Homesick

I miss my garden back in San Mateo. Due to its sometimes unmanageable size, I do not always miss gardening, but I do miss the garden itself. I started a little container garden here in Metz on my windowsill, primarily because I like to cook with fresh herbs, but I finally bought a little chrysanthemum last week, because the sill needed a little brightening!

Even in small towns in France, living is relatively compact. Single family homes are not as common, and buildings tend to have little to no greenspace around them. It is no wonder that it is so common to see plants on display on windowsills! I know that even though my little collection began for practical purposes, I do appreciate the small connection it gives me to something more, for lack of a better word, organic, than the concrete that surrounds me. I suspect it does that for many others, as well.

Also common in France are heavy-duty light-blocking shutters, which seem to be unique to this country. I have a roll-down version on my window, and at night, I lower it to the tops of my plants, so I can still see them, but it blocks the view of the driveway. In the morning, my plants are the first thing I see when I look out my window.

A Luridly Scented Garden

Last week, we had three days of 90-some degrees. That seems to have signaled the flowers to pop out. They're all out now, blooming aggressively even though the temperatures went back to 50s and 60s. The scent from so many different blooms wafts around outside.

The earliest to bloom was the pink jasmine (Jasminium polyanthum). I finally got it to wrap around the 10-foot tall Salet rose. The effect isn't very obvious yet, but lovely. The Daphne Marginata was just fabulous -- such a wonderful plant! My single hyacinthe bloomed faithfully but after it faded, I forgot its location and stupidly dug up what I thought was an unusually stubborn clump of defiantly gripping crab grass.

The biggest contributor to the scent right now is the Wisteria. I have a love-hate relationship with that plant. It's beautiful, has a lovely scent, is prolific and carefree, and has an Asian heritage, like me, but it's so vigorous that it's strangling the two trees on either side of it. I should have pruned it way back last winter.

The second biggest scent contributor isn't blooming yet -- the Star Jasmine. It's a huge, vigorous plant that many people use for ground cover. I hate using the hedge trimmer on it because it oozes a white sticky milk when it's cut.

I'm surprised the various blooming citrus isn't pumping out fragrance. Lemon, grapefruit, lime, kumquat. Maybe their scent is being overpowered by the other flowers?

A really great, natural nummingbird feeder is honeysuckle (Lonicera). It can be invasive so make sure it's contained and well trimmed.

The classic and English roses are blending their various scents. The Salet with its musky scent is one of the most satisfying roses to have in the garden. The Eglantyne is very, very sweet. The musk rose is just getting started. The Baronne de Prevost is putting out 4" blooms and grew a foot in height last month! The Graham Thomas smells citus-y. My beloved pampered pet, Evelyn, doesn't even have buds yet but has a sucker. The two-tone Peace hybrid has the typical tea rose scent and is blooming very well. The pure Peace, I think should be removed -- it has some kind of fungal infestation. I'll put tuberose corms in that pot.

I'm anxious for the gardenia to bloom -- it should smell great. It seems to be late this year. Thank goodness the Kahili ginger is way in the furthest corner by itself. I don't like its scent although its sheer size is impressive. I would love the scent of the butterfly ginger (Hedychium Coronaria), but it has never bloomed for me, despite lavish applications of fertilizer, compost, manure.

When it stays warm, the French and English lavender and two types of rosemary will dominate the garden's scent. The Stephanotis did well last summer, but was not the powerful scent that I was hoping for. Maybe it likes real tropical temperatures, consistently high 80s and low 90s?

The scented geraniums (real pelagonium, Rose of Attar and Citronella) are blooming but they don't put out scent -- you have to crush the leaves to release the oil. Ditto for the spearmint.

Yard Cleanup

This isn't going to be one of those 'happy happy' posts about everything blooming. It's about yard work.

It's so satisfying to cut off big, big, I mean BIG branches, and pull up 3 foot high weeds. Who knew that all those English roses that I didn't prune in January are actually climbers? Took a deep breath and cut a 5-foot long, half inch diameter cane from the Eglantyne rose (pink flower in the picture, very vigorous and fragrant!). That leaves another 6 feet of that cane. The Salet (dark red rose in picture) is being interwined by pink jasmine (jasminum polyanthum) which was what I wanted, but the star jasmine in front has grabbed branches and is throttling them! It took some patience to cut the rose free.

