G is for Gilia

Gilia capitata (Blue Thimble Flower)

Native to California, this flower reminds me of a firework display. Which is why it is getting the Fourth of July Spot. Last year I had made some vanilla and strawberry cupcakes (white and red) and all I needed was a little blue. I looked through much of New York and not a Bachelor Button or Thimble Flower was to be found, strange to me mainly because they are so prevalent here. This year my lack of blue was not to be repeated so I planted some blue firework flowers of my own to be my cupcake toppers. While not toxic, I do not believe these are particularly tasty or edible.

Fourth of July Cupcakes

Filling Recipe

1 cup strawberries (or other red berry), chopped into 1/2" pieces

2 Tbs Honey

1 Lemon, juiced

Mix in bowl and let macerate while preparing cake mixture.

Betty Crocker Cake Recipe (If you don't want to use a box. Boxes are fine, just add a little extra vanilla or almond extract for additional flavor)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla (I add a lot more flavor, a little St. Germain, a little anise extract and much more vanilla)
4 egg whites

Heat oven to 350. Mix everything but the eggs for about 30 seconds in mixer (if by hand, until ingredients are just combined). Add eggs and mix until batter an even/smooth consistency.

Before baking, evenly distribute cake mixture to about halfway up muffin tin. Place a spoonful of the filling in the middle of each well on top of the cake mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean and let cool.  Frost if desired with a white frosting, I prefer sour cream personally, then top with a Blue Firework bloom like a Bachelor Button (Centaurea cyanus) or Blue Thimble Flower (Gilia capitata).

Happy Fourth of July! May you enjoy many fireworks and festivities.

Green Flowers

It is perhaps just a little immature but this is for the kid who told me when I was little there was no such thing as a green flower.

Ha! I believe this to be an hellebore but I'm not really sure. All I know is there is such a thing!

F is for Fig Tree

Ficus carica

Those lovely gnarled trees, the itchy leaves and those amazingly sweet and sticky fruits perfect for childhood war games. It is the equivalent of getting honey in your hair, not a pleasant experience but oh-so-fun while getting there.

Fig trees have a special place in my heart and not just because my cousins and I would torment each other with them. I grew up in a neighborhood appropriately named Old Fig Garden. There were a lot of fig trees and my grandparents house, like many in the area, was situated in what many decades ago had been a fig orchard and they still had some remnant specimens. To this day, I love that back yard and I love those fig trees. Ah, shucks.

So, enough mushiness. Ficus carica...

Highline Part II

I am living vicariously through friends who have been lucky enough to go and it is really tempting me for a trip to New York.  I haven't been back since moving in November so I am kind of going through withdrawals. Anyway, this will definitely be on my To Go List on the next visit.

Thank you to Mr. C.E. Metcalfe, one great roommate and a pretty darn good photographer who allows me to post his pictures.

Weekend Time

I am a self professed sucker for old and rusty bits and last weekend I finally made it to the Alameda Flea Market. AMAZING!!! I am also easily taken in by turtles (I like to collect the words for turtle in different languages, nerdy: yes). Pelicans are also pretty cool. I had a blast, even if it required me waking up at an uncivilized hour, because there was so much cool stuff. It is usually held the first Sunday of the month and there is coffee available for those, who like me, are not the morningist of butterflies. The next one is July 3rd.

You have two weeks to prepare. Enjoy sleeping in this Sunday because I expect to see You there next Sunday.

E is for Euphorbia

Ever since I began my current employment I have been admiring the Eurphorbia. They are just cool. Very striking, their bracts (plant parts that kind of look like flowers but are not, think Dogwoods and Hydrangea) and kind of look like something from Dr. Seuss. They are also listed to be deer and gopher resistant, drought tolerant and like full sun and heat. The downer, they also have a sap that may irritate the skin. I say just don't get it on you and enjoy its beautiful form.

D is for DAHLIA!

