.

I am lucky enough to have front row seats to the flighty and charming but somewhat confounding behavior of house finches while they nest in the corners of the deck that overhangs our living room. There is a junction box up in each corner that they fancy is a good enough spot to nest on top of. For days I watched them tirelessly lug in piece after piece of soft grass and jasmine only to watch each one slip off the surface to the lower deck. The finches peer down at the tumbling materials as if thinking, "huh," then fly off to find more. Finally I helped them out with a piece of chicken wire, and then they were able to get on with building their casually elegant nest. I was so excited! "How cute to have little birds nesting so close by." How naive.

The eggs hatched, and rather than indiscriminately let the babies' droppings fall out of the nest, Mrs. Finch tidily piled them up around the rim of the nest. As you can vividly imagine, after about two plus weeks of that it was quite a wall. What a way to sap all the romance out of a situation. Moreover, I was not a fast enough maid for the Finch household, so a new nest for round two that season was built on top of the old one.

It was months into the winter before I mustered the will to get up there on a ladder and clean everything off of the junction box. You can bet I had my neoprene gloves and face mask on, because there was no way any of that bird ick was going to end up on me! It was a long and tough scrub, even with Bon Ami. So this year I devised a shoebox barrier that I can just remove and compost when fall comes.

If you've read this far you probably can't wait to see the recycled shoebox contraption:

fresh lettuce

2010-04-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

I'm up to my armpits in prickly nylon fencing as I lean over it to reach into the mini-forest of onions, lettuce and garlic, but it's a small price to pay not to have to share the bounty with the dog, who is also known to emerge green-faced from tomato bushes. ( She really likes Green Zebras. ) I love the end of the day when I can take my lettuce spinner basket out to gather fresh and varied lettuce leaves for the evening meal. The leaves are so delicate, they wouldn't keep overnight, and demand only a kiss of dressing.
This is so satisfying, to go outside and gather food. The 2' x 4' patch is surprisingly bountiful. I overwintered the seeds knowing they would be up when they were ready, which gave me a fine jump on the salad season. The quickest way I know to feel as proud as a rooster is to grow some lettuce in a small space.
I did relent and let the dog have a few leaves......

My Native Garden Tour of One

2010-04-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Poppies and Tidy Tips from my front yard meadow, April 17

I have my Color Police hat on today

2010-04-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

At some point I got to the age where some events in the world are more entertaining than upsetting. One entertaining thing I do almost all the time--especially at stop lights--is to look at colors and fantasize about how I would make paintings or drawings or a combination of plants from them. So it was impossible to escape one of the most bizarre plant/building color combinations along Highway 101. I think it is so unpleasant it is almost funny; especially since it is so flagrant and big right next to the highway there, with its little hyper-bright sidekick, the sign flashing our favorite advertisements and announcements. Yes, I'm talking about you, IKEA in East Palo Alto.

Now at first glance, you might wonder what complaint I have about blue, yellow and the nice red of the VW bug in this photo:

Well, none, because these are all primary colors of the same intensity, which evoke a zesty feeling.

Now as we step around to the side of the building, here is what I find so...stimulating.

Here is the huge, clear blue side of the building which is totally sucking the color out of the brownish-purple plum tree, a lovely tree when it is not weathering the hot breath of primary colors picking color family fights.

The also lovely pink geraniums in the rim planters and light pink flowers of the plum in springtime are forced to contribute such a color indiscretion that it would be hard to think up something worse on purpose. This is the color equivalent of eating dill pickles with chocolate, or salsa on ice cream. Sorry...made you look.

Color Policewoman, badge #91ADE5, recommends bright green or yellow-green foliage. White, red, orange or yellow flowers would hold their own against such an intense blue and might even sass that flashing sign as well.

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful? And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” — John Cage

Floating coffee cup as a metaphor for gardening

2010-03-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Even though it is pitch dark when I first hear the robins twirp, I know I have about fifteen minutes before other birds chime in, and then it's time to get up. This is a good hour to get into the hot tub on a Saturday morning, when everything else is very quiet as the east lightens. Some stars are still out, and the moon has already dipped into the west. The water is hot and still.

I've already had half of my coffee, and the cup is coming to the tub with me. As I soak and ponder I wonder if I can get it to float. Very carefully I hold it and gradually release my hands, ever mindful of the potential disaster and subsequent work to correct it. It does! So I just sit and watch it in the reflections of trees and sky for a while, as it heads toward the filter outlet. Cautiously I wave my hands very quietly in the water below it and discover I can get it to travel in another direction. The whole thing is in such delicate balance that if I were to move any other way than slowly and deliberately, it would topple.

Steering it around with calculated movement relates directly to the balance of the garden. Understanding the responsibility, I want to manage it with a gentle and custodial hand, always watchful and respectful of this place to work, play and learn from all that is in it.

Happy first day of spring

2010-03-20T08:54:00.000-07:00