succulents

AUGUST RENASCENCE

September 3, 2016 by LW Countryman Leave a Comment

In our peculiar Bay Area climate, August is usually cool, with highs in the 60s and fog hanging overhead till mid-day. No rain, of course. That won’t come till late October or November. But with just a little water from the hose, the garden is coming back to life. (It needed the help. We were away at a couple of critical times during recent months, and it looked more despondent than usual for late summer.)

I don’t discount the effects of a long, dry summer after years of punishing drought. Trees are taking an early start on dropping their leaves. But the rains of this past winter clearly made a difference—as does the cooling weather.

There are plants that take this late-summer opportunity to flower, such as the sedum “Autumn Joy”:

Or the surprise lilies or “naked ladies” (Amaryllis belladonna) by the still-young apricot tree:

And remnants of summer like this hydrangea, brought from the garden of my brother Fred, who died almost twelve years ago:

The new succulent garden is also showing signs of growth as plants settle in and decide, for the most part, that they like it in this spot. They’ve also managed to survive an unexpected and potentially fatal blow. An octopus agave, last of the group that my Tucson friend Chris Eastoe gave me more than twenty years ago, bloomed this summer, the top of its spike appearing right outside the study window on the second floor of the house. These flowering spikes grow amazingly fast:

Octopus agave in bloom, April 26, 2016. Its top was even with the top of the second-story windows..

Unlike its elder siblings, this plant wasn’t well anchored in the ground—perhaps from having to struggle out from under the shade cast by the others. The bloom spikes of the others all remained standing well into the winter, when storm winds broke them in two, but this one began leaning precariously this month. When it came to rest on the porch roof, we pulled it back up and anchored it to the pergola that carries the wisteria on the other side of the garden. But on Saturday, it tipped unexpectedly to the right and subsided right across the new succulent bed.

I say “subsided” because it was quite noiseless. I was in the back of the garden at the time but didn’t notice it until Jon called my attention to the fact that it was lying on the ground. Happily, it fell flat, without rolling or bouncing, and only one plant got seriously shattered under it.

But there was nothing for it except to begin cutting it up and disposing of it—a project not yet completed as of this writing. The biggest chunk, about six feet long, is still leaning against the back wall of the house, with the new succulent garden at its foot.

As you can see from this final picture, it is covered by innumberable tiny plantlets along with the spent blossoms. There are also what look like seeds, but I have no idea whether they ever germinate. Chris tells me that, in their native terrain in the mountains of Sonora, the plantlets scatter across the rocks, falilng, with luck, into crevices where they can take root. We have several in pots, waiting to go into the ground.

EXCAVATING BURIED PLANTS AND MEDITATING ON HUMAN UNREASON

July 19, 2016 by LW Countryman Leave a Comment

The Borrowed Garden, on the berm across the street from our house, has been doing well this summer. The wood chips we spread over the past couple of years have suppressed most of the weeds. The volunteer palm is growing new fronds. The baby octopus agaves and transplanted aloes are beginning to make a statement on the upper slopes. And a good many acorns planted last year by squirrels or jays have sent up tiny oak seedlings, some of which seem to be surviving the dry summer.

Then, to our great surprise, a tree trimmer dumped a truckload of chips right on top of our most developed area. Why? It seemed obvious to us that the garden didn’t need more chips, and that this particular spot would even be damaged by them. But perhaps the driver of the dump truck was not thinking much at all beyond how to shorten a trip to the dump. In any case, there was now a mountain of wood chips to be dealt with and, somewhere under it, a small palm and an uncertain number of succulents.

The first necessity was to get the lower end of the pile off the narrow walkway used by people making their way to the BART station. Ah! There’s another question: why choose a 12-inch wide, broken asphalt path, beset with thistles and foxtails for much of its length, when there is a regular sidewalk on the other side of the street? But, in this case, I think I do understand. Most pedestrians prefer what looks like the most direct route—even if it entails a little overland pioneering—to the officially designated one that might be five or six steps longer. Law-abiding citizen though I aspire to be, I’ve done it myself.

