Archive for the ‘Garden Stuff’ Category

The last few weeks have been strange ones. There was nearly 3 weeks of jury duty for an ungodly Katrina death case. To call it exhausting and miserable would be an understatement…and after all that time, they settled. Which was a good thing, ultimately, but still.

And as we come to the one year anniversary of the business closing I’ve finally gotten rid of the last of the stuff. I feel like I NEVER stop thinking that, but every time I think I’m done I open some cubbyhole and find yet MORE stuff.

The dregs seem to be really and truly gone now- the filing cabinets that used to hold several thousand beads were picked up yesterday and dropped off to their new homes, and the huge box of leftover gift boxes that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away have found new lives.

In their Notably New Orleans lives, they would’ve looked like this:

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In their new lives they’ve found a much higher purpose:

PRC’s Education & Outreach department does a fantastic job of working with local public school kids, giving tours and setting up different long term programs with the schools. This display came at the end of several months of working with a classroom and exploring what community really means and what goes into building a livable space.

They all did an amazing job, and it’ll be on display for another couple of weeks at the Preservation Resource Center (923 Tchoupitoulas) if you want to come check it out. There are quotes from the students and all kinds of other interesting things to check out.

And then of course there was the hard freeze that went on for days- the worst New Orleans has seen in 15 years. The carnage was fairly complete- all the hibiscus are dead. Ditto the passiflora, bougainvillea,and on and on- even the ginger took a huge thwacking, and I thought that stuff was indestructible.

Well, here- let’s save some time. Allow me to point out what survived using a photo from the fall as illustration: Arrow=survivor. No arrow=fallen soldier.

So yeah, that was freaking depressing.

But a good culling is like a forest fire, leaving behind newly excavated mental and physical space that needs to be filled up with new exciting plans. Some of those are writing based, and some are photography based. Some involve shopping for new and ever more exotic plants to fill up the yard with color.

And just maybe some might even involve finally making an honest man out of poor, long suffering Charlie.

It’s been a long year of post-going-out-of-business recovery- time spent clearing deadwood both practical and metaphorical. Here’s hoping it was time well spent.

I picked this hardy hibiscus up at the Farmer’s Market last year not quite sure what I was getting, but fell in love with it once it bloomed. It comes in bright white and fades to a deep pinkish red over the course of several days- the whole bloom lasts a good 10 days, which is fantastically long for these things.

Here are two blooms on the same bush- one had been out for about four days and had gone pink, and the other had bloomed that day:

And here’s two days later, the pink’s gone much deeper, but the white’s still white:

I just love how it’s chaos at its center, much more than a tropical hibiscus:

I got Purple Goddess from a wonderful hibiscus company when it was shutting down- he’d intended to keep her, but his wife just didn’t like the blooms.

And I have to say, it doesn’t ever come in nearly as dark as the breeder said it would, nor does it bloom very often, so when I noticed just at dinnertime that it had actually flowered, I plucked it and put it on the table, even though it hadn’t opened fully. (It’s been ungodly hot, so I’m happy to get any blooms right now- in a month we’ll have color galore. Right now…eh.)

All of which led to getting a little arty with a flashlight, and the effect is pretty cool…even if you can’t really see the flower for itself. Above is the best idea of what it actually looks like- it’s a mid-range purple with a reddish eye.

And this is just one bunch of 3. Many many dozens of bananas this year…guess we’ll have to make cream pies and invite everybody over?

Another Dupont Cajun variety- and no, I don’t have stock in them- we have an overabundance since they’re the supplier the local chapter of the American Hibiscus Society’s chosen to use for their annual sales.

Low AHS price + gorgeous blooms = another hibiscus in the backyard.

And this one’s a doozy- it’s huge and practically florescent- what’s not to love?

Lantana is technically a weed. A pretty weed, okay, but a weed. I first saw it years ago growing in the sidewalk cracks in Mississippi, and when I brought a photo of it to our local nursery, I seriously thought the owner was going to spit on me. I was oh-so-thrilled to get be on the receiving end of a 5 minute lecture on the subject.

But it was effective, apparently, because now I’m compelled to point out that Lantana’s a weed whenever the subject comes up.

Regardless, despite the fact that it grows all on its own through street cracks where it gets mashed and stepped on every day, I cannot grow the stuff. I’ve killed off any number of sacrificial lambs.

This was last year’s:

Pink and yellow together in lots of tiny tiny blooms. This one was kind of cruel- see how nice and big that sucker looks? Looks like a winner, right? A survivor?

Yeah. Not so much. The front of the house, the back, any sun/shade combo you can think of. In pots, in the ground. All of these in my hands = dead lantana. On one side I have a neighbor who has one that just started growing on its own, and she’s shaped it into a gorgeous lollipop-looking bush. On the other side I have somebody whose boyfriend keeps running their wild lantana over with the lawnmower, and it just keeps coming back.

Seriously, this is true.

So I’ve decided that I’m not taking care of it any more. I’m not being nice to it, and I’m considering backing the car over this one a few times. Maybe then it’ll live for a while. If not, at least I know where I can get more- the local speech giving nursery? It’s caved, and I’m perfectly welcome to go buy my evil weed there.

This was actually taken a couple of months ago and I’ve just gotten around to uploading it. There aren’t many blooms at the moment- we’re in the middle of a god-awful streak of sky high temps with near-drought conditions, so I can’t blame them for not wanting to be bothered. Every time I step outside I lose any motivation I might’ve started out with, so I can completely relate.

I think it just confuses Bianca when I take photos of boring things like plants. She tends to get in the middle of it and look at me like I’m crazy.

So Black Jack is/was a Dupont variety; I note it’s not listed on their website any more, so it might have been discontinued. I’ve never been a big fan of the browns and greens in hibiscus blooms, but Charlie thought this one looked exotic.

It’s a slow grower, and even after being pinched off twice, this was the first bloom in 9 months. (though a second followed close behind.)