Almost time for soup...

Fall is certainly upon us. The shift in seasons has started, one day cool another warm. It is like an accordion sometimes playing a note sometimes just taking in air. It is quite wonderful to open up all the windows and be able to enjoy days that are not cold or hot. The garden has a way of flowing through the house with the wafting of fragrances from the last of the flowers of the season. The garden looks and feels true. It is as shaggy as it can get and still look nice before the frost will kill it off for another year, but that is still, sometime away. For now, it is just me, the birds and the mosquitoes enjoying the lush vegetation and the errant and overgrown shrubs that block my view down the gravel walk.

Fall has brought the prospect of new employment as the economy seems to be coming back to life. I have several prospects that appear to be lining themselves up. I am old enough to have lived through some of these economic downturns before. Bad periods are followed by good ones; otherwise, we would not have words to describe their differences and historically this is an ongoing process. Our memories seem to only know the present and easily forget the past. When September 11 occurred and the economy came to a screeching halt I lost a wonderful job. It was not the first time, so I was better prepared emotionally to handle the time alone away from my professional colleagues and my creative pursuits. It is never easy to lose a job under any circumstances, but we recover and adapt and in turn make new friends and connections and start another process where we become creative and productive again. If you are out there like me, don’t give up. I may be optimistic but you have to be!

Autumn Clematis fully re-established on wire trellis

Graham Thomas fall flush

Fall has brought some revelations about the summer. While I was traveling in Florida visitors to my garden had dined on fine sushi! Three of my most beautiful kois disappeared from the pond; one was even photographed for an article in the Philadelphia Enquirer. I was suspect of all kinds of treachery ranging from the beautiful hawks that regularly visit in a neighboring towering oak to a tiger like large cat that skulks in the garden. I also even considered human truancy during my absence. The answer was much simpler, as it always is. I had forgotten about similar disappearances in the past when the fish were smaller and more numerous. Now that they had grown to respectable sizes, the largest almost a foot long, they were quickly and sorely missed as they no longer aid create the kaleidoscopic ballet on the water.

The answer, as I said was much simpler. Years ago, a house two doors away had stayed empty for quite some time. Somewhere during this vacancy between owners, raccoons had set up housekeeping in the soffit of an outdoor porch. I managed to trap the father in my garden and he was relocated to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a wilderness area of great beauty with thousands of acres of pines and other native species thirty minutes away. I have no idea how long raccoons live, but I suspect that the mother found herself another husband and returned regularly to raise her babes in the soffit. This year she must have been working hard to raise three pups, for she consumed my largest kois. Unfortunately and fortunately my neighbors was aware of her residence in the soffit and hired a trained professional to capture and relocate the family. All should be happy looking for trout and shad in the Pine Barrens.

City Garden Contest

Gardeners at work in Community Garden in Awbury Arboretum

Philadelphia is a most unusual city. It has somewhat of an inferiority complex in its relationship to New York and Washington. Its accomplishments are almost always described in the past tense. It was the first Capital; it has the first zoo, many of the first museums or major collections, the first modern skyscraper etc. Even one of its neighborhoods, “The Parkway” gets often described as an American Champs Elysees. There is nothing wrong with the grittiness or some of its has-been qualities. It has great cultural institutions that include theater, symphony, opera, jazz, and everything you can imagine with a roster of great dining and drinking establishments. It is a city of neighborhoods and of a very varied population where the rich live within blocks to the poor and everything in between. It is a very walkable place and in many ways one of the nicest American cities you will discover.

One of the greatest institutions in Philadelphia is the Not-for-Profit Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) http://www.pennsylvaniahorticulturalsociety.org/. They put on the Philadelphia Flower Show, the largest and oldest such in event on the planet. For what its worth, my friends from Kew Gardens thought it was much better than the English, Chelsea Flower Show! PHS is also responsible for undertaking many citywide beautification and neighborhood improvement programs trying to sort out some of the problems left over from having been such an important city in the past. When I first arrived here to do graduate studies in 1992, the city had over 50,000 empty and decaying buildings! Over time, many neighborhoods have seen major renovation and new interest, but problems still remain like in most cities.

Flower Bed at Awbury Community Garden

One of the most interesting programs undertaken by PHS is a citywide effort that aims to help create green places throughout the city where people can garden and reclaim many of the abandoned lots where the old buildings stood. This is a major effort, as you can imagine, for many sites are left over with tons of debris from poorly demolished structures. PHS and neighborhoods team up to clean up and create places for neighbors to garden and come together as communities. There are numerous gardens throughout the city and I suspect that no other city in the United States can lay claim to a similar accomplishment.

