Francesca Filanc

Category: Gardening

Jan’s Shangri-La

Jan in Her Beautiful Garden

Last week was the end of the year party for Olivenhain Garden Club. We were blessed to have our party in Jan Casado’s garden. Once in her garden one felt like one never wanted to leave. A few of us ate lunch at a table under a pergola looking out at the view– it felt like Shangra-La.

Jan has her degree in horticulture from Cal Poly Pomona. She was originally an art major but switched to horticulture. This is evident from Jan’s garden. Jan is also a Garden Designer.

Male Hooded Oriole like the one that stopped to get a drink from the birdbath!

I am not a perfectionist. My credo is from the Amish, Perfection is for God. If I had become an artist I would have been a realist.

Jan’s paintings are her gardens. The garden is her palette. Birds and butterflies fluttered by in profusion as my companions and I sat transfixed in her Shangra-La. Jan grows the Asclepius, commonly called milkweed. This is the host plant for the monarch butterfly. Butterfly blog

At one point a male hooded oriole stopped to take a drink from the birdbath, spotted us and quickly flew away before I could snap a photo. When I asked Jan her favorite garden to design, her response was “English wild garden.”

When you first climb the steps to Jan’s little piece of paradise you are greeted by a carpet of Dymondia margaretae. Dymondia is slow to grow but when established is softer and more inviting than grass, not to mention drought-tolerant. Jan enjoys walking barefoot on it and occasionally practices yoga on the Dymondia. Jan has three Duranta erecta about 12-14 feet tall painting a purple backdrop to the garden.

Seated Under the Pergola
Birdbath in Background is Where Oriole Landed

When I started designing my garden, my idea was to have it all blues and purples. As the garden progressed I added complementary colors. I am very proud of my Kniphofia uvaria (Red-Hot Pokers).

Why do you love to garden Jan, what does the garden give you?

Jan responded in a thoughtful manner,

Gardening gives me peace and tranquility, serenity and beauty. I garden two or three hours a day. I very seldom sit in my garden.

Duranta erecta

Jan is also a beekeeper by happenstance. One day bees planted a hive in her garden so Jan read up on being a beekeeper and now has three hives. Jan is a true renaissance “pioneer” woman. Jan made the rebar structures for her tomato plants, twelve feet tall. She remembers gardening as a very young child with her father. She learned how to use the chipper at the young age of eight. She is a truly hands-on gardener and does everything that a garden needs. Jan also composts in the bin method; very large trash cans that she moves the compost from bin to bin until it is done.

Jan has also brought some beautifully shaped agate rocks from her property in the Sierra Nevada.

I’m really a mountain girl at heart. I am most at home in the mountains and we are building a home on our property and will eventually live there full time.

Jan is an amazing cook. She makes everything from scratch, even making all the food for their many back-packing trips in the Sierras. Jan is a Pescetarian (a vegetarian who eats fish) and she eats very little dairy. What follows is Jan’s amazing recipe for sweet potato tacos.

Because this is a staple in our diet, I cook four pounds of pink beans at a time.

Prepare the beans.

Soak 4 pounds pink beans in a large canning pot with plenty of water because the beans will expand. Add 3 tablespoons baking soda (helps with flatulance). Change the water twice in an eight-hour period.

One time I left the beans too long and they molded and I had to throw the whole thing out. You can tell by the smell.

Thoroughly rinse beans at the end of the day and put in refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, put back in a large pot with plenty of water
Add three potatoes Jan likes Yukon with their skins on
8 carrots
28 ounces canned tomatoes Jan uses her own from the garden
Add lots of salt, 3 or 4 T
4 T dark chili powder Sprouts Market
1 heaping t celery seed
1 t curry
Pepper about 1/2 t

Sauté one onion and ten or twelve cloves of garlic. Cook four hours or longer. The longer one cooks the bean, the less flatulence. Once cool freeze in zip lock freezer bags, quart size.

Ancho Chilies (from Sprouts Market)

Cook ten at a time, remove the skins – Jan cooks hers over a gas stove, but it can be done in the oven. Put them in a ceramic bowl with a plate on top for twenty minutes or longer and then skins peel easily. Jan also freezes these to take out when needed.

Prepare your sweet potatoes (1/2 sweet potato per person) Peel and cube, steam until done.

How to Assemble Jan’s Incredible Sweet Potato Tacos:

If any ingredients are frozen take out ahead of time to defrost at room temperature.

Wet tortilla, (Sprouted Corn— Food For Life, available at Sprouts Market) spray small amount of non-stick canola oil on both sides and then put tortilla in frying pan about ½ minute each side.

Layer the taco in this order
Beans
Ancho Chilis
Sweet Potato
Jack and Cheddar cheese
Homemade salsa (Jan’s homemade salsa recipe below)

Put filled tacos in a casserole dish and keep warm until ready to serve, about 200 degrees. Serve with homemade guacamole, lettuce and homemade salsa.

She makes her homemade salsa in a Vitamix blender. If you don’t have a Vitamix, hand chop or chop in your Cuisinart.

½ red onion
½ red bell pepper
1/2 to 1 1/2 jalapeno
½ bunch cilantro
1 T lemon juice
6 small tomatoes or three large
heaping T dark chili powder (more is better) Sprouts Market
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
heaping t salt
1/2 t pepper
3/4 T celery seed
Dash of curry

If using Vitamix , mix on level 2 for 30 seconds, level 5 for ten seconds.

In conclusion Jan is a Pioneer Woman who has created a true Shangra-La for her family and friends! Jan’s Realism Art is evident in Jan’s gardens, her own and those she designs for others. I, and I venture to say everyone, was deeply inspired in Jan’s garden. I for one was inspired to go pick up my paint brush and pen to write!

Happy Summer and making art in whatever form that takes you!

Bye for now,

Francesca

Dancing Stars by Francesca

June 20, 2014
Joys of Gardening With Grandchildren

The author/artist granddaughter picking tomatoes to eaThis past summer my daughter who lives in Spain came with her husband and children to California for a five-week visit.

Their oldest daughter Anushka loves to garden. She is now six years old. Every time the family comes to visit Anushka and I have fun gardening. While they were here we planted some vegetables and seeds together, picked tomatoes and strawberries, and pulled out vegetables that were spent. Anushka was able to experience the cycle of the vegetables; lettuce, purslane and arugula. She had the experience of planting them as well as seeing them regrow from seeds in the soil after we had pulled the old ones out.

Monarch Butterfly on Asclepias curassavica

This summer people have been amazed by the multitudes of butterflies in Southern California. My granddaughters and I had so much fun gardening and playing in the garden all the while butterflies and dragonflies floated as if “lazily” overhead. For months I have been curious as to this fabulous phenomenon. I was thinking that it was possibly due to so many of us planting the plants that caterpillars love to eat and build their chrysalis on such as Asclepias curassavica. Also the fact that many of us through the years have become organic gardeners. And many more people plant vegetable gardens which also may encourage a variety of colorful butterflies and dragonflies to our gardens. Gardeners have been planting milkweed to encourage the Monarchs to their gardens. My grandchildren got to experience seeing the magnificent and beautiful chrysalises of Monarch butterflies and then the butterflies just emerged and still wet on a branch. This is a link to a blog post that I wrote on butterflies. Butterflies in Our Gardens

Monarch Chrysalis

I checked the Internet to find the answer to this interesting phenomenon. The article below speaks of this fascinating development in England also this calendar year 2013.

Britain’s butterfly population seems to have exploded this year, the buddleia bushes are bursting, the veg patches are teaming and there seems to be an invasion happening in my home.

Every day for the last week or so I have had to rescue at least one trapped butterfly from my cottage. They seem to appear from nowhere and crash desperately and repeatedly into the windows leaving their precious wing powder behind. I was always taught not to hold a butterfly as the powder comes off on your hands and that’s what helps them fly, I’ve no idea if this is true or not, but I like the idea of magic flying dust so I find myself leaping about with a pint glass in one hand and beer mat in the other trying desperately to channel Gerald Durrell and catch the frightened insect.

British butterflies have been in decline over the last 10 years with a 24% decrease in the common garden types like the Red Admiral and Cabbage White.

My childhood was full of butterflies and then they all seemed to disappear. British butterflies have been in decline over the last 10 years with a 24% decrease in the common garden types like the Red Admiral and Cabbage White so how come we are seeing this year’s butterfly boom?

Despite being around for at least 50 million years butterflies are fragile things that are hugely affected by environmental factors, their habitats are disappearing and more and more pesticides are being sprayed around the countryside which has resulted in our summers seeing fewer and fewer of these beautiful winged creatures fluttering about their business.

Peter Eeles, Chairman of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight branch of Butterfly Conservation attributes this year’s boom to three major contributors – the first is that we had a ‘proper’ winter (i.e. cold) which suppresses the ability for parasites and mould to kill off any stages that are overwintering. The second is that we’ve had a good summer and the fine weather has allowed the caterpillars to rapidly feed up – which gives less time for predators to find them (especially birds). And thirdly the sunny weather has allowed butterflies to maximise the time spent finding a mate, and for females to egg-lay – and for multi-brooded species we’ll see the second or third hatches and in good numbers.

So it’s excellent news for Britain’s butterflies this year and you can do your bit to encourage them into your garden by planting butterfly friendly flowers like buddleias and marigolds or visit the butterfly plants website for a list of their favourite plants to feast and lay on and let’s hope we continue to see them flourish and flutter by. Metro Newspaper.

Anushka and I also planted a succulent planter. Check out a blog post that I wrote on this subject. Create Your Own Wall Succulent Hanging Planter

My granddaughter was having fun playing with her fairy princes and princesses in the planter before it was finished as you can see from the photo.

I just recently read an article in First for Women Magazine that talks about how gardening alleviates stress in a person. Our lives are so stressful these days. Every time I go out and work in my garden my stress goes completely away. And I think, why didn’t I do this sooner!

The #1 Way to Nix The Stress of Daily Pressures:

When too many demands leave you feeling exhausted, take a time-out to tend your garden. Researchers in the Netherlands discovered that subjects who spend thirty minutes outdoors pulling weeds and planting flowers experience a significantly greater reduction in levels of acute stress—the kind created by rushing from one to-do to the next—than those who stayed indoors and read for a half hour. The authors of the study explain that soil contains a bacterium (called M. vaccae) that boosts the production of the happy hormone serotonin and relieves anxiety.

Sometimes I forget to get into the garden. Now is a great time to buy the winter vegetables to plant in California. We are so lucky here to be able to garden outdoors year round! I am so thankful for the blessing of working in the earth.

Succulent Planter That Author/Artist Granddaughter Created

Have Fun Gardening!

Bye for Now

Francesca

South Beach
https://francescafilanc.com/gallery/#lightbox/28/ FF

September 25, 2013
Growing and Maintaining a Garden Hedge

Francesca’s Garden Hedge

January of 2007 we had an unusually severe winter in San Diego County. Peter and I traveled to Spain for the birth of our first grandchild. When we arrived home from Spain in February several trees and shrubs had died on our property, or so we thought.

Since I had been to Ireland with my mother on a garden tour four years earlier I had longed for a garden hedge like the kind I saw all over southern Ireland! They are filled with all kinds of plants. In this way, the freeze in my garden in California was serendipitous for creating a new interest in the garden; a garden hedge! My gardener and I started to let all the plants that survived the freeze grow together. Then an amazing thing happened; some of the plants and trees that had supposedly died miraculously came back to life! Those branches that didn’t recover acted as support for the other climbing shrubs as they grew skyward and formed a solid hedge. As the plants, shrubs and trees grew I was enthused each time Sergio pruned the hedge. My mother came over one day to videotape a segment on properly pruning a garden hedge. The Correct Way to Prune a Hedge. The hedge consists of Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis), Periwinkle (Vinca minor), Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina), Mock Orange (Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’), and Abutilon.