Sorry for the enthusiasm, but these are by far my favorite flower.  These images are but a few of the multitude of varieties, and not even the most interesting (but these are my own pictures...for some super cool examples The American Dahlia Society has a treasure trove of information and images).  The Dahlia family is a Central American (primarily Mexico and Guatemala) arm of the larger Aster family. They like full sun (partial shade in really hot areas), regular water and long walks on the beach.

Tree Dahlias (Dahlia imperialis) are some of the most awe-inspiring variety of the family. As with all Dahlias, they are tuberous perennials but D. imperialis will grow up to 20 feet in a matter of months. The ones at my aunts house have reached their maximum height and are blooming in time of Thanksgiving. The flowers are beautiful, a lovely light shade of purple with a bright orange center, but it is the rapid rate of growth that is truly amazing, dying back to the ground every year.

How can you not smile when you see one of these gorgeous blooms?

Memory Highway

I'm sorry most of the posts of late have been the Plant Alphabet, it has been a busy few weeks. And even though it is an amazing collection of plants, I feel I should probably insert a little variety.

So my most recent busyness was a trip down to the Central Valley for my Grandfather's Big Birthday Party. We took Highway 99. For those unfamiliar with Eastern California, 99 runs to the East of the Central Valley where 5 runs to the West.  It is dry and oppressively hot in the Summer, chilly and blindingly foggy in the Winter. It is also a very familiar drive to me from my childhood. Before the advent of TVs and DVDs in cars (not that my mother would have allowed this anyway) and because I had no siblings to annoy, I would stare out the window for hours on car trips. To this day, I am content to sit as a passenger and watch the landscapes fly by.

The Landscape of Highway 99 is familiar to those who have travelled it and to those who have read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Initially a small country road, it was promoted to the status of Federal Interstate before losing the distinction as the main North-South thoroughfare to I-5 in the 1950s. Today it is still busy, predominantly with Agricultural traffic. Local industry is obvious as one drives by vineyards and orchards, parched lands and remnants of rivers long dried.  The plant community, composed of Grasses, Valley Oak (Quercus lobata), Oleander (Nerium oleander) and Eucalyptus, is both native and naturalized. These are not lush plants, quite the opposite, there is a harshness to their colors and form, exacerbated by the intensity of heat and light. With this written, I must say I love this landscape. Those colors are soothing: a rich golden brown, dark muted greens, the bright blue sky all accented by many a magenta flower. 

The quaintness of the journey has diminished of late with the development of the suburbs but if you keep your eyes on the road (and if you're driving, you should be doing this anyway) you get a sense of a romanticized nostalgia for what was a slower time. 

C is for Cotinus coggygria

Smokebush.  Both botanical and common names are kind of awesome and it's an even more awesome plant. Still, C was a hard choice because there are many cool plant species with C names: Ceanothus, Cedrus, Cercis (any of them but occidentalis in particular), Choisya to name a few.

Cotinus coggygria is native to Austrailia but is used as an ornamental shrub in much of the United States. Very, very hardy, taking temperatures down to negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit and tolerant of abuse, acclimating to drought, heat and poor soil conditions. The smokebush has an attractive open and airy habit, reaching upwards to 20' and has wispy blooms providing for the name in late spring.

Winter Escape: Booked

The secret is out: Mr. C and I are heading to Puerto Rico for the first week of January! I am a very bad secret holder when it comes to gifts, I get very excited and just want to share, so it has been a challenge the last few weeks. He will have to suffer through leaving wintery San Francisco for a sunny Caribbean island. Though I won't be having my passport stamped, my travel urge will be satisfied and I will get to see part of a region I have never visited.

Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. Greg Johnson for Lonely Planet

I am already dreaming of laying in a hammock under a palm tree on a beach with a good book and sketchpad.

B is for Berberis thunbergii

I cannot tell a lie, the sole reason I picked this species is because I think the names is kind of funny. Yes, I am mature.

