vine

Monthly Top 10 Plants at Campiello Maurizio (May 2023)

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Hope you don’t mind that I’m posting these a bit late. I’ve got to catch up on this so I can get to my Top 10 list for June before it’s August and I need to complete one for July too! Oh the crush of time. A few of these plants were gifts from friends and I’m realizing more and more how special that can make something to me. Friendship means the world to me.

One: This was a little gift from Evan. Rhipsalidopsis ‘Lauren’ bloomed for me indoors in May so I took it outdoors for its closeup. I love red so these blooms brightened my day and were long-lasting too. Many smiles were had since it lifted me up each time I spotted it. That’s a funny thing about flowers. They can cost more than a cookie, but I sure don’t get as fat enjoying them.

Two: This one is sadly not our native Cardamine nuttallii, but Cardamine trifolia still performs well enough and does make a nice tight ground cover. Luckily I have the native one as well, but it’s not established enough in the garden yet for me to comment on, but I hope to post more about growing it in the future.

Three: It was a huge surprise to receive this gift from Nathan Champion of Champion Acres Nursery. Years ago we were coworkers and we’ve stayed in contact ever since… (I guess I’m not as bad as some people think lol.) To say this Fuchsia ‘Pour le Menneke’ aka Fuchsia ‘Poermenneke’ is a stunner is an understatement. The blooms last and last, and it’s been making the back garden feel special all summer long—but it started back in May! What a great gift this was and its something garden guests have all enjoyed.

Four: This tree has been posted at least once or twice on my site. Ever since I saw one in a garden, I’d wanted one, and I’ve really enjoyed watching this little one grow. Before I know it, it will be huge. Eventually it will be planted in the ground, but for now, this Acer palmatum ‘Ukigumo’ is happy in its terracotta container in the back garden. I can watch its white leaves glow back there. It really does have that white cloud look to it.

Five: Kind of embarrassing—to say the least—that it took me so long to plant my Lonicera ciliosa vine. I have another and it’s not yet in the ground. Yes, it’s crazy to procrastinate planting these native vines since they are so beautiful!! Being less problematic than our other native honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula), this one doesn’t get mildew—at least not yet. We shall see.

But those flowers. Wow.

Six: A year or two ago my friends and I potted up a piece of this devil’s club from my family’s property near the coast. Oplopanax horridus is one of those plants I discovered as a kid by absentmindedly grabbing at it to clutch onto as I was trying to exit a creek or stream. Ouch! But it’s a brutal stunner. It’s a painful pretty. Now this one is planted and doing great in the ground in the back garden.

Seven: The fragrance of an Iris florentina is undeniably something special—at least for me. Iris plants in general often annoy me since their blooms are so ephemeral and I have to work hard to keep them healthy and happy in a greenhouse environment, but this, uh… With that hint of a pale blue-grey, this one is a favorite of mine in the garden and I’m happy to have two established patches going.

Eight: The Citrus myrtifolia has been a much loved container plant for years. Fragrant blooms, and the connection to the production of a delicious beverage called chinotto is all I need to add. Now I want some…

Nine: Whenever I see the dangling tassel bits attached to the male flowers on the Thalictrum occidentale plants I giggle. That tiny jostle, it’s so sensitive to a light breeze—oh the magic in the air! (These are wind pollinated to it actually does make sense…

Ten: Last but not least is this heirloom Iris ‘Cheer’. It was a gift from Baldassare, and is an older hybrid which is fragrant and reblooms. Since doing so though I’ve realized there are a fair number of them with a hint of a whiff of something. I guess they all kind of smell a bit like Palmolive to me. I suppose it could be worse…

So that’s it for now! Hope to get more posts rolled out soon. With lots of the garden redo underway, I hope to rest more and have time to type up my thoughts as summer engulfs us.

È arrivato l’autunno! And darkness is falling…

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Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) from the bedroom window.

Due to my seed collecting and my husband’s grape harvesting, bottling, and pressing, for us autumn is when we return to our roots. It’s when I begin to feel like cooking again and it’s when I return to my Catholic past. From now until Easter we’ll cover all of the holidays with food and friends. Once Easter hits though it’s back to the “fields” for both of us. (I still have 4 weeks though before Mr B returns home for winter from California. That’s when the kitchen really gets going!)

Burst of gold from the bedroom window. That’s our old garage behind the house and beside it is our overgrown willow  arbor. (This is what happens when you break your pruning fingers.)

This year I will be making one last road trip to the San Francisco Bay area and I will be taking everyone along with me again. Believe it or not blogging along the way makes the traveling a bit less lonely. And trust me, the Redwoods in the rain and fog can be very scary even for this girl from the heavily forested Pacific Northwest.

Looking into the heart of the Cyclamen.

Before I leave I still have so much work to do and that’s why my blogging has been a bit slow. At least the Ikebana work has been picking up thanks to my enrollment in a course. My teacher is a wonderful woman I met over 20 years ago when I worked with her husband as an ESL helper for Japanese exchange students. He is also a much loved Buddhist minister and it was such an honor to me that he came to our class solely to say “Hello” to me on my first day. I am still smiling about that! Glowing really.

Perennial Impatiens arguta.

Autumn has had a few surprised for me in the garden too. With the onslaught of a lot of rain, my perennial Impatiens has gone crazy with bloom after bloom. It is so beautiful to see such delicate jewels just before it’s the end of the season. The lilac is so unlike so many of the other fall colors but I don’t mind a bit.

I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit when this box arrived on my doorstep. It’s full of dried plant material for crafts, as well as heat sealable teabags and dried kelp for making compost teabags.

There are all of the last minute craft projects too that I have been planning for my shop. Some are things I have always wanted to sew, like sachet bags, and some are new ideas, like bath time teabags with fresh local dried hops and honeycomb extract from France. Sounds tasty too, right?

Dried Praying mantis.

Autumn is also the time we have to say goodbye to things we find beautiful until the next season, and when I found this amazing specimen dried between my exterior and interior window today, it saddened me and I felt a little tear well up in my eye, but there will be more Praying mantis bugs in my garden next year. Until then, it’s a little bit of feasting around these parts…

“Ogghiu di ‘n summa, vinu di ‘mmenzu e meli di ‘n funnu.“
“The choice oil is from the surface, the best wine is from the middle,
and the best honey is from the bottom.”—Sicilian saying

(I tend to practice my Italian this time of year too by singing a lot out of boredom so here’s a little Italian pop music courtesy of my favorite Italian singer Jovanotti. The first one is a corny love song, the second is a classic funny song about love, and then the last one is s new “magic happy” song I am kind of really into right now and the foster kids seem to love it because it’s bouncy: Baciami Ancora, Bella & La notte dei desideri).