If you check out Pat Welsh’s video above, Pat teaches one the correct way to prune a hedge. Looking at this hedge now, it needs to be thinner at the top than it currently appears in the photo. Back to the drawing board!

The hedge is now three stories high and creates welcome shade on a hot afternoon!

Happy gardening and painting!

Bye for now,

Francesca

Frost by FF

September 4, 2013
Summer Visitors

Grandchildren’s Room and
Francesca’s painting in the hallway

This evening my older daughter and her family will arrive from Spain for a visit. I am so excited to see the whole family! The grandchildren’s room is ready and I look forward to the patter of little feet running up to their room to see what outfits Mimi has on the wall for them. The Pink Grandchildren’s Room

Pixies and Fairies
Painted by the Author/Artist when she was seven years old

Two paintings that I created years ago when I was a child myself are framed and hanging on the wall . My mother had kept these paintings and had them framed for my oldest daughter’s first birthday.

For those of you, like me, who have grandchildren who live miles away, you know the feeling of feast or famine with the family.

I have been gardening in the children’s garden seeing that it needs attention! There is a jungle gym for the children to play on as well as many little gardens for them to dig and plant in.

The Wisteria

A song came to mind that I heard years ago that matched my mood and excitement of the day. Michael Franti – Say Hey For years I searched for it on the internet and suddenly discovered it again.

Enjoy July whatever fun events or happenings you might have planned. I will look forward to being back in touch mid-August!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

Elephants at The Circus
Painted by Francesca When She was Seven Years Old

July 9, 2013
Growing Sunflowers Can Be A Summer Passion!

Sunflowers in Fran’s Garden

Sunflowers are so much FUN to Grow!!! If you have a place where you can put them every year they give so much joy! I smile every time I walk out and look at the field full of these tall prehistoric plants! Maybe that is why we love them so much! They have been around for a long time! And we feel the earth connection all the way back to cave man and beyond!

I actually did not know why I had never grown them.

In late June of 1996 Peter, Erica and I traveled to Madrid, Spain to see our older daughter Yvette who had been an exchange student from UCSD for the whole year. We then traveled by Eurail and Rick Steves suggestions of lodging and places to visit throughout Europe for one month!

Author’s Daughters in Provence, France, 1996

First stop off Eurail was the town of Arles, a town rich in Roman history and ruins in the province of Provence, France. We stayed in a small hotel for one week traveling to charming small towns such as Aix-en-Provence enjoying the multitude of nature’s sites through traveling through the countryside from small town to small town. The countryside was carpeted with fields of Sunflowers and fields of Lavender! In breathtaking excitement the girls and I ran into some of these fields and we could not stop taking pictures! It was awe-inspiring to experience!

Several years later Peter and I moved to a property that had lots of land. I planted a Giverny style garden with Nasturtiums lining one of the paths all the way down to horses in pastures far below our home. A girlfriend stopped by one day and exclaimed

Fran, why don’t you grow sunflowers!? I actually had no idea why I had never grown them! Especially since we had experienced the beauty and wonder of this ancient plant in the south of France a few years earlier!

Fran and her daughter Erica in a field full of Sunflowers, Provence, France, 1996

I love the very tall ones! This particular girlfriend gave me a bunch of seeds. I planted them and WOW!!!! So much FUN! This year I am planting a second Parterre of them so I will still have some when my grandchildren come to visit in July! After planting the seeds I cover the area with netting so the crows don’t pull up my seeds. I put the netting about three feet high on stakes. When the Sunflowers reached the netting I remove the netting and they continue to grow up to eight or nine feet tall! This year I bought the seeds online; some for their height, some for their seed production, and some for the Mammoth flowers. And then it is FUN to sit and paint them or take pictures to put on Facebook :) or just sit, smile and watch them grow. Have Fun Growing Sunflowers!

