APRIL/JUNE 2012 GARDEN COMPARISON PHOTOS

Over the past few months, I've been quite busy in the garden. Since moving into my apartment, up until April of this year, I've kept most of my tropical plants in pots because I figured my family would soon be buying a house and we'd move out of our apartment and I wanted to be able to move the plants quickly and easily. But after three years, we've come to the conclusion that we'll be staying put for the time being so I decided that it's time to finally put the plants in the ground. Here are some before/after photos of the garden work I did between April and June, along with a few extra recent photos. You'll notice that there are still a handful of plants still in pots - it's a never-ending work in process! By the way, pretty much all of these new plants will get gigantic so it will be interesting to see how this all looks in a few months.

VIEW #1: BEFORE

VIEW #1: AFTER

VIEW #2: BEFORE

VIEW #2: AFTER

VIEW #3: BEFORE

VIEW #3: AFTER

VIEW #4: BEFORE

VIEW #4: AFTER

Here is another recent view of the garden now. (no "before" photo)

Another recent view of the garden. (no "before" photo)

Here's my favorite recent view of the garden. (no "before" photo)

GARDENING PEST CONTROL - AU NATURAL

If there's one thing that always succeeds in taking the fun out of tropical gardening for me, it's pests, tiny, formidable, plant-sucking, diabolical pests and lots of them! I'm generally a amicable, peace-loving individual but I truly wish that all garden pests would die a bloodcurdlingly slow and painful death. And I'm OK with this. Because, as people close to me can testify, I am obsessed with my tropical plants and I spend pretty much every spare moment tending to their every need, like a a crazy cat person. But, of course, pest insects have to come along and spoil all the fun. Therefore, war has been declared. The spoils go to the last man (or insect) standing. Here are some of the devious techniques I've employed to rid my plants of as many beasts as possible. These are all non-toxic, natural pest controls but they are darn good at killing pest. (insert evil laugh)

 

This is an incredibly simple, yet effective method of catching fruit flies that employs a funnel-shaped piece of paper over a glass with a bit of apple cider vinegar. Within a few minutes of setting up this trap I already caught a few and within 3 days I had probably over 50! This incredible tip comes courtesy of Jonathan B. via www.apartmenttherapy.com.

 

 

My kitchen windowsill is home not only to about a dozen tropical plants but also an entire menagerie of gnats. The best control for these little bleeders is sticky aphid whitefly traps. Gnats are hypnotically drawn to the yellow sticky paper - and to their doom. You can get these on eBay or Amazon for a buck or two each. I cut them into smaller squares for better mileage.

 

Neem oil is a magical, natural elixer that is healthy for plants, is considered safe for humans, pets and most beneficial insects but deadly for leaf-munching insects. I mix four teaspoons of neem oil with one teaspoon of dish soap and a gallon of water and spray all my plant and the surrounding dirt.

Here's the most bad-ass foe I've got in my garden, the mighty mantis. I ordered 10 egg cases on eBay, placed them throughout the garden and am starting to see baby mantises everywhere. Although I haven't actually caught one in the act of devouring a pest, judging from the massive size of some of the mantises I've seen in my garden in the past, I'd say they are having a bug smorgasbord.

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY TROPICAL CONSERVATORY

I'm a huge fan of Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, California and am lucky enough to live less than a mile away so I often find myself strolling the grounds here. One of my favorite spots to hang out there is inside the 16,000 square foot Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory, opened in 2005. This gorgeous greenhouse features three different sections: a tropical rain forest, a cloud forest and carnivorous plant bog, as well as a plant lab with lots of cool hands-on botanical experiment stations. It's also home to the Huntington's infamous corpse plant, (Amorphophallus titanum) whose rare stinky bloom every few years attracts thousands of spectators (and probably just as many flies). I snapped some shots on a recent visit. These photos only show a few sections and hardly capture the grandeur of this stunning greenhouse. I'll post more photos in future entries. But here's a taste of what's to be found inside.

