Pearly Bluebush

Back in March(the date on my photo in my phone tells me so) I was walking around the LA County Arboretum in Arcadia and I saw this plant. It was gray with roundy succulent leaves. I like the look of it. It seemed very different and I had never seen it before. I couldn't find an identification tag or sign. So I tore off a little branch and took it up to Frank McDonough who works there. It took him awhile to figure out what it was. But he did and told me the name. I googled it when I got home and couldn't find any mail order sources. San Marcos Nursery grows it. But they're in Santa Barbara and very wholesale. So, I pined for it.

The next time I visited the Arboretum, there was this nice sign saying Maireana sedifolia. It's a drought tolerant plant from Australia. 

Today I was roaming San Gabriel Nursery and spotted some for sale. Yay! But it was in a 2 gal pot for almost $30! Ugh! I like things in 1 gal pots in the $10 range. I tried to talk myself out of it. But I couldn't. I've said this before here. You've got to buy the strange/special/unusual plants when you see them(especially if you've pined for it) because it might not be there next time! So I did! 

In the past couple weeks I've found several plants that I've been hunting for years! Yay! 

Happy Gardening!

Autumn Seeds

Hi all. In SoCal we're finally having cooler weather although no rain here yet. And it's October so it's time to plant seeds of winter greens, vegetables and Sweet Peas.

I planted my Sweet Pea Seeds last week (9/28) while it was still Sept because I wanted to get going! Sweet Peas take so long to flower for an annual. I think I've said it before here but in case you missed it: other annuals like tomatoes take maybe 2 months from seed to flower to fruit. Sweet peas take about 6 months from seed to flower. So get going! They like a sunny spot with at least a 6' support to climb.

I planted several kinds of lettuce, spinach and carrots on Monday(10/1). I love not having to buy lettuce in the store from Nov-March or so. I haven't tried carrots in a few years because they tend to fork in my soil. But I was tempted by the seed packet of these multi colored varieties. We'll see how they do. You could also plant broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and beets too.

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I think that lower pic is a sweet pea sprout. I hope so. It may be one coming up from last season because they usually take 2 weeks to sprout.

I've also got California Poppies that I got free from the Theodore Payne Foundation that I'm going to sprinkle in my front yard.

Fall weather is the best growing season in SoCal. Happy Gardening!