Photos: Uncredited Mississippi State University Arboretum and gardensandplants.com

Berberis thunbergii 'Atropurpea', commonly Red Leaf Japanese Barberry, is as the name suggests, a hybrid from Japan. Included in many invasive species and Do Not Plant lists, particularly those from the Eastern United States, it is still commonly used as an ornamental on the West Coast where it does not appear to be as successfully dominant. As with many plants, if you decide to include this in a planting plan or garden, just be aware of its potential and keep an eye on it.

I love the wording Sunset uses to describe the shrub: "a graceful habit with slender, arching, spiny branches." It is suggested for use as an informal barrier hedge or specimen shrub for a pop of color. It is tolerant of environmental extremes for those difficult planting areas.

Roar 2

It seems like everything these days has a sequel.

Found in a walk over the weekend, our favorite Ocean Beach T-Rex now has a companion in Bernal Heights.

Have a Roaring Weekend!

A is for Acanthus

Plant Alphabet: It's been done before but never with a collection of my favorite plants. This is my plant alphabet.

My first subject is Acanthus mollis (Bear's Breach)

Especially of interest at this moment as it is in bloom all over the Bay Area. It is a large, shade tolerant shrub, with attractive foliage and very cool spikes of white and dark purplish coloring. The shrub itself can get up to 4' tall and 6' wide, with the flowering stalks growing up to 8' tall.

I like the Acanthus, not only for its lovely structural value (and yes, that does sound pompous to me too), but it also fills a much needed void for large leafed, shady shrubs that are not Ferns, Rhodies or Hydrangeas. It is also Evergreen/Semi-Deciduous depending on where it is making its home.

Interesting trivia note for all you Architecture nerds: the Acanthus leaves can be found on the Corinthian Column.

Alien Flower

I don't know about you, but I saw this on a walk the other day and definitely thought aloud that this specimen could not be from this planet. A gift from Mars perhaps? Maybe Saturn? All I know is that this photo does not do justice to how incredibly blue the stamens were.

Alas, it is a Clematis but that is as far as I could find in my brief internet search. Anyone know the name of this one?

Wish I Was There

It being Monday and with this working on the project in South India, I really want to be on a bicycle riding down a dirt road through a grove of palm trees on my way to a cool mango lassi. Just saying, it sounds like a lovely way to spend an afternoon especially when it is unseasonably drizzly here in the Bay Area. It has been far too long since my passport has been stamped and I am definitely feeling the itch to travel.

So now I must reminisce to past trips and one in particular comes to mind. Right before my last semester of school we took a fieldtrip to India, tough life. Southern India, this is Tamil Nadu, has amazing food and atmosphere and culture and beaches and I could continue this list on and on. Our class had a great time despite some long bus rides and to be expected travel challenges. We started in Chennai and went down to Mamallapuram, Pondicherry and Auroville then West through Gingee Fort and Thiruvannamalai. Definitely a destination to put on your To Go List.

El Camino Real

So awhile ago I wrote a paper on Cultural Landscapes (comparing the Biosphere Regions of the Southern Appalachians and the Spreewald in Germany) and it is a really cool topic. A cultural landscape is a landscape that has been shaped by many years, if not centuries, of human use. So when I was driving the 101 from LA to SF, poor Mr. C had to listen to me nerd out about this and the whole Mission topic and how I think they are really beautiful landscapes (not that I condone massacring a whole indigenous people) rooted deeply in California history.

The Bells came about as a way of recognizing the route that was Alta California's Camino Real. The Bells were hung on "Franciscan Walking Sticks" in recognition of the missionaries path up the states of California. Can you tell I really liked California State History and the Mission Project in 4th Grade?

Back to the idea of the Cultural Landscape, one huge issue is indicating to people the significance of the landscape in which they find themselves. Signage is well and good in certain circumstances but can become a bit dominant in the landscape while also being a little too reductive in the history of the place. I like these bells because they are discreet, a little glimpse of significance while not trying to communicate every little detail about this place but just enough information to peek one's interest. They are a nice gesture in the landscape and a successful form of signage, something important to all cultural landscapes to ensure they are understood and maintained.





Some of the more amusing attempts at getting a picture while going *65 mph.