I've become THAT lady

Yep, I’ve become the person on the block who sets up a hidden fairy garden, hoping to amuse the kids that are passing by on their daily walks.

Tom and I were touched by a story we watched on CBS’ Sunday Morning, a few months back now. It chronicled a 20-something woman and her relationship with a child on her street. Wait, here it is - you can watch it for yourself.

Awesome, right? It made me think more about the space below our Little Free Library, which is already a popular item in the neighborhood. The space below was covered by plants, yes, but those were easily trimmed back, and a lovely little glen cleared. And then I made a fairy garden.

I have no idea if anyone has even found it yet, or if it will be well-received. But I do know that our street has been filled with small children, zipping back and forth on their bikes, or being pushed in their strollers, or just running ahead of their parents. The pandemic (and our long shelter-in-place mandates) have made our local streets even more precious, a place to get some exercise and say hello to neighbors, while giving us something new for our eyes to focus on. Our next door neighbors have their two Silkie chickens right next to the sidewalk, which also provides great entertainment for anyone who walks by. And now that we’ve had some rain, and some early spring sun, the garden is starting to pop - delightful flowers are starting to appear as if by magic. Bulbs, like narcissus, anenomes, and daffodils, and early spring bloomers like flowering currants and the charming blue of forget-me-nots, and curious vegetables like fava beans and shell peas. The bumblebee queens have left their dens and are foraging in the native manzanitas. There’s plenty of magic all around, if only one looks for it.

Wind

Tom built our tomato trellises to last. They were heavy, balanced, braced. But they were no match for our current wind event.

We usually have these wind events in late summer and early fall. I’m not sure we’ve ever had anything like this in January before.

The National Weather Service warned us that it was coming, but we never even imagined it would take down our trellises. Many folks are out of power. Mt. Diablo, just a few miles to our east, saw wind gusts of 82 mph last night. Dozens of fires have begun and been put out. Some have developed into larger fires. We’ve had basically no rain, and the humidity is in the basement, leaving us with extremely dry conditions.

This is from Fire.gov right now.

The wind should abate by tonight. As soon as it does, we’ll have some cleanup and rebuilding to do.

It's Time to Start Pepper Seeds (at least here in California)

I learned just in the last couple of years that it’s best to start pepper seeds long before starting tomato seeds. Tomatoes germinate and grow quickly, so if you sow them in March, they’ll be ready to plant out late April to early May. Peppers take a much longer time to germinate, especially, and their growth is also quite a bit slower. Last winter was the first time I started peppers in January, and we were eating our first ripe red ones by the end of June, early July. Which, in my opinion, is excellent.

My seeding trays fit 50 2x2 inch soil blocks, and I sow two seeds per block, to insure that I’ll get at least one viable seedling of each variety. In about a month, these will probably need to be potted up to 4” containers, and then in March it will be warm enough to take them outside to the greenhouse. That will leave my seeding table empty and available for tomatoes.

*** By the way, I have a ton of seeds left over, some from each year since 2018. If you’d like to grow your own peppers this year, please let me know and I’m happy to give you some seeds. The Johnny’s hybrid seeds, in particular, are a bit pricey, and I would rather have them be used than go to waste.

My seeding setup is quite simple: A table, a towel, a heat mat (for under the tray, to keep things warm for the germination process), and a light - that’s it. The seeds don’t need light until they germinate, but they need heat the entire time. Usually I set this up in our bedroom, but that’s where Tom’s “office” is this year, so I guess the living room will have to do.

We’ve had temperatures a full 20 degrees higher than normal this time of year, and there have already been wildfire starts in southern California, so it’s going to be a doozy of a year. No rain in sight, either. This weather does make us want to be outdoors all the time, so we’ve indulged that craving - getting compost dug and plants side dressed, brewing beer, pruning trees, and of course the ever-present chore of weeding. I used organic rice straw to mulch everything last year, and that was a mistake - I have rice germinating all over the place. However, I also have winter garden seeds germinating too! So that’s a nice side effect of this weather.

Refreshing a Pollinator Garden

I spent a happy Monday shopping for, and then installing, about 42 plants in the South Pollinator Garden, in a complete redo of the area.

Originally, this was an area where I planted a few perennials, but mostly annuals. Twice a year, I would clear out the garden and re-seed depending on the season. You can see a late summer example, above, with perennial aster and fennel, and annual zinnas. Not only was this expensive in terms of money (two large orders of seed, twice a year), it was expensive in other ways too; it always took several days of labor, plus a lot of water to germinate the seed - and it caused a lot of soil disturbance, too. On the other hand, it provided a huge amount of biomass for the compost pile, and a ton of nectar and pollen for foraging insects.

But considering the future regarding climate, I am rethinking the way I garden. I feel strongly that the word ‘resilience’ is not just important for me as a person, but also for the ecosystem in our yard. Pollen and nectar, habitat and shelter, are all crucial. But so is a reduction of inputs. And if I am constantly tearing out and replacing, that doesn’t help me or the ecosystem.

image credit: Flower Magazine

Last spring, I became obsessed with the gardens of Piet Oudolf, who designed Manhattan’s High Line, as well as Chicago’s Lurie garden. His gardens are like paintings. He uses a lot of grass and non-flowering plants which provide the effect of a gently undulating sea. Within that sea are bursts of color, which in the autumn turn to seedpods and add a different focus. Every winter, he cuts it all down, and everything regenerates in the early spring.

Of course here in California, this can be recreated; however, our dormant season is in summer rather than winter, and the planting needs to be recalibrated to fit those circumstances. Aso for our climate, which is mainly hot and dry! Using some native plants and grasses would help to ground this painterly garden style in our California reality.

