| Last winter, Pam, of Bruce and Pam fame (B&P), attended a plant exchange and found a mum of a variety named “Nancy”. Pam knew that our Nancy just had to have this flower and acquired it for us. “Mums” aren’t all that spectacular during the spring and summer, but come into their own in the fall. I remember in high school that chrysanthemums were the decoration of choice for the football “Homecoming” festivities. I have never had much interest in mums. We’ve had a couple but never got a second season out of them. Pam’s gift came with instructions on how to make them grow – you keep pinching the new growth back, light on the watering and good sun. This mum was just starting to blossom when it came time to move, so, it came south with us. It loved the deck and we had several weeks of bright yellow mums before it went dormant.
The garden at the Mountain View house has been plagued with verticillium wilt – a disease that causes parts of plants, particularly tomatoes, to wilt and die. In talking with the county agricultural agent, he offered there was no cure for people with small gardens except to let the land lay fallow for seven years. I tried this cure and have yet to test how successful it was. Verticillium infects over a hundred species of plants. I tried to avoid anything on the list, but who knows. The last couple of years our renters and we have grown, with some success, tomatoes in pots. The year before last, Nancy asked if we could try some of the new “grape” tomatoes. We had a little problem finding this relatively new variety, but by going to a big nursery, we were able to grow them on the south side of the house. At the end of the season, I just left the pot on the side of the house, a utility area anyway, and in the spring I got some volunteers. In fact, we got enough volunteers to be able to plant a couple of pots. In addition to the grape tomatoes, I bought a pot of tomatoes labeled “Early Girls” but turned out to be “Beefsteaks”. This last summer was a good year for tomatoes and we got a good dosing of tomatoes. In Mountain View tomatoes continue until the first frost – sometime as late as Christmas. Most of the tomatoes we left for the renters, but we did bring one pot south (the smallest pot). We wrapped the vine in paper and it seemed to survive the abuse. Once in our new flat, the tomato was awarded the sunniest place on the deck. The good news was that the plant was loaded with tomatoes when it was brought south, but the bad news was that fog and cool weather wasn’t suitable for new growth on the tomato . It took a while for us to consume all the ripened fruit, but once the crop was gone the plant was done. In the middle of October, Cindy and Terry, Nancy’s sister and brother-in-law, started their yearly migration south from Seattle. They are “snowbirds”, spending the winters in the warmth of Southern California and Arizona. In the last couple of years, they have spent several weeks in the Morro Bay, moved to Arizona after Christmas and then returned to Morro Bay for about six weeks before returning to Seattle for the summer. They have a fairly large diesel “class A” motor home and tow a passenger car. This makes them very mobile and quite comfortable. As Cindy and Terry (T&C) were leaving Seattle, Cindy called and told us that they had a couple of fuchsias that would not survive the winter. She asked if we wanted one. We had a fuchsia while at Camano Island, it did well, and we enjoyed it immensely, but left it behind. I’m not sure whether Cindy remembered our Camano Fuchsia or recognized that her fuchsia wasn’t doing so well and needed some TLC. Either way, they brought us one. |
| Plants, Flowers and Things
Adventure is often in the details. The little mundane, everyday events take on a new meaning in a different environment. We visited Northern Norway a couple of years ago. The weather was overcast, but our hosts took us to the top of a nearby mountain so we could see the sun – still up and shining brightly at midnight! One of our exchange students was from Bogotá, Columbia. He came to us at New Years. Bogotá is right on the equator (about four degrees north), so year-round the day and night are pretty much the same length. He was amazed that our days were so short and each day was interesting as they became progressively longer. We traveled with him to Seattle in June and again the sunset provided new interest when twilight lasted until almost eleven o’clock – wow! In a new place even the plants can draw us with their unpredicted behavior. When we left Mountain View it was still summer/early fall. Some of the fall flowers were just starting to show and the summer plants were still productive. There were a couple of potted plants we decided to move south with us - specifically, a yellow chrysanthemum and a potted “grape” tomato. |
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| Yellow Chrysanthemum - Found a new home in the cool and fog of the early fall on the deck at the new flat. Moved sucessfull from home on the front seat of the RV. |
| The fuchsia thrived on the balcony in this climate. Within weeks the plant was putting on new growth and blossoming like mad. In order to hang it on the balcony without attaching a fixture to the building, as prohibited by the homeowners agreement and difficult because the building is finished in very rough stucco, we bought a black iron device shaped like a Shepard’s crook that could be strapped to the railing. In addition to providing a place to hang the fuchsia, the hook also provided a place to hang a hummingbird feeder.
We had hummingbirds feeding within minutes of hanging the feeder on the balcony. The hummingbirds, here in Morro Bay, are different that those in Mountain View – they’re smaller and not as brightly colored. They do have the same behaviors and within days we had regular visitors to the feeder. After T&C had been down here for a week or two, she gave me a potted plant that she thought might be used up. The plant was a “gerbera”. I’m not familiar with this plant. It looks somewhat like a daisy but the foliage isn’t right. This gerbera was a bright orange with a dark center. I looked it up in the Western Garden Book and discovered that although it’s sold as an annual it is actually a tropical perennial. I put it out on the deck, watered it, fed it and it came back to life. The plant has rewarded us with a new round of blossoms. The anticipated problem with the flat was a lack of a yard. I do enjoy puttering with plants and to my delight the deck has proven to be an interesting substitution. The flora of this region is interesting. The coastal hills and mountains are dominantly grasslands, a short grass. I can’t tell if the open grassland is native or a result of years of cattle grazing. The areas where rain collects has trees and brush related to the oak family (there are over 100 species of oak in California), evergreens (pines and junipers) and several hardy broadleaf trees. I’m not sure what else might be here since we’ve only seen the late summer and fall. Morro Bay is quite green because of the moisture from the fog and has a variety of non-indigenous trees and shrubs, ranging from palm trees to eucalyptus to fruit trees. The only thing lacking is foundation plantings and lawns. There are two reasons for this. One – water is a valuable commodity and, two; many of the houses are either vacation homes or vacation rentals. The one type of plant that does seem to thrive in yards here are succulents. Since there is seldom, if ever, a frost those who are so inclined are able to grow a large selection of lush succulents. |
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| As we have moved into the fall, the surprise was not the gradual dieback of the plants but rather a regeneration – a false spring. Those yards that do have flowering bushes and perennials were rewarded with an off-season blooming. Roses are often productive until the first frost, but lilies, camellias and even a few California poppies made a showing. Some of unseasonable blooming only lasted a couple of weeks and then we started into winter weather, but other seem to endure. |
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| Succulents thrive in this cool coastal climate with no hard freeze |
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