A Garden of...Stuff?

Watch this short film at Vimeo about an artist named Byun, who--I think--gardens, expertly, and indoors, with stuff instead of plants.  He forms a relationship with his objects, and places them with other objects that create their own relationships.  He cleans and examines, moves and considers his objects from time to time, just as we neaten up our plants and paths.  Have a look.


BYUN from thismustbetheplace on Vimeo.




I think Byun has grown an indoor garden, and this prompted me to consider new ways to enjoy my own "island away from the World."  Do my plants have relationships with each other, (beyond fighting each other for sun, water, and space)?



Is there a spark of humor in that relationship, or grace?  I know the plants I really care for--the ones I have a real relationship with--are the ones that truly shine.  Why don't I love them all, so I can make them all shine?  Those which have formed relationships with each other and sing together in harmony may sing only for a little while, until they outgrow each other, or shade each other, or kill each other.  How do I keep those relationships beautiful? 



What is the difference between gardening with stuff and with plants?  Plants are as ephemeral as "stuff"; "stuff" as ephemeral as plants.  One can buy or scavenge or trade for both.  One can hoard plants as well as stuff, and see them die for the same reason:  out-of-control acquisition syndrome.  Other people may see no more value in your beloved Agapanthus than in your beloved 60-year-old Philco.   When the gardener dies--the stuff gets dumped or given away, the plants are yanked out or abandoned.  But plants are alive!  They respond to care, they respirate, they drink, they grow.  Many objects, though, are monuments to the hand and mind of their maker...is that not life of a sort? Meaning and value granted through thought, craft, and love--is that not life?



However plants do not have life "of a sort".  They have real life.  How important is that difference?   For that is the difference.

Update: New Compost Method

I blogged about my failures with compost here.  My new method is proving to be a success.  I can add a five gallon bucket stuffed full of material twice a week.  There is space for at least another bucket full every few days, with the previous material well on its way to be completely converted to compost.  The moisture level in the barrel seems just right for breaking material down quickly, even when the balance is highly skewed to "browns" as mine usually is. 

I thought the retired trash barrels might be too small, because size does matter in composting--you need a certain amount of material to keep the process cooking--but the size appears quite sufficient.  The material is finally staying moist. The barrels are also holding in a good bit of heat, which also helps.  The only remaining problem is that I have just two barrels--not enough for the amount of clippings and cleanup a half-acre garden produces.  I'll investigate buying some recycled 55 gallon barrels--some for use as composters, and some for rain barrels.  If we get rain this winter...oh please oh please...

Monday it was 107 F (41 C).  This is tough on roses, which look as though they've been blow-dried.  I felt like I'd been blow-dried, too.  In the oven.  On "Broil". 




Yet for some reason, 'Jubilee Celebration' did just fine.  I cannot figure out why. 





Dahlias too seemed to withstand the heat.  It was beginning to cool down last night, thankfully. 

Tuesday Mystery

The above was a mystery.  It's been scattered in one particular place on the patio for the past week or so.  Yes, it is ummm...poo.  But what kind?  Rodent apparently.  I could not figure out why a mouse or rat would stop on my patio, drop a bunch of stuff, and leave...I was puzzled.  After a while I decided it was coming from the recessed lights in the patio...but what was up there?  And how did it get up there?



Mystery was solved just after sunset last night when I was netting the pond and closing gates.  Something that resembled a small black felt chalkboard eraser, with wings, fluttered by. Oh!  That's what it is:  a bat!  A bat is living in the space between the light bulb and the recessed light fixture.  Do I need to build a bat house?  That would be a better place for the bat than a lighting fixture. 

Here in Southern California bats are losing habitat and need our help.  They are voracious consumers of mosquitos, beetles, and moths.  So, where to put a bat house?   Away from the patio, for sure.   The Google informs me bat houses belong on the south or east side of a house.  Bats need protection from ground-based predators like raccoons and flying predators like hawks.  During the day, bats enter a kind of calorie-saving torpor--the warmth of the sun helps them save energy and stay warm, which means the south or east side of a house.  The bat was probably attracted to the pond and all the insects that fly above the water.  Okay, check into bat houses.  Never a dull moment around here, grumble grumble. 

I wish I could get a picture of the bat fluttering in the night, satin black on a black velvet sky. 

Green beans are much easier to get a shot of.  The green beans I planted I think two Tuesdays ago are doing well:


It was 107 F (41 C) yesterday, the hottest day of the year.   The well-watered green beans appeared to enjoy it.  I stayed in the house almost all day enjoying the luxury of air conditioning cranked down to 75F.  In a brief foray outside I captured an inadvertent self-portrait while getting a picture of last week's gopher damage.  It does look like the self-portrait of someone who gives refuge to bats, don't you think? 

Senecio barbertonicus

I took a picture of my little Senecio barbertonicus a couple of days ago and couldn't remember the name of the thing.  Googling around I found the name and some pictures, and after reading various pages realized with some horror that I need to move my little plant before it becomes 6'x6' (2 meters x 2 meters) or even 3'x3' (1 meter x 1 meter).  The size estimates vary on this one. It is similar in some respects to Senecio vitalis, Senecio serpens, and Senecio mandraliscae:  a succulent with foliage that resembles a lot of curved fingers.

S. vitalis is a lighter green sub shrub.  Some summer water is mandatory for good looks, otherwise leaves dry up leaving bare stems to sunburn.   Mine are about 2' tall and wide (60 cm) after three years in the ground:


S. mandraliscae and S. serpens are common yet wonderful dull blue-grey ground covers, with S. serpens being a dwarvish, frail version of the vigorous S. mandraliscae.
Senecio mandraliscae:


Senecio serpens:
 

Senecio barbertonicus (easy to remember:  think "barber tonic") differs in being a rich medium green color--valuable in a xeriscape where silver, blue, and greys may predominate--and it also differs from the other similar succulent Senecios I have mentioned in that it has reasonably attractive flowers.  The flowers are not only bright yellow and daisy-like, they are also fragrant and said to attract butterflies--if we have butterflies around here in winter, which is when this plant blooms.

