Garden Progress - One Year

It is exactly one year after I started planting California Native Plants on my side yard, and I decided to a progress update.What's interesting, is that if you are planning on not watering during the summer, you should really plant in say, Feb/Mar so the plants can take advantage of the wet season and get well established before the hot, dry summer happens.

Also of interest is the fact that the plant you buy is usually a small little plant that bears little resemblance to it's retail nursery neighbor. However, these plants (not being overcrowded in the pot) actually grow like crazy once they are in the ground. Expect them to take a year to really establish though.

Note: While not every plant is a California native plant, they are all drought tolerant. I do NOT water this garden.

I am still in progress on this - I consider that I'm about 1/2 way there.

My first California Native plants, bought at Yerba Buena Nursery (which is totally worth the trip) - a lot of information on their website and their demonstration garden is great.











One of my first plants. This is a variety of California Fuschia, Epilobeum Canum Canum. There are a lot of varieties of this plant. Most are summer dry and it flowers late summer from June-October.

2011 - Before

In this pic, the plants on the upper left are planted, but it's still a sad lawn, not a garden.









 Below, side by side of before/after. 2011-2012

2011-Some plants, retaining rocks

2012 - Garden in progress

2012 - Same day, same spot, better view.

Some close-ups from the garden.

 One of the plants from the top pic. Summer dry. This plant started blooming when it warmed up a bit (in March) and is still flowering madly in June.

It's a California native penstemon, of which there are many varieties. This one is Margarita BOP.

Behind the plant is a native Salvia "Allan Chickering". It is in flower March through October, but it's not as exciting as Margarita.

(You'll find if you follow the links another great native plant nursery - Las Pilitas - and they do mail order!)













Same as above, only this one is an Apricot Monkeyflower.

 This is another spot with Red Yarrow and Sea Lavender. Yarrow is native (although in white, not red) and the Sea Lavender is non-native, but I just think it looks cool and coordinates well.












This garden has come a long way!

In other news... how to kill your grass

Time has moved on and while I am still not 100% pain free (knee/foot) I can at least walk now like a somewhat normal person. Walking normally doesn't seem like that much of a big deal until you can't do it anymore.

I've been spending a lot of time and effort latey, researching plants for my yard. I wanted a couple of things:
1) Drought tolerant
2) Looks really great without doing major hours of work every week
3) Supports the ecosystem (birds, bees, hummingbirds, etc.)

As I started looking at drought tolerant plants, I found out about Mediterranean climates (of which California is one of only a few in the world). Essentially, this is a climate that has hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. There are approximately 6,000 plants that are native to California. However, you can only find approximately 3 of them at your local. nursery. So, most of the plants that are available to the casual gardener are plants that have to be watered in the summer, fertilized (most of California has very poor soil compared to say, the east coast) and otherwise require a lot of work. If you do a California native plant garden, you have to do more work up front (finding the plants) and less afterwards. The idea is, the right plant in the right place. Also, you have to decide where you want plants that are ok with being watered and plants that are not. It seems obvious when I think about it. If you can kill a plant that needs water by not watering it, you can also kill a plant that is drought tolerant by watering it.

I also decided NO lawn in the front of my house, which meant I had to somehow kill off the pathetic grass that was already there. I researched on the web and found out about Sheet Mulching. I was trying to figure out where to get enough cardboard, when my brain belatedly kicked in and reminded me I had approximately 1000 boxes left over from moving. Basically, get whatever you want gone nice and wet (green if possible) this helps the composting process. Next, lay down cardboard. Finally, cover in at least 6" deep of mulch. Here's some pics of the process.

Here's the load of free mulch I got from a tree service I found on Craigslist. For scale, the retaining wall on the left is about 4 foot high. Yes. This pile of mulch is bigger than my car. (I started doing this a year ago, I have 1/2 of the pile left... mulch for a lifetime.)

Front Yard- Before with sad looking grass.

Front Yard- Some cardboard

Front Yard - All Mulched!

Getting Old Sucks

So, I went to the doctor today and found out that the pain I've been having in my RIGHT knee is actually arthritis. Good - no surgery. Bad - Can't fix it. As well, my LEFT foot is suffering from plantar fascitis (which I think that I got because I was overcompensating for the knee.) I need to take care of the foot, stretch, heat, ice and also ice the knee.

