Now that it's winter in San Diego Pt. 3

I am sorry to be so inactive when there are still so many things going on! To all you folks from up north or in the mountains or on a tundra somewhere...THIS is our SPRING! Everything is greening up especially since we have had more rain and cool weather in such a short duration of time this year! Thanks to the little guy swimming up from the tropics along our coast (El Nino). Normally we get (or lately DO NOT get) rain from storm fronts moving down from the artic. It has been quite noticeable in the last few years that those storm fronts do not make it much past slightly north of LA before they start heading inland. Thus we have remained in drought for many years! El Nino has broke the cycle by bring southern currents that create storms that we do not normally have.

If the trend continues the next few years will probably be more of the same drought. Global warming...well why don't we just wait around until we find out beyond a shadow of a doubt? I hope that by that time when everybody is convinced that it is so that it is not TOO LATE! Will it kill everybody to just try not to buy hybrid cars or electric cars without first installing solar panels TOO CHARGE THEM UP WITH!!! I am very shocked by the ignorence that is out there!!! If you get a hybrid or electric car you must still hook up to your electricity source which is mostly coal-burning fuel to produce....how the hell is THAT helping? How is shifting corporate ownership of our resources going to help us? Politicians are always selling you more pipe dreams! We might as well legalize pot because we are already too stoned to know the difference! I am tired of listening to all that bull-crap! If you have the money and the where-with-all to do it... install solar on your own roof! Put in gutters if you don't have them and have rain barrels or tanks for water storage from roof run-off. Get rid of this little-house-on-the-prarie ideal of vast areas of lush perfectly kept lawns. I want you to feel the guilt every time you have to get out the lawn mower and the weed-wacker, water your lawn with more water than you even use in your household, apply harmful chemicals that you would be terrified if your kids came in contact with them.... until you have simply had enough of this insane addiction! Get out there for better ideas...your own utility companies may help. There is waterwise.com. Many garden clubs and othere online resources are available.

If anyone of you needs it I can research and create a list for you for things solar, grey-water systems, reclaiming your lawn to a more useful planting. There may still be resources to get things like tax credits for solar systems. I do not know how much longer it will last but as far as I know electric companies will either buy back or give you credit for any electricity that you do not use yourself. Who knows...that could easily change if such corporations suddenly feel threatened by too many homeowners producing so much! If it were not for GM falling flat on its face and the GMAC mortgage company selling out to another company so that we have lost our equity loan we would be having these things done to the house...of course we did not find this out until we tried to access this loan after $7200 of plumbing to our old house! I am still unemployed and we are still one or two months behind on all of the bills! My DMV renewal is now up to $579. I am way past due maintenance on my truck. Carole's car has been breaking down. Yea, life sucks sometimes...where is the earthquake? I would't mind starting from scratch...I guess it is a matter of shifting the pain one way or another! THAT IS ALL! Now...may get back to the things that matter the most?

I will throw a few pics up which will lead on to the next gardening ideas for bulbous plants in southern California and similar climates.

Oops! Not a bulb but a very tall cactus from South America Trichocereus pachynoi. About twice a year they all burst into bloom. Fall and again in spring. The narrow columns reach about 8' in height.

Now here is something that might surprise most southerners! Hyacinths that do not need winter chill! More correctly they are Roman Hyacinths, Hyacinthus orientalis albulus. They are from a more southerly area of France. Sometimes also called French-Roman Hyacinth.

Yes, the dates are from nearly two years ago! However, they are now just coming into bloom. The pictures were taken after planting the bulbs during the winter. That is a nice concept because their bloom can be manipulated by keeping bulbs dry from the winter rains and planting them in sequence from fall into mid winter. I am not a fan of Hyacinths but I love these beauties even if they only come in three colors. They have the same wonderful fragrance of the typical hyacinths but most of all the flowers are in loose spikes so that you can appreciate the beauty of individual flowers. I am sorry but that is what my eyes see... It is also the same as when I look at double flowers...they may have more color and volume but they lack the delicate beauty of the original wild, single flowers.

Ipheion uniflorum is a very much neglected and very desirable bulb for coastal So. CA.! Not only do they give us a feeling of the seasons but they withstand all kinds of abuse and can be put in a wide variety of positions in the garden. If you don't mind the garlicy smell of the leaves they will soon find a place in your gardener's heart! Apparantly they are gopher and rodent resistant so that placing them in many positions around your valuable plants may prove to be helpful. This first pic is the cv. (cultivar) Rolf Fiedler. It is very short and the flowers have widened petals of a very nice shade of blue.

The second pic is cv. Froye Mill. The leaves are narrower and longer (5" or so) and the flowers are held several inches higher than cv. Rolfe Fiedler. They are a deeper violet-blue with star-like petals.

This cv., Wisley Blue is very similar to the species but is deeper blue. (The color is bleached out in this photo due to the flash setting) It has the star-like flowers as the previous cv. as well as the narrow grassy leaves.

I guess that I need to start taking pics without the date stamp! The narcissus at this date are already producing buds that will open in a week or two...but it is close enough. This particular Narcissus cv. is called Ice Follies. It is definitely very prolific and very suited to the south.

The next pic is cv. Ice King which is a double mutation of Ice Follies. Well it isn't TOO terribly double I suppose!

So many things have been done to flowers in efforts to reach for the exotic. This is a "split-cup" cv. which I don't have a name for. It has been doing well here.

Here is a sampling of three other cvs. that are doing well here. Notice the short trumpet on the right flower and the pronounce trumpet on the left flower. The last one was very interesting in that it was changing each day. Starting out yellow center with  peachy edges it faded to an apricot color looking like two different flowers.

I will soon be posting more bulbs and other winter stuff. I intend to create a farely complete list of the bulbs for our mediterranean climate. I am up to 35 genus and a total of 82 including various species and their cultivars(cvs.) Most are reliable but some need more experimenting and there are a few that are tropical but seem to do well here under certain conditions.