Wednesday morning garden

Is it really August already? Fall is just around the corner.

The San Francisco summer sky is the same white as the background color on my blog.



The usual summer fog prevails...still. I am over it.



This Tibouchina is a little pot-bound and thirsty. The flowers are smaller this year than normal.



I'm going to cut it back hard like they do at Living Green. But later.



If you cut back Ceanothus after the winter/spring bloom, it will re-bloom in the fall like this one is about to--without any summer water.



Behind it, on my north-facing back wall, the climbing hydrangea is starting to develop some nice form. I guess it takes a few years for this plant to do very much.



Its growing stems seem to have no trouble articulating themselves around the fence posts. I was concerned about what would happen when the stems encountered those hard right-angles, but all seems fine...

That fuchsia's a little blurry. Here's a better shot.



Also, no summer water for So Cal native Verbena lilacina.



Constant flowers.



And it goes with everything.




We just had our first tomato of the season. I think it's a 'Beaverlodge Slicer', but I'm not sure anymore. (It was just alright.)



Usually I don't grow determinant tomatoes. This one doesn't look so good, does it? Next year I'm going back to 'Stupice' and 'Early Cherry' and that's it. I don't have the patience necessary to experiment with tomatoes in San Francisco.

Dahlia atropurpurea (via Old House Gardens) is the sweetheart of the garden right now. It's much prettier in real life. I need a new camera.



That's its first flower, and it's two weeks old. Dahlia flowers last a long time on the plant. I've also got some dahlias growing from seed. Very easy to do. I guess I'll see the flowers and decide which ones to keep.

Speaking of sweethearts, this rose 'Charlotte' could be one. I bought it for my client but kept it for myself when I couldn't find a spot for it in her garden. I have it in a pot because I can't find a spot for it in my garden either.



Charlotte's first flower.



She looks better than 'Jude the Obscure' who seems moody and troubled.



Back to the subject of growing from seed, I sowed a flat of checkerbloom (Sidalcea malviflora), a compact, pink-flowering malvaceous groundcover--a western native with widespread distribution.



The true leaves are slow to emerge. Hopefully these will be ready to plant out before the most substantial winter rains. I want to have this plant everywhere.

This Stachys byzantina is another spreading groundcover that does well for me, even in the shade. Although it's never flowered. Flowers would be nice, but it's fine as a foliage plant.



I did some other editing recently and dug up this Douglas iris in the process. One plant divided into six.



That's jumping the gun a little bit for doug iris. Usually November is a good time to divide iris. But these look good. (Frances, this is the particular iris you expressed an interest in earlier this year--still interested? I can send you one of these pots.)

This Tithonia diversifolia is getting quite large. I'm going to plant it in a semi-shady corner. But I wanted it to get some size before I did that, so I put it in a pot of compost in full-sun. It's big enough to plant out now.



Now that I've come to know this plant, I'm beginning to see it everywhere. There are a couple gigantic stands of it in the Botanical Garden. It will require regular pruning and size management in my small garden. That could be a good thing.

The winter-flowering vine Hardenbergia violacea is another one I have to stay on top of lest it take over the whole garden. Here are its twining stems turning woody.



They look like arteries, spreading and engulfing the deck like this. And in a sense, that's what they are.



Groovy.



I still plan to put up some more pictures from Seattle. Soon, hopefully.

In the meantime, enjoy some sunflower seeds before the birds get them all.

The Cloud Forest

San Francisco's summer fog feels especially relentless to me this year. I think it's because I'm working in a foggy micro-climate. Last year, I worked in a different city and spent my days in a cubicle under fluorescent lights. This year, I have an office in the fog belt and my desk faces a giant window. It's not foggy every day, but when it is, the fog obliterates even recent memories of sunshine.