However valuable Senecio vitalis and Senecio mandraslicae may be, however much we like them, there is no doubt that the flowers are dismal.  Even "dismal" is being somewhat generous:


I would call these Senecio flowers "b*tt-ugly", but this morning I saw a billboard advertising Lord-knows-what--a sugary drink?--with the word "b*tt" in letters 6 feet tall, and then there are those couple of  TV commercials advertising--was it shoes?--that consisted of close-up shots of...buttocks, and so I decided I need to raise my standards above that of advertising agencies and middle school lunch hour tweets.  If I can.  Our culture is hurtling downhill faster and faster.  Or maybe it is already there.  But I digress.

I obsessively nip off all the flowers of Senecio vitalis, mandraliscae, and serpens as they appear--they are not worth bothering with even fresh, and dried they are worse.  Since they are a food source for bees, I should leave them, but the bees here can make do with lots and lots of lavenders.  I hope S. barbertonicus does not disappoint, but if it feeds butterflies...that will be sufficient. 

I did not even mention Senecio rowleyanus or Senecio radicans, "String of Pearls" and "String of Bananas" respectively, or "Dusty Miller" S. cineraria, and then there is another little one that is like a starfish that has been sunburnt and is now peeling. Must find the tag for that one.  Different beasties:  plants for pots.  Then there are a group that actually has attractive--even beautiful--flowers.  It's a big genus with over one thousand species.  I've hardly begun.

Rosa 'Le Vésuve'

Not a spectacular flower, and little fragrance.  'Le Vésuve' is a China rose first introduced around 1825.  The Chinas are not particularly cold-hardy--a warm USDA Zone 7 is about the limit--but apart from that, the great virtue of 'Le Vésuve' is its toughness.  It's a survivor.  It thrives where other roses die.

Mine is on a slope.  I had nowhere else to put it, and I didn't particularly like it--in fact, I half-hoped the location would kill it off.  Instead, it grew, and then grew better.  It does get water, but not a lot.  It also gets no fertilizer, no pruning, and no deadheading, yet it manages to bloom regularly nonetheless, and its foliage looks clean and green nearly year round, except for a few weeks in late winter when it drops the old and grows itself a new set of foliage without any help from me or anyone else.  It is a rose that does not need people, like a house cat gone feral.  It does not need me at all.



I noticed today that our Avocado tree is sporting round pink flowers, so 'Le Vésuve' has set a long-term goal of engulfing our Guacamole producer.  That will get my attention.


So it will finally get some pruning after all, out of the Avocado.  But I like it lately anyway.  It bloomed very little when first planted, but now well established, it has at least a few flowers year round, and quite a thrilling spring flush.  It has earned my respect and honest admiration, if not my love.

Roses That Are Too Happy: 'Easy Going'

Rosa 'Easy Going':



Consider these cuttings.  The top cutting is from 'Easy Going' (Harkness, 1998), and the bottom cutting is from 'Day Breaker':


The 'Easy Going' cane grew about 28" (71 cm) before producing another flower.  The 'Day Breaker' cane grew about 3" (7 cm).  Which one do you think repeats faster?  You would be right in thinking 'Day Breaker'.  'Day Breaker' is in fact the quickest repeat in my garden.  The next flush begins before the last is complete, and this plant never grows too tall.  It puts energy into bloom rather than a lot of growth.  For quick repeat I think it outdoes even 'Iceberg'.  (Rust is another story.) 

'Day Breaker':


In contrast, 'Easy Going' grows a lot between flushes here in a California garden.  It must be noted:  it grows fast, so that despite all the new growth 'Easy Going' has relatively fast repeat, about 4 to 5 weeks, faster than average.  However because of all that growth, it gets tall.  Really tall, 12' (3.6 meters) by Autumn, starting from a pruned-back height in January of about 30".   It is most beautiful in the first flush of spring. 




At that time the plant is compact, so the flowers are close together on the plant, forming a perfect bouquet.  As the plant grows (and grows, and grows) over the summer, it widens out, so even with the same number of flowers in subsequent flushes, the plant is so large the flowers are scattered across a wide field of green, and thus the impact of the flowers is lost.  By summer's end, without hard-deadheading (removing 3' after every flush), the flowers cannot be seen except from a second-story window.

'Day Breaker' remains that perfect bouquet all year (except for the rust) because it doesn't grow so much. 



This year I decided to try an experiment, cutting 'Easy Going' down to 30" after every flush.  I was trying to see if I could get that perfect spring-flush bouquet more than once a year.  My results were disappointing.  'Easy Going' responded by growing more between flushes of bloom, and repeat was a lot slower.  The experiment is a failure, I think.

Now it should be noted that 'Easy Going' is in full sun nearly all day long.  If it was partially shaded,  I would expect a longer interval between blooms and somewhat lankier growth.  'Easy Going' does not have that excuse.  So I've just about decided to remove it and try a different variety.  'Easy Going' might be a more satisfying rose in a shorter growing season or cooler conditions.  Black Spot resistance is listed as superior.  This rose is from the UK, where cool summers reign and it probably doesn't grow to tree-like heights there.  Surprisingly, 'Day Breaker' is a UK rose also (Fryer 2003).   It didn't get the "grow-like-crazy-if-you-are-in California" gene.  Incidentally, this gene is directly adjacent to the "dont-bloom-if-its-time-for-a-garden-tour" gene.  Or so I suspect.