In August, the City Garden Contest takes place where gardeners are encouraged to enter their efforts for recognition and appreciation by peer gardeners. Judging categories include, small medium and large community, flower, children’s, potted, streetscapes, vegetable…you get the idea. Everyone is welcomed and hopefully everyone is further encouraged to keep doing what they have done to better the city, their neighborhoods and their lives.

I became involved with the group as a student at the University of Pennsylvania when I was working on my graduate landscape degree in early 1990's. The truth of it is, that for me, it has been the most wondrous experience in my gardening life. Judging gardens has allowed me to meet fellow gardeners from all sorts of social and economic classes. I have been in neighborhoods that were covered with needles from drug abuse where these gardens were one of the first outposts to improving the quality of life.

Individual Plot arranged for socializing and food and flower production

Over the years I have seen every garden imaginable and discovered a lot of wonderful neighborhoods in Philadelphia. There have been fancy gardens where the owners have offered us all kinds of refreshments and goodies to eat and be friendly and at the same time try and impress us to award them a first prize. Similary, we have been in gardens where people were really poor but just as grand an effort was done to show us a great time with very little but their hard work.

It is with great pride that I share with you some of the gardens and the ideas from this year. Our group of four judged the final selections for Community Gardens. Here gardens are composed of many individual plots for people to garden who don't have their own yards. In most all such community gardens there are waiting lists to get a plot. Depending on the demand, some Community Gardens allow you to only keep your plot for a few years and then go on a wait list to get one all over again ( a bit Draconian if you ask me).

These gardens show all levels of participation. In some cases older gardeners teach young gardeners techniques for growing all sorts of plants. The gardens have limited resources but are clever or inventive with what they have: some have water, others borrow it from city hydrants or have rain barrels or drag hoses from neighboring faucets. Food is grown for the individual, for the community or as it has become the case with more successful gardens, they allocate a portion of their food production that is in turn donated to Citywide food banks to help feed anyone who needs it. When you think of it, there is nothing more generous.

Raised beds: if you are on a wheel chair or have a bad back you can still garden

A strange watering manifold by Schuylkill River Park Community Garden!

Some of the great sunflowers from this Summer

Art Museum Community Garden Compost Piles

Art Museum Community Garden Various Plots: A hammock for the weary!

Getting the Tour

More of the plots

Rain barrels for watering that are filled through a main system. Only watering Cans allowed here

Another Glory of Summer

The PHS Awards Ceremony will be held sometime in the middle of October. Unfortunately, some garden win more than others as they have more people participating, more resources or political capital and are in better locations. Regardless, all are winners who garden! All the gardens are in Philadelphia, even though a group of us has been pushing to include the neighboring Jersey suburbs. Happy Gardening!

Summer's End

path with nasturtiums and other growth reaching across

My favorite time of year has arrived with its beautiful weather when sitting in the sun feels warm and not scorching. The sun is bright the clouds are like cotton candy floating on a beautiful blue sky. Yes the season is heading to its magical climax.

Detail of nasturtiums

For quite sometime I have done what I like to do in the garden – nothing! People who look at my garden always wonder the hours and hours that I put in taking care of it all. Yes, there is no doubt that I put a lot of time into creating and guiding the process at the beginning of each year more or less, but then, I recede into the background and take it all in. After the first flush or roses my biggest job is deadheading thousands of hips (a task I never manage to complete) to get more blooms throughout the rest of the season. I don’t need the garden to be perfect and I want it to look as natural as possible. To achieve this you have to step back and let “nature take its course”. It is hard for people to do this and sometimes feel creative. Fortunately, I have always had a lot on my plate besides gardening so that was easy.

Partially eaten and very fragrant hosta plantaginea

This summer season allowing for my unemployed state I have managed to do a lot more than usual around the house and the garden, with a little traveling thrown in for good measure and my house guest episode! This year, I have also had this blog which has nurtured me as much as I hope it has informed some of you. It is hard to come up with a topic each week but so far they have fallen into place by themselves based on garden and life experiences. I have tried to start some storylines about other places that I want to return to in the future.

Japanese Anemones. I thought I had white only pinks survived!

It is hard writing about yourself and not seeming narcissistic. This, as I said before, is a bit of an act of voyeurism and journal combined. For the longest time I have been interested in knowing something about the readers to the blog. The only way you get that is from comments or emails to the site, but reading other blogs I knew of writers who had placed a counting device that gave them information about their visitors. Realistically, many writers use it as a way of branding their sites and eventually monetize them. I had wanted to find out who was out there so I put in a Sitemeter on the blog to get a sense of traffic that frequented the site. For months, it never registered any visitors when in fact I knew many people had visited the site. I finally, took the time to question their support department who said that I had done “something wrong” or when I changed the page format however minor “something had gone wrong”. To my surprise, a quick fix opened up a world of general information on who is reading the blog or at least who stumbled on to it. It does not give you anything specific about the visitors just general area where they are located and which of the stories have been read the most. The numbers of visitors has been steadily growing. What surprises me is that it is as widely read in the US as it is Europe. Besides these two places, there also appear to be people in the South America,Middle East, India, and South East Asia and even New Zealand who have taken a peek. The power of computers, our modern technology and the written word are amazing!