Then there are the mistakes from my ignorant gardener days. I didn't know that the Japanese Anemone Queen Charlotte is invasive! In addition to springing up everywhere, the spent blooms dry on long, ugly brown stalks and must be pulled out by hand. Maybe defoliant will eradicate it without hurting the tender air roots of the camellia that it's near? Speaking of invasive, I sneered at the asparagus fern ibeing sold for money. How do I get rid of the ones progressing across my yard? They have their own underground nutrition nodes so they're hard to kill.

Alas, there's that oramental tree in the center of the yard whose roots sprout branches. It has infiltrated a hedge (hard to saw off saplings that are inside the hedge), lifted a stepping stone on the main path, and appears among the ground cover. Is it possible that one small tree can propagate a whole forest of itself?

Orchids Blooming

My cattlaya is from a division from an old, old plant. For more than 10 years, that plant grew and grew in a sunny corner in the winter and summer vacations outside exposed to only morning light. I re-potted it and divided it and gave 20-some divisions away, all of which did well. Then it got a fungus or other rotting disease probably from over-watering and not changing the medium (redwood bark) and died.

My sister on the east coast successfully kept the divisions I sent her growing and blooming by giving it full zone 8 sun in the summer and horticultural lights in the winter. After my parent plant died, she sent me 4 divisions of 2-3 nodes each.

Those divisions were positioned in the full Bay Area afternoon sun. Within hours, the leaves burned literally to a crisp. The surviving pieces were put under a tree in very bright but continually shaded conditions where they happily made many new leaves.

The one that grew to 6 nodes is blooming from the 5th node. The fourth node tried to bloom around Thanksgiving but I guess the temperature was too high or the humidity too low, or the November light was too wan... or 5 nodes were still not mature enough to support flowers?

These two blossoms have deep purple petals with bright yellow throats, no scent. Maybe the other divisions will bloom later this Spring? I hope so.

A miniature varigated Phalanopsis (you can't see how dark pink the varigation is, in these poorly done photos) was given to me last May so it's been in my care for about 10 months. You can see from its bare stems that it had three stems with 13 blooms when it arrived. It lives on a east-facing windowsill with frequent watering, occasional half-strength 20-20-20 fertilizer, and even less occasional doses of a vitamin solution ("Thrive!"). Maybe I should lower the N and increase the P in the fertilizer to encourage more flowers and less foliage? It grew several really big leaves which was a very satisfying indication that it was happy. Maybe dark green leaves mean it's not getting enough light? Should Phalanopsis also have light green leaves, like Cattlayas?

I still pine for my specie Brassia with its elegantly long stem and outrageously pointy flowers. Four types of orchids are enough for now, however emboldened I might be with these two blooms.

And now, for the two orchids that haven't bloomed ever, while in my care. One is more than 6 years old and since I've never seen the flowers, I don't know what kind it is. Oh, I know I can identify it through leaves but that's really taking it seriously. The other is a 2-year old pink Miltonia. At least they're both alive and making leaves!

Miniature Pomegranate

Got this plant in a tiny 4" pot from Trader Joe's when all the leaves were falling off and it looked moribund. I repotted it into a nursery gallon pot (which is less than a gallon). Carefully loosened the roots which were wround tightly around and around. Put in a cool south-facing spot for a few weeks and voila! Blooming. I wonder if it forms miniature fruits?

The tag that came with it said it can withstand dry conditions -- no kidding seeing as the plant originated from Central Asia: Iran through to India and is grown commercially in the drier parts of California and Arizona, presumeably not in Death Valley or the basin around Phoenix. I read that it is also grown in the South where it's pretty humid and hot. In Europe, it seems to prosper around the Med, including North Africa.

The Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park (which used to be a historic Spanish ranch) has several mature, fecund pomegranate trees. Oh how wonderfully tasty those fruits must be! The ones for grocery stores were probably picked before they were ripe so they have time to be shipped. Tree-ripened fruit are the best.

I wonder what Allied Arts does with its pomegranates, extra large olives and citrus fruits? I would love to buy them. Once, I saw canvas spread under the olive trees with ripe olives all over them so they are collecting them but maybe not for sale? I hope it isn't gardeners cleaning up, throwing them away. They can't be composted.

My doctor friend tells me that pomegranates are excellent anti-oxidants but the commercial juice has too much sugar in it. The fresh fruit tastes so much better! Next season, I'll make pomegranate sorbet!