Tag Archives: gardening

Not Too Shy Shasta Daisy

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A couple years ago, I rescued a sad and wilted Shasta daisy from the garden center and tended it with love and care. Since then, I’ve divided it into enough plants to fill an entire bed under the dining room windows.

It wasn’t at all reticent about outgrowing container after container until I had no choice but to allow it to freely spread.

Named after the snowy peaks of Mount Shasta in California, the perennial Shasta daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum) seems to be extremely hardy.

Once established, they are vigorous growers and easily spread via rhizomes. They make lovely cut flowers, but I also learned these daisies are toxic to dogs and cats.

They’re not shy about how bold and beautiful they are!

Blooming Cups of Gold

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I don’t know when this Cup of Gold (Solandra maxima) vine will stop growing but I’m going to allow it to live freely without pruning.

It’s already outgrown the arbor and now stretches like a canopy from tree to tree…The flowers are about six inches wide with a light tropical fragrance.

For the first time this year, it looks like the sun is almost ready to come out. We’ve had a very gloomy first half of 2023 with a heavy marine layer and unseasonably cool weather.

I’m looking forward to blue sky again!

White Sage

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Thanks to all the rain we had this year, all of my sage plants are healthy and flowering, but this white sage is especially full of delicate lavender-colored sticky blooms.

In fact, the entire plant is more than six feet tall and equally as wide.

This is the variety of sage that’s made into smudging bundles tied with string. “Saging” is the term for burning the leaves of the white sage to cleanse, purify, and protect by dissipating negative energy and spirits. 

Smudging (or smoke cleansing) with white sage is sacred to many Indigenous nations of California and Mexico,

I also learned that scientists have observed that sage can clear up to ninety-four percent of airborne bacteria and disinfect the air.

My method is to gather the leaves that naturally fall to the ground and create a smudge stick from them. Sometimes I’ll add lavender, but I prefer the fragrance of white sage all by itself.

Have you ever smudged or is it just a SoCal thing?

Salute The Red Admiral

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I’m so excited! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Red Admiral butterfly. I had installed a solar powered fountain in the pond only minutes before when this little guy came to visit and take a drink. After that, he spread his wings on the sun warmed rocks and I was able to get a good look.

I hope he hangs around for a while…I’ll try to capture better photos if I see him again.

The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) has much more black than the Monarch. It has a black upper forewing with a bright, diagonal red-orange band across it and spots of white on the tips. It also has a red marginal band on its hindwing and the underside is a mottled brown. 

I found a poem about this butterfly and had to share. I wasn’t able to learn a lot about the poet, David Wood, but I certainly do like his poems!

Sonnet 68: Red Admiral

Patrolling small stretches of the hedgerow
Like a silent sentry on guard duty,
Other butterflies they will overthrow;
The Red Admiral, nature’s real beauty.

Seen fluttering throughout summers hot days
From buddleia to Michaelmas daisies,
And sheltering from the suns golden rays,
All the people will sing of their praises.

But they cannot survive the winter’s cold
Their life is all too brief, a crying shame:
Alas none of them will ever grow old
Their short life is all part of nature’s game.

Their beauty we cannot take for granted
For they are delicately enchanted.

What would you do if you won the lottery?💰

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As I dug a hole for a new plant in the garden last weekend, I had to laugh out loud at the thoughts swirling in my head.

Sometimes when I garden, my brain goes into an almost trance-like state lightly touching random elements in my subconscious like a butterfly drifting from flower to flower.

With no apparent rhyme or reason, my brain began to ponder the top ten things I would do if I won the lottery (which I never will because I don’t play).

Photo by Muffin Creatives on Pexels.com

At the top of my list is DIRT.

If I had unlimited funds, I’d buy so much good soil that I could replace all the clay and concrete-like death-to-all-plants earth in my gardens. Instead of buying a bag or two at a time, I’d get a dozen truckloads delivered of the finest growing medium that money could buy.

I wouldn’t mind at all loading it up in a wheelbarrow, in fact, it would be a JOY to don my work gloves and shovel that sweetly perfumed soil. I might roll in it too, like a dog–that’s how much I wish I had that loamy organic earth.

Of course, I’d go to South Coast Plaza and splurge on some Chanel, but the dirt would make me equally as happy.

In no particular order, here’s my lottery wish list….

💰Dirt
💰Chanel
💰Fix some things around here
💰A little cosmetic fix on me lol
💰Buy presents for everyone
💰Donate to a few awesome animal rescues
💰Travel to Peru and Paris
💰Visit all the beaches that have beach glass (and a lot of seashells)

*Sigh*

Forget all the other stuff, the truth is that I’d be overjoyed with a mountain of dirt on my driveway.

I’m back to the land of reality, dreading the hot and dry droughty conditions I’ll be faced with this summer as I mourn the death of many of my plantfriends, but for right now, I can enjoy their colorful beauty.

What would YOU do if you won the lottery?

Fuchsia Fairy

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DIL asked for suggestions about flowers for a hanging basket near their front door.

When I replied that I thought a fuchsia would be pretty, she snortlaughed and said,
“Ring-ring-ring, 1980s calling, Grandma!”

I had never before thought that a purple-pink fuchsia dated me as being OLD, haha. It was a great joke…UNTIL she saw mine, asked what it was, and I was able to identify this amazing creation as a…fuchsia!

So NOW who’s laughing?

How could anyone not love this delicate ballerina of a flower?

Flower fairy and poem credit to https://flowerfairies.com/

Fuchsia is a dancer
Dancing on her toes,
Clad in red and purple,
By a cottage wall;
Sometimes in a greenhouse,
In frilly white and rose,
Dressed in her best for the fairies’ evening ball!

Sunday Stroll in the Neighborhood

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A May gray morning is the perfect weather for a walk.

My hydrangea is blooming and yes, I know I could turn the flowers blue with the correct fertilizer, but I decided to allow them to retain their natural hue without intervention.

At sundown, this is where I often see coyotes, but nothing right now.

Here’s the entrance to a lagoon path; how adorable is this community fairy village?

I’m not too sure what that big square thingy is on the shoreline, but I didn’t want to walk in the muck with my good walking shoes, so it’ll have to remain a mystery.

It’s rattlesnake season, so I diligently watched where I was going and spied a strange object. It’s not exactly a rock but feels heavy for its size and to me, it looks like a whale. Another treasure to bring home!

I hope your Sunday is happy!

Bird Buddy: Scott’s Orioles

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They’re back! Nothing says springtime like a visit from these guys.

Scott’s Orioles are so deliciously bright and vibrant and they very rarely sit still long enough to get a good photo. I was in the right place at the right time for sure!

Look at this male beauty perched on my grapevine.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Join me as I raise a very happy glass of champs to all moms and May birthday girls.

I’m grateful that I had a mom who not only taught me to appreciate Chanel, beautiful flowers and diamonds, how to bake the world’s best cinnamon rolls and apple pie, but also how to make a bed with hospital corners, debride a wound, and nurse a sick loved one back to health. It’s all about balance, teehee. Miss you, Mommy!

Local Event: Butterflies and Milkweed

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Last year I attended the first ever North County Monarch Butterfly Festival. I’m glad to learn that it’s coming back again this Mother’s Day weekend.

The Festival highlights all aspects of the Monarch universe, from monarch-inspired arts and crafts to jewelry, clothing, biology, pollinator gardening, milkweed and nectar plant propagation and cultivating. Join discussions and presentations on a wide range of subjects, such as conservation and butterfly migration, habitat restoration and creation; talks on diseases and predators to gardening with native plants. It’s a great event for families with children’s activities and seed exchanges. (Event link below.)

In my garden, I thought my milkweed plants had died, but they miraculously returned and are doing well.

Planting milkweed is one of the easiest ways that each of us can make a difference for the Monarch. There are more than one hundred species of this wildflower native to North America. Here are just a dozen:

Find the rest of the info at this amazing site: http://butterfly-lady.com/twelve-native-milkweeds/?

Here’s the event link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-second-annual-north-county-monarch-butterfly-festival-tickets-579540440057