Of course, the regular presence of summer fog influences more than just human moods. It dramatically affects plant life. Gardening in the fog belt presents different opportunities to gardeners than what's available just outside. Some opportunities are sharply limited, while others are dramatically expanded. We struggle with warm season vegetables, but we can grow fuchsias and vireyas like nobody's business.

This San Francisco Botanical Garden webpage explains:

"These plants can grow [in San Francisco] because of striking similarities between coastal California's climate and that of mountainous areas in the tropics. The temperature variation between day and night, and between summer and winter, is not very great in the tropics, even on tropical mountains. Coastal California also has moderate temperatures year round due to the ocean's strong influence...

Cloud forests are found at elevations where water in moist rising air masses condenses creating a shroud of mist and fog. The high moisture levels are comparable to northern California's wet winters, where a cool ocean current off the coast creates summer fog which softens our Mediterranean summer drought to the extent that [the fog] moves inland. Views from atop tropical mountains are remarkable in their resemblance to panoramic summer views of the Bay Area with thick fog advancing and retreating below higher hills and mountains."

Some plants from cloud forests observed today at the Botanical Garden...

Fuchsia boliviana:



Fuchsia glazioviana climbing up Matudaea trinerva:



The Matudaea:



Saurauia madrensis:



close-up, with bee:



American naturalist and travel writer Peter Matthiessen wrote a book called The Cloud Forest about his long sojourn in the Amazon and high mountains of South America, circa 1960. I finished reading it recently.



Deeply immersive and utterly foreign, I recommend the book to anyone who needs a little escape or adventure. Matthiessen pays close attention to birds and butterflies, and somewhat less attention to plants. The social history he recounts is fascinating and enlightening, although doubtless some modern readers will consider his observations "problematic"...

After it was over, I particularly enjoyed retracing Matthiessen's progress on Google Maps. And many of the small jungle villages he passed through are bustling cities now, with their own entries on Wikipedia.

Lunchtime Botanical Garden

Just some snapshots I took in the Botanical Garden today with my irredeemably dusty camera. Maybe I'll replace it after we finish paying for Penny's surgery.



The aerial rootlets of Meterosideros excelsus
.




























A bike in front of the bakery where I got two slices of pizza for lunch.

Friday morning garden

Just a few pictures that I took before going to work this morning...

I'm suffering a lot of raccoon damage. A new garden tragedy unfolds every morning.
It makes my blood boil and I want to stab the beast with my pitchfork.



Try not to think about it.



The garden is pretty in the morning light. We had a few hot, sunny days a week ago. Since then, it's been cold and foggy. The sky let some light in today.



Both of my manzanita bushes have been put out plentiful growth since May.



The sunflowers are about to bloom.



Apparently you can eat the young buds. Have you heard that before? I read it in Jürgen Dahl's book, The Curious Gardener.

He writes:

Sunflowers are cut before their flowers are fully open so that the buds, boiled and salted, can be put onto the table. The fleshy flower bases are similar to those of artichokes. Four centuries ago, John Gerard, an English herbalist, declared them to be preferable to artichokes. Instead of boiling the buds until they are done, one can grill them lightly and prepare them with oil, vinegar, and pepper. One has only to remove the green sepals as much as possible because these taste just as resinous as they feel. The small remains that are inevitably left add a whiff of bitterness, very becoming in an appetizer.

I'm intrigued.

I'm sure you know you can eat amaranth too, but I'm not going to.



Maybe next year the wild grapes will make fruit...I'd like to think so. Until then, I get lots of pleasure from the leaves (which I'm also not planning to eat anytime soon).



Under the deck these lilies are blooming.



This is an "oriental", right? You can see I've staked it. I bought a bag of these at my nearby nursery last fall. I'm certain the bag said they would be fragrant. Ha.



No staking necessary for Cobaea scandens.



In fact, it's grown to the maximum size that I'm prepared for it to attain. There's nowhere left for it to go except on the house, and that makes Guy nervous so I'm pinching it back all over the place. And that seems to be making it bloom more and more.