faboo mama

Every time I go through my garden photos I am amazed at how much it’s changed in the past 2 years.  I see plants that gave me joy and have died. Plants that I forgot I even bought! I can see what I’ve changed around and there’s a lot of that.  I also see the mistakes I made, some plantings of regret, now that things have grown fuller.

Here’s December 2006 on our final walkthrough:

Here is March 2009:

I’ve been so wrapped up in my problems that haven’t taken the time to, well, smell the roses. My garden is indicating spring is here and I missed it. For me, few things are more exciting and wonderful than watching the buds on plants swell to just the point before they open. The other day I noticed that there are actual leaves on my grape plants. Today I saw not only 3″ buds on the wisteria ready to bloom, but 3 of them have already opened! 

Welcome to my garden…

Mandevilla

Grape Bud

Japanese Wisteria bud

Rosemary in bloom

Image by fabooj via Flickr

Yesterday, driving in Pasadena we drove past the California Cactus Center (see my blog post on LA Metblog for a review of the store) and dropped in to check it out.  If you’ve ever shopped for succulents or cactus, you know expensive they are.  We saw some really beautiful and small plants that were flirting with the edges of $90!  Happily, they did have 3″ pots that are comparable to watch you find at any nursery, with the added advantage of actual healthy and happy plants.  I already have enough cactus for my small needs and I went agave and echevarria crazy last year.  Now, my goal is more crassula.

But first, this photo is of the baseball plants (Klipnoors) we got, we saw a few of them that were pretty nice and big and $$$, these tiny guys were affordable.  We also got living rock, but the focus are the new crassula, I’ll just post the pics and let you drool:

I can’t wait to put them in their spots and watch them spill over the ground.

Remember this:

Well it looks like this now:

Pretty nice, huh?

On Saturday, we went to Descanso Gardens for the World of Good Weekend. (see photos here)I had never been to Descanso Gardens before, but I heard it was more like the Arboretum than the Huntington and it was. In theory. Even though the Descanso gardens has a lot of different kinds of gardens and pathways, I prefer the Arboretum.

The one thing at Descanso that was truly impressive were not just the number of lakes and ponds on site, but the different layout of them all. It is a beautiful place that seems more like a large nursery than a place to study plants. Sadly, there is also a severe lack of customer service onsite. From the moment we got there until we left, no one who worked there knew anything about what goes on 4 feet beyond them. The guy at the ticket booth didn’t know procedure on if we give our receipt to the lady or what. The lady at the entrance had no idea if they sold sweaters or jackets in the gift shop. “You can ask”, is what we were told. The little girl had to go to the bathroom. We hiked all the way up the hill to the Boddy House couldn’t find a bathroom. I asked two people who worked there where it was and neither of them knew. I’m expected to believe that they were up at the top of the hill, working, and had no idea where the bathroom was? I could say that you get what you pay for, but the Arboretum and the Zoo both cost the same and the workers at both places are unnervingly friendly and helpful that you almost believe they’re robots…or not from LA.

One of the most wonderful parts of Descanso was the lilac garden. Yummy. It was like heaven with that scent in the air. Every time I found a lilac that was beautiful, I found another that was even better.

The camelia forests were also nice. I wasn’t too dazzled by the California garden and was very underwhelmed by the succulents and cactus there. The iris garden was amazing and most of the irises hadn’t even opened yet. I should go back to see the other hundreds of cultivars available. There were only about 10 open this weekend.

The kids loved the little train and even Daddy thought we should get one for the back yard (yeah right). Oddly enough, I loved the tulip garden. That was outstanding.

At the entrance of the park, there is an installation titled Edible Estates. As you know, I’m virulently anti-grass, especially for Southern Californians. We are slowly getting rid of most of our lawn and had considered giving it over to food. The subject came up again, as my husband tried to convince me to move my veggie garden to the front yard so we can put the pool in the backyard. The Edible Estates installation, prodded us a little closer to that goal, though I still need more sun than I get in the front yard.

The artist, Fritz Haeg, will be back at Descanso on May 17th for a book signing and artist’s reception. I believe he’ll unveil his summer theme at that time too. (Brasil Brazil is also playing that weekend, so I’ll definitely be there!)

Well, it’s been almost a year and I’m pretty impressed by what’s grown back there. Here’s some pics taken yesterday. Here’s my old post on my garden:

Looking to the southwest of my backyard

Looking east

Looking northeast-ish.

As always you can check my flickr page to see how it all started out back in Feb.