Rainy Summer

Today's forecast said rain, and since we are just a couple days from July....I didn't take Mark Finan seriously. Boy was I wrong. There's not much that keeps us from going outside to check on the garden. On a day that we should have had 90-100 degree weather, we had pouring rain. Umbrellas in hand, but wearing flip-flops because we're in denial, we still made the trek.
My poor garden. This year has been crazy. The weather has been unpredictable. I've spent most of my time fighting weeds and plant disease instead of enjoying the garden.

The plants that do like this rain? The ones that I just planted Sunday...like this Eryngium proteiflorum pictured above.
As we ventured around the garden looking for squash, we came across this poor little bee hanging out on my newly planted Erigeron glaucus 'Wayne Roderick'. I guess this poor bee wasn't expecting the rain either, and got stuck in the storm. There was still life left in him, so we picked the flower and brought the bee to a protected area.
He's now hanging out in a little pot of succulents near our front door where we can continue to check on him. Will he make it? Probably not. But I love seeing how much my daughter cares for this single bee. And if we do save him..... well, that's just awesome. At 4 years old my daughter recognizes the importance of bee's.... something that most adults take for granted.

She also knows the importance of snails. They feed the ducks :) hahaha.... We pluck them and throw them in the lawn where a couple ducks happen to be enjoying a mud puddle.

And tonight, we go back to summer dreaming. We hear triple digits are on their way again..... but we'll believe it when we see it :)

Meet Ted! The Titan Arum "Corpse Flower" at UC Davis

Meet Ted! Ted is a Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum), otherwise known as the "corpse flower". He just started blooming today at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory and we were lucky enough to see him before the smell of rotting flesh took over the greenhouse.
What do you think? Should this be our Christmas card photo? haha...


The Titan Arums are found on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. This particular plant is from seed acquired by UC Davis in 1995.

Once blooming, the Titan Arum puts off this smell of rotting flesh to attract flies and beetles to help with pollination. We got to the greenhouse fairly early so the smell wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I hear later tonight it will be extra stinky! It appeared to be "spraying" its stink every 3 minutes or so while we were there, but I imagine right about now it should be spraying pretty regularly.

The picture above may look like a tree, but it's considered to be a single leaf. This particular Titan Arum should be blooming next year. I believe this is "Tabitha the Titan"? Titan Arums can take about 15 years to bloom for the first time, but then will get into a bloom cycle of every 2-5 years. The inflorescence of Ted will die back to a corm (?) and one of the leaves pictured above will appear. Eventually the leaf will turn yellow and die back, and the plant will go dormant, until its next bloom cycle occurs. Each "flower" can produce a couple hundred seeds.

Pictured above snapping pictures is Ernesto! He was awesome! It is so fun to meet someone that is super excited about plants and clearly passionate about the work that he is doing at the conservatory. Seeing this place almost made me want to go back to school. Almost. Since that probably won't happen, I will probably sign up for one of their tours instead because this place was plant heaven!

It was fun to sit back and watch the different visitors that came. We got to meet a nice man that was actually from Indonesia, who said that when he lived there as a kid, the villagers didn't seem to value these plants.

Despite the stench, they are gorgeous. Some of the ladies were commenting on how they'd WEAR the bloom because it reminded them of a silk skirt. The petal part of this plant is actually called a spathe. And the inside- the crinkly fuzzy loaf of bread as my daughter called it- that is called a spadix. It looked as if it was covered in velvet. Below the spadix, in a section that we can't really see, are several hundred little male and female flowers.

If you get the chance tomorrow, the "petal" will be much more open, and the smell will be dying down. This bloom process lasts about 48 hours, then you have to wait a few years for the process to occur again. Thank you to the UCD Botanical Conservatory, and all of the staff that is donating their time over the next two days so that the public can participate in this rare event. You can visit their site to get information on the visitation hours for Ted. Admission is free to visit Ted, but please consider donating to the conservatory! Or as Ernesto said "When you get rich, remember us when you die." The Titum Aruns also have their own Facebook page because they are THAT cool. You can find their FB page here.

Adding Plants to Your Garden? Consider Your Neighbors

What's living in your backyard?

When we moved in to this house back in the summer of 2004, no one told us about the dangers that lurked in the backyard. Want to take a nap on the hammock? Forget about it. Unless you enjoy nightmares of Swamp Thing coming after you when you sleep.
When we bought this house we were too concerned about the plumbing issues to see that there was this horrific green monster that was tearing down our back fence. Well over a 180 feet of basket-weaved style fencing was being brought to its knees by this, a popular plant of the eighties, a way to keep things "green" with little upkeep. A popular housing option for rats, and the smell of cat pee that lingers with it, this green beast is not your friend.


What people don't understand is that not everyone likes ivy. I hate it. We're on a corner lot and I feel like I am constantly battling it from both sides. When we've chatted with our neighbors about the decline of our fences, we hear things like "But it's holding up our ivy." Holding up your ivy?! How about the safety of my dog and child and not having a secure, fenced yard. The yard that I paid for?
As we continue to install metal posts along our fence to hold it up, we get no support from the neighbors that installed the evil green beast on the other side. Who's responsibility should it be to maintain this? If you plant something that takes over your neighbors yard, I would expect that it is the responsibility of the "planter" to resolve the issue with the neighbor, no?
Thanks to our neighbors, the vegetable garden we once tended to in the backyard has been overtaken by ivy, and an overgrown fig tree. We gave up on the fight, and instead ripped out the grass in the front yard to start our vegetable garden, since our neighbors refused to tend to their own gardens, and keep the ivy from growing into our yard. Lucky them- now they get to look at my tomato cages!

What's your take on invasive plants from neighbors? I've heard horror stories about bamboo and ivy, and obviously I'm experiencing it myself. It's one thing if it's just green and pretty- but what if it's ripping down your fence, as shown above?

Soooooo, what's my point? How about considering your neighbor with everything you plant? Your favorite plant may not be theirs, and you need to consider that as you're picking plants out for your own garden. Anything that says "can be invasive" should probably be avoided, unless you have a full time garden staff that is willing to battle for you. And that battle will still come at a price. Do you want a nice relationship with your neighbor, or not?

Father's Day at Effie Yeaw Nature Center

Happy Father's Day to all of the awesome dads out there! How did you spend your special day? In our house it's not about gifts, but instead about quality time with the family doing whatever it is that dad wants to do. My husband chose to do a little hiking at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael, CA.
The Effie Yeaw Nature Center is ran under the American River Natural History Association, who took over the center in 2010. A family membership to the ARNHA is a modest $40 (and includes parking at Ancil Hoffman Park), and not only helps preserve the Parkway, but supports the education programs at Effie Yeaw as well. You can also find Effie Yeaw and ARNHA on Facebook.

Effie Yeaw is a great place to introduce young kids to hiking. Most of their trails are about 3/4 of a mile, and they have lots of benches along the trails to catch a break when needed.


Western Redbud, a member of the pea family, is starting to show off its lovely red seed pods. In the spring their purple flowers are eye-catching....errr, trail-stopping?

You can't see her very well in this picture (because I have a horrible camera, and I follow the rules and stay on the path!), but Effie Yeaw has a wide variety of wildlife that call these 77 acres home. Besides the deer resting in the photo above, you'll often find turkeys, coyotes, rabbits, hawks, snakes, and many, many more. You'll also find a wide variety of BUGS here! Not just bee's, but the valley elderberry long-horned beetle, and about 86 varieties of butterflies call this place home.

A great place to sit and watch the bugs is at this swale pond. We grabbed a bench in the shade, and enjoyed the butterflies fluttering around us.

Housing seasonal overflow from the American River, in 1999 this pond was lined with over 200 tons of clay to help keep the water through the summer months.

Can you tell we're enjoying ourselves?

Effie Yeaw has a butterfly garden, but also includes signs along the pathways that talk about many of the native plants you'll find along your trip, like some of the ones mentioned here.

This meadow is a sea of flowers in the spring, full of star thistle, winter vetch, mallow, wild oats and foxtail fescue.

Here Alex is checking out a Valley Oak that is near the end of its life. Valley Oaks are the largest oaks in North America, and you can only find them here in California. Yet another reason to visit us :)

Oh, and while you're visiting, stop by the Discovery center and shop (open 9am-5pm during the summer) and visit Sophia, a saw-whet owl, who came to the center after being injured in the grill of a truck. Sophia is just one of the animals you can see at the vistor center.

Blooming Artichokes: Bee Crack

A few weeks ago I had a lady ring our door bell, with a bag in hand, saying "You're letting a lot of artichokes go to waste, I'm here to pick them." When I told her the rest of the artichokes were for the bee's, she got a little rude and stormed off, as she told us we were being "wasteful".
To me, being wasteful would be picking the artichokes and then not eating them. Allowing them to bloom is not letting them go to waste, it's just simply beautiful.

The above artichokes haven't started blooming yet, but they are getting close. This particular variety is a beautiful shade of purple inside, which you only see if you allow them to age this long on the plant.

And then once they bloom, it's like a pool party for bee's. Jumping, diving... if I could see their faces I'm sure they're plastered with artichoke-lovin' grins. How many bee's can you see in the picture above?

Consider this my thank you to them for all the hard work they do all year.

So, I'm sorry dear neighbors if we seem wasteful, but I welcome you to stop and check out the artichoke blooms. And don't take it personally if they moon you.

Wordless Wednesday/Garden Blogger Bloom Day 6/15/11