Picture This - July's Photo Contest

Gardening Gone Wild is a great blog - one where I would spend more time browsing links and ideas if I had some time. The contributors are a "who's who" of some of my favorite folks in the gardening/photography world. I usually read this blog is quickly - I liken it to visiting a town by zooming past it on the freeway.

Since I've been on vacation for the last week, my Google Reader (blog aggregator) has been empty, and I have been sad and bored! So when this post popped up, I actually had time to read it.

Each month there is a contest in which readers post a picture on the required topic, link back to the GGW post, and hope for the best.

July's contest is flowering trees, judged by Rob Cardillo! I am a huge fan of Rob Cardillo because he collaborates with Nan Ondra, who writes some of my favorite gardening books. Rob was the photographer on Fallscaping - which left me haunted by the plant combinations and pictures!

My submission is this picture of a Western Redbud in flower I took on my birthday (March 29th) this year. My good friends gave me a Carl Zeiss 50mm lens, and this was one of the first pictures I took with it. Western Redbuds are some of my favorite trees. Maybe it's because they're in full bloom around my birthday...

Getting Up Early

My puny watermelon vines in the early morning sun

FACT: I have never been a morning person.

FACT: Had you said I'd be getting up at 6am and liking it, I would have thought you were nuts.

FACT: Maybe I'm nuts.

I have been getting up at 6am for the last few days, in an attempt to change myself into a morning person. I was tired of getting up with nary seconds to spare in my morning routine before having to leave for work. It just sets an ugly tone for the whole day. I am not pleasant in the morning + coworkers = a bad mix.

I got up early this morning and took a picture of my watermelon vines in the sun. This shot represents hope in 2 ways:

One, I hope my damn watermelon (cantaloupe, squash) vines actually get large enough to produce this year. It's like their a month behind. Chris blames the lack of automatic watering - which I can see because once we rigged up the sprinklers in the back, everything started growing. I tend to be a notorious underwaterer. Hey, we have water issues here in NorCal. Trying to do my part.

Two, I hope I can continue getting up early. I have only gotten up early for 5 days, and not consecutive. There was that whole bit about vacation and being in someone else's home where I allowed myself to sleep in... But I didn't get up early yesterday and I felt like I missed out. Like whoa. Missed out? Yes, this is still Katie talking here. I feel like I have 2 more hours in my day when I get up early, because I do. I've twittered about being frustrated and bored on my vacation, and perhaps it's because I've marked darn near everything off of my to-do list.

Rambling (how I'm setting myself up to get up earlier) below if interested

For each morning I get up early, I am making a tick mark in my moleskine. Every tick mark = $1. Big whoop, right? Well, those dollars will add up over time, and once I reach the specified amount, I am buying a watch. Oh yeah, another big whoop right? Well, if you know me, this is the longest I've ever gone without a watch, since my dumb Timex broke last year (I previously had a series of Ironmans forever). We were at a sports store recently, and I found it. The watch I want. $59.95 = 60 days of getting up early. I can do this.

Once I have the watch, I will set my sights on doing some sort of physical activity. Going to the gym? Running/walking with the dog? Not sure yet. Once that becomes a habit, I will start getting up at 5:30am.

Blink. Blink.

5:30am? Hell yes. If I can do 6am as part of a habit, I can do 5:30am.

What in the heck does this have to do with gardening?

Getting up early allow me to get out into the garden before it's a zillion degrees. Speaking of...off to go out and enjoy the cool air now.

Happy 4th of July!

Garden Tour: @Interleafer

On the way home from our road trip, Chris and I decided to make a small detour and come home through San Jose. My Twitter friend Laura (@Interleafer) has been telling me I should come visit her since we connected, and gosh darnit I wasn't going to miss out on meeting another cool person from Twitter!

Laura lives in San Jose, about 2.5 hours away from Folsom. She lives in USDA Zone 9 (Sunset zone 16), and has an amazing garden/landscape. Being a landscape designer, I'd expect no less!

Laura's front yard is VERY MUCH like what I have in mind for our front yard. We have a small slope, and she contained hers with concrete blocks harvested from the landscape previous to what you see here. It was the first time I saw this technique, and the concrete looked like beautiful stacked stone.

Captions above pictures

The short fence in front gives privacy, and intrigue as to the courtyard that lies beyond. The front yard is welcoming, and we immediately knew when we'd reached our destination. I very much enjoyed all of the plants Laura chose, and it seems a good many of them came from cuttings or overstock. I especially like the walkway set in decomposed granite.



