Doyenne of Dirt Comes Clean

Consider me humbled.

You may have noticed I'm not the hippest blogster in the bunch. In other words, if it's hot and happening in the blog world, you're NOT likely to read about it here.

Believe me, I'm not bragging. I get that my creds as a blogger are slightly pathetic, possibly even considered rude, if the standard of gentility is linking to others.

So consider me a plant in need of sunlight and nourishment and help me out here. What are the enlightening, surprising, irreverent and relevant plant-related blogs I need to read?

12:02 PM ET | 04-25-2008 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

 

Hummingbirds: Name That Syndrome

I've refrained from mentioning my little "rats with wings" (yes, that's what an NPR colleague calls them, and with good reason, she says) until all the emotion died down. Not your enthusiasm, no, nor your pleas that I get back to plants (which I did), but my own sadness since the morning I woke up and found a syndrome in the place of nesting birds.

The good news is that I got to watch each of my two little tidbits flitter around the nest once they'd fledged, under the strict supervision of Mama. To witness such intimacy, so much flapping to get from branch to nearby branch ...

And the way Mama remained within inches of their every move once beyond the nest! I even got to see her feed them while she hovered mid-air, though in truth her maneuver reminded me of a far less romantic aerial refueling.

One of the sweetest things I witnessed was when the little guy left behind was rejoined by her/his nestmate after a long, cold day alone (how I suffered for her!). The next day, the proverbial nest was empty, and has remained so. But to my great joy, the family remains in my garden playing hide, seek and eat while enjoying the shelter of my dense Pittosporum 'Tall'n'Tough' as its primary habitat.

Though I am reluctant to call too much attention to "what the birds have taught me", I have had quite a few more wake-up calls re:turning fantasy and projection into fact. Shortly after baby #2 fledged, I couldn't find any of the birds. Nowhere. Not one. And earlier that same day I'd heard a scream, like a baby but not quite. So I immediately concluded the entire family had been massacred by a murder of crows.

Not.

Also, as you might remember, I was all in a flutter that one of the three original babies was dead. Another fearful projection made real. See for yourself, and blame me not! I am, alas, morbidly human.

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to hang with the hummers. I am late to the birding party, but I get it. I get it.

2:09 AM ET | 04-10-2008 | permalink | comments (31) | e-mail post

 

Hummingbirds: The Video!

OK, this may be my penultimate post about the hummingbirds recently hatched outside my window. My wonderful web producer (he of the excrutiatingly high standards) has softly suggested I consider blogging about something else. Like — just an idea here — plants?

And indeed, I will (any day now!), but first let me invite you to see life through my eyes: standing on the front porch, crouched in a fairly miserable position, camera aimed at the action in the nest.

Here it is, unedited and unemcumbered (oh shut up already) ... the video:

11:18 AM ET | 04- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (23) | e-mail post

 

Hummingbird Eyes

Watch a few young hummers in the nest long enough and they're bound to look your way ...

11:05 AM ET | 04- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

 

Down A Hummer

I've over-reacted before but for the life of me I can't find hummingbird baby #3. I don't know whether he's infinitely smaller and just not visible, whether she's been smothered beneath the other two, or whether it's lying somewhere dead on the round (I don't wanna look).

Even when mama comes by to feed, I don't see a third beak. Not good.

However, I both witnessed and captured on film one of the two happy bruisers trying out his wings. As soon as my blog producer shows me how to post video, I will.

As for that Riders in the Storm moment I promised (you guessed right! and wrong!), said producer pronounced it sub-prime so you won't be seeing it (his point being, you can't see it too well anyway). I am hoping he'll like the little wing-beater better.

Meanwhile...let's compare and contrast. From my Hummingbird folder (more than 300 pix and useless little movies), here's mama from March 20th.

And below, from April 1st, the ever-dominant sibling #1; very consistent behavior from the first time his beak popped up out of the nest.

I've actually managed to drag myself away from the beasties today since it's time to practice that separation stuff before everyone leaves home. We got a fabulous note yesterday on that very subject with an irresistible twist, can't wait to post it. Speaking of which, we are having posting problems on the site; I apologize that your messages from the last few days haven't gone up yet, any day now...

7:38 PM ET | 04- 1-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

 

Tony Soprano's Ducks

Any of you Sopranos fans will certainly remember Tony's attachment to the wild ducks that took up residence in his pool. And the depression plus anxiety attack he suffered when they left ("those goddamn ducks").

Well, I get it now. I've become so invested in the hummingbird saga outside my window that I began suffering a certain self-indulgent melancholy this weekend when I realized they'd soon be gone ... and I'd be left behind.