Jon took care of clearing the track on Friday, the day the mountain landed. The next afternoon, the first order of business was to try to prevent any repetition of the incident, and Jon created three signs saying, in large letters “No more chips” and set them up along the central segment of the Borrowed Garden. Then he attacked the mountain and made major headway before I got free from whatever work was occupying me and joined him. The two of us worked together for several hours, but we had to quit early because of a dinner engagement. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, we finished the task of distributing the chips, some of it by raking or pitching them onto nearby open spots, but mostly by filling the wheelbarrow and ferrying them to other parts of the garden.

Not till late on Sunday did we get down to the buried plants. I wasn’t surprised that the tough little aloes had come through more or less unscathed. But young octopus agave leaves can be rather fragile and tend to snap if mishandled. Happily they had mostly come through, though I injured one or two myself in the process of excavating them.

It was interesting to observe the passing traffic while all this was going on. Our street has residences on one side, but only the BART station and a stretch of poorly maintained highway department property—and the Borrowed Garden—on the other. Drivers take that as license to exceed the posted speed limit, sometimes more than doubling it. Indeed, many of them get quite irate at those who obey the speed limit. The whole thing is a constant source of irritation for residents on the street.

That Sunday, we had our share of cars speeding past, some with glaring drivers—just as expected. What surprised me was how little provision most drivers seemed to make for their own safety and well-being. I think that, had I been driving up the street that afternoon, I would have exercised some caution at the sight of an old guy on a fairly steep incline turning an old, rusty wheelbarrow around on a twelve-inch wide path—the path itself being right at the curb. He could slip! He could lose his grip! He could have a heart attack from over-exertion! He could have a stroke and then the wheelbarrow—obviously one of those old, heavy metal ones—will be in the street right in my path!

Now, the street is one-way and wide enough for two lanes of traffic, but it allots only one lane, the left lane, to cars, the right-hand lane being dedicated to bicycles. You may think that the drivers were merely being law-abiding by staying in the left lane. No, they could have moved over a couple of feet without infringing on the bike lane at all. Much of the week, in fact, impatient drivers use the bike lane as if it were a passing lane, to the significant endangerment of just about everybody. But most of these folk didn’t so much as swerve a few feet away from us or slow down to, say, the speed limit. They just glared. Even the desire to keep the front of one’s BMW or Mercedes or (worst offenders of the lot) Prius safe from that nasty rusted wheelbarrow couldn’t temper their determination to own that lane.

There is a lesson here. But I suppose there is little point in making it explicit, since we humans aren’t typically very interested in it when we’re in the grip of our unreason.

A GARDEN SHOWS ITS GRATITUDE FOR THE RAINS

March 16, 2016 by LW Countryman Leave a Comment

After twelve days of cold, stormy weather, the sun has come out again; and it’s a day to inspect the garden. I find a little damage: one basket of orchids (I don’t know what they are, but they have small purple flowers in late winter and early spring) was blown from its moorings. It’s gotten very heavy over the years, as one small plant morphed into quite a mass of foliage; and the storm winds exerted enough force on it to pull its wire hook straight and send it and its resident ant colony plummeting into the plants below.

It has a younger clone in another hanging basket, where it was protected from the winds, but not from the scrub jays,. They have ripped out almost all of the wire basket’s coconut fiber lining—I suppose for nest material. What’s left is some bedraggled little plants hanging on for dear life among the remnants and a lot of orchid bark littering the ground below—one of many things to tend to now that the weather favors getting into the garden again!

Of course, the weeds have also taken advantage of the weeder’s cowardly retreat during the storms. On the whole, however, the garden seems to be showing nothing but enthusiastic gratitude. The wisteria flowers are just emerging, even as the elegant blossoms of the quince tree are fading. But bulbs are providing the primary show. There are little species tulips in yellow, orange, and red. There are red freesias. There are ranunculus in reds, pinks, and yellows.