Walking up said path, the view that intrigues the visitor comes into view. We sat on her porch for much of the visit "talking shop", as she pointed out plants and told us the story of the landscape and how it came into being. The porch was added onto (behind large shrub in picture below), and you can't tell the difference between old and new - such attention to detail! It is amazing. A sit-in porch on a ranch style house in San Jose? Very rare indeed.



Once past the gate and truly in the courtyard, visitors are immediately drawn to two water features. First is the glazed urn with recirculating pump that breathes life into the front of the house. Laura said that when they had to shut it off for a few days, it was as if all the life in the front yard ceased and was silent. Water definitely plays a large role in her garden (and designs, I'd imagine!). Second is the rain chain which gives the idea of water without actually using any! Laura says this is her "winter garden" and loves to bask in the low winter sun on the front porch. She also uses these amazing drippers for her drip system, which I WISH I would have known about a week sooner.



The courtyard was a very private place to visit, and as the plants grow in, will become more private. It wasn't until I looked at these pictures that I even noticed the neighbor's houses! The courtyard serves as another room, visually expanding the living area of the home. I appreciated the limited use of hardscaping because I tend to feel that sometimes it is overused. I could have sat on this porch all day long, talking with Laura!



Moving into the backyard, visitors have to walk through an amazing little area complete with beautiful basketweave pavers, and a potted garden that would make even the best gardener jealous. (My pots do terribly. Must be the heat. Yes, the heat. That's it.) Although it was warm when we visited Laura's garden, the plants and greenery visually and physically turned down the thermostat and made the yard a joy to sit in.



The patio also contains an amazing fuscia specimen! This patio opens into another garden room...



...under the red umbrella!



The rustling of the bamboo was so pleasant, and if there was any noise from the surrounding neighborhood, I sure didn't notice any. We asked Laura about the bamboo (mainly because I would love to do something similar on the North side of our backyard), and she explain how she trains her bamboo. She chooses which shoots to keep (some are cut back), and then she uses heavy gauge wire to push them apart from one another into the umbrella shape she desires. Many bamboos are thick, but with a little work, Laura created an airy looking bamboo that still rustles in the wind.



The dappled shade of the bamboo on the red umbrella was a little magical.



To see pictures of this room before Laura worked her magic was interesting - it was a blank slate (she has a great post on her blog about the before shots). I especially loved the ground cover. She said it was blue star creeper but with white flowers. After starting as a single flat of plants placed between the pavers, it has reached its way across the pathway in both directions and creates a nice lush carpet in this part of the backyard. The mirror in the background gives the illusion that the yard is much larger than it is - this is the first time I've seen this done in person, and let me tell you, it TOTALLY works.



The ground cover reaches almost all the way to another urn fountain, and Buddhist statue. The blue of the stones and statue, the red of the pot, the green of the plants, and the gold of the star really set this particular area off, and is quite pleasing to the eye.



On our way out, I had to take a shot of this fence. Laura's father is a retired "putterer" - the porch expansion, fence, and other projects were all lovingly done by him. This fence is such a work of art, and showcases craftsmanship that is hard to come by nowadays. You can see that each board was cut and routed to create the curve you see. While someday this will be covered with a vine, it is nice to enjoy the beauty of the gate while still uncovered.



I think 2009 will be the year of meeting other gardeners. I feel enriched by each person I meet, and love to talk shop as if we've been friends forever. I'd like to thank Laura for taking a couple hours out of her day to share a couple beers and the story of her garden, and life.

Thank you.

Road Trip

Chris and I headed down to San Luis Obispo last weekend to visit his brother and his brother's girlfriend. They live in a beautifully landscaped condominium complex, and I was surprised with the gardens people were allowed to keep. I have never lived in anything but suburban houses, so the condo complex was a new experience. Plus they had a pool and spa, and like a six year olds staying in a hotel, we made good use of both during our time there. (Did you know that "adult sippy cups" can conceal rum + cokes?)

Anyhow.

I was insanely jealous of two things we found growing within a few yards of their place: bougainvillea and nasturtiums. (Aside: Is it wrong for me to pronounce them NAH STIR TEE UMS? Because I do. And it probably makes me sound silly.)





The coastal weather moderates daytime temperatures so SLO tends to stay on the cool side of warm year round (does that make sense?). I don't believe they get much in the way of frosts either. It was a welcome reprieve to be down there in the 86⁰ weather when it was 112⁰ at home.

And because we were on vacation, two more shots of what we enjoyed: