A little over two years ago, my daughter, B, started an after dinner gardening project of trying to grow a pineapple. She plopped a discarded cut-off pineapple crown with leaves into a pot. She treated it like many of her succulent plants: no prep, no rooting hormone, just potting soil and occasionally a bit of leftover water from her school lunch. It still lives in a pot on the front porch, getting about half-day sun. Last winter she did remember…
When the weather is too cold to do much work outside, I get a little over zealous and try propagating all sorts of plants, just to see if I can. Since I got a couple of new heat mats for Christmas, I am in the process of propagating a variety of plants including ‘Parfianka’ Pomegranate, ‘Sweet’ Pomegranate, ‘Strawberry Verte’ Fig, ‘Bababerry’ plants, Thornless Raspberry plants, and tomato seeds. Because I spend so much time doting on the cuttings, my hubby…
I know, I know, I shouldn’t be thinking about buying and adding more bare root fruit trees, since my yard is already crammed full, but it is hard to not collect one of everything, and even more so, after K shared some of her Spice Zee nectaplums last summer. Back in early July, K generously gave me a half-dozen Spice Zee fruits, even though she didn’t have much of a crop yet since the tree is only 3 years old….
Okay, maybe not tons, but at least 50 or 60 lbs. of Kiwis, is my best guess at this point. Although in past years, I have grumbled and griped a lot about the lack of pollination on my Kiwi vines, this year we have a bumper crop, and now that we have had a few cold snaps, it is time to begin harvesting. If I had to guess, I would say there are at least 500 kiwis on the female…
Happy New Year! Living in Southern California, we hardly get a break in the growing season, and Mid Winter often brings out some of first of the cool season blooms to my garden. One of my brand new, planted in September, reblooming irises sent up a spike just before Christmas and bloomed today. I was so tickled and surprised to have it bloom already that I had to share my delight. Irises are some of my favorite perennials. This red spotted…
* Iris Virus = A burning desire to learn everything there is about growing and caring for iris plants. A person with an iris virus reads tons of iris publications and surfs all of the known iris society web sites. The person with the virus may have just started growing irises, be an avid collector, or be an established grower/ hybridizer of irises. For me, it all started back in 1995, when a next door neighbor gave me two rhizomes…
Yes, you read that right: October is the start of the gardening season for those of us gardeners that happen to live in Southern California’s year round growing climate. For me personally, October is probably my busiest month for working in the garden. The scorching heat of summer and lack of rainfall make August and September the end of our local gardening season, with very few garden chores, other than things like dividing bearded irises. But by September, the last…
I had already planted the backyard gardens before we got our first dog back in 2000. Shortly after getting her, she began to drive me nuts with her incessant digging, trampling of tender plants, laying on others, and eating whatever she could reach off the tomatoes, berry bushes, and fruit trees. We loved that big sweet black Labrador, so of course she wasn’t going anywhere, but I also wanted my garden to thrive. I was at my wits end. Something…
I actually didn’t get as many new edible plants and trees this winter or spring as I have in past years, but I still probably got more than I really have room for. Basically, my small urban backyard is getting too full and the family isn’t ready to give up the front yard lawn yet. Since many of the neighbors on the block are changing over their lawns in the city’s Lawn to Garden program, our front yard has become…
By Southern California gardening standards, we are already half way through Spring, and as usual, the Hanbury edible landscape and ornamental garden continues to evolve. Every winter and Spring I change out things that under performed or plant new varieties of things I never tried before. For last couple of months I have kept pretty busy with chores in the garden, the kid’s activities, local plant shopping, two landscape designs for others, and with home improvement projects around the house. …