And one of our winter pleasures continues into spring. White cyclamens that came to us as Christmas plants over the years have found homes to their liking, a larger-flowered one in a back corner, but visible from the house, and three tiny ones in the shade of the garden bench.

Our garden’s guage this season (starting from September) has measured about 28″ of rain—a good sum even for a whole rainy season, though we still hope for more after years of drought. The surprising thing is how quickly the plants have responded. The most extreme example is the octopus agave, the last of a group that we planted here soon after we

Octopus Agave on 3/14 — Octopus Agave and friend on 3/14

moved, probably in 1999. It has decided that its time has come and is throwing its all into reproducing this year. In less than five weeks, its flower stalk has reached as high as our second-floor windows. I expect it will grow a little taller before it wraps itself in a spiral of yellow flowers.

Since I am far from the really capable sort of gardener who can actually predict results, I get the benefit of experiencing every spring’s successes as a kind of marvel. “Oh, hey, it actually worked!” Although I would like to feel more competent, I’m not sure I want to give up that element of surprise.

EVOLUTON OF A GARDEN

August 26, 2015 by LW Countryman Leave a Comment

Our garden is weathering the California drought in fairly good shape. Despite signs of stress, the trees look as if they will all survive. Some of the succulents seem, if anything, happier than in the past. (Maybe I had inadvertently been overwatering them.) Our water usage, happily, is keeping within the Utility District’s guidelines.

All this on a lot that was largely covered in lawn when we moved here in 1998. I’d like, of course, to claim credit for far-sightedness, but I can’t do it in good conscience. Truth to tell, the whole thing has been a bit like evolution in the natural world, one change triggering others until the whole space has become radically different. By happy accident, the movement was in the right direction.

The lawn, for example—did I get rid of it because it’s a water-hog? Well, I was aware that lawns were less than ideal for the far West, but I thought of them as problem for Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Mostly, I just don’t like tending lawns. I like the serenity of a great sweep of grass. But I spent quite enough time mowing the stuff as a child—I mean real mowing, with a child-powered reel mower, in the heat of the Oklahoma summer.

Some of the lawn turned into perennial beds and a small vegetable garden, the rest we covered with bark for walks and open space. We kept the wisteria for the shade it cast on the terrace as well as the glory of its spring blooms—and moved a couple of badly-sited peach trees to less awkward spots, where they flourished for the next twelve years until felled by some of the numerous diseases to which they’re prone.We also added a few other small trees—a Japanese maple ( a type called Okagami) in front of the house, a fig tree in back, given us by a friend, and a quince to provide fruit for pies. Most recently, an apricot has replaced the lost peaches.

But our most drought-adaptive innovation was accidental. I had some cactus and succulents in pots from the deck of my previous house. They were getting cranky about being confined, but I didn’t have time to go find them new and bigger pots. So I stuck them in the ground in a spot that proved to be what they’d been waiting for all along. That, of course, encouraged adding other, similar things to the area until they made a screen between the work area in front of the shop and the area for sitting and reading and eating lunch on a warm day—something we particularly value since our part of Oakland is usually too windy and cool to eat dinner out of doors.

With the reality of drought upon us, we’ve become more attentive to separating the modest areas that require summer water from those that need little or none. Hellebores, for example, are under the maple tree, where one can water both at once. Similarly, the “Cinco de Mayo” rose is near the quince tree and pots that need regular watering are under the wisteria.

In other areas, I’ve been changing the plantings. In the front garden, I gave up on ajuga as ground cover and planted Salvia sonomensis and some beautiful rosy pink California wild buckwheat plants. A few lavenders round out that area. To the other side of the maple tree is another dry zone, anchored by a manzanita that I planted years ago and thought would never take hold. It has finally emerged this year as a beautiful shrub and looks as if it has no idea that we’re going through anything like a drought.

