The Bulb Maven

The Morning Walkabout

There is a sweetness in the air in the morning that is not from any exotic bloom, although the scent could rival any lily or rose, but comes from the sticky resin that coats the buds of some species of poplar.  Our local poplars are called cottonwoods, named for the fluff attached to their seeds that float through the air like a flurry of snowflakes.  The scent is best at dawn, when the air is cool and laden with dew.  Why Mother Nature thought it necessary to endow the buds, and even the fresh young leaves, with such a heavenly scent is a mystery.  For me, along with the arrival of the swallows, it means that spring is really here, regardless of the weather.

The weather has been miserable - cold, wet and windy.  It did not prevent me from taking my yearly pilgrimage to Table Mountain in Butte County.  There are many 'Table Mountains' in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada of California.  They are old lava flows, with the surrounding land eroded over the millennia, leaving flat topped buttes standing high from the surrounding hills.  For a week I hiked the mountain, in spite of rain and wind.  When I lived in the local town of Oroville I hiked the mountain almost daily during the rainy season, and loved it in all its moods.   I have been there in storms, in dense fog when it seems mysterious and magical, and in dazzling sunshine.  It is now a wildflower preserve, made so for the yellow clover (seen here) that is found only on the north Table Mountain, but it is a dense carpet of annuals this time of year, and a smattering of bulbs.    More bulbs will come later and will close the wildflower season on Table Mountain.  Pictures are better than words, so here are a few more.

There are many waterfalls on Table Mountain, for although it appears flat it is cut with many ravines that hold waterfalls hidden from view until you are almost there. Needless to say, it is dog heaven. 

Now we are back to our workaday life, my thoughts keep wandering back to that heavenly place.  In another month the rains will cease and the wildflowers and streams will completely dry up.  But next year, with the autumn rains, the cycle will begin again, and we will be back.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

The Morning Walkabout

 
There have been no beautiful dawn skies for many, many weeks this year.  Our rainy season starts in October and extends through April, but usually we have breaks in the rain when the pools of water on the property subside and the mud dries somewhat.  In January we did have a welcome respite from the rain, but since then we have had daily downpours with the usual flooding.  Our morning walkabouts, therefore, are much curtailed, and mostly confined to quick sloshes around the garden to fill the bird feeders and check to see if the deer fencing is doing its job of keeping out hungry deer. 

It can be a dreary time of year, since outside work comes to a halt, and my daily training sessions with my dogs are a distant dream.  The big task in January and February is updating the web site, and this has been done.  I hope it will be easier for people to read and find things.  Another task is book-keeping and getting all my documents ready to take to my accountant.  This is not a pleasant task, and is made worse by the fact that I have put off getting a good book-keeping program, so I leave everything in a big pile until the beginning of the year when it takes many days of sorting to get everything in order.  Complicating everything was the purchase of a new computer after having irreconcilable differences with my old one.  I still hate the new one, but I suppose I will get used to it.

There have been many pleasures, however, to brighten these dark days.  We have been to six agility trials, and Hannah is close to getting her championship.  We need only two successful runs to complete the title, but these are not easy to get.  Willie, my male terrier, has been out of commission for several months.  He started leaning to one side, and not wanting to jump.  He has done this before, and it was thought he had injured his shoulder, but now the vet thinks he has a herniated disc in his neck.  He had hit his head very hard two years ago leaping for his ball, and since then had problems off and on.  He has not been allowed to play, tug at his toys, or train for agility, and until last week had not been in a trial since Thanksgiving.  This has been very hard for him, and I am quite sure he felt he didn't count any more.  I took him to the trials, but he wasn't allowed to do anything, and he was getting very grouchy with all this inactivity.  Gradually, I have been increasing his activity, and last weekend he was entered in a trial.  He was so happy!!!  He was cautious jumping, but when he found out it didn't hurt, he raced around the courses, winning two, with the happiest smile on his face.  From now on he will be in a Veteran's program where he jumps at a lower jump height, and I will watch him carefully for any sign that he may be hurting.  Here is in in better days.

