Succulents and More™

I was going to do something else entirely today but I’m still stuck on the rain. It’s coming down harder now than on Friday, accompanied by gusts of wind, driving it against the window. Fall is finally here! Raindrops on the window Yucca ‘Margaritaville’ Agave schidigera Agave ‘Kissho Kan’ Yellow lotus banana (Musella lasiocarpa) Emerald bamboo (Bambusa textilis ‘Mutabilis’) Key lime leaves Key lime Hummingbird loving the rain, too! Raindrops on the window To give you a better idea of why we’re so focused on rain here in Davis, California : — Our average total precipitation per year is just 17.54 in. 1 — Compare this to the wettest and driest places in the continental U.S.: Quillayute, WA with 104.50 in. and Yuma, AZ with 2.65 in. 2 — As is typical for a Mediterranean climate, there’s very little (if any) precipitation between May and October. During that time, our daytime temperatures can be into the 100s. Fortunately, th...

Many of you will think I’m crazy but anybody who lives in our Mediterranean climate that gets a total of 17 inches of rain a year and virtually none between April and October will understand: I’m excited because it finally rained . Not a lot, but enough to get everything wet. More rain is on the way for the weekend, and plants are loving it. Humans, too—especially this one since I can now turn off the lawn sprinklers and drip irrigation. As soon as it was light enough this morning I got out the 180mm macro lens I’m currently borrowing from a friend and took a series of rain-inspired photos. I hope you’ll enjoy looking at them as much as I did taking them. Chaste tree Bamboo muhly grass Lemongrass Lemongrass abstract ‘Rowe Red’ banana Agave ‘Blue Glow’ Aloe maculata x cameronii Graptopetalum Phyllostachys bambusoides ‘Castillon Inversa’ leaf Phyllostachys bambusoides ‘Castillon Inversa’ leaf

I just finished potting up the contents of a “goodie box” I received from Alan, a fellow bamboo aficionado and garden blogger . Alan kindly sent me divisions of three bamboo species I didn’t have yet in my collection: Sasaella bitchuensis , Sasa tsuboiana , and Pleioblastus distichus . My goodies from Alan Sasaella bitchuensis is a low-growing bamboo from Japan that grows quite aggressively and is often used for erosion control. In our small yard, it needs to be contained so it doesn’t invade areas where it’s not wanted. I find its leaves to be very attractive and I’m very happy to have it in my collection. Sasaellas are shade-tolerant, and I plan to find a permanent home for it in a wide but shallow pot under the bay trees in our back yard. Alan recently transplanted some bitchuensis in his own yard, with beautiful results . Sasaella bitchuensis Here’s a closeup of the healthy-looking rhizomes (and a stowaway earthworm). The rhizomes will make new culms next year, and I ...

If I had to pick one favorite bamboo, this would be it. At least at the moment. There are so many beautiful species, it’s hard not to switch allegiance now and then. Heather shakes her head when I wax poetic about these lovely grasses of the Poaceae family so I can only imagine what people might think who are complete bamboo agnostics or atheists. Many common bamboos have an accepted common name— arrow bamboo for Pseudosasa japonica , black bamboo for Phyllostachys nigra , fountain bamboo for Fargesia nitida —but far more species either have no English name or one that is either too vague or varies from grower to grower and hence is not very useful. People have asked me if I that plant in my front yard is a “giant timber bamboo”. Well, it— Bambusa oldhamii —is indeed a “giant timber bamboo”, but so are dozens or other related and unrelated species. This frequent confusion makes it hard to know whether you’re even talking about the same thing.That’s why Latin names are so important...

This year we’ve been growing five varieties of basil: sweet basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, purple basil, and ‘Pesto Perpetuo’. They’re still going strong in our vegetable garden. ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ is arguably the most beautiful basil because of its variegated leaves. Since it doesn’t flower, it also makes a stunning ornamental. It has a much stronger flavor than regular sweet basil—too strong for my taste to use fresh for things like Caprese salad. But it’s wonderful in sauces and for pesto, as the name suggests. In cold temperatures, ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ hangs on much longer than sweet basil so we can enjoy basil into the dark days of winter. ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ basil The purple basil we have is called ‘Dark Opal’. It has a more pronounced licorice taste but isn’t as strong as ‘Pesto Perpetuo’. For cooked dishes, you can use it interchangeably with sweet basil. I love the way its leaves contrast with the green of the lemon basil that’s planted next to it. ‘Dark Opal’ basil Tha...

Today is the first non-scorching day we’ve had all week so I decided to get some of the plants we bought yesterday at Morningsun Herb Farm into the ground. Here’s our haul: Mostly winter vegetables plus a ‘Rowe Red’ banana (couldn’t resist) that will have to go inside in the winter Mostly lavenders and salvias This is the area outside the front-yard fence that needs updating. Area that needs to be replanted This morning I dug out a California fuchsia ( Epilobium canum ) that had languished there for 5+ years. In the back towards the fence we had a Heliopsis 'Bressingham Doubloon' that also didn’t do well. This area gets a lot of sun and most plants we have there are positively thriving but occasionally you plant something that should do great but for some unknown reason just doesn’t. That holds true for the four or five baptisias I’ve tried in various place in the front and back yard; in spite of giving them the growing conditions they supposedly love, a...

If you live in the Fairfield – Vacaville – Sacramento area, you should check out Morningsun Herb Farm in Vacaville this weekend, October 15-17, 2010. All their plants are on sale: $0.99 for 3-inch pots, $1.99 for 4-inch pots. They have a huge selection of perennials, including a couple dozen different lavender varieties, probably 30-40 different salvias, and many rare perennials that I’ve never seen anywhere else. They also carry a good selection of winter vegetables, ready to go in the ground as soon as it cools off a little. Heather and I were this morning and bought two trays full of plants. I’m particularly excited about a white lavender called ‘Edelweiss’ and a salvia cultivar named ‘Byron Flint’ that’s supposed to grow to 5 ft. The nursery is fully stocked so there’s plenty (!!!) to choose from. Their web site gives you an idea of what they carry, but they have a lot more plants that aren’t on their site. Directions to Morningsun can be found here . Can you tell that we lo...

Our vegetable beds usually look pretty sad at the end of a long hot summer and this year it’s no different. The tomato and squash plants have wilted, and pretty much everything else has gone into decline as well. After a very late start, we ended up having a decent tomato season but with more fertilizer we could have done even better. My favorite tomato variety this year has been Lemon Boy , a smallish yellow tomato that came back from seed. For me it has the perfect combination of sweetness and acidity. Still going strong are our peppers—orange bell and several varieties of chiles. They’re plump and shiny and look so cheery amidst the shriveled denizens of our vegetable garden. Freshly picked orange bell pepper Heather picked a red Anaheim the other night and it was hotter than we had expected, but with a wonderfully sweet, almost smoky flavor. It added a perfect note of spiciness to the quinoa pilaf Heather made that evening. Red anaheim pepper For me, there’s somethin...