Christmas...

 

Christmas joy, around town...

Some readers might remember the Portland tradition of hunting for the Santa Clones. 

The short story is that a fellow named Chris Willis has been collecting plastic Santas for years and puts them on display somewhere around town—posting clues on his Instagram page as to their location. Last year all of the Santas wore masks (see my photos here / read about last year's installation here), this year there's just the one masked Santa.

There seemed to be some kind of message in that, a single mask in the crowd.

I finally got it when I read this post from Chris...

"The Santas are not masked this year. I wanted their bright glowing faces exposed for everyone to see. Hopefully someday soon we’ll all be able to do the same. Tiny band-aids on their arms show they’ve all been vaccinated, in support of ultimately kicking this pesky pandemic’s butt.

I hope my collection brings some much needed warmth and joy this year. Let’s hang in there Portland, we’ll get through this."

Vaccinated Santas! Perfect. If you look closely you can see a bit of a band-aid shadow on their arms.

The red-glow of all that Santa magic could be seen for a couple blocks.

The glow, combined with the Santa sign, hopefully alerts passers-by that something magical is going on inside the building and they should stop to take a peek.

Driving home after Santa-spotting I managed a quick photo of a very tall and festive tree. You can see downtown Portland in the distance.

Another evening, a different route home, and I was thrilled to discover this Grinch (and big opuntia clump!).

While I am not generally a fan of the over-done blow-up genre of front yard décor, seeing this one made my heart grow three sizes that night.

All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Happy Holidays (and don't steal plants, dammit!)

Recently I pulled up an old blog post from 2015; "Holiday cartoon déjà vu..." 

In that post I visited Marbott's, a local nursery with fabulous vintage greenhouses. The above and below photos are from that post.

Back then I'd happened to stop by the nursery when one of their greenhouses was filled with poinsettias—just like that I was magically taken back to this scene from the 1969 Rankin/Bass holiday special, Frosty the Snowman. I was so inspired that I wrote about it.

Hoping for a little holiday magic I stopped by Marbott's last week. It was late enough in the season I was pretty sure their poinsettia would all be gone, and I was right. No worries, wandering through their greenhouses is always a heart-warming experience. Except no. There were signs on a couple of the doors saying the growing greenhouses were closed. Bummer. I explored the rest of the nursery though, buying a few things and appreciating their gift suggestions...

Checking out (paying for my purchases) I mentioned that I'd hoped to wander thru the greenhouses and was sad to see them closed. Well what do you know, I was then invited to do so, score!

Of course we started talking about why the the greenhouses were closed. Dammit. Theft. People pinching pieces of the plants. It's a widespread problem, and not just here but at nurseries around town, like Tony's. Where it wasn't just "pinching" that happened...

From things I've heard, it sounds like a lot of these issues have to deal with the trendy houseplant collectors. I've always said that gardeners are good people... and included houseplant enthusiasts in that statement, but issues like this make me wonder. There was a recent article that made the rounds in Facebook groups I'm a part of; "The online plant community has a hoarding problem"

It's an interesting story. On one hand I think plants=good, on the other hand the insane mark-up that's occurring on (mainly) houseplants—and fueling the theft?—is criminal. My friend Evan wrote a nice rebuttal to that article on Instagram (here).

Referring to the story I linked to above, he writes: "The generosity of gardeners always amazes me. I received several cuttings in the mail the other day from fellow plant lovers and it made me so happy…

I debated about posting this, as it's not very glamorous or even a very good shot, but then I read an article interviewing several Instagram "plantfluencers" (ew) and there were a lot of comments about how expensive gardening is, with all the equipment and guides you have to buy (with supposed frequency), and how isolating gardening is. What? You're doing it wrong. You can grow plants in plastic cups for f*cks sake. Gardening doesn't take a lot of equipment if you select plants that will grow in your conditions, including indoors. I have tons of plants selected to grow well in the natural light of my windows, no artificial lights or indoor grow tents required. I do have lights, since I ran out of window space, but it's very easy to garden without going into debt. Stop buying "rare" plants that aren't even rare for grossly inflated prices. New plant on the market? Wait a few years and you'll find it for a fraction of the cost. Grow plants that you like and that grow well for you, not for online clout.

Lonely? Join a plant society! Or a neighborhood garden group. This is also a great way to get free or cheap plants, pots, tools, even lights and other equipment. And you'll make new friends who can teach you based on actual experience, or point you to verified information, instead of learning from fake "plantfluencers" or useless, generic puff articles online.

Start small. Learn as you grow. You will kill plants. We all have. Don't start with the expensive ones. Grow what you love, not what will give you the most likes."

So well said! That same day that I visited Marbott's and heard of their theft issues, a box of aeonium cuttings showed up on my backdoor step. A friend in San Diego mentioned on Facebook that his aeoniums were so prolific he'd started just throwing out cuttings. I said "don't throw them out, send them to me!" and so he did...