 
The greenhouses, of course, are full of pleasures this time of year.  I couldn't imagine these months without them.  On the most miserable days, I can walk into their sheltered environment and breathe in the scent of blooming bulbs.  It has not been a very good year for Oxalis, since they need sun to open their beautiful flowers, but there are other pleasures on hand.  Lachenalias are in bloom now, and many Gladioli are also blooming.  Here is the beautiful L. viridflora, in bloom at Christmas time.

I have a collection of many bulbs that I never offer on the web site, including a small collection of Narcissus species.  Here is the lovely little N. bulbocodium.  This sweet little narcissus is the easiest to grow, multiplying well.  It is often available from bulb brokers.  Another favorite is the tiny N. calcicola.  this is so small it almost belongs in a doll's house.  the flowers are only about 5mm across.  Here it is to the left.  I am hand-pollinating these lovely treasures in the hope of offering them in future years.

Many Hippeastrum are in bloom now.  The wonderful spidery H. cybister is sending up its buds.  I have four accessions of this beautiful Hippeastrum and all are slightly different as far as form and color are concerned.  This year I have many buds, so, hopefully, I will get some seed. There are no guarantees, however, since my careful pollination of Paramongaia weberbaurii with three batches of different pollen was totally unsuccessful.   I was crushed.

As I work in the greenhouses on these dark days my thoughts are constantly drifting across the ocean to my many customers in Japan.  I have been in touch with some who are showing great courage in this terrible catastrophe.  Living as I do in a very seismically active area, within sight of the Pacific Ocean, and also within a few miles of a decomissioned nuclear power plant which has spent fuel rods stored on site, I am fully aware that this kind of tragedy could very well happen here.  There is little we can do about the forces of nature, but surely we have to face up to this nuclear madness.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

The Morning Walkabout

Work continues at a very intense pace, and my morning walkabouts with the dogs are much curtailed.  This is, in part, due to the fact that I rent my large Victorian house out in the summer to people on vacation, and during the summer months it is full.  My morning walks around the garden, therefore, have to be put aside in deference to the guests' privacy, so this morning when we had a two day respite, it was much welcome.  A break from the garden helps me see it with fresh eyes, and as I strolled around this morning, I was making a mental list of things to do in the fall, while disturbing dozens of tiny little green frogs that seemed to be everywhere.

Our new house rules are that when the dogs are loose outside, the kittens are in the barn, and vice versa.  My dogs, unfortunately, are not to be trusted with cats outside.  This is no slur on their characters.  They were, after all, bred to hunt and kill other furry creatures, and this instinct is hard-wired in their genes.  I wish it were otherwise, but I would be foolish to trust them at this stage.  I hope as time goes on, they will learn that these are OUR cats, and must be left alone.  In the barn it is different.  With close supervision they will not bother the kittens, and even seem to like them.  So, this morning, since my dogs were taking their post-breakfast naps, I let the kittens out and had their company as I did my morning tour of the garden and greenhouses.  With the dogs inside, the heifers in the field next door also showed an interest, following us down the fence line.

Working cleaning bulbs in the greenhouse where I grow the subtropical bulbs, I was enveloped with the most heavenly scent the past few days.  Hymenocallis eucharidifolia is in bloom, and the scent is wonderful.  The beautiful Scadoxus multiflorus ssp. katherinae is also in full bloom.  This lovely Scadoxus can make an excellent garden plant in mild climates.  Here it is to the right, with an umbel of satiny flowers that measures about 15cm (6") across.

The weather continues to be cold and drizzly, with the sun breaking through for short periods.  This is reputed to be one of the coldest, wettest springs on record.  We know it here at Telos, for there have been unusual losses.  Almost all of the mature bulbs of the California Fritillarias have been lost.  This is a serious setback, for I depend on these for seed for propagation.  Many of my California lilies have also suffered, especially those from the dry inland regions.  My bulbs are protected from rain, but the long, cold, wet months of spring when the temperatures should have been warming and the humidity decreasing were conditions they are simply not adapted to.  I am fairly philosophical about such losses.  You have to be when you grow any kind of plants, for Mother Nature will, sooner or later, throw you a curve ball.  It is time to take stock, and reconsider what to grow in the future, perhaps eliminating some of the more difficult species except for a few specimens for my own enjoyment.  We will see.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

The Morning Walkabout

Summer has finally arrived, the morning mists clearing to sunny days.  As the sun arises, bands of mist lie like veils over the fields, disappearing to leave the grasses sparkling with beads of moisture.  It is the best time of day, the world awakening with roosters crowing and birds singing.  My work day has not yet commenced, and my head is free of the lists of tasks to be achieved as I wander around the garden.