The garden is a bit less colorful, over all, than in the past. But it doesn’t take much red or bright pink to light it up. The flowers of a red epidendrion orchid are tiny, but the clusters are big enough and bright enough to catch the eye. The surprise lilies (Amaryllis belladonna) are blooming, as usual, in time for Labor Day. And it doesn’t take much water to keep a bright orange-red tuberous begonia in bloom or—the most recent addition—a “Bishop of Llandaff” dahlia with brilliant red flowers above somber purple foliage.

Oh, and the drought has had one advantage: I am actually ahead of the weeds for the first time in this garden. That said, I’m willing for the weeds to return in force in the coming year. It would be a small price to pay for having the rains back.

GARDENERS MAKE MISTAKES

June 12, 2015 by LW Countryman Leave a Comment

One section of our back garden is given over to succulents. It was part of my general plan for the garden, but the location was at least halfway an accident. I had a pot with several octopus agave pups. They’d been there too long and needed disentangling soon after we moved here and I hadn’t much time to figure out what to do with them. So I stuck them in the first available spot.

As it turned out, the place was sandy and the agave pups loved it. Chris Eastoe, our Tucson friend who gave them to me, announced when he saw them here that he had never seen the plants look so happy anywhere, even on their native turf in Sonora. Ten to fifteen years later, all but one of them bloomed, each producing one astonishing tall flagpole of a stem with a wreath of pale yellow flowers circling up it—and leaving behind them as they died vast numbers of new pups. A few of the pups now occupy the places vacated by their forebears. The one original plant that remains shows no signs of being in a hurry to bloom and pass on. Maybe it’s just so relieved to have more room to itself that it’s settling in for another fifteen years.

The succulent area expanded as other things we had in pots began to demand more permanent homes. Two Aloe ferox, now five feet tall and living up to their name, joined the octopus agaves, supplying us every January with candelabras of brilliant orange flowers. I put them into a poem in Lovesongs and Reproaches:

On a chill winter day, the wind

blustering, the rain intermittent,

tall, forked flames rise up

from the vicious aloe in the garden. . . . (p. 34)

They’ve been joined by a couple of columnar cacti and some smaller succulents, including some exuberant patches of Oscularia along the edges. Only the Aloe plicatilis is still in a pot (a larger one than it had all those years ago), as I knew it would get far too big if I let it out.

I didn’t make that mistake, but I did make another one. I had an Aloe arborescens that I had bought in the hope that it was a different aloe—one that I had in a previous garden. Unfortunate mistake. That aloe was dignified, statuesque, and bore beautiful blooms–though the bloomheads had the unsettling habit, in their early stages, of looking very much like a snake’s head peering out from among the leaves. One of these days, I hope to find a start of it again. If any reader of this can identify it, I’ll be grateful.

Aloe arborescens, by contrast, is less of a tree than an unruly shrub—unruly and very energetic. Within the first six months, it had filled the space I thought would take several years. “I can prune it up,” I thought. Yes, but it still didn’t resemble a tree. It just became a taller bush, threatening everything around it: the columnar cactus that I think may be a Peruvian relative of a saguaro, the Aloe ferox, still standing its ground, and the rosemary which is looking rather intimidated.

So it is coming out, and that’s no pleasant or easy matter. Even apart from the spiky leaves and the thickly packed stems, there’s the sap. It starts off a mucilaginous chartreuse. And don’t put a raw stub down on anything you prize. The sap, as it dries, will turn intense purple before shading off to purplish brown.

Ah well! As my friend Joe McInerney used to say, “You don’t have to be a state university to have an experimental garden.”

Bill Countryman Talks About . . .

Scripture, Poetry, Gardens, etc.

succulents

AUGUST RENASCENCE

EXCAVATING BURIED PLANTS AND MEDITATING ON HUMAN UNREASON

A GARDEN SHOWS ITS GRATITUDE FOR THE RAINS

EVOLUTON OF A GARDEN

GARDENERS MAKE MISTAKES

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succulents