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New Foliage Plants!
For today's foliage follow-up post, I decided to focus on a few of my newest foliage acquisitions. Most are relatively small, at least by comparison to their projected sizes at maturity, but I expect...
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Poinsettias & Other Holiday Decorations
Loree of danger garden posed a "poinsettia challenge" back on December 1st, asking bloggers to do something interesting with that much maligned holiday plant. As I missed out on the prior ornamental...
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In a Vase on Monday: Small Stuff
I had a pre-Christmas family gathering on Sunday for which I created two small vases to add life to areas otherwise bereft of holiday decorations. With rain coming late Saturday afternoon, I dashed...
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Wednesday Vignette: It's the little things...
About a week ago, I uploaded photos from my camera onto my PC and found this:The photo of my cat, Pipig, resting on a folded tree skirt, enjoying the morning sun and the Christmas tree, still nearly...
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In a Vase on Monday: Blog Anniversary Bonus
Tomorrow, December 29th, is the third anniversary of my blog. I started it on the fly in 2012, roughly 2 years after we took possession of our current house and garden. I expected the blog would lend...
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Wednesday Vignette & Random Year-end Photos
I sorted through my recent photos in search of an image that deserved sharing as a Wednesday Vignette, the weekly feature hosted by Anna of Flutter & Hum. There was one image I liked even though...
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Wide Shots: January 2016
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!I haven't included a complete garden overview in my monthly wide shot posts since August. The new year seems an appropriate time for such a review so here it is.We finished digging up...
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In a Vase on Monday: A riot of exotics
Four storms are headed our way, all of which have a chance to bring us rain! All we've received this season (i.e. since October 1st) is 1.44 inches (3.66 cm) of rain but El Niño is finally expected to...
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Rain Effects
We got rain! Despite having to drive through rain-flooded streets yesterday, I enjoyed the first rainstorm to reach us courtesy of the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. According to the little...
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In search of plants...
I've got lots of empty garden space but not the plants to fill it. The available supply of garden-eligible plants in my local garden centers was reduced during the holidays as stock was pushed aside...
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In a Vase on Monday: Red!
I avoided using red flowers and foliage in my former garden. That garden was tiny and red seemed to overwhelm it. Yet red, in measured doses, has a prominent role in my current garden, especially...
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Wednesday Vignettes: Pure Gold
The skies are cloudy today but there's no rain in sight. For this week's Wednesday Vignette, the meme hosted by Anna of Flutter & Hum, I have a couple of photos taken under sunnier skies.The first...
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Bloom Day - January 2016
While many of the same plants that were blooming last January are also blooming this January, the blooms are less prolific. I'm not sure whether this is attributable to our drought, colder...
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Foliage Follow-up: Winter Color
We don't get much in the way of fall color in my area of Southern California. In recent years, at best the coral bark Japanese maple, persimmon trees and ornamental pear tree showed some color change....
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In a Vase on Monday: Shy Grevillea
Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' has been covered with buds for a couple of weeks and I fixated on using it in a vase even though I usually loathe cutting the blooms. The problem is that the flowers...
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Where is El Niño?
While El Niño's impact has been felt in other areas of the world, its impact on Southern California has been trivial thus far. Northern California has received somewhat higher rainfall this year and...
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Plant Shopping in the San Fernando Valley
Last weekend, I visited a friend in the San Fernando Valley and we toured two local nurseries. In the past, we'd have spent our time at Sperling Nursery, one of my long-time favorite plant shopping...
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In a Vase on Monday: Going tiny
Pansies are the first flower I fell in love with as a child and although the conditions in Southern California aren't optimal for growing them, I inevitably cave in and buy some every year. This year...
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A progress report
As those of you who regularly read my blog may remember, we had the last of our sod stripped away in late September. That was followed by months of digging to remove grassroots and sod netting in the...
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My favorite plants this January
In contrast to other years, the stars of my winter garden have been relatively slow about showing their stuff this year. That may be due to the colder temperatures we've experienced since December,...
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