The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

This is All the Skunk’s Fault

If Moondoggie hadn’t gotten skunked the other night, I would not have been afraid to let her out into the backyard.

Moondoggie made it clear that there was another unwanted visitor in the back yard. She lifted her nose to the air and growled as if to say, “Let me at ‘em.

“Oh no you don’t, girlfriend.  I am not spending half the night scrubbing you with lemon soap and hydrogen peroxide again. Just let Pepe le Pew be, and go to bed.”

While there was something a bit different about her behavior this time, I was not going down that road again.  “Fool me twice….

So I made Moondoggie lie down and go to sleep, and I did the same, thinking my caution very wise.

And then I woke up.

I made my kids breakfast, I fixed myself a cup of coffee, and went out to peruse my garden. With my coffee cup in one hand and my rose clippers in the other, I ventured forth, eager to cut some fresh morning blooms.  I love their beauty and their heady scent filling my house.

I strolled over to my rose garden and…

WTF?

This is the first time Bmbi ate all the rose petals around the flower. He usually just bites off the whole thing

The deer-rat ate half my cherry tree also.

Damn deer.

Damn skunk.

Damn dog.

Damn it!

Large rat with antlers

Bad Breath and Doggie IQ

Woman’s intuition is a powerful thing. I should have listened to it last night.

There I was enjoying a nice sleep-aide-induced slumber when my dog’s frantic barking woke me up.  It has been warm, so I have been sleeping with the windows open, and Moondog heard something wandering around in the yard.

I knew in my gut that I shouldn’t let her out, but she kept making those low

warning growls. I eventually began to think there might actually be a person in the yard.  So I relented.

What a mistake.

I couldn’t get the door open fast enough for Moondog.  She jammed her head into the crack of the door and pried it open the rest of the way with her noggin. She launched out into the yard with Betty the bulldog hot on her heels like a flying meatball. 

She went tearing towards our RV with Betty snorting and huffing behind her.  I ran out in their furry wake with a flashlight. I shined the light toward the RV and saw Moondog lunging and snapping at something under the camper.

I was slowly climbing barefoot up the rocky, mulch-covered slope, wearing nothing but a huge T shirt, shining a dim cone of light toward my frenzied canine.  It was 1:30 in the morning. I had a head full of trazadone and I was having a hard time seeing what Moodoggie had cornered. 

In the dim beam of light, my eyes finally focused on Moondoggie’s prey. Prey? It was THE animal that strikes fear in the hearts of us mountain folk. Was it a Cougar, you ask?  A coyote? A rattlesnake?  No, it was something much worse… 

It was a stupid skunk, facing off with my even stupider dog.

 

As soon as I saw that black and white Pepe le Pew, I turned tail and ran back towards the house screaming for Moondoggie, hoping she would do what good dogs do and follow me.  BUT NO, she decided to attack the skunk.  For that transgression, she received a full spray right in her mouth, a skunk mouthwash, if you will.

After the altercation, Moondog came running to me alright.  Lucky me.  I tried to run away from her and lock her out of the house, but Moondoggie is the fastest dog I know. I am always bragging about her speed and agility. This time, I was wishing The Flying Meatball was my dog instead. 

She had the good sense to run back to the house with me, completely avoiding the skunk's fury.  I am now debating the intelligence of border collies vs bulldogs.

I was up another hour washing Moondog.  Before I could get to her, however, she rubbed her face on at least four of the Persian carpets. After her bath, I dried her off.  She immediately ran around rubbing her face on the Persian carpets all over again. During this entire disaster, Betty just looked at me with a look in her bulldog eyes that said, “I thought Border Collies were supposed to be the smartest breed?”

A Rose in Any Other Location...

Cecile Brunner in the right location

I bought two Cecile Brunner climbing rose vines last year. I always wanted one in my garden because they remind me of my mother.  Cecile Brunner is a prolific bloomer and can grow to 30 feet tall. Big boy! They are also known as the sweetheart rose. That nickname really does not appeal to me at this time in my life, but let’s move on.

 Cecile Brunner

The point I would like to make is I planted each climbing rose in a different location…and…one location was obviously better. Here, you tell me which one seems to work better. 

Pathetic Cecile Brunner in the wrong location.

Mmm-hmm, that’s right.  Plants, just like real estate values, do better in the right location.