 

 

 

 

 

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, ART COLLECTIONS AND BOTANICAL GARDENS

1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA  91108

TRADER SAM'S ANNIVERSARY TIKI MUGS

If you've been to the Disneyland Hotel in the past year, you might have had a chance to enjoy a cocktail at Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar. It's truly a proper tiki bar in every possible way. The Disney Parks Blog announced that today, Trader Sam's is celebrating its one-year anniversary and to mark the occasion, they've got two new souvenir tiki mugs.

 

 

The new tiki bowl for Uh Oa! (light and dark rums, orange,

passion fruit, guava, and grapefruit juices, falernum, cinnamon

and freshly squeezed lime juice)

The new Barrel mug for Shipwreck on the Rocks (bourbon,

freshly muddled lemon and mint with organic agave nectar)

TRADER SAM'S ENCHANTED TIKI BAR

Disneyland Hotel - Disneyland Resort
1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

THE NEW TROPICAL HOUSEGUESTS

The dilemma of every obsessed gardener: Too many plants and not enough space in your garden. My solution to this problem was to invite them into the house and integrate them into the decor. I guess you could say I'm kind of like the botanical version of a crazy cat person. Fortunately, I have a wife who likes indoor plants (maybe "tolerates" is a better word) and a son who doesn't feel the need to destroy them, so the plan worked well.

A livened up drab entryway.

The huge living room window keeps these plants very happy.

The fireplace doesn't actually work so there's no worry of burning these tropical beauties.

My kitchen windowsill has become sort of an impromptu nursery. 

And a bit of tiki spirit thrown in for good measure.

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY JAPANESE GARDEN GRAND RE-OPENING

To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Japanese garden at Huntington Library in Pasadena, a year-long, multi-million dollar makeover was done to this cenetarian garden.  The Japenese garden will have its grand re-opening on April 11th. I was fortunate enough to see it during a sneak preview a few weeks ago and took some photos. If you've been to Huntington Library in the past few years, a lot of what you see in the photos will look familiar since the main structure/layout of the garden hasn't been changed. But they've added many new features and enlarged the garden. Construction was in full-force when I visited and there was clearly still a lot of work to be done so I'll be surprised and amazed if they actually finish on time but the grand opening date hasn't been delayed so it looks like they might actually pull it off.

Check out the official Huntington Libary Japenese

press release for more photos and details here:

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, ART COLLECTIONS AND BOTANICAL GARDENS

1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA  91108

AN ALOCASIA TIGRINA LOVE TRIANGLE

Sorry, that title is misleading. Nothing racy or risque to see here. Just me and my two favorite plants, both of the Alocasia Tigrina persuasion, celebrating my blog's 2-year anniversary. Fitting, too, since the very first entry was about another Alocasia Tigrina that I owned, the parent of these two stunning babies. That original plant is long dead, due to my earlier lack of gardening knowledge (too much water, wrong pot size). But I managed to bring one of these to life from a tiny segment of live tissue on the rotten tuber. The other Tigrina mysteriously appeared in my garden (these guys are rare so it didn't just happen to be there already) so I'm guessing that it somehow started as a tiny tubor that got dispersed into my garden when I dumped out the soil from the pot of the dead plant. Plant reproduction works in mysterious ways.

Check out these two beauties.

Here's me, back in March 2010 with the original Alocasia Tigrina that I mananged

to unceremoniously kill with my lack of tropical plant growing skills. Fortunately,

I've learned a lot since then so the babies should do just fine.

MACARTHUR PALMS

I recently bought some baby Macarthur Palm trees (Ptychosperma Macarthurii) on Ebay. Although I only ordered three, I was delighted to see two extras included. I don't know too much about this palm except that it prefers tropical climate so I'm hoping they do OK with the warm, dry weather here in Pasadena. I'll keep them indoors until they get a bit bigger and stronger to handle the cool winters. The bottom photo shows a mature species. A gorgeous, multi-trunked palm.