Over two dozen stems!

Are you still with me? This has been a very long and rambling post. What I'd planned to share as a throw-back to a happy holiday memory has morphed to a sad story of entitled people. Here's what I hope you take away from all this: gardeners are the best people, true plant lovers share their knowledge and their plants. Be one of those people.

I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season.

—   —   —

All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Christmas dg style, 2021

As is my tradition, on the day after Thanksgiving I cued up the Christmas music and pulled out the holiday decorations.

I wasn't feeling terribly creative this year, although I knew I wanted a lot of conifer greens, perhaps some Leucadendron argentum branches, and red accents. 

With, of course, lots of holiday sparkle.

I also knew I didn't want to hang my vintage ornaments on a tree. As pathetic as it sounds that just sounded like too much work (yes, I've been a little Grinchy this year). Instead I filled the mercury glass votive holders with a representative sample. Since I planned to weave small strands of lights through the conifer branches votives seemed redundant.

I missed the big wreath making gathering at Cistus Nursery this year (we were flying back from California that day) and never have got my wreath-making mojo going. This small wrapped-ribbon wreath is the only one I made.

I thought I might splurge and buy enough of those soft and shimmery Leucadendron argenteum branches to make a wreath, however the powers that be didn't allow that. These few were all that was available at the flower market.

They last much longer in water so it was probably better that I wasn't tempted.

I almost didn't grab the berries, thinking them too "much" (it was a Grinch moment) I'm glad I did though. the mantle would have been boring with out them.

It's been a few years since I've added to my tree collection. There are fourteen on display this year. 

No ornaments on the "big tree" meant the tree topper went in a votive holder as well.

Speaking of the "big tree"—it was a vintage aluminum tree sort of year. At first I was happy with just the sparkly red garland.

But then I decided some green was needed and collected tillandsia from around the house. A little silly? Yes...but I like it.

It's not as professional as this full on small tillandsia tree I later saw at Cornell Farm—but oh so much less expensive.

Here's an unplanned feature that my eye is drawn to as I walk thru the living room. Notice the conifer branch in the center of the wreath...

...and how it almost mirrors the shapes of the snowflake.

What a fun accident!

Another pair of trees, with a nice shadow on a (rare) sunny morning.

This trio of trees is over on our dining table.

The scabiosa pods are left from an earlier table-top arrangement—they went so well with the trees color-wise and had a natural ornament feel, they got to stay.

This display was also in place long before holiday-decorating began. I couldn't resist tucking in the two tall, slender trees to "Chistmasize" it a bit.

Finally, just because I didn't make a wreath for our door this year doesn't mean it's empty...

All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

Aliens in the garden

Mid-November I visited the Los Angeles County Arboretum. The garden was set-up for a light show and closing came early, visitors needed to leave so reticketed folks could enter for the show. I see this as an ongoing conflict. Botanical gardens need people to pay their admission fees and die-hard garden-lovers only do so much, the general public needs to be tempted into the garden. That's where the "art in the garden" and "garden light show" ideas come from. Put on a show and they will come. God forbid you just happen to be a regular old plant-lover who finally made it to your bucket-list destination garden while one of their "shows" is happening.

Okay, that's my rant, now back to my Arboretum visit. I mostly managed to ignore all the cords, spotlights, reflectors and other assorted paraphernalia for the show. That light-filled lawn above is the only altered image I captured, well, nearly. 

I'd almost walked out thru the gates when I realized I still had a half hour before I was going to be tossed out of the garden, just enough time to walk over and explore the pre-historic forest...with aliens and disco balls!?

Aliens had invaded the pre-historic forest!

Naked aliens with mirror-ball heads...

I have to admit, I loved this. It was so unexpected and, well, shiny!

As I snapped these photos I wondered what it would all look like after dark. Was I missing out on some serious light-magic? Nope.

As a plant-lover I happened upon this alien-invasion at just the right time. A Google image search for "after dark" photos proved the plants definitely added to the feel of the installation. 

I'll never look at silly botanic garden shows the same way again!

A couple weeks later, back at home and cleaning up the garden, I thought of those aliens again when I pulled back this Woodwardia unigemmata frond...

...and discovered this! Alien goo!

My glove for scale, it was so shiny and gelatinous! 

The white bits are from the Fatsia japonia blooms above.

I shot off a photo to Tiffany, cause she knows fungus, and her best guess was (get this name!) "Crystal Brain Fungus" aka Exidia nucleata. Yep, read all about that business here. The photos in that link definitely look right, even if it says the fungus is found on dead and decaying hardwood and mine was on gravel under a Fatsia japonica. 

To add to my alien feeling about the whole thing, last weekend I found a little more "jelly" in an entirely different part of the garden—although it was still near a fatsia. This time the alien goo was on a Fatsia polycarpa bloom stem. However I have not seen any shiny aliens or disco balls in my garden. Yet.

All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.