The stone yard

What gardener doesn't enjoy a trip to the stone yard?

This one has a nice fish pond.



With hungry fish.



This place is 20 minutes away in South San Francisco (a town which doesn't even share a border with San Francisco). I hear there's a stoneyard in San Francisco proper, but I've never been able to find it. Anyhow, I come here on my lunch break sometimes just to look around.

Big rocks.





Rough rocks.



Rough red rocks.



Round rocks.



Small rocks.



Really small rocks.



Flat rocks.



Particularly old-looking rocks.



And the rocks I came here for.



They're just called San Francisco Cobblestones, or SF Cobbles, because they were used extensively in 19th century San Francisco. Construction crews find them doing excavation work downtown, and they end up in Bay Area stoneyards where people like me come along and haul them right back to San Francsico.

We bought our first 100 from a contractor we had a chance encounter with in a parking lot. He'd removed them from a garden in Noe Valley and was on his way to sell them to the stoneyard. He sold them to us at market rate and threw in free delivery.

These ten are going home with me. $41.14, a cash palindrome.



These aren't the best cobbles I've bought. Kinda concretey. But I think some winter rain and summer sun will flake it off. Cobbles aren't cheap, and they don't always make for a smooth, easy walk in the garden, but they do create a cottagey vibe which is what I'm going for. And I think the varying color and texture of the cobblestones adds visual interest. I particularly like that they come with some local history.

We can take a quick look around, but we're not spending any more money today.



Hm.







Raarrr!



These chairs remind me of summer.



Yesterday at 4:52 or something was the solstice.

Happy belated solstice!

Do you mind

another trip to the Botanical Garden?

Cupressus macrocarpa.



There's that ginkgo again.







It's 45 degrees F.

Let's work in the greenhouse today.













Okay, I've got to go back out into the cold now.

Christopher..? A Hawaiian native Metrosideros, or pseudo-native, I believe.



The sun is giving sharp contrasts today.



Maybe too sharp.



Maybe you think those pictures should go in this order...?





Get it? Get it? Heh, heh.

Erica caniculata.



Really old-school, huh? I like it.



Melianthus major. In with the new...



and out with the old.

Rained out on my first day of Christmas vacation.

(Image.)

I got a start yesterday tho'.

I bought cobblestones and got ten of them down before sunset.



I want to connect the two ends.



The Geranium maderense is in the way. I'm eager for this biennial to do its thing this year, and die. Classic example of putting too-big a plant in too-small a space. Plus, it totally disrupts the nativity of the bed. S'okay.



What am I going to do with all this dirt?



Dump it in the neighbor's yard? Heh. Tempting. As it is, I'm dumping it in the garbage can a couple gallons every week. Noone's said not to yet.

I'm going to grow a pumpkin in that pot. I think it will look nice seeing the vines snake through the manzanita and ceanothus. I like to blend vegetable and ornamental gardening. And I really like that pot.





Bulbs. Mostly tulips, large and small.



They're too big to call seedlings anymore.



We've never seen the Cotyledon macrantha flower. I have other Cotyledon sp. tho', and I think they all make the same inflorescence.



Indoor flowers.





My favorite houseplant...Spathiphyllum Aglaonema.



I like the red leaf scars.

Earthquakes

I feel certain we're having a swarm of little earthquakes in San Francisco right now.

Is it just me? Link.

Apparently, it's just me.

UPDATE: No, it's not just me. (Phwew!) I'm calling it a bunch of 2's and 3's.

Garden to-do list:

My Christmas vacation began today. I'm off work until January 2. Or possibly January 3 depending on how I feel when I wake up on January 2.

1) Finish cobblestone path. (Buy ~20 more cobblestones, est. $80)

2) Turn compost.

3) Prepare for roses. I want two. I want my neighbor's rose, but that idea was slightly rejected when it was last discussed and I feel stigmatized going forward with that plan. Although some people were rooting for me. My true friends, perhaps. My kindred spirits. Okay, getting over myself now.... My nursery will have roses in January. I need to put out the big pot I have in the garage and prepare soil for it. And I have to improve the soil presently in the other big pot already outside. And I have to pick the roses. Am I going to go in knowing what I want, or see what they have and buy what grabs me? Or should I buy them from the Botanical Garden? What about that Wayside Garden purple climber related to Sally...Holmes? Do I want that after all? Brainstorm roses.

4) Contemplate trellis design. I'm thinking three posts and a triangular top.

5) Hypertufa. Find desirable forms. Learn whether a 2-3' tall hypertufa column is a good idea or a bad idea.

6) Buy another heating pad for seeds. Also buy chains to hang the fluorescent lights in the garage lower (because I'm not buying another ladder to bring the seedlings higher). If that makes any sense.

7) Sow Asclepias in two big terracotta pots that I still need to buy.

8) Finalize seed sowing/germination calendar for 2007, and design vegetable garden concept. Emphasize hanging baskets, containers, trellises. Buy pumpkin seeds because Jack O'Lantern pumpkin seeds all rotted.

Liriodendron tulipifera

In the Magnoliaceae, commonly called Tuliptree, or Yellow Poplar.



You can ID it from the leaf shape which we describe as being lyrate.



Some factoids:

Deciduous, USDA Zones 5-10, to 120' tall, tallest native hardwood in the eastern US, fragrant flowers born high in the crown.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both planted this tree at their respective estates.

Daniel Boone is said to have carved a 60-foot-long canoe from a single trunk.

Just what I need:

More seeds!



What did I get? Little California natives to tuck in here and there.

Isomeris arborea,


Lotus formosissimus,



Mimulus pictus,



Streptanthus farnsworthianus (Huh. He said, "Anus". Huh, huh. Huh.)



and a *BONUS* freebie: Linanthus 'Stardust'.

Where exactly these are going to go in my over-planted 500 sq. ft. garden is anyone's guess. Who the heck knows. I think a couple on the roof garden for sure, and some maybe grouped in bunches around the artichoke bush and summer vegetable garden. Luckily for me, unlike some people, I'm not one to garden with "a plan" or an overall "design concept".

The more pressing matter is, do I coddle these seeds and sow them indoors with diurnal temperature fluctuation, or do I sow them outside in flats and let them fend for themselves like the tough natives they are? Decisions, decisions.

Where did I buy them? Seedhunt. She sells more than just CA natives, btw. The last seeds I bought from her came up within a week. She's got a lot of salvias, and plans to expand her collection of restios.