I had written before that I had installed a small herb garden and put a fountain base as a focal point.  It now has its own little ecosystem with plants and fish, and this tiny pool has given me a lot of pleasure.  I planted a waterlily, intending it as shade for the fish, and it obligingly sent up two fat buds, one of which opened a few days ago.  There are even tadpoles, which probably came with the plants, now growing bumps on their sides where their legs will develop.

There is little in bloom in the greenhouses this time of year, but about a year ago I acquired Ipomoea bolusiana from Dylan Hannon.  It comes from the Transvaal of South Africa and grows from a tuberous rootstock, part of which is exposed, so I think I should describe it as a caudex.  I am very fond of morning glory-type flowers, so I was thrilled when it opened its first bud yesterday, and now am stricken with a desire to acquire more such plants. I know very little about this genus, but that is the joy of growing plants, there is so much to explore that you never run out of new adventures.

I have a few Hippeastrum in bloom.  Here, to the right, is a beautiful cross between H. papilio and H. cybister.  I am not myself prone to make crosses, and the seed came from a friend, but I certainly appreciate the results.   To the left is a species, H. mandoni, a very large Hippeastrum that can grow to three feet with stunning flowers.  In mild climates this can be grown in the garden.  One day I will post on Hippeastrum, but my collection is somewhat limited, and the genus itself somewhat overwhelming, plus I am still waiting to get blooms on some of the rarer species.

The kittens are growing at an incredible rate.  They no longer both fit in my lap, so there is a good deal of competition as to who gets the prime spot, but since they only stop moving for about a half minute at a time, this is not yet a serious problem.  Fortunately, I have great patience with animals, so when they dash across the keyboard, or toss all my carefully organized papers all over the floor, I mostly laugh and put things back.  They have reorganized some of my computer files, by hitting some of those strange keys I never use that have 'F' in front of them, and that took a bit of sorting out!  I want them to be good mousers, so I found an electronic mouse that squeaks when you tap it (it sounds very life-like, or maybe throes-of-death-like), and I feed them raw beef occasionally to get them to like the taste of raw meat. Without a mom to teach them these skills I am doing my best to substitute.  Willie, my male terrier, desperately wants the mouse, and on occasion has got one and thoroughly killed it, so we are now on our eighth mouse.  I am totally amazed when people say (usually pursing their lips while they say it) that they don't like cats.  What is there to dislike?  They are beautiful, endlessly entertaining and extremely affectionate.  And .... they get rid of your mice, and when you have greenhouses full of bulbs, that is a very important consideration, so here at Telos they even earn their keep.

My day ended yesterday with a pleasant half mile walk to my neighbors' house for a barbecue.  These are the wonderful neighbors, Wayne and Rashell, who leave meals in my mailbox, among other kindly things they do for me.  A great evening with good friends, walking back at sunset with a great ball of fire sinking below the horizon.

Today I will work on international orders, and continue with the unpotting of the California native bulbs.  It is a busy time of year, with long work days, and our local agility trial is next weekend, so I don't have a second to spare.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

www.telosrarebulbs.com  
  

The Morning Walkabout

After a long, cold, miserable spring, Mother Nature finally took pity on us, and the weather turned glorious for the Fourth of July weekend, with sunny days in the low 70F range.  The village of Ferndale, where I live, has many celebrations going on for the weekend, including a parade and a spectacular fireworks display, so the sunny weather was most welcome for the events.  Watching fireworks burst in a dense fog cloud, as can happen, is missing the point.

Without the morning fog, the dawn sky has been beautiful, the sun slowly rising above the mountains to the east to bathe the fields in a golden glow.  My morning begins before dawn, and I love to watch the sky slowly change color as the birds awaken.  When I moved to this property seven years ago, there was little birdsong, the four acre property, and the fields surrounding it, being almost completely bare of trees and shrubs.  My first two years here were completely consumed in getting the nursery up and running, but I have been planting what I hope will become a dense windbreak, and it is starting to fill in.  Now there are many more birds, since they have nesting places and shelter, and I hope this will get even better as time goes on.