I am hoping when my pathetic Cecile Brunner rose reaches out a little more, it can soak up the sun and start to fill out…and then…I woke up.

If worst comes to worst I’ll have to move it.  I have a place in mind, but then I’ll have to dig it up, fill in the hole, dig a hole for it, amend the soil, plant it and attach a drip line. 

Oh, why don’t you just grow damn it!

Gardening and Healing

I haven’t posted on any of my blogs in about four weeks. 

Sometimes life gets to be too much, and gets in the way of the things you love to do. Sometimes the only way back to happiness is to do the things you love despite that wall of sadness standing in the way.

 

Instead of writing about it, I have been gardening a lot the last four weeks. And guess what? I am beginning to feel human again.

I just wanted to thank all my friends who have been there for me over the last several weeks to help me through this tough time. I am convinced that I have the best group of caring, loving, understanding and empathetic friends in the world. 

I love you man!

 

The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. Will I Ever Feel Happy Again?

The flower show at the Cow Palace 2007

The flower show at the Cow Palace 2007

I have been disappointed with The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show for the past few years, especially since they changed venues to the San Mateo Convention center.

Every year for the past four years though I feel so ripped off after I leave. It doesn’t feel special and theatrical like the old Cow Palace.

The flower show at the Cow Palace 2007

But I really want to go again this year. I can’t stop myself. I just keep on hoping. 

I should probably just give up and forget about the The Show, but I can’t, waaaaaahh! 

OK, so here’s my plan: Perhaps my approach is wrong. I usually just drive up to San Mateo early when the show opens, plop my $20 down, and spend a couple hours. Of course, when it was in the Cow Palace, sniff, I’d spend all day. 

I never go to the seminars ‘cause I can’t remember anything and I hate taking notes. I would prefer to take pictures and pretend I know what I’m doing. 

But this year, I’m thinking of going to the gala. Drinking I can do. 

I’m very good at it. I can drink and garden. So here’s what, I’m kinda shy, and I feel very inadequate as a gardener, so I have a hard time talking to the designers about their gardens. I figure, a couple of cocktails and I could be blabbing my head off with these people.

Think how much first-hand knowledge I could glean from these people, I may not remember it in the morning but I can glean can’t I? I will be spending about three times the money but I could be having four times the fun. 

The flower show at the Cow Palace 2007

It will be dark, and perhaps that, in combination with alcohol, will make the venue seem much more theatrical and cool like the old, sniff, Cow Palace.

Maybe everything will look nicer and seem better and more dramatic. Maybe I’ll dance in one of the temporary design display garden ponds or fountains. 

The flower show in San Mateo 2009. This was a pretty cool garden.

Maybe I’ll get kicked out and be asked never to return to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show ever again and that way I wont have to torture myself by comparing the San Mateo County Fairgrounds with the Cow Palace for the rest of my life.

Pathways

I am finally installing pathways throughout my garden.

  In a perfect world, I would pay someone to carry out my designs. I have done it before—when my wallet was fatter. 

In leaner times I come to the realization that I myself must carry out my own designs, and do my own bidding, if you will. Whaaaaaaah!

Luckily I have a teenage son who can help me, so here goes.

I am trying two techniques, I’m sure they are both wrong, But… 

With the first technique I will lay out the design on the ground, take off the topsoil, lay down some permeable weed-block fabric and then cover it with 3-6 inches of decomposed granite. Make teenage son tamp down decomposed granite with nifty tamper-downer-thing purchase at hardware store.  Dogs can be like cats, they love to lie down right in the middle of whatever you are doing.

I line the edges with rock and voila…pathway. 

The second technique will be the same as first minus permeable weed-block fabric. If you really must know, I am trying out the second technique because I ran out of weed-block fabric.

My landscaper (who I can't afford anymore) never uses it. He says that you don’t need to, so we shall see which technique works best.

In Search of Lotusland

I ran into an old friend at the beach. She told me her daughter is attending college in Santa Barbara.

First of all, that is where I want my kids to go to college. 

Is it a good school? Who cares? Education, shmeducation. 

It’s all about attending a place that I want to visit, isn’t it? 

I also like Cal Poly, because it sits smack dab in the middle of SLO County, another one of my favorite places. 

Or, Maybe I could ship them off to Hawaii? 

I digress. 

