It was just too much...

Yellow is one of my favorite colors, along with blue and green.  However, the large size, florescent yellow color, and sheer number of Aeonium arboreum flowers puts me on edge after awhile.  I look at my garden and can't see anything but those bright yellow flowers.  I told a neighbor it felt as though the triffids were on the march throughout the space.

These lined the back patio, interfering with the flow of traffic

These crowded up against the backyard Ceanothus hedge

They made an appearance in the cutting garden in front of the citrus trees

And they were all over the front garden

This was their most triffid-like setting.  Can you see the neighbor's cat in the background at the end of the path on the right?  Even he seemed wary (although he may just have been waiting for me to go away).

Another view of the "march" along the front garden

So I cut the vast majority of them down.  I set out about one and a half dozen stems for neighbors to pick up if they choose, tossing many that were past their prime into our green bin for pickup and recycling later this week.

These stems will last at least a week even without water and well over 2 weeks with it.  They need the support of a heavy vase as the stems themselves are heavy due to all the water in their hefty stems.

The last time I did this, they disappeared relatively quickly.  That didn't happen this year but two-thirds of the stems were gone within twenty-four hours.  I'll pick up whatever are left this morning and deposit them in the green bin.  I haven't rid the garden of all of them in any case.  Flowers are still in the process of developing and I left those alone for the time being.  And of course, I missed some.

Late yesterday afternoon, I realized that I'd missed one right outside our living room window in my south-side garden, as well as several sticking out into the street from under the front hedge.  Those will go in the green bin too.

All material © 2012-2023by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party