Oil on Canvas, Sunflowers by Francesca

Have Fun Gardening!

Bye for Now,

Francesca

Forty Eight Million Years before Van Gogh – Eocene Sunflowers

By Mike, September 29, 2010

Fossils of Ancient Member of the Daisy Family Discovered in Argentina

The Dutch born, post impressionist, artist Vincent Van Gogh famously painted a number of still life pictures of sunflowers. One such painting was sold at auction in the late 1980s for a little under $40 million USD. However, researchers at the Argentinian Museum of National Sciences have discovered their own “portrait of sunflowers” with the finding of two exquisitely preserved fossilised flowering heads in southern Patagonia (Argentina). Sunflowers are members of the Asteraceae (otherwise known as Compositae – we think) Family. This family of flowering plants (Angiosperms), is one of the most diverse and widespread of all the plant families. This family includes plants such as the daisy, dandelion and commercially important plants such as the tea bush and sunflowers.

Plant material is rarely preserved as a whole fossil, for instance, a fossil of the entire plant with roots, leaves and flowers all together. Fossils normally occur as isolated individual parts such as cones, pollen grains, pieces of trunk and such like. Delicate flowering heads (capitula) are extremely rare in the fossil record. However, the discovery of a fossil that shows two complete flower heads, winged seeds and the flower stem is helping scientists to understand the evolution of this very important group of plants.

The fossil has been dated to approximately 47.5 million years ago (Eocene Epoch) and it was found in strata along the Pichi Leufu river. During the Eocene, this part of the world had a sub-tropical climate with average temperatures of around 19 degrees Celsius. The dense flower-head would have been attractive to pollinating insects, suggesting that flowers such as these primitive ancestors of the sunflower already had a long established relationship with insect pollinators.

The Fossilised Flower Heads

Dr. Viviana Barreda, one of the authors of the paper, the details of which have been published in the journal “Science”, suggests that the finding of this fossil supports the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Asteraceae Family evolved in the southern region of Gondwanaland and spread to most of this super-continent before this landmass began to break up. This would explain the wide geographical dispersal of related genera.

Scientists believe that the common ancestor to a number of related plant families first evolved in sub-tropical Antarctica, (which was part of Gondwanaland), before migrating to Australia and South America as Antarctica cooled and became an unfavourable climate for most plant species.

Commenting on the discovery, University of Vienna (Austria) botanist, Dr. Tod Stuessy stated that this fossil and the related pollen grains were clear evidence of the existence of the sunflower sub-family at the early stages of Asteraceae diversification. Dr. Stuessy wrote an accompanying article to the Argentinian scientific paper. He went on to add that little is known about the origins of sunflowers and there is much still to learn about how these plants evolved and spread all over the world or indeed how members of the Asteraceae became so “incredibly diverse.”

The scientific paper on which the journal article is based is the culmination of two years of research.

http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2010/09/29/4643493.html

Fran and Pete in the Sunflowers, France 1996

June 26, 2013
Healing Garden

The Healer’s Healing Garden in Spain

A Photo of a Garden Reminiscent of the Healing Garden in Spain

I just saw a beautiful garden photo on Facebook and it reminded me of friends of my daughter in Spain who have the most Beautiful Garden! The husband used to be a brick mason and now he is in the Healing Arts. He practices Craniosacral therapy and also massage techniques to help with physical and emotional health. His wife is a lovely calm woman too. She seems to be a healer in vibration. I have been to their garden several times and have enjoyed the garden immensely when Anushka was a baby and later with Mikaela, her younger sister. The husband is always gardening when he is not working. He has no outside help. He does all the work and in my opinion the garden looks like Monet’s garden outside of Paris, Giverny. One can even see a factory from the garden but when you are in this lovely garden you are entranced by its beauty and the industry in the background disappears. The wife has brought me tea and/or cafe con leches and an assortment of homemade goodies while I waited with the baby in the garden. The lady of the house is also an artist and when one is inside their beautiful eclectic home, unless you pinch yourself you might think you were in Santa Fe, New Mexico rather than northern Spain!