Though I don't have anything nearly this good to bring to my own therapist today:

Tony describes a dream where a bird steals his penis — Dr. Melfi extrapolates from this to reveal that Tony projected his love for his family onto the family of ducks living in his back pool and this brings him to tears, to his consternation. She tells him that their flight from the pool sparked his panic attack through the overwhelming fear of somehow losing his own family.

Yeah, yeah ... meanwhile here in the real world, the three amigos in the nest outside my window are increasingly invisible to my camera's eye because new spring foliage on the tree they're in is filling in fast. That tree, incidentally, is Azara dentata from Chile, and in a few weeks it'll be giddy with slightly fragrant yellow pom-poms. Food for the kids? Not sure it'll suit their tastes. Anyone know?

I shot a short video this weekend while the little hummers rode out a rainstorm. Soon as I download the appropriate 60s hit (can you guess), I'll post the clip ...

1:30 PM ET | 03-31-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

First Wing and a Prayer

Much to my delight, the three little hummers continue their journey on the planet. One is particularly good at pushing up out of the crowd at feeding time, so much so that I frequently can't even see the other two and wonder if there's enough to go around (what, me, the third of three?). But this morning there are three distinct tooth picks popping out from all the fuzz.

Still no wiser about hummingbirds -- except the advice I've gotten from you folks -- I am growing accustomed to the rhythms of their day and can generally grab a few shots at dinner time @5pm.

12:46 PM ET | 03-27-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

Make That Three

All hummingbird babies present and accounted for; to watch the feeding is just astonishing. Does anyone know if I should put out a sugar water feeder so Mom doesn't have to work so hard? Both my grevillea and acacia are blooming -- as is the manzanita -- but I don't think they're exactly feast material. Suggestions most welcome; as I've said, I ain't no birder.

9:18 PM ET | 03-24-2008 | permalink | comments (10) | e-mail post

 

Hummer of a Baby!

Just spotted the baby that hatched a few wks ago outside my living room window. Actually I can't see much but a fast-beating fuzzy lump, and a picture is impossible without pruning the obscuring foliage. So forget that...

Mother hummer has been increasingly absent; I now suspect she's on a shrub or tree nearby keeping watch. She was quite dutiful the other day during a particularly wet downpour; I'm happy to report that today's looking sunny (if chilly), altogether a good day to be a newborn in a snug nest.

11:56 AM ET | 03-24-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

 

Hummer Scare

So you know about the Anna's hummingbird nesting right outside my window, right? When I went out an hour ago, she was gone. What a scare I had, knowing absolutely nothing about bird behavior and what she might be off doing. I thought I'd irrevocably aggravated her with all the picture-taking.

Anyway, Anna's back and here's a shot I from a little while ago with friend and neighbor Mar's camera. (Still haven't replaced my ruin.)

So I'm now thinking, webcam. Does anyone know anything about them? Would it be nuts?

9:35 PM ET | 03-18-2008 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

Hummer Outside My Home

While pruning over the wkend, I was continually dive-bombed by a gorgeous hummingbird. Couldn't figure it out. It took an eagle-eyed guest who stopped by to immediately see what I'd been missing -- a hummingbird sitting on her nest on a limb right outside my living room window!

Unfortunately, I left my little digital outside overnight and it's now dead in the water. But I'll replace it tomorrow so I can chronicle the life gracing my (oh, so) unworthy garden.

11:03 PM ET | 03-16-2008 | permalink | comments (18) | e-mail post

 

Bloom and Bust

First, the bust. Progress of the side yard project, What Would Eve Do?, would thus far indicate that Eve wouldn't do a damn thing, at least not this week. Except perhaps obsess over the budget, or and whether or not her home was worth putting more money into, in which case I'm definitely channeling her energy.

Now the bloom. I only noticed this first one yesterday when I took out the short-tine rubber rake (my favorite tool) and started scraping off winter's brick-thick layer of leaves. Many of you will recognize this flower immediately, but let's give the more easily amused among us a chance to guess.

This lovely plant's complete invisibility in my garden, hiding as it does behind a variegated yellow phormium, is proof enough that it's time to get out the drainage spade and rearrange the perennials. Remind me, somebody, when I replace that beloved, misplaced spade...

And for delicacy #2, I've been watching this upright flower cluster burst open over the last few days. If you love the straight species in this genus as I do, you could i.d. this big-leaved girl from across the block. But that doesn't mean she isn't still a revelation when it comes to flowering shrubs.

4:32 PM ET | 03-13-2008 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

 

We Have a Winner

The spanking new series chronicling the re-design of my side yard is named:

WHAT WOULD EVE DO? Reviving A Neglected Garden

Thank you, thank you for the 150 suggestions you folks came up with in the past few days. So many great ones, and I intend to use quite a number of them, as I organize and record what I hope will be a primer for making imaginative use of boring, barren, and neglected garden spaces.

