BEES!!

Being in the middle of spring, I've noticed lately that there have been more bees in my backyard.  I've welcomed them because they pollinate all the vegetables in my garden.  This morning I was pruning some of my plants and I noticed a white chunk of something sitting on a branch of a tree in my backyard.  Funny, I thought, looks a bit like beeswax.

Later in the afternoon, I noticed a few white chunks on the floor beneath the tree:  I looked closer to investigate and saw a couple of bees on them, and sure enough it was beeswax.

 

I wondered where these chunks of beeswax were coming from, and looked up into the tree and to my horror, I discovered this:

HOLY SHIT! I have no idea how long these bees have been here or building this hive.  It's about 2 ft long and at least a foot wide!!  Here are more gory pictures:

Clearly these are honey bees, and so far they've been pretty peaceful and have kept to themselves, but they still give me the heebie-jeebies in a massive way.    Even those these bees are scary looking, they are very beneficial to the environment, and we did not want all these bees to be killed-- that would be such a waste.  We have a bee specialist coming on Monday to remove the hive and he'll be relocating it to a bee farm.  It'll be really interesting to see how he gets up into this tree to remove the hive!! 

Until then, we'll just be extra careful not to disturb this hive or piss the bees off!

Rookie Garden: New Beginnings for 2011 - ALL ABOUT BULBS

Happy 2011 everyone! This new year is a year for new prospects, and now that the weather is warming up here in Southern California, it's time to get planting!!

Since November of last year, I have pretty much neglected my Rookie Garden, except for a little weeding here and there. My day-job had left me little time to tend my garden, plus there was little point to planting things when the weather was so cold. Nothing was sprouting outdoors, and since I was traveling so much for work, starting seeds indoors was futile since my dear hubby would always forget to water them.

But yesterday it was a warm 78-degrees here in San Diego (sorry about the poor weather to the rest of the country) and it was time to clean up the rookie garden and plant some new things! I started out with "a little" weeding. All that green that you see on the concrete there... WEEDS.

This planting session was all about planting bulbs! Last year I had purchased some bulbs from the 99c Store, and decided to give them a try. At a buck a packet, I thought, Why not? Some of them turned out nicely, but some of them are really blooming this year like this Freesia:

And here are some Gladioli bulbs from last year starting to grow shoots!

Since they're looking so strong this year, I decided to give them another try, and I went to the 99c Store once again, and bought a bunch of them! When the cashier was ringing me up, he commented, "Are you planning to get your hands dirty? You're buying A LOT of them!" I smiled as I thought about how lovely my garden will look once all of these bulbs start to bloom.

ROOKIE TIP: When planting bulbs, a nice trick is to store the bulbs in the refrigerator for a week before you plant them. Bulbs generally like having a cold period that helps them go dormant and become stronger.

Here are the bulbs that I planted...

Gladioli

I love these tall flowers. In Chinese, they call these "Sword Orchids." They should be planted at a depth of about 8 inches. You can plant about 4 of them every square foot. They take 60-100 days after planting to bloom, and love full sun.

They were a real success last year in the Rookie Garden. Last year, I got the peach and white varieties, and this year I decided to add to the palette. The Plumtart and Tradehorn are my favorites because they look so bold in color... I really hope they bloom nicely this year.

I planted the gladioli against the wall (see the stone circles depicting the planting locations) since they can grow to be up to 5-ft tall!

Freesia and Asian Buttercups

Freesias are sweet smelling flowers that are symbolic of innocence. They should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 12 of them every square foot. They generally flower in late spring, and love full sun or partial shade.

The Asian Buttercup is also known as the Persian Buttercup. They should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 16 of them every square foot. They bloom in early to mid summer, and love full sun or partial shade.

I'm excited about the Freesias since the ones I planted last year are so pretty this year (see yellow freesia pic above), but I'm even more excited about the Asian/Persian buttercups! They just look so pretty! I planted these two flowers together with the freesias in the back and he buttercups in the front. Hope I'll end up with a colorful mass of flowers by late spring!

DRUMSTICKS and MUSCARI/GRAPE HYACINTHS

Drumsticks should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 5 of them every square foot. They generally flower in mid-summer, and love full sun.

The Grape Hyacinth should be planted at a depth of about 5 inches. You can plant about 16 of them every square foot. They bloom in early to mid spring, and love full sun or partial shade.

These were some of the more peculiar looking bulbs that were available at the 99c Store, so I just had to get them!

I had no idea what "Drumsticks" were, but a quick search on the internet showed that these are a type of onion plant. In fact, "Allium" is the onion genus, and in Latin, means "garlic." This makes sense because the flowers of onions and chives look very similar, kind of purplish and bulbous. Overall, people seem to be happy with this flower as it is easy to grow, and it attracts birds and bees.

The grape hyacinth, or Muscari, is also strange looking, at least in the picture on the package. Another quick search on the internet shows that the grape hyacinth is not really a hyacinth at all, but a member of the lily family. Aside from the strange looks, part of the reason I bought them was because the name reminds me of the character Hyacinth Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances," one of my favorite shows ever! I think Ms. "Bouquet" would be very proud of this.

Right now there are several bare spots in my Rookie Garden, mostly from taking the old annuals out and putting these new bulbs in. I'm not sure at all how these will turn out in the Spring, but that's all a part of the adventure and excitement of a Rookie Garden!!

In Memory of My Grandmother

My grandma passed away a week ago (4/11/2010), and yesterday I decided to plant an avocado tree in her honor.