Being in this healing paradise for an hour or two at a time with one of my grand babies I always feel an urge to paint! If the grand baby was awake I would drink in the moment and enjoy watching the child look with wide eyes at nature around her. When one of the babies was napping I would sometimes take out colored pencils and draw what I was experiencing visually. But many times I sat with a huge smile fixed on my face drinking in the magnificence of nature directed by man.

These luscious moments of life where we are truly in the moment are treasures that we can draw on through our lives.

I am thankful for beauty where I find it; in people in experiences in tragedy in beauty and ultimately in love.

Here’s to having experiences that we look back on as ahhhh moments!

Bye for now,

Francesca

Painting that Francesca painted from thoughts of Spain
www.francescafilanc.com

June 21, 2013
BIRTHDAY LUNCH FOR A FRIEND

Birthday girl with flowers and Vegetables

May I take you out to lunch for your birthday?

Fran, I’d rather just come over and have a good girl talk visit.

We talk about deep things — things that matter to us, our children, grandchildren, gardening, and spiritual things, about where we have come from, the sad times and the happy ones. How as we get older, we are each more content in our own skin. That is a gift of growing older. Not worrying so much what others think, but appreciating our own gifts, accepting the struggles and being more present in the present moment. After all, it is all any of us have. There is that saying, The past is gone, the future is yet to be and where I am is in the present.

Author arranging flowers

A friend related to me the other day about the book The Artist’s Way. I read the book years ago. This friend reminded me about how an artist should take an outing once a week by herself – An Artist’s Date With Herself. Whatever it is that turns her on. Going to an outdoor market, going antiquing, going browsing down a tree-lined street in the city. In this way we open ourselves up to the beauty in life and how we fit ourselves into it. When we age gracefully in a spiritual sense we are coming more into our own of who we really are and what gifts we give and have given to the world. Some of us are just coming into our own as we mature in years.

As Leanne and I talked I prepared leek vegetable soup, green salad from my garden and locally caught sea bass from the Del Mar Farmer’s Market bathed in lemon juice and cooked in a skillet.

Recipes

Lemon Lime-water with Sprigs of Mint
Fill two glasses with ice, add fresh slices of lime and lemon, squeeze juice of one slice of lemon and lime over the ice. Rim the glass with lemon and lime, add water. Garnish with sprigs of mint.

Vegetable Leek Soup
Slice four large fresh leeks into one-inch sections. Rinse several times in water to remove sand. Using your fingers peel back all layers of sliced leeks to remove any remaining sand. In a heavy cast-iron skillet saute four chopped cloves of garlic in 1 tablespoon Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil. Add to this one large chopped onion and leeks. Cook until color is translucent. Transfer to a soup pot. Dissolve 3 tablespoons Rapunzel Vegetable Broth concentrate in hot water. Add about a quart of water or enough to cover vegetables that have just been sautéed along with the vegetable broth. Dice one to two Roma tomatoes and add to soup. Add pepper and salt to taste along with Garam Masala seasoning, Turmeric, a dash of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. (I also added mint, ¼ cup cilantro, chives, oregano and basil fresh from my garden). Simmer for half an hour to forty-five minutes. Spoon into bowls and top with a little grated Parmesan cheese and toasted sunflower seeds.

Salad

Salad
Fresh greens from the garden
Chopped mint, cilantro and basil
1-2 sliced Roma tomatoes

Dressing
in a jar add two whole cloves garlic,
1/2 cup best organic olive oil,
to that add 1/3 cup good quality fruit
vinegar or vinegar with a little jam mixed in for flavor.
(I used fig and currant vinegar.)
Salt and Pepper to taste.
For people not sensitive to garlic, chop up
two cloves garlic and add to dressing. Shake well.