Runner-ups I look forward to working into the series include:

Order in the Courtyard!
The Plot Awakens
Till Tomorrow
The Lonely Fountain
My Other Yard is Fabulous
The Grateful Bed
Not In My Backyard!

And last, most certainly least: Ketzel Levine has a Bad Garden. Amen.

Starting Monday, EVE gets a seemingly generous budget which will likely turn out to be completely inadequate. And in case you missed it, find out why necessity really is the mother of invention: the backstory on the fountain.

2:13 PM ET | 03- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

Procrastination

I'm avoiding every conceivable commitment today.

From picking up the damn watering can (as you have strongly suggested), to deciding on the Garden Re-Do series name, to writing up the details of yesterday's first design consult with Nani (aka The Nani Diaries, as you so cleverly put it).

Instead, as the living room darkens around me, I'm sitting here like a lump eating peanut butter out of a jar and wondering where I'm going to find the energy and the money to get going on this garden project.

Which is exactly why the garden looks the way it does, duh!

Maybe this is part of the design process? Stucc-Oh'd? (That's from you, too). I've been envisioning this space for so many years, have solicited advice from so many smart people, and have planted it already in so many actual and imaginery ways, I can't see anything out there but my own lethargy.

I can't even commit to a budget. In yesterday's meeting I said "5 K". It seems a lot of money for a mere 360 sq ft (particularly after what the fountain alone cost me last year) but a beautiful courtyard will offset the downside of remaining in this house, and I really don't want to move.

You mean we haven't talked about that downside? About why I built that massive fountain to begin with? About my desperate need to mask the noise generated by the diners, drinkers and cigarette smokers who sit at outdoor tables on the other side of my fence? Like INCHES away from my life?

Yes, gentle readers, necessity really IS the mother of invention. And that's why my tiny side yard has a huge 7' high x 12' wide concrete fountain. Its recirculating water (driven by a monster pump through three wide scuppers which spill from on high) makes a VERY LOUD SOUND.

And yet, through it all, I can still hear the peanut butter calling....

7:54 PM ET | 03- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

 

The Unnamed Series, Day Two

I've received quite a few clever title ideas for my TP garden redux series as I tackle 360 square feet of precious outdoor living space. Thanks, guys.

My favorite thus far is "What Would Eve Do?", which we could also just call "Eve", as in how's Eve coming, what's Eve's budget, when does Eve break ground?

Although after my experience today with my friend and design consultant Nani Waddoups, I'm thinking it'd be better named Garden Jewel on a Gravel Budget.

9:34 PM ET | 03- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

 

Name That Series!

What series, you ask? The series beginning today, right now, here it comes...as I reveal just how wretched my side garden looks, take you step-by-step through my re-design process, and emerge at the other end with an urban courtyard that suits all my criteria.

Criteria #1: A Life Without Shame.

The garden seems the classic courtyard, only 12' wide and 30' long. Its centerpiece is clearly the three-spouted stucco fountain. That's a story unto itself, which I look forward to going into later in this series -- the design team, process, pix, price, the whole shebang. Today, though, I'm meeting with my design collaborator Nani Waddoups -- the woman who helped me choose my house colors, and who I must reveal as a very close friend -- as we get a few ideas and considerations down on paper.

Nani is excrutiatingly organized and detail-oriented, so I'm going to our meeting with nothing more in my head than a few years' worth of fantasies and a strong desire for change, trusting her to scribble it down and turn it into the beginning of an action plan.

As for Criteria #1, consider it addressed by the launch of this series. No more shame! But now I need your help. What is this design series' name? Your options do NOT include:

A Garden Makeover
Designing A New Garden

or any such boring invitation to what promises to be a lively process for all of us (and a savings account buster for me). My first thought is The Druthers of Invention, but no way will my cheery/cheeky web producer (have you met Wright?) use it.

But he might use yours...

1:29 PM ET | 03- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (152) | e-mail post

 

F-E-C-U-N-D!

I admit the word doesn't have quite the energy of R-E-S-P-E-C-T — a la Aretha — but I could spell it out and shout it out all the same. After a month in D.C. (and I loved every minute of it), I am back in the Pacific Northwest. This place is moist, lush, dense with smells and is excessively, embarrassingly, unrelentingly fecund!

Having spent a good deal of time in Dumbarton Oaks, I was doggone delirious to walk my own Penninsula Park and discover so many of the same fundamental design strengths: exquisite proportions, elegant paving patterns, bold lines (primarily boxwood), and a strong sense of identity.

On top of that, all the beautifully pruned specimens in the sunken rose garden were breaking bud (leaf bud, that is), and the huge formal fountain was throwing off fireworks of water and light.

Yes, and the sky was dark blue (the cusp of evening), the old-fashioned street lamps were aglow, and the air was swooning with the fragrance daphne. Shrubs of the stuff are tucked throughout the park and as with all daphne, I could smell them without knowing where they were.