Adding to the complexity of this particular garden space were the current perennials that I wanted to keep. These include a lot of spring-flowering bulbs, some vines, and some Mediterranean plants. Also, there is a small deciduous tree (a Western redbud) which provides shade over a third of the garden in summer. This space is small, about 10x10 feet, and south facing. It is bordered on one side by a sidewalk and the street, which reflects heat and makes the edges of this bed even hotter and drier.

With all that in mind, and with a list of possibilities in hand, I took a trip to a local nursery and came home with a bunch of interesting plants. Not everything I wanted was available in January (natch) but I found some good substitutions, and I will also likely add plants as the space fills in. I got three gallon-sized pots of each variety, mostly. Planting in threes works quite well in any space. If you click on the names of each of the plants below, you will be shown a picture of the plant and how it looks full-sized.

For the shady areas, I chose a fern, Dryopteris erythrosora, as well as two varieties of Heuchera (Coral Bells); Heuchera ‘Stainless Steel’ and Heuchera ‘Peach Flambe.’

In the transition area between shade and sun, I chose native Trichostema lanatum (Wooly Blue Curls).

For the sunny areas, I chose three kinds of grasses, all native: Calamagrostis foliosa (I actually got six gallons of this one), Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’, and Aristida purpurea (Purple Three Awn).

I chose five different flowers for the sunny areas, with the caveat that I will likely add a few more kinds as they become available. I really wanted some Echinacea (coneflower), Echinops, and Eryngium, but those will be a summer addition. Meanwhile, I have planted Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP,’ Penstemon ‘Midnight,’ Achillea m. ‘Summer Pastels,’ Achillea m. ‘Summer Wine,’ and Verbena lilacina ‘De La Mina.’

Ever since I cleaned up this area after first frost, it has looked rather bereft. Normally I would have seeded poppies and phacelia here right after clearing, but this time I left it empty for the redo. You can see the passion vine, and the redbud tree, and various narcissus, and some forget-me-nots beginning to put out foliage, but what you can’t see are all the salvias and monardellas and hollyhocks and summer bulbs etc that will begin to fill in the space in spring. Still, there are plenty of bare areas to be planted up.

Here is that same area with the 42 gallons of plants in their final locations. I rearranged these several times, but finally decided I was happy and planted them all in. I added grit to the clay soil here, and today I will go in and add some compost as a mulch. Hopefully, everything will ‘take,’ and soon I will have a much fuller and vibrant garden here, which will also be more sustainable. I shall be sure to take pictures and report back!

Refreshing Your Container Plantings

I don’t start school until the 19th, so I allotted this week and the next for specific garden projects. In retrospect, I could not have planned this better - it’s a great way to keep myself from perseverating over the news. We’ve had a slight amount of rain, which allowed the weather to warm up a bit, and being in the garden is exceedingly pleasant as long as I’m wearing a sweatshirt.

My first big job was cleaning up - removing dead plants, clearing out heavy layers of leaves, etc. This is all necessary and important, if not particularly fun. But the last two days I’ve spent refreshing some containers that really needed it.

After a year (or more likely, two), hanging baskets tend to look like the one above. The birds have pulled out a bunch of the coir to use in their nests; the plant is clearly senescing and not happy. I have eight of these around the property, so I took out all the old plants, cut them back, and replanted them in the ground elsewhere. They may not make it, but if they do, hey - it’s a free plant in a place I need one! Then I bought new coir liners, filled them with fresh potting soil amended with vermiculite for drainage, and added a little bit of organic fertilizer. All of the pots received a sowing of sweet peas (this is a great time to sow them if you live in a mild climate).

It was also time to refresh our pallet wall planter. This hangs on Adam’s train shed, which is painted white and reflects a lot of heat. It’s south facing and gets full sun all day. Keeping it wet is a challenge, even though we have run a drip line up to the top of it. When we originally planted it, we didn’t make ‘shelves’ under each crosspiece; we just laid it down horizontally to pack it with dirt and plant it, and then hung the thing vertically. Can you guess what happened? Over time, as the soil compressed, it moved down to the bottom where Tom had made one shelf to keep the dirt from falling out. Packing more dirt in was impossible without it falling down, and then out the front. Many, many plants died.

Tom and I took all the old plants out (most of them beyond saving) and all of the old dirt out. Then he made me shelves for each level, so that each level acts like it’s own separate container. He made the shelves out of redwood and drilled drainage holes in them. I poured over my plant books and catalogs, trying to figure out what might work in a very dry, very hot place. Today I went shopping and then planted the pallet with Anthemis sancti-johannis “St. John’s Chamomile” and one of our native Californian Phacelias, Phacelia campanularia “Desert Canterbury Bells,” as well as some succulents that made the cut. The plants at the top are transplants, two of which are Felicia aethiopica “Tight and Tidy” and the others something with silvery foliage and yellow flowers that I can’t remember the name of. Everything looks a bit droopy because I forced them into a narrow, sideways space, and watered them half to death. But I expect they’ll perk up and start to look good in about a month or so. I will definitely keep you posted.

These mild days of winter, here in California, are a perfect time to do small, easily-accomplished projects around the yard, while we aren’t smothered with the spring ‘to-do’s.’ Remember that anything you grow in the ground can be grown in a container, with very few exceptions. All containers need a mix of good potting soil (the best you can afford) mixed with a little homemade compost if you’ve got it, and either grit or vermiculite for drainage. All containers need to be fed regularly, especially in late winter, with the days lengthening and plants starting to put on new growth. If you have container plants that are doing well, it’s still a good time to add compost, sheer back dead or browning leaves, and generally make things tidy before spring arrives.

I shall be sharing some of my other winter projects with you as I accomplish them. I’d love to hear about your list, too!