Each morning I call the dogs for our morning walkabout, when we walk around the garden and the nursery area to see what we can see.  Just before this, I was in my tiny kitchen in the barn, when I heard my dogs barking outside in a very frenzied manner, quite different from their usual "someone is coming down the driveway" barking.  I went outside, and they had a hawk cornered in my little sitting area.  I thought the poor thing was injured, since it was panting and had its wings extended.  I quickly called the dogs inside, then quietly sat and watched at some distance.  It walked very cautiously past me, then took to flight, apparently none the worse for its encounter.

With the warmer weather, my small collection of Mexican bulbs are starting to bloom.  the stunningly beautiful purple Bessera elegans has opened its buds, as has the sweetly scented Milla biflora, with large waxy white flowers.

I only have a few of the Mexican Calochortus species.  Unlike those from the western USA, Mexican Calochortus grow in the summer, and are dormant in winter.  They are not as variable as the American ones, but have a charm of their own.   Here is C. marcellae to the left, and C. pringlei to the right.

I haven't taken the trouble to propagate my Mexican Calochortus species, so I don't have any available, but I usually have the different colors of Bessera, as well as Milla.  With only myself doing virtually all the work of the nursery, I have to make some difficult decisions, as far as which bulbs to propagate and which bulbs to keep just for my own enjoyment.  I have two large greenhouses, and can't put up more, for then I would need full time help, so greenhouse space is at a premium, and some bulbs will always be there just to please me.  I do get occasional requests from collectors asking "You don't happen to have .....?", and often I do have what they are seeking and can spare one or two bulbs.

Petronymphe decora has sent up buds, but will bloom a little later.  I feel very lucky to have this rare species in my collection, and usually have some bulbs to spare.

Harvesting bulbs continues.  I still have most of the California species to take out of their pots, since they bloom at the end of spring, and I am awaiting the ripening of their seeds.  I have carefully hand pollinated the Calochortus and some of the Brodiaeas, this year with good results.  It is a slow and tedious job, and sometimes I have still lost my seed and all the work I put into pollinating due to adverse weather conditions.

With summer here, my work increases considerably, and that will continue until the end of the year.  I am happy!  Although I have been called a workaholic by some friends, I take exception to that very pejorative term.  I LOVE my work.  It makes me happy just to walk into my greenhouses in the morning.  I feel blessed. 

www.telosrarebulbs.com  

The Morning Walkabout

Although the solstice has passed, and officially it is now summer, I would hesitate to describe it as such here in the northernmost part of California.  We have had almost no spring, with rain until early June and much cold windy weather when it wasn't raining (in this 'Mediterranean' climate it usually stops raining in April).

This has confused my bulbs, and, even more so, confused the wildflowers, with many species being at least six weeks behind in blooming.  The extra rain is needed after at least three years of reduced rainfall, but the grey weather, after a long cold winter, has made me feel cheated and worried that we will go right into winter feeling as though summer never happened.

Returning home from a dog trial in Oregon this week, I found Lycoris chinensis in full bloom, about four months ahead of schedule.  Well, I am not complaining!  It is hard enough to get Lycoris to bloom in containers, and this lovely bloom was very welcome.  I am growing some of my Lycoris in very large containers, in the hope of encouraging them to bloom.  I am not sure why they don't bloom in pots, there are so many variables; root room, soil temperature, soil mosture, microorganisms, etc.  Growing anything in a container is subjecting a plant to a very abnormal environment, with extreme swings in moisture, nutrient availability and temperature.  I am surprised they tolerate it at all.

There are new additions to the nursery.  A month ago I made my regular visit to an Indian reservation where I have friends.  A stray cat had shown up and had a litter under the house of one of my friends.  The kittens were about two months old, and my friend said she didn't want to take them to the animal shelter since they would surely be killed.  My adult cats died over a year ago, and I certainly need cats here to keep the mice in check, but my dogs are cat killers, so I had hesitated to take the step.   Well, here they are, two little girls I named Mamie and Lucy after Indian friends.  Mamie is the grey and white one, Lucy the black and white one. 

