In this photo Lt. John Pike of the police force of the University of California, Davis demonstrates the proper way to apply pesticides and fungicides in your garden. The lieutenant’s top tips:
Wear gloves! The stuff is gross. Keep it off your hands.
Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts. You don’t want the nasty stuff on you!
Pick a day with little or no wind. You want to control exactly where the poison goes.
Apply from the distance recommended by the manufacturer. The product label should tell you. Too close, you waste material. Too far, you risk ineffective coverage and your treatment won’t have the desired effect.
Wear eye protection. I know, I know. I don’t have the visor down in the photo. Silly me. Don’t do as I do, just do as I say!
The riot-gear helmet is entirely optional, but a respirator–or at least a mask–is a really good idea. Happy spraying!
And why stop there? Invite Lt. Pike over to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving pictures! Entice him into your vacation pictures with your ex! And what better way to improve those musty family pictures with the siblings you’re not sure you’re really related to?
Things have slowed down. It’s November for godsakes. But stuff keeps happening in the garden.
Probably the most remarkable thing blooming is this, a variegated mutation of Salvia divinorum.
I noticed the variegation a few months ago and will try to propagate the part of the plant with speckled leaves. A sport partially lacking chlorophyll would be at an evolutionary disadvantage out in the wilds, but gardeners–We’re weird–we’ll propagate these runts just because they’re pretty-like.
This is probably the most dramatic of the alligatored leaves. Even though many leaves are variegated, you can see that it hasn’t stopped those parts of the plant from flowering.
Enough of the leaves, this being Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. (Thanks as usual to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting this monthly meme on every fifteenth of the month.) Let’s take a look at the flowers.
The blooms are fuzzy up-close, like some other salvias, including the Mexican bush sage, Salvia leucantha, a dependable low-water plant that’s common in Southern California and beyond. This blossom looks very friendly in a lisping, come-hither, snaggletoothed sort of way.
Unfortunately if you’re a gardener under the age of 18 in California you can’t purchase this plant. In some other states owning a plant can buy you three years in prison. I’m sorry but all this sounds ridiculous. People sometimes complain about a government being a “nanny-state,” but many of the states where you hear that claim being made loudest are ones that are likely to ban this plant. Hey, look at the cool flowers! Look at the the cool leaves! This is obviously a plant with ornamental value, just like Gramma Olive’s opium poppies.
Flowers are scarce all around, but if you look deep enough into many plants you’ll see a few hardy holdouts still in bloom. And with winter on the way, there are a precocious winter bloomers starting to do their thing. This one’s germander sage, Salvia chamaedryoides. As far as I know, this plant the rest of those featured here are perfectly legal to grow everywhere.
Another salvia, the common but cool "Hot Lips"
Gaillardia pulchella with an appreciative honeybee
Oxalis purpurea, white formPaperwhite narcissusGalvezia speciosa 'Firecracker'Galvezia juncea, a species from near-by in Mexico, a member of the snapdragon family.
And here's another local with a name change pending. Was: Isomeris arborea; Now is: Peritoma arborea. Gack.A rare local native, something I've known as Coreopsis maritima. But in the new Jepson manual all the California species we knew as coreopsis have been moved to the genus Leptosyne. Leptosyne maritima--that one's going take a while getting used to. (Sorry for the ragged half-flower. That is all that survived the weekend rains.)Sphaeralcea ambigua, the first blooms in a whileAn orange epidendrum. I think you saw this last monthGutierrezia californica--a wispy plant with almost no leaves and a delicate cloud of yellow flowersSan Miguel Island buckwheat, Eriogonum grande var. rubescens, definitely not peaking...Euphorbia Diamond Frost--This hit just a few years ago and everyone was talking about it. Now...almost nothing. Interesting. Gardeners aren't fickle, are they?Desperate, flower-starved times call for desparate measures, in this case the macro lens for these tiny creeping thyme flowers...Gaura lindheimeriCamellia Cleopatra, yes it was in bloom in October for that month's Bloom Day
And, finally, a few shots of everyone’s favorite this time of year, Protea Pink Ice. Happy Bloomday!
The house being built on the ground, with its eventual perch being readied high on the roof of the building behind it.
Here a few random construction photos that show the development of part of Do Ho Suh’s Fallen Star installation that I posted on a few weeks ago [ here ]. I’m sure there are practical reasons for building the little house on the ground before hoisting it seven stories into the air to its perch on the side. But having it take shape at eye level has been interesting and exciting, and it’s a great way to involve future viewers of the artwork in the piece as it evolves from yards of concrete and stacks of steel beams.
As I view the piece come into being I can’t help but imagine being the construction firm approached to construct this little one-room building: “We want you to build us a house. Only much of it’s going to cantilevered over the edge of a tall building. And the house itself has to be built with a strong rake to the foundation, making the whole house slant at a serious angle…” A project like this doesn’t come along every day, and I’m sure somebody had some serious fun getting to work on it.
The steel fram takes shape. Here you can see there's lots more engineering in this project than most houses that nest on the ground.Framing for windows being installed...Sheathing going on...The sheathed house, crooked on the horizon, at sunrise...After the building wrap...Foggy morning with the wrapped house, still crooked on the horizon...Sheathing going up on the roof...Shingles now in place...
At this point the project has progressed to where stuff is happening on the inside, but it’s a mystery to outside viewers. The next big milestone will be when the exterior sheathing with its bouncy blue color shows up. Stay tuned.
Aerial rendering of the project location showing the rooftop with the crooked house and garden.
I touched base with the Stuart Collection folks about the “garden” around the house. Yes, it’s going to be live plants. The intent is to make the garden look a bit like the house, as if house and garden are little slice of Provincetown that have flown and and been wedged into the California fabric.
There are probably thousands of Southern California houses with clapboard siding and gardens with hydrangeas and roses that would be good models for what the artist is trying to achieve. As much as these gardens require lots of added water and attention to get them to thrive, the real stunt will be to try to pull off the effect when the house and garden will be elevated seven stories into the air. The collection is working with a landscape architect to come up with a mix of plants that will represent the botanical displacement but also be plants that will survive life on the edge, exposed to the elements.
It shouldn’t be that much longer before this house gets lifted into place. I suspect they’ll be using cranes and not a giant flock of balloons, even though several of you have commented on how much the plans for the house make it out to be a dead-ringer for the flying house in Up. More pictures to follow…