Rim the salad bowl with garlic; pour about 1/4 to 2/3 cup salad dressing in bottom of bowl. To this add your greens, tomatoes, top with toasted sunflower seeds, and feta cheese. Toss just before serving.

Sea Bass

Sea Bass

Sauté in coconut oil 1-2 cloves garlic, add to this the sea bass washed in the juice of two lemons. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté with chives from the garden, leeks, one sliced tomato, and lemons. I cooked the fish with some finely chopped lemon on top. Cooking times will vary depending on the thickness of the fish. Sauté one side and about half way through turn it over to finish cooking. Serve on plates with Gloria’s Pico de Gallo and tomatillo salsa artfully spooned over the top of the fish and then sprinkle with fresh cilantro and sunflower seeds. (See my March 8 ^th 2012 blog for the recipes)

We walked in the garden to collect the vegetables for the salad. We picked flowers for her birthday bouquet. It had rained yesterday morning so as we wandered through the garden and the air smelled fresh and the plants and flowers that we picked had little droplets of water caressing each leaf and petal.

We sipped lemon lime-water with sprigs of mint and feasted at the beautiful table. The food was delicious.

Here’s to having deep conversations speaking of the art of living a fulfilling life over delicious food in art filled environments.

Bye for now

Francesca

June 6, 2012
PROTECTING OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS IN THE GARDEN

The other morning while having tea with a friend I heard a thud thud thud.

Oh no I protested! This friend is somewhat of a birder. Would you be so kind as to look with me and tell me if you are familiar with this adorable sort of bird?

“Oh that is a Cassin’s Kingbird.”

I then related to the friend what has been happening. Although no need — she could very well see for herself! These birds start at 5:00 a.m. banging into my bedroom and living room windows. My dogs used to go nuts and wake me up. Now, I imagine Byron and Amie are so accustomed to the noise that they ignore the sound. I can actually hear them right now as I write. When I hear them, I run to open windows and have a chat with the birds:

Please don’t bang into the windows sweet birds, your house is that way! And I point out the correct direction.

Interestingly enough they are not afraid of me. But what happens when I am not there to redirect them?

Luckily, no birds have met their demise yet. Today I am going to go to the local bird store in my town to buy decals for the windows. I hope the decals will help!

Another interesting fact is that Carrot-wood trees’ berries are delectable to many varieties of birds. The unfortunate news is that the trees are right outside my house and the birds get disoriented and fly into the windows thinking my house is the tree. Carrot-wood trees were thought to be great trees for next to a swimming pool years ago. Wrong! We now know that they drip when they become mature trees, so they are not a good choice to place near swimming pools. When this started happening I thought it was the young birds learning to fly and taking a wrong direction right into my house.

Any suggestions of what you all have done to protect birds from flying into the windows would be appreciated.

On a lighter note I have Western Bluebirds in my garden that come to nest every year. The Bluebirds like to nest facing north. There are special blue bird boxes one can buy or make to encourage them to nest. Unfortunately their predators are abundant. I have been very sad many years when the babies were eaten by scrub jays and crows.

To see more Western Bluebirds, please visit Patrick Clark’s website for beautiful photographs of this lovely creature.

But somehow, some Bluebirds survive and they come back in subsequent springs to our gardens and fields to nest and feed.

The Blue Bird of Happiness aptly named, often brings smiles and squeals of delight to onlookers.

As I finish writing this blog on a beautiful May day, the Cassin’s Kingbird has stopped banging himself against the windows. The Western Bluebirds are hunting for earth worms and seed in the field and I hear the many varieties of songbirds in the garden singing their delightful songs spreading music through the air. The Dalai Lama had good things to say about nature. Check out my blog post May 2, 2012 to see the transcript of his speech.

I often think how lucky we are to live in a world where birds sing.

