Sample Pots

I just down loaded my camera and found some great photos from June of sample pots inspired by the Hort. The Hort does a wonderful job of displaying a mother plant in full glory with smaller For Sales on the shelf below. The sample pots are never for sale, but are amazing beautiful.

I'm a definite sucker for the babies. That's how I ended up with my first orchid, the Green Hornet. I couldn't figure out why it didn't bloom for 7 years until I started reading up and realized orchids need to reach maturity first - typically 7 years! Then there was the CA native that I thought was dead and when I dumped it in the compost discovered it was dormant and the new shoots were just about to reach the soil surface. Quick re-pot!

I've never been much of a "pot" gardener, but after years of drooling over mother plants, I set to making my own.

This is a close up from the campanula sample pot. No, I don't know the exact species. There are many many hybrids and I'm too lazy to dig through the tags. A wonderful plant for the shade garden, providing ground cover and a profusion of blooms in spring, though mine kick some color all year long. I've got entire beds covered in the cute, sturdy little leaves. And it's not overly-aggressive, like mint.

This is from the lobelia pot, one of my favorites at the Hort, and what started the mono-species craze in my garden. I shamelessly copied, throwing 6 different colors in one bowl. Be careful to buy the trailing kind and not the clumpers. I made that mistake once; I thought I was going to cover the ground in front of the rhodie with a mat of lobelia, and instead ended up with 6 mini bushes. Doh! They look real nice hanging too.

Un-hybridized Lobelia is really bizarre; tall spears of big flowers, kind of like a cross between foxglove and delphinium, but in a beautiful claret shade. I bought some. It didn't make it.

And finally my newest addition. This gorgeous little mimulus is a testament to genetic engineering, but oh my it's a breath taker! Because this sort of mimulas is one of the riparian water hogs, as opposed to the drought resistant orange natives that cover our hills, I put a cheap self-watering reservoir in the pot when I planted. It does just fine in 100 degree weather without constant watering.

Yes, for those of you noticed, I haven't posted since last November; kind of shocking really. I had every intent, but first Mom's heart attack and then Kenai's passing kind of took the wind out of me...then there was the attack of the Alaskan Red Gopher.

Bella's technique for native gopher erradication is quite unique, though effective: She digs the tunnel up. The WHOLE tunnel. And everything around it in a 3 foot radius. And she's really, really fast. Made quite a mess of my beds. Doug got very creative with the bamboo fencing.

Other than that, she's absolutely perfect, and the gophers are gone.

The Nest

Last December, one of the female Anna's spent a lot of time in the side garden, particularly in the Dahlia Tree. Oh no! we thought. There's no way she could be interested in building a nest, because a) that plant gets cut to the ground in late January when it dies back, and b) well, it's just too close to the kitchen and all the commotion that goes on in there with the dogs and kid and me at the sink 4 hours a day.

I watched her nestle in the crook of one of those fragile leaves and thought: she's just resting. Then there was this bizarre little platform that looked to be made out of mud, but it was flat and it was almost January, cold and dark. Hummingbirds couldn't possibly start nesting that early! It's not even Spring.

Then in mid-January, 1 week before I was ready to do the deed and cut the dahlia, the platform turned into a cup and we had a problem. Frantically I looked up Anna's hummers and nesting and hatching times online. I figured we had to keep the plant up until May, somehow, fighting the darn snails and bracing it against the Spring winds.

Our Lady of the Dahlia was all alone. The males do not assist.

We hung our heads out the upstairs window whenever she was off eating, looking for eggs. But often busted by a very irritated mama bird who would buzz a foot away from our faces in the 2nd story window. Then one day, creamy yellow eggs the size of jelly beans appeared - but unlike a carton from the grocery store, these exuded life. A few weeks later, the pin-heads emerged.

The babies grew and grew, the nest flexing with as they got larger, mama building up the sides with each feeding. And they developed personalities. The one closest to the window was more aware, hungrier, adventurous. We called him Boy, and though I talked to all 3, he was the one that captured my heart.

Our sleepy little babies were more often awake than not, and spilling out of the nest. Mama had to cling to the edge of the leaf for feedings. Everyday when she went to eat, I crawled through the garden and picked snails off the bottom of the leaf and nest. Doug shamed me for interfering with nature and fretting over what was not mine, but then I'd catch him building supports and agonizing over whether mama would continue to feed the babies after his intrusion.

Their wing feathers came in, and the boy entertained us with flexing and preening. He started to exercise, beating them as fast as he could, holding on to the nest with his little feet, wanting to fly, scared to go. Then one day he let go, and it was a miracle! He hovered up, and I thought I'd lost him forever, thrilled by his independence and might.

He practiced for a week, buzzing around the dahlia, then to the fern, and over to the camellia, gone longer and longer each time. Till there was only one, the little girl.

But the boy came back, urging her on, and 2 days later she too fledged. Again I struggled with joy and loss...until I realized they just moved to the backyard! They followed their mother for over a month.

The females still spend a lot of time sucking sweet nectar from the flowers, but they are shy. It is Pinky, that hungry boy, who follows me in the garden, even perching outside the window when I sit in the turret. He is all grown up. A shocking pink cap covers his head, black stripes run the length of his wings like a hot rod.

The king of my garden.

Fall at Mills College: Halloween

It is Fall at Mills College. The leaves on the deciduous trees are swiftly turning and branches stand stark and naked. The remaining threads of chlorophyll look like tie dye on a hippie's T-shirt...a popular costume for Halloween this year in the East Bay.

It was not so long ago! Or maybe it was...I was a child of the 60's. I remember making bell-bottoms by splitting the seams, shopping at thrift stores, my mom sprouting alpha and making homemade yogurt, composting...and of course her garden.

My mom let me dig rivers in her rose bed, make mud pies in her cookware, and decorate with flowers from the lantana. She let me run barefoot through the babies tears that ran shin deep on the side of the house, cool and soft on my barefeet on hot summer days. We ran the sprinkler to play in just for fun, and grew strawberries to pick and eat warm in the sun.

Mom reveled in my childhood fantasies. She never yelled or fretted when I played with bees or sat high in the avocado tree pretending I was an elf and the limbs my home. That sense of peace, of oneness, the escape from worldly cares is still there, awaiting in my garden - in all the gardens I love. And for that alone, I am forever grateful to my Mom.

Secret pathways and hidden fountains, miniature oak forests and flocks of birds, inhabit Mills College.