I had been eyeing these avocado trees that Costco was selling for $16.99. Anyone who has ever tried to grow an avocado plant from a seed can probably attest to how difficult it is to do this. I’ve certainly tried a couple of times with little success. So when you’re presented with an opportunity to buy a small tree that has been growing for at least a year, for under twenty bucks, you definitely have to think about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where in my yard I would plant one, so I had refrained from buying one of these trees.

I finally caved last Thursday, and asked the hubby to make a jaunt to Costco and buy one of these trees. I came home Thursday evening to see the potted tree sitting in the side yard.

Often times, it takes me about a couple of weeks before I get around to finding the motivation to plant a newly acquired plant. However, I had a compelling reason to plant this tree earlier. Yesterday, I was scheduled to leave for Los Angeles at 3pm to participate in the first of several ceremonies that my family was having to commemorate my grandmother. I made the abrupt decision at 11am to plant the avocado tree in her honor. It just seemed like the right thing to do. So I grabbed a pair of gardening shears and just started hacking away at the bushes, and cut them down far enough to make a clearing for the tree.

I think the avocado tree looks pretty happy in its new home.

My grandma wasn’t exactly a fan of avocados. In fact, I don’t think she had ever tried one when she was alive. I’m hoping that this tree will bear fruit, and that in some goofy way, she’ll finally get to try an avocado out, stuffed with crabmeat and mayonnaise. I’m pretty sure she’ll like it. :)

House Among the Weeds

I have this little house in my garden as a decoration. Most people don't even realize it's there because it's only about 4 inches high! Recently it was even harder to see it with all the weeds that were growing around it (I've plucked them since then):

Kind of messy, if you ask me.

Close up though, it looks like the house is in an enchanted forest.

I love this picture!

Baseline - How My Garden Looks Today!

Here's where we start. This is the baseline. Since this blog will be about my adventures in gardening, I thought this would be a good place to start. This will help me track my progress, and show the evolution of my garden. This is the beginning of a beautiful thing.

I present to you, my garden as it is today.

My backyard:

Yes, it usually looks like this on any given day (the sun and blue skies, I mean). It's one of the perks of living in San Diego, CA. My grass is way overgrown right now, but you can't tell in the picture. Let's say it's a little too healthy right now (but for the little brown spot). We purchased the Adirondack furniture a year ago from an antique shop for $100 and stained it ourselves. What a bargain! And yes, the giant palm tree is very cool. Love how it's part of our property.This yard/garden really is my little piece of paradise.
But this is the stuff that came with the house, and was done by professionals.

Then there are the parts of the yard that are being cultivated by me, the Rookie Gardener. These are my experimental gardens. To give this rookie a little practice as her thumb turns from black, to the current color: greenish-brown.

Here is the garden on the left side of the house:

Not anything special right now. Just a few camellia bushes along the wall of the house and the kitchen window. Oh, and the ugly AC unit at the end of the row. The stepping stones were there when we moved in, but were hidden under wood chips. I uncovered them about a year ago. I have plans to make this into a little rock garden eventually. At the end of the path there is a potted bamboo plant. It adds to the Asian feel that I want to eventually achieve.

Here is the right side of the house:

This side of the house is my baby because I've built it from scratch. When we moved in, this side of the yard had three dead trees, some out of control ground cover, and lots of weeds that blended in. The hubby and I hated it, and my mom told me that it was bad feng shui to have those dead trees and all that overgrowth, so we dug out trees, and pulled out all the groundcover and weeds. And it sat there as a plot of dirt on the side of our house, with dreams of turning it into a garden one day. Unfortunately, I had never been able to keep any kind of plant alive for a long time.

Then one day, I was at the 99c Store, and I saw these kalanchoe plants for sale. I thought, what they heck, they're only a dollar each, so what if I screw up? So I took a shovel and dug some holes in the dirt and planted them. I knew nothing about gardening. I couldn't have picked a better plant to start with for the clay dirt because they flower forever, and they're very drought resistant. Once I saw how much color they added to this plot of dirt, I was hooked. In fact, the flowers in the front row are the kalanchoe that I started with!

That was a year ago. Since then, I've learned that the clay dirt needs to be prepped, and I have mixed looser soil in as I've tried my hand at planting other things with various levels of success. I'm still not as diligent as hardcore gardeners because tilling the entire plot seems like so much work to me, and is very daunting. Instead, every time I plant something, I dig a hole and fill it with gardening soil. I figure this area will slowly become more enriched as I plant more stuff. I'm in no hurry. And now that I have a basic idea of how to plant stuff, I hope this blog will help capture this area as it develops.

Enough of my hopes, dreams, and aspirations! More pictures!!!

Here is more up-close look at the flowerbed as it is today. The bursts of color that are prominent here are my snapdragons, kanachoe, and poppies.

Here are some bulbs that are beginning to sprout out of the ground:

There are some areas that don't get a lot of coverage from the sprinklers, so I've planted my little succulents here. Each of them are about 2-3 inches wide. They seem pretty happy so far:

The rocks that I use for borders and to surround these little guys are all from the dirt. I like the idea of using the local natural resources for landscaping.

And here is my little edible section. I've got bell peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries growing here. I grew the peppers and tomatoes from seeds that were taken from vegetables that I used for cooking.

Close-up of the strawberries that are appearing. Don't mind the names on the markers. They were for some seeds that never germinated. Thought I'd use them here to keep the fruits above the ground.

Here is the other section for edibles: chayote (left top), tomato, and bell pepper.

Oh, and I also planted some beans with the chayote at the base of the teepee, and they're starting to sprout!! I hope this teepee will be enough to handle both. I'll probably have to divert the plants so they don't tip in over eventually!!

So as you can probably see, I love my garden, and I'm very excited about all the things that are starting to grow in it!! We'll see how it goes!! Wish me luck, and stick around for the ride!!