More Pictures from Home

This is the bog where sundews grow. I don't think they're awake right now. I don't know because I forgot my rubber boots.

Back into the dark woods I photographed here. The deer is a fallen branch.

False lily of the valley berries.
Alders.

One of the lagoon's beaches.

Those bunch grasses are Deschampsia caespitosa, the same species we grow in the coastal prairie garden.

The lagoon.

A boat on the beach. But no one's around.

Some kind of dead Juncus right on the edge.

The ocean's on the other side of that horizon.

Home at Big Lagoon

I've applied to three graduate programs (in landscape architecture) and am applying to one in horticulture.

I’m staying at Big Lagoon for a while in a cabin with a woodstove. I’ll travel into Trinidad to use the Beach Comber Café’s wireless internet to post on what’s happening here and to search and apply for jobs. Trinidad is also where I’ll shop for groceries and access the (tiny) branch of the county library.

When I’m not in Trinidad, I’ll be wandering along the old trails around Big Lagoon, taking notes for a writing project I’ve been working on for some time, and picking up shells and whatnot to practice drawing. I’m taking these projects, and my life right now, two or three feet at a time. So if nothing comes of this self-exhile or Walden experience, then oh well. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Sure is beautiful.

well said

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

E.B. White

New Year!

I'm back in Humboldt County. Still no job, school, or place to live. My life has never been so up in the air. This year I'm determined to strengthen myself. To root out anything in the way of my happiness and be bolder (and more decisive) than ever. Happy New Years, everyone.

UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley

On Saturday, I took a trip over to Berkeley for the first time to check out their botanical garden. My brother and his kids came too. There's Peter Jon providing some sense of scale.

The garden is beautiful and I can't remember ever being more tempted to grow some of the exotic plants of the world. Euphorbia, though often ugly and always poisonous, is a genus that I've considered collecting. Already I have the succulent E. bupleurifolia, E. horrida horrida, and the common E. milii. In the succulent greenhouse there were a few that caught my eye.

Here's the top of the euphorbia above, with some interesting crested Pachipodium behind it.


E. woodii is one of the weirder ones I've seen. E. greenwayi, below, has beautiful patterns on its stems.

When I think of Ericas, I think of the British moor variety. I've never seen one as interesting as this one in the South African collection. It's E. sessiliflora.

In the tropical greenhouse I saw Amorphophallus titanum, the plant with the world's largest unbranched inflorescence (not flower because it's actually made up of many many flowers). You can see the huge spadix, which sports tons of orange/red fruit.

This plant deserves mention because it is the most colorfully-fruited sedge I've ever seen. It's Carex baccans.



And while we're in the sedge family, I should point out this giant Ghania sp. from New Zealand.



Here's the CA native, Coreopsis gigantea, out of its summer dormancy, with some silver Dudleya spp.

The CA garden was nice too. There were beds of native bulbs, an alpine area, and many other wonders. Not only were the collections nice, but it was apparent that the plants are well cared for. I reccomend a visit.

Planting for Insect Diversity

Over at Garden Rant, Doug Tallamy comments on native versus non-native plants in the garden for the sake of insects. Most valuable bit: a tree or shrub hosts WAY more insect species than any herbaceous perrenials does. As we all know, when you host insects, you host almost everything else (including birds). So plant those native shrubs and trees! For me, promoting local biodiversity is one of the main reasons to garden. Here's the link.

I haven't done any surveys, but Scrophularia californica (above) has to be one of the best herbaceous perrenials for attracting insects. It bears hundreds of tiny nectar-rich blooms nearly the whole year round and the bees, bee-like flies, and hover flies know it.

Native Garden Notes from Chuck B.

Chuck B. from Whoreticulture tells of his experiences with NorCal native plant species as a comment to a post at Garden Rant. Here's the link.