I Speak of Dreams

The Great Flood of 2004

I didn't pump off the pool cover. This led to the pool overflowing.

There's a drain at the base of the wall. It's capacity to drain was overwhelmed by how much water was falling out of the sky. This caused water to pool at the base of the wall. By the time I figured out what was happening, water was up to the doorsill. So I moved the pool pump into the puddle by the stairs. The pump ran for 6 hours--I had to move the hose into the sewer drain (instead of the perimeter drain which leads to the creek) because the swale that leads from the perimeter drain to the big drain that goes to the creek was full to capacity.

When I installed the lawn in the fall of 2000, the dirt level was about 2 inches above the level of the pavers. Now it is below. I should add some sifted compost; the grass will grow through and raise the level back up.

Vita Sackville West and Sissinghurst

In a previous life, I had an unlimited book-buying budget, and access to a truly great used book store, Bell's Books in Palo Alto.

I bought V. Sackville-West's Garden Book and Anne Scott-James's Sissinghurst: The Making of A Garden.

The Garden Book is worth finding and reading; S-W's advice and opinions are good reading.  The Scott-James book should be read by anyone thinking of making a garden anew.

I had the great good fortune to visit Sissinghurst in the spring of 1995, on a galloping garden/horse tour. (Galloping in the sense that I wanted to see a great many gardens, because we were about to remodel the garden at Pony Tracks, and I wanted to collect ideas.  Now, the English climate and grand-house-gardening style don't really suit the Northern California climate, and the long-low-ranch-house-on-steroids that is the main house at Pony Tracks.  But I took a lot of pictures of plant combinations and other things.

Here's a brief biography, if "Vita Sackville-West" doesn't mean much to you.

Laura and the Fix Chicks Serendipity

Ok, it's from Here to Here to Here

First I went to , TypePad cause I like to look at recently updated blogs to find new interesting ones. I am such a magpie mind that the serendipity of just clicking on new ones intrigues me.

So I found Laura over at Going Domestic.

and she had on her blog roll, the FixChicks, Anything Boys Can Do Girls Can Do Better.

That's me!

Extreme Gardening

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030519/030519-13.html

May 27, 2003

The world's biggest-ever bloom opened in Germany yesterday. At more than 2.7 metres tall, the Titan Arum flowering in the University of Bonn Botanical Garden beats the previous record - set 70 years ago - by 7 centimetres.

Hothouse Titan Arums rarely flower, but when they do, they are hard to ignore. The colossal lily-shaped blooms smell of rotting flesh - hence the plant's nickname 'the corpse flower'. By mimicking a carcass in decay, the brownish flowers attract insects that deposit their eggs inside the plant, spreading its pollen in the process.

Coincidently, a smaller Titan Arum also opened yesterday at Fullerton Arboretum, part of California State University

Amorphophallus titanium is also known as the "corpse flower". Nature reported on May 27, 2003, that a specimen in Germany would bloom at more than 2.7 meters tall.

There's one at the Huntingdon. It bloomed in 1999 ; it was the first time it had bloomed outdoors in cultivation. It flowered in ; pictures are available here:http://www.desertsong.com/sgvcss/Amorphophallus.html

There's one at Kew Gardens, in England. It bloomed in 2003. You can see it here

Evidently, there's an Amorphophallus titanium at the Controversial Nursuryman Magazine [WARNING not work safe, nekkid wimmen] has a whole issue devoted to plants that smell bad.