I had a friend many years ago who told me that every time she got depressed she got a new kitten, being a sure cure for the blues (she had five cats).  Well, it's lot better than taking pills, and I can vouch for their mood elevating properties, since they never stop playing, and curl in my lap purring and gazing at me with adoration (at least, that is how I choose to interpret it).    I haven't had a kitten for about thirty years, since my previous cats lived to very ripe old ages and the two that died a year ago came to me as adults (from another reservation).  So now we are in the very slow process of introducing the dogs to the cats, under close supervision.  It is going well, but the danger will be when they are loose outside and the cats run, triggering my dogs' rat hunting instincts.  At that point they are just prey as far as my dogs are concerned, so we are putting up hog wire fencing that will allow the cats through but will prevent the dogs from following.

Bulb harvesting is in full swing.  Most of the South African bulbs have been lifted, but the native bulbs are still ripening seed, with a few still in bloom.  The late blooming Calochortus are the last to be harvested, as are the Brodiaeas.  Here are the lovely Calochortus gunnisoni (left) and Calochortus macrocarpus (right) still in full bloom.

www.telosrarebulbs.com  

The Morning Walkabout

 
Our first major storm of the season is on its way, and is welcome, for the ground is so dry I had to use a mattock and breaker bar to dig some large holes for planting shrubs yesterday.  Today, before dawn, there were stars, but soon after the sky clouded up giving a beautiful dawn.  I didn't get a picture, but here is a picture of the hyrid Nerine I have called 'Dawn', in bloom now.

In recent days the dawn sky has been clear, the mornings very brisk, with occasional patches of frost here and there, and the smell of wood smoke in the air.  I love a wood fire.  To me, it is one of the joys and consolations of winter, compensating somewhat for the long dark evenings.  I enjoy all parts of it, stacking my wood, splitting kindling, trundling the wheelbarrow full of logs up to the house, then sitting by the fire, feeling its primal warmth and listening to the sounds of logs shifting in the grate, flames crackling and flaring when I give it more wood.  These last evenings I have been cleaning the seeds I harvested from the bulbs this summer, and a very pleasant (although somewhat messy) occupation it was, sitting by the fire, both dogs stretched out on the rug.  I read in the paper that more and more towns are banning wood stoves, citing air quality as a reason, and most recently saw that Chico was about to pass regulations severely restricting the use of wood stoves, so one day we may all be condemned to sitting in front of gas fired facsimiles of wood stoves, with no sound of burning logs, not smell of wood smoke, and none of the pleasurable chores that go with a wood fire.  I find this intensely depressing, especially since I know for sure that the poor air quality in the region around Chico where I used to live is due to automobiles and trucking, not to lawnmowers (they have also been blamed) or to wood fires.

Many Nerines are in bloom now.  I have posted on Nerines before, and that posting can be found under South African bulbs, since the genus has members that are summer growing, winter growing, or evergreen, so I don't want to repeat myself.  The winter growing species are the ones that bloom now, and some are truly magnificent.  I am slowly propagating the best ones, hoping to be  able to list them before too long.  Here is Nerine 'Rosa' to the left.  To the right is Nerine 'La Pasionara". 

There are many more in bud, like the lovely 'Razzle Dazzle' photographed last year, and seen here to the left, and I am hoping for some new surprises from bulbs that have not bloomed before.  

Shipping continues, but will start to wind down soon, although I can ship some bulbs year round, especially members of the Family Amaryllidaceae, so shipping never stops completely.  This is a very busy time of year, getting ready for seed sowing and repotting, and with my new greenhouse benches, I feel prepared for the tasks ahead and for the winter storms.

www.telosrarebulbs.com  

The Morning Walkabout

It is a shock to realize that we are almost half way through August, and that summer is edging towards autumn.  In my previous post I commented that there wasn't a lot happening in the greenhouses, but yesterday I noticed buds emerging from the pink Rhodophiala bifida (left), and also Calostemma purpureum (right), Amaryllids that bloom in late summer, heralding the onset of the autumn display of most members of the Family Amaryllidaceae, such as Nerine and many other South African members.  Hymenocallis have been blooming off an on for some time, with the dainty umbels of H. leavenworthii seen here, a very rare member of the genus from Mexico, where it grows at some elevation.  Here it is to the right.