My friend and I got on the subject of, surprise…gardening…and she told me about a garden in Santa Barbara called Lotusland. It’s a public garden that operates in a private residential neighborhood in Montecito. 

Lotusland has a rich and colorful history, but not as colorful as it’s creator, Madame Ganna Walska. As part of her search for creative fulfillment and personal enlightenment, Madame Walska bought the 37-acre Cuesta Linda estate in 1941. She called it Tibetland.

After the dissolution of her sixth marriage, she changed its name to Lotusland.

So, I happen to have another friend whose parents happen to live in Montecito. 

You know who you are.

I plan to kidnap you, drive you to Montecito, pick up your mom, and zip off to Lotusland. 

Someday. 

Soon. 

Please comment if you’ve been to Lotusland. I want to hear all about it.

My Winter Break

This is my idea of a winter break: Like most people I am understandably nervous about the lack of rain in our beautiful mountains but I say, “Make hay while the sun shines.”

I believe this means something like reap the hay while the sun is shining before it rains and gets moldy, sort of like my lawn. 

While I don’t make hay, I am Jonesing for some Springtime, and since I am spending my holiday with twelve or so furry friends, I thought I would treat us all to some winter color.

And, yes, contrary to popular belief, dogs do see color. They just see it a bit different than we do. 

The dogs have torn up my lower lawn so badly now that I have decided to perhaps slowly turn it in to something besides a lawn. I haven’t formulated a whole plan yet, so here is a preview of things to come.

I dug out a ring of lawn from around my giant urn and planted dahlia bulbs. On top of the bulbs I planted some winter flowers: primrose, Johnny jump ups, and snapdragons.

While I was working the dogs stole a bulb, two plastic pots, a glove and two rocks. You may ask, as I did, why would a dog take rocks?

The two rocks were taken by a golden puppy. Need I say more?

Now it’s just a waiting game to see which of the dogs I’m dog sitting will pee on the new flowers first.

My money’s on the golden.

Euphorbia Euphoria

Euphorbia is an ever-so-appropriate word, since the name originated describing a drug-induced state. 

Pulling muscles and working out one’s aging body until it cries “uncle” does have it’s advantages, sometimes landing you in your doctor’s office in which your doctor, shaking his head and looking at you with a pitiful eye scribes a prescription for muscle relaxer and sends you to bed. 

But that is not the only gift I’ve received lately.

One client traded me a yoga retreat at Stillheart, a sanctuary in the hills of Woodside California—about 45 minutes from my house. 

The accommodations are fabulous. The retreat is nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains mid-peninsula, amongst a beautiful redwood forest. My room opened up onto this amazing garden filled with euphorbia, and the occasional Buddha.

I fell in love with the euphorbia. They looked so seraphic. Even though it was overcast, the ambient light lit up the bracts at the end of the spiky stocks. The pictures I took are reminiscent of infrared photos. 

One of the species of euphorbia seemed to be the species called characias. I wasn’t as sure about the other species. What ever they were, they were doing great deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which means they’re perfect for my yard.

Erphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom. Euphorbia is also deer and gopher resistant mainly because the sticky white sap of the plant is toxic and can be quite irritating on contact. So keep this in mind when trimming, deadheading or landscaping with euphorbia.

Four Days of Rain: Does Not a Winter Make

Remember that scene in Water World (I’m speaking to the three people who saw Water World), the scene in which Kevin Costner pees in a bottle, then runs his urine through some sort of filtration system, and drinks it?

Well, if it doesn’t hurry up and rain, we'll all be drinking tinklewater here in California.

The good news is, with all this sunny weather, perhaps my La Brea Tar Pits may soon be taken over by green lawn, though I am not holding my breath.

Not only does my lawn look like a brownie with green mold on it, the smaller area of lawn that the dogs have been allowed on is now in worse shape than the moldy brownie lawn. 

I am thinking of replacing it. I am not sure with what. It has to be something that dogs can run on and catch balls on—and you know what else. 

I am considering taking out part of the lawn and planting natives, while replacing the rest of the lawn with faux grass. 

Or, replacing the rest of the lawn with some sort of wide rock path. 

Or I could replace the whole thing with a fake lawn. 

Or, I could dig a big hole and create a swimin' hole. 

Or I could have a cocktail and go in my house and watch the weather.

Gardeners Anonymous will gladly take any suggestions as to what to replace my abused lawn with.