Forgive me, my ardent readers, for not posting in ever so long! The gardening has had to take a backseat to baking, shopping, knitting, and merry-making ... but it is never far from my mind. Sometimes I get jealous of the winter 'fallow time' cold climate gardeners have, when your gardens are put to bed and you can safely turn your attention to other things for a while. I can't do that, because my garden grows and grows and grows. Check out the passionflower that opened just this morning!

The most magical thing happened just now. A huge flock of what looked and sounded like 300 wild finches descended on my garden and flitted around from tree to shrub to grass to plant for about half an hour. They were so tiny and cute - and so full of winter food that they were almost perfectly round. I'd never seen anything like it ... I wouldn't have been surprised if they suddenly started helping a fairy godmother dress me for a ball. I didn't want to scare them away by taking a picture, so you'll just have to imagine a garden full of tiny colorful birds and an awestruck gardener.

Amy P. heard a viscious rumor about paperwhites - they're drunk! She asked me to get to the bottom of this, and as it sounded much too sordid for me to pass up, I did some investigating. Sure enough, the rumors are all true! Paperwhites (Narcissus tazetta) love the firewater!
Here's the lowdown. Forcing paperwhites for the holidays is a lovely tradition. However, they have long, very slender stems that tend to flop over and look less than tidy. Well, the Flower Bulb Research Program at Cornell University actually did a study on this. It seems that switching water for the hard stuff at a certain point in the forcing process makes the stems shorter and sturdier, while keeping the flowers just as big and fragrant as usual. Forcing is done by putting the bulbs in a shallow decorative container filled with enough pebbles to stabilize them without covering them, adding water, and letting nature do it's thing. If you replace the water after about a week with a diluted solution of alcohol and water ( 1 part of your spirit of choice to 7 parts water), your stems will be 1/3 shorter, but your blossoms will be just the way you like them - fluffy and full of good smells.

See - booze makes things better. My paperwhites are going to start swilling tequila this very afternoon!

What beautiful big hips I have! My favorite rose, Rosa 'Altissimo', a drop dead gorgeous climber with single blossoms in a sexy lipstick shade of scarlett, has developed fruit ... and those are called 'hips'. Why such a provocative name? This is gardening, remember? What have I been saying for months? Hidden beneath the veneer of respectability lies a red light district!
Hips are wonderful. They come in so many different shapes and sizes, depending on the variety of rose. Rosa canina- the dog rose- has the classic oblong rose hip. It's the highest naturally occuring source of vitamin c, and was used by Native Americans to supplement their diet. My Rosa 'Altissimo' has round, orange hips - I never cut the flowers of this rose so that I can have plenty of hips for the holidays (I like to decorate Xmas presents with them). Other roses have tiny hips that look like beads - in fact, rose hips were used as rosary beads in the Middle Ages. Rose hip jelly is a popular condiment, Rose hip tea is tartly delicious - and rose hip oil is said to do miraculous things to our skin. All this, and they can grow right in your back yard. Since this is the time of year to mull over what you'll plant come spring, why not pop on over to Heirloom Roses and start looking for a relaxed, single-flowered rose that has some bitchin' hips. I'll find the ones I like, and we can compare notes!

I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. The area is the hill country - very rolling and green; full of rivers and creeks to ride with inner tubes in the summer. In the winter, the trees lose their leaves, but without the fanfair of seasonal color - one day they're green, then they're brown, then they're gone. Now I live here in Southern California, the land of perpetual green. But, if you look closely, you can find seasonal color here. And if you do some research and proper planning, you can have a tiny taste of what people on the East Coast enjoy - the magical shift from fall to winter that is full of blazing color. We just have it in small doses. I can always count on Nandina domestica to get done up for the holiday parties in reds, oranges, and touches of yellow - and to be festooned with the brightest scarlett berries ... somebody didn't teach little Nandina how to dress, and we're all happier for it. I have nandina partnered with the architectural Agave weberi  in my front garden, and all year long she's a delicate foil to the agave's strict form. Then winter rolls around, and the combination of the smooth blue surface of the agave with the overdressed exhuberance of the nandina is truly a joy to the world!

I'm not really one for whimsical garden ornaments; I like my gardens decorated with flowers, butterflies, and hummingbirds. And daybeds and coffee tables. And firepits, fountains, and hanging light fixtures. Okay, I do tend towards fully furnished outdoor spaces, but in my mind gazing balls, plaster faeries, and other cute garden bric - a - brac are a big no-no. Yes, that also means garden gnomes. (That's just me - lots of very stylish decorating types just love the gnomes). But I love these beautiful 'windchimes' - although they aren't really chimes because they don't make a sound ... the little mirrors glint, sparkle and make dancing lights on surrounding walls and surfaces. I call them 'house earrings', but I suppose they're 'wind lights'.
I got these at my beloved Pot-ted. I think they are so fetching ... one thing, however - I think something about the flashing light disturbs and confuses bees. Ever since I've hung these up, right outside my kitchen door, I get bees flying into my kitchen and getting stuck there. I end up having to coax them outside without getting stung. I wonder what that's all about!

These mushrooms popped up next to my transplanted bamboo today. I went right to Dave Fischer's American Mushrooms to find out what these more quotidian variety were ... and became riveted reading about the basics of 'shrooms. The upshot is, there is absolutely nothing basic about mushrooms! They may look unassuming (well - most of the time), but they are as close to a sci-fi / X-files type monster as it gets in your average backyard - unless you live in Puerto Rico, where the legendary Chupacabra dwells.
Read on if you dare...