 Summer's progress is also marked by the birds' activities.  Their songs no longer awaken me at dawn, they are probably too busy to spend much time singing, frantically feeding the gaping mouths of their babies.  The swallows have already reared one brood, and are on their second, but the parents are still pestered by their adolescent babies that badger them for food.  They are a constact source of entertainment.

In the pasture next door there is an ever changing population of horses, apparently the owners rotating horses from their other ranch.  About a month ago there was a pure white one and an ebony black one, and watching them race each other around the five acres was delightful.  Now we have a mother and her baby.  She is not at all afraid of the dogs, and seems to want to play with them.

I have been having some work done on the garden.  I had put in a small informal herb garden, and wanted a focal point, so I had the basin of a fountain put in on a stone base.  I will plant a miniature water lily in it, since I would never run a fountain, and don't actually like the movement.  Here is the full work crew, the dogs having played a supervisory role, testing the mortar to make sure it was just right. 

We are having a very wonderful summer here in the Ferndale valley.  Although other parts of the state are parched, with our morning fog, things stay lush and green all year.  The fog clears by about 10:00am, rolling back in at night, keeping the temperatures pleasantly cool.  Last summer it was very cold and foggy, but there are no complaints this year.  The County Fair opens in a couple of days, and I can see the ferris wheel from my window.  My favorite agility trial is this coming weekend, and we have been training every day, hoping to bring back ribbons.  Even if we don't win, we always have a wonderful time, for, after all, the dogs know nothing of winning or ribbons, they do it for the joy of it.  And ... for the treats, of course!!

 

www.telosrarebulbs.com

 

The Morning Walkabout

This is the time of year when we are away at dog trials on some weekends, having just returned from Oregon, where we did respectably well.  As soon as we are back, we slip into our routine of an early morning walk around the nursery, usually at sunrise. 

This morning gauzy, low-lying mists enveloped the fields, and as the sun rose they all turned to a brilliant orange hue.  The effect only lasted a few minutes, then the sun rose above the low banks of mist when they changed to opalescent colors before disappearing completely.

Yesterday it was so windy it was hard to work outside, so we all went off to gather seeds about an hour south of here.  There is a steep cliff by the road covered in Calochortus amabilis, and now is the time the seed is ripe.  Here they are to the left, in bloom about six weeks ago. It was a beautiful drive through the redwoods and we found a trail for the dogs to run, chasing each other happily through the poison oak (bath time when we got home).  It takes all my old rock climbing skills to get a few pods of this Calochortus, but I don't have to feel guilty about collecting them, since the seeds would undoubtedly fall on the road below where they would be doomed.

Walking around the nursery a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a little white crowned sparrow dart out from one of my Bomareas.  Usually I trim all the old stems off the Bomareas in about April or May, making room for new growth, but I had left four or five, since seed was still ripening on them.  It happened again the next day, so I investigated, and found the most perfect nest snuggled in the stems.  The eggs soon hatched, but the babies disappeared a couple of days after hatching, probably victims of the raccoons.

In the greenhouse where I grow my tender subtropical bulbs, a few things are blooming.  Bulbs from equatorial regions seem to bloom whenever they feel like it, also going dormant erratically, so my pots of Eucrosias have some dormant bulbs, some with leaves and some in bloom.  Here is Eucrosia aurantiaca, one of the more spectacular bulbs from Ecuador.  Also in bloom is the rather strange Sprekelia formosissima from Mexico, seen here to the right.  There are, I believe, two Sprekelia species, both from Mexico, S. formosissima and S. howardii, a recently described species that I have finally got my hands on, although they haven't bloomed yet.

The powder-puff blossoms of the South African Haemanthus humilis ssp. hirsutus is in bloom, white with pink bracts and very attractive.

I was very thrilled to see emerging buds on my Hymenocallis hawkesii (probably more correctly named as Ismene hawkesii).  I had obtained seedling bulbs some time ago, and now they have matured to bloom size.  This is an extremely rare species from Peru, where it grows at about 6000'. Here it is to the right.  

