Plant Kingdom
“What’s the right time to plant celery?” “What’s the best thing to control whiteflies?" "Which beet is the best for making borscht’” "How do you get rid of gophers too smart to trap?"
In fall, Coburn noted, changes are going on above and below ground. Soil temperature is lower. I touched the crumbly dirt onto the fig leaves had fallen and thought it felt cool.
The branches grow so fast that they cut off views; the roots crack sidewalks, curbs, and roads; they steal water from nearby plants, drop litter on the ground, and exude an oil that kills other plants.
Today, the largest populations of San Diego mesa mint are found on Miramar Naval Air Station. “Driving by there on 1-15 on a warm day in April, you can smell a pleasant, minty aroma,”
In the Southland tract where I was raised, developers planted geraniums in front of every house for purpose of immediate, colorful effect; and geraniums were the first things you pulled out to make room for more “sophisticated” plantings.
“When I first came to Encinitas, in 1975, every street in Encinitas had its own greenhouse. And every greenhouse had a family with its own story — the Andersons, the Weidners, the Eckes. And every greenhouse had its own clientele."
"It is an Engelmann oak, a species found in the inland valleys of San Diego County. There are stands of the oaks in Riverside County and a few in Los Angeles but none exist farther north.”
“Kelp is a very limited resource. A farmer can go purchase and plow up another forty acres. We can maybe increase a forty-acre kelp bed to forty-two, but there are simply only certain places it can grow.”
One of the many obstacles at the Rosecroft Gardens was a shortage of gardening supplies. For some time after World War II clay pots were almost impossible to come by in San Diego.
Arii took me on a tour of the gardens he has made at the Golden Door. As we walked over the wooden bridge that leads to the lobby he explained the philosophy of the Japanese garden.
Some people like to eat the bud of the Fountain Palm in a salad, or cook it like a cabbage. This practice, unfortunately, kills the rest of the tree.