Plus, not a soul was in the park but me and the beasts. I still have to pinch myself that I live a few blocks away.

HOWEVER ... as I write from the isolation of an office where my only colleagues are canine, I am now keenly aware of the trade-off ...

AND SO ... given that the great joy of living here is the green of this Northwest world, I am recommitting myself to my long-neglected garden (I had back surgery a year ago and just never made it back into swing).

INTRODUCING: The Great Garden Makeover. Photos, interviews, step-by-step instructions, all here in the weeks to come on TALKING PLANTS! I'm collaborating with a few people and my first meeting is tomorrow, so I'll post notes shortly after.

11:22 AM ET | 03- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

Fried Bananas

Only once during my stay in Brazil did I eat bonafide fried bananas. They were fabulous, and in life bore no resemblance to my own, the foliage of which greeted me after my 20-hour plane trip home.

Certainly this dried and dessicated visage is nothing new; it's what happens to banana foliage here in Z8 if you don't wrap it. They once offered a banana-wrapping class at Portland's Classical Chinese Garden (guess who didn't attend); when it's done well, it is indeed art.

I prefer au naturale, but only because I'm tres lazay.

So let's contrast and compare, shall we? Above, what I came home to, and below, what I left behind.

I've got lots of stories and great shots I do intend to post, and soon -- any day now -- but I'm also trying to crank out the Morning Edition radio story from the Amazon, which cramps my blog time. Speaking of which, you guys have also been pretty quiet of late; is everyone en vacance?

8:52 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

 

Author of 'Exodus' Honored by Plant?

Leon Uris (1924-2003) wrote the epic Exodus about the founding of the State of Israel. You probably never read it but you might have seen the movie with Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint and the ill-fated Sal Mineo (poor guy, a roller coaster ride through Hollywood, then murdered during a botched burglary in his late 30's).

Until the end of the 20th century, I thought author Uris had a plant that was named in his honor: Leonotis leonurus. I figured the change of spelling at the end - from "is" to "us" - was some Latin mannerism.

WRONG.

Leonotis leonurus is a South African mint family member otherwise known as Lion's Tail or Wild Dagga, though I've never heard it called anything but leonotus (leeya NOtice). A valuable medicinal (I think it's particularly popular in South America), the trade calls it a "tender perennial" so you'll still buy it in the hopes that it won't die come winter, but for most of you it's going to be an annual.

I garden in Z8 where my leonotis has been surprisingly reliable year after year. Or it was before Zoe Mae moved in. Alas, she has chosen that exact spot where dear Leon is growing to plant her four padded feet and stare down anything that walks down the street.

This, of course, is unacceptable. Such a plant deserves much, much better, simply incomparable for the late fall garden when everyone but salvia's petered out.

And it's color! Pure, thirst-quenching orange. If you didn't know better, you'd think the plant in full flower was a fake: densely clustered spider-legged whorls of flowers growing in tiers along a square-stemmed stalk.

Check and see what others' experience with this plant has been in your area if you're skeptical, but I can't imagine you'll regret giving it a try. Once upon a time I tried a cultivar named 'Staircase' or 'Ladder' or Giraffe Legs', who the hell remembers, it was a towering 8' but way too lanky.

Stick with Leon's namesake.

12:29 PM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

It's Flickr Pix Monday, Do You Know Where Your Dahlias Are?

So let's start off this deliciously wet Monday (at least here in Oregon) with the Talking Plants Flickr Pix of the Week...

And speaking of dahlias, there is none finer (nor more ubiquitous) than the red alarm in a dark night that is the dark-foliaged dahlia, 'Bishop of Llandaff'. Here's a quick shot just scored from the dripping front garden.

Meanwhile, amidst this jumble of August growth you might see the red flowers from a flowering shrub known as Abutilon in the background, left.

Care to offer your fellow gardeners your favorite dahlia picks with pix?

4:32 PM ET | 08-20-2007 | permalink | comments (17) | e-mail post

 

A Limit to Leafy Greens ... or ... Enough already!

Inevitably, many of you will write to Talking Plants with your gardening questions. I have good news. You may well find your answers in the Why Did My Plant Die archives.

If you don't, the even better news is that we've now got this lively community of folks who've killed so many plants they finally know how to grow them. So I hope you won't go away mad if I beg off doing the answering, and instead defer to dirtier hands and more reliably retentive minds.

Though I would like to ask a question of my own.

What the hell am I supposed to do with an eight year old Embothrium coccineum that absolutely will NOT flower? It's got a posture-perfect upright form and is just the right fit for my entry courtyard, but it's not like I'm hard up for plants with green leaves...

Not that I have any intention of killing it (we've been together too long for such a betrayal), but I will move it come spring if the community so adviseth.

5:15 PM ET | 06-26-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post