This means that right now since mucho pain when I put weight on my left foot, I'm feeling like a pathetic cripple and my current walking pace is somewhat slower than a snail.

At least the doc said that swimming is really good for it, so I can at least do some sort of exercise. I have been getting back into swimming recently (GOOD!), but... since my knee was hurting so bad I haven't been exercising for about 4 months (Yeah, BAD.) Since I apparently MUST exercise in order not to resemble giant balloon woman, I gained a lot of weight (even though I was being careful with my diet) which of course does not help with the knee/foot/walking pain. Le Sigh.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

I was planning on hiking around Angel Island, but I got going late and did you know that the ferry stops running at 4:00 pm?  I didn't want to be thinking about not making the ferry back, since then I wouldn't be enjoying the experience, I'd just be thinking about missing the ferry. Yes, I am a basket case.

As usual, when it's hot weather in the East Bay, it's cold, windy and overcast on the coast. 

So, I ended up exploring the Marin Headlands and eventually made it over to Rodeo Beach. What I don't know is why I haven't been over to this area before because it was very scenic. I'll definitely be back.

I parked at the visitor's center and in the interests of getting at least a short hike took the trail from there down to Rodeo beach.

Along the way I saw some wild roses. They were growing in big bushes at various places along the trail. I love the smell of roses and these smelled amazing. The thorns were wicked though, I guess the pain of sticking myself was worth it.

The trail dipped down through a shaded glade and there were some of these tall purple flowers. I think they might be a variety of penstemon but I'm not sure.

Made it down to the beach and just sat for a while watching and listening to the ocean. It was nice and relaxing. I headed back when I started feeling really cold. The wind was blowing and it was overcast, although the sun did manage to break through here and there.







All in all it was a really great day.

Time flies...

...whenever you are not watching it closely. So, what am I doing this summer besides hanging out?

(1) Getting back into working out. Not exercising for 7 months and then working out - it's hard and very tiring. Who knew? Yes, I am out of shape but I'm working on it.
(2) Taking care of various things - car repair, dental repair, doctor's visit, DMV stuff - etc. etc. all that stuff that I never have time to take care of during school.
(3) Completing classes for Masters. I have two more.

Yep, just a tad busy. Anyway, not been working on any posted projects lately as quite some time ago I decided that making felted slippers for gifts would be a Good Idea. 4 pair had to be done by the end of July - so well, that's what I've been doing when not taking care of the above stuff.  These are DONE except for sewing up and then throwing in the washer for the magic shrinking process.

Yay! Now I can go back to other projects instead of working on one more pair of slippers.

And... here they are! All done and pretty.

Who works at the post office anyway?

So today I come home to this:

What is the problem here you may ask. A box? Cool. Someone sending me something? Even more cool.

The problem is that this is a box that I shipped out from the Post Office yesterday. Why is it on my doorstep? I really don't know. My only guess at this point is that the Postal Employee who looked at this did not know the meaning of the words From and To. So, off the post office tomorrow...

However, Clapotis is coming along. I've been knitting on it every day. Yes, it is boring but the drop stitches make it all worth it. There is a lot more than there was last time but the Giant Ball of Yarn has not appreciably diminished. Thank goodness for my kitchen scale which assures me that yes, this ball is 2 oz lighter than it used to be.

Knitting Project Gone Awry

So, last week as I was working on the lace pattern shrug I've been putting together I realized that somehow I had cast on 32 stitches for the left sleeve and only 24 for the right. The shrug is worked in one piece and the sleeves are cast on dolman style. Of course, I only found the error when I was actually finished with the sleeve section. I thought of many different things I could do, but really that's an unfixable error so... the shrug is currently back to balls of yarn and I'll have to start over. Seriously Disgusted. HOW did I MISS THAT?

To console myself I turned this giant hank of yarn:

Into a giant ball of yarn (which took a while). I think guesstimating that there's about 1600 yards in this hank. So... to ease my pain I cast on for Clapotis. Because, hey, everyone else has one so I should have one too. I like it so far, and there's no sleeves to make me crazy and I've got plenty of yarn.