Work in the nursery continues with seed gathering and unpotting the dormant bulbs.  The native bulbs are the last to go dormant, and can't be harvested until their seed has ripened, so this will continue well into July.  The South African bulbs have mostly been lifted by now, with Oxalis being the first batch to be unpotted, and Oxalis orders already being shipped. 

Summer is upon us, with sunny days preceded by morning fog in our area.  The fields are being mown for hay, the cows all glossy, fat and contented.  The solstice has already passed.  I always feel a touch of sadness at the summer solstice that they days are incrementally shortening, although we will still have daylight beyond 9pm for a while.  I love these long days.  I can work in my garden until dusk or take the dogs to the beach at sunset.  I wish it would last forever. 

www.telosrarebulbs.com

The Morning Walkabout

We (the dogs and I) have been away a great deal for the past three weeks at two dog trials, with more coming up.  Here we are on the beautiful Smith River on our way home from Oregon.

Coming home, my first task is to catch up on e-mail and orders, then take care of the bulbs.  I am having a difficult time tearing myself away from my garden these days, since I am trying to renovate parts of my front yard and it is all starting to look the way I would like it.  I had, mistakenly, planted an escallonia hedge along the front of my yard, wanting privacy from the road and wind protection.  My house faces west, and you can almost see the ocean from the upstairs of my house.  You can actually see it during storms when waves can reach 18ft high, and the surf line is visible across the flat fields.  My property is about a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean with nothing to break the force of the wind, so the hedge seemed a good idea.  It wasn't.  I bought what was supposed to be a dwarf form of escallonia, but in eighteen months they had grown from six inches to seven feet, with no sign of stopping.  With one very large and very long hedge to trim already, and with the escallonias suckering into my small flower borders, I decided they had to go, so I have been slowly digging them out.  It is no easy task, but I have half of them removed, and I am replacing them with a loose mixture of better behaved shrubs.

With most of the catch up work behind me, I can now take my customary strolls around the nursery.  The beautiful Arum creticum is in full bloom.   It has a faint sweetish scent, unlike most Arums, although I do have a clone that I grew from seed that is most definitely not sweetly scented.  Nearby are pots of the hybrid Erythronium 'Pagoda', seen here to the left, and I am thinking that if I can solve the gopher problem I must definitely plant these two in my garden.  They look beautiful together, need similar conditions, and bloom at the same time.  Arums don't seem bothered by slugs, snails or deer, so possibly they wouldn't taste good to gophers, but I am sure they would love the Erythroniums.  Another lovely little Erythronium in bloom now is E. howellii, seen here below. 

Zephyra elegans, seen here to the right, is from Chile, where it grows in very dry conditions.   The usual color is blue, but I have a white flowered one grown from seed.  It has taken five years or more to bloom, and has been difficult to keep happy, so I doubt I will ever be able to offer it on the web site. 

Also from Chile are the Leucocorynes, all in bloom now.  I have posted previously on this genus, but here is the beautiful L. macropetalum.  

I have a small collection of native Alliums, and I am becoming more fond of them as time goes on.  I only grow a few in sufficient quantities to list on the web site, but I do have others that are just for my own enjoyment.  Here is Allium yosemitense, in bloom for me for the first time.   

Yesterday, in my Mediterranean greenhouse, I was amazed to find a small swarm of butterflies.  I am not sure if they hatched in there or all flew in through the opened door.  When I moved to this property I was rather dismayed to find that bees and butterflies were scarce here, but since I have planted my garden this has changed considerably.  Before, there was little here for shelter or nourishment.  I felt pretty certain that my greenhouse wasn't a good environment for a butterfly to prosper, so I spent a large part of the morning capturing them and releasing them outside.

Spring is well established.  The swallows are back, and are swirling around the barn.  The first ones back were the tree swallows, with small flocks arriving a good month ago.  Soon after the barn swallows followed, and they are already investigating nesting places on the house and barn.  I am astonished when people tell me that I should knock their nests down because the 'make a mess'.  Not as bad a mess as we humans, I say.  The geese have mostly departed, with a few stragglers still here, although as I write this I am conscious that I can't hear them, so maybe they have gone too.

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