Bye for now,

Rippin’ Lips

Francesca

May 16, 2012
A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

Last weekend I was invited to a friend’s 65^th wedding anniversary party. It was also the friend’s 90^th birthday. This particular friend looks 20 years younger and acts it also! I overheard her say the other day to her 27-year-old granddaughter, I love your tattoos. They are so beautiful. If I were a young woman today I would have many of my own! My grandmother Frances used to say, “Age is a condition, youth is a state of mind.” Frances was also of the young club! All my friends loved being in my grandmother Mimi’s presence.

Honey, there’s nothing new under the sun. Your generation does not shock me. We were doing all these things back in the roaring 20’s.

After the party I drove my car to the end of the road and lo and behold it was where we all used to go to watch the fire works when we were in high school. A flood of memories rushed into my head. Young love, giddy flirting, bodies close together, dances, trips to the mountains with my friends. Fun memories. I took another road and there I was at Feather Acres Farm and Nursery. My mother use to buy plants from the man and woman who owned it when I was a little girl.

The lady who has owned it for many years teaches riding and gives pony rides to youngsters on the weekends. What a beautiful piece of land overlooking the Del Mar Racetrack and the ocean beyond — a little piece of heaven, I thought. I will bring my grand-kids for pony rides and riding lessons.

I walked into the tidy greenhouse and bought a hydrangea and some lovely cut flowers. I also bought a couple of new ornamental bunnies for the garden.

It’s been a great day down memory lane. :)

Bye for now,

Rippin’ Lips

Francesca

May 9, 2012
CREATE YOUR OWN WALL SUCCULENT HANGING PLANTER

My Wall Succulent Hanging Planter

Here’s a project that is lots of fun. Making your own wall succulent planters will also save you money :)

A friend’s husband made the boxes for our garden club, but directions for making a simple frame are available here: Sunset Magazine Article.

How to make your own succulent frame:

1. For a 1-foot-square frame, cut four 12-inch lengths of 2×2 lumber. Nail the corners together for a frame 2 inches deep.

2. Staple or nail a 1-foot square of plywood onto the open back of the frame. Exterior plywood or 1×12-inch redwood works well. You can also channel out a section of the back in order to hang on a wall three months later.

3. Screw ½-inch hardware wire mesh to one side of the open frame. If desired, add trim on top of the mesh to hide it. (If you’re a skilled woodworker, you can also cut a channel into the wood and slide the mesh into the channel, hiding the mesh’s cut edges.)

A friend and I were formatting this project for a group of 30 garden club women.

Soak sphagnum moss overnight in a bucket. Wring out well and generously line the bottom and sides of your frame. Now fill the planter with a 50/50 mix of potting soil and cactus mix. Make a sphagnum moss sandwich by covering the top with another generous layer of the moss. Screw the wire mesh down on remaining two sides.

Co-Garden Club program chair and I had previously bought succulents for all to use. We also suggested people bring succulents from their own gardens to share.

The best succulents to use for this project are slow growing ones. Visit your local nursery for plant material if you don’t already have succulents from your own garden from which to take cuttings. Here are a few suggestions: Aeoniums, Echeverias, Crassula perforate, Senicio rowleyanus, Sedum spathulifolum. Use your imagination!

Check out Debra Lee Baldwin, best selling author, Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens.

The day of the event was so much fun and everyone’s box turned out differently. Since the beginning of human time women have loved working and creating together. It takes us back to our roots.

If you intend to hang your succulent planter on a garden wall, wait three months for
succulents to root.

In my case, I have enjoyed my succulent boxes as center pieces on outdoor tables that are mainly in shade. I have one that I made a year and a half ago that is a little leggy but still beautiful. With a little housekeeping or should I say gardenkeeping, cutting succulents back, letting them harden off for a week and then replanting; Voila my year and a half leggy planter will look fresh and new. :)

Try to use slow growing succulents or ones that do not get too large. I put in what I felt was beautiful. Succulents are so forgiving that it is easy to change things around. Filling boxes tightly with succulents will give you an immediate show stopper look. :)

Have fun!

Bye for now

Rippin’ Lips

Francesca

April 10, 2012