Today's walk report: 071613

Stuff in my garden, walk inspired.

Okay, I didn't know what else to call this. This is another one of those posts where I'm trying to come up with an idea since the Monday-Thursday walks are becoming more and more mechanical. They are, primarily, EXERCISE. Go figure. With music.

Something odd did happen on the walk tonight though. Briefly... I saw this lady walking a dog. The woman was dressed for exercise, the dog (maybe an Aussie mix or English Shepard mix--something tailless) was on a leash. I walked maybe another mile and the dog was by itself and appeared to be in a bit of a panic not quite running but moving quickly up the street. Someone in the neighborhood was getting a spare leash from their house and was going to go after her so I stopped and explained I had just seen someone one street over walking the dog and gave a brief description. Strange.

Oh, gardening... A ditch effort to get some pictures up. I thought I'd show a few plants I have growing (trying to) at home that were inspired by my walks to the garden. Since I'm pretty lame in the garden department I look for inspiration wherever I go. I get help in the garden department from my sister but I also observe plants and see what seems to do well in the area--targeting plants that may be indestructible and survive the sorry conditions of soil and whatnot here. Whatnot most likely being me.

Images are from both this year and last. I'm basically winging this.

Verbena, from the botanical garden...

Verbena at my house.

 Another variety of verbena I planted today.

This one worries me a little. First, the Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) from my yard. I JUST took this out in the dark.

What worries me is I'm thinking 6' away from the side of the garage may have been a wee bit too close. Chilopsis linearis can get up to 40' tall.

Another one that might eventually need more breathing room than I gave it. Emu Bush (Eremophila polyclada.)

Mine...

Their's... and this is just half of it. There's a eucalyptus bush dividing this, there's just as much off to the right.

Blue Hibiscus, Alyogyne huegelii from their garden.

My Alyogyne huegelii, planted today.

Yesterday I mentioned the Tecoma stans on the campus. Here's mine, planted yesterday.

I also have a potpourri of sages, the idea of which came from the garden on campus. Some of mine have done better than others. It's all a mystery to me. These are silver sages from the garden. I tried one silver sage last year and it lasted about a week. Paying $10-$12 for a plant and having it quickly die on me is something I find very painful.

The sage which has probably done the best for me although it's looking rather tired right now is the Hot Lips (Salvia microphylla) seen here in red near my front door late April.

The biggest inspiration from the botanical garden has probably been the wildflowers. I did pretty well with my sowing of wildflower seeds last year and look forward to it again this year. The most impressive thing a year ago April in the botanical garden was probably the California Poppies. I did well with the poppies in spring.

Here's what I saw at the botanical garden May 2nd, 2012. This year wasn't anywhere close to this and most of the poppies were gone by May this year.

One of my poppies and some Gilia tricolor April 7th.

Thanks. (Gee, I hope that dog found its owner or vice-versa.)

Today's walk report: 053113

Goodbye May, 2013.

In a way I did two walks today. I went shopping, late morning at the wonderful Sperling Nursery in Calabasas, CA. Google says it take about 8 minutes to get there, it seemed like 15 to me. This was my first visit with list in hand. I walked right up to the outdoor information kiosk, held up my thumb and declared, I have a black thumb, I need help. They smile, I showed them my list and a woman became my personal guide into a bewildering maze of botanical wonder. Listen... I just get overwhelmed at the place, OK?

Here's what I got

1 Tall lanky Verbena
1 Meyer lemon standard (I don't know what standard means, I'm just reading the receipt)
1 Crape Myrtle
1 Chilopsis linearis (the only item that was actually on my list)

After I got these items picked out and paid for, I went for my camera and took my own tour, hence, my first walk of the day. It's a pretty big place and if you go up and down, back and forth over all aisles you can cover a fair amount of ground. The camera is still messed up by the way, I just know how to avoid some of the issues.

Hemerocallis hybrid, Daylily

Sisyrinchium striatum.

Cosmos and a bee.

Another daylily hybrid.

I don't know and I'm too tired to care.

Onto the evening, regular walk...

This was an effort to do a focus stack across several images, turned out to be 9, hoping it would look interesting. I won't influence that by saying how I feel it turned out.

This plant just flowered since Monday. Lots of these beautiful purple spears. I'm afraid I don't have a name here either.

This is an agave spike I've been waiting on for those flowers to open. Agaves die after they bloom so you won't see this plant next year.

There's been another major fire well north of me for the last two days so air quality was pretty bad although for the most part I think the smoke is headed northeast of me. This is the bike path just behind my street due south.