Marvelous recent hybrid Agapanthus 'Ellie Mae'

My back is still out of commission so I have read further volumes; amongst the many, I just finished My Life in France. This is Julia’s Child account of the period that created the person we know and remember. This book is a tie in to the Julie and Julia film (also based on the Blog and book by Julie Powell called the Julie/Julia Project) out in theaters now. The film marries two lives and two books into one film: Julie, a blogger and Julia the famous cook. The film is marvelous but did not give me enough of the Child life. My friend Elena gave me her book to finish while I recover as I have more time to read. I wondered if some of the scenes in the film were invented to make Julia more human, like the sexual innuendo between the hard cannelloni pasta and the male member so out of character but fun to watch! It is funny that we need to invent on lives that were already magical. I have read both books and recommend them. They are both great reading, if from very different points of view.

I laugh at how accustomed we have become to our modern lives with phones, email and now twitter! It took Julia well over ten years to write, rewrite, re-rewrite, coordinate, correspond with multiple publishers, and impress numerous people for her cooking opus: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. A testament to Carbon paper and Royal typewriters! If her celebrity was not de facto, it was sealed when she agreed to test three TV episodes for WGBH Boston produced by 28 years-old Russell Morash (also of Victory Garden and This Old House). By the way, for those of you who saw the movie, Julia did get her diploma from Cordon Blueu in Paris, she passed the second time she took her test.

PS. Every now and then I get a question about gardens that is written as a comment. If you want a personal answer it might help to send me an email. Click on the envelope icon at the end of the blog and you will send an email to me at the blog that I can answer you personally. This time, I will answer here for everyone on a question about Hollyhocks and why they might not thrive from one year to the next.

Hollyhocks are prone to many diseases: Hollyhock Rust, Nematodes, Powdery Mildew, and Oedema (rupture of capillaries from too much water). The first three I know well and the fourth one I just found out. When plants establish themselves after the first year they almost always develop something. Usually you take the seeds and create a new patch of them in a different spot to avoid the nematodes that usually find them and eat their roots. The rust and mildew are fungi that almost always find, infect, stunt and eventually destroy them. Oedema apparently affects them as well as can burst the internal piping that nourishes the plant if they are watered or rains too much. To grow them you must be willing to collect the seeds and replant in different spots each year always keeping in mind to keep them well ventilated and on the dry side. They grow best in hot dry climates. This is why I was so impressed with the batch that I found upstate NY. Good luck with yours!

Summer's Bounty

Last month, while visiting in New York we came across a wonderful patch of Hollyhocks not far from the shores of Lake Ontario. The patch was about 50 feet of assorted hollyhocks and daylilies. Hollyhocks are plants either do great or wither and die before making a substantial contribution. These plants were magnificent! They stood about six to eight feet tall and were all in bloom. My friend RJ was trying to coax similar plants in his new garden in Rochester. His were only a few inches tall! Somewhere between Rochester and this spot near the Niagara Peninsula there was magic afoot. Looking slightly behind were even more wonderful plants in an even greater bounty: Queen Anne Cherries.

Three Cherry trees stood by the side of the road neighboring what was a residential area in the middle of farmland. These trees were ready to explode with fruits and were just ripe for eating. Upon closer inspection we came across the owner of the property stuck up in a latter harvesting his bounty. Quick to react to the tourist we were he offered to sell us some. Our host was an 86 year old gentleman farmer. Born and raised in the region and doing what he liked best: farming! Before too long we had shared some tales of travel and gardens and we were off with multiple bags of fresh perfectly grown and ripe Queen Anne Cherries.

The return trip home continued along the shores of Lake Ontario to Rochester's Ontario Beach Park to discover another of Philadelphia's Carousel playing its role for the Summer Season. As you can see few people were enjoying its dizzying magic of going round and round to an old fashioned calliope.

My greatest adventure was a quick visit to the George Eastman House (founder of Eastman Kodak). The visit was to be very fast as the rest of our visitors marched to the beat of their stomachs. Thankfully, my friend RJ, who knows of my love of great old house gardens, insisted we take a quick walk around the house. The results were as marvelous as they were short. As it was past 7 there was no one around and we literally had the site to ourselves. The house is (I dread to say it) a Colonial Revival house sitting on about ten acres that serves as a cultural center to Rochester. It is not a real colonial but the best that money could buy in its day! It is a major museum with all kinds of amenities. Check it out: http://www.eastmanhouse.org/inc/the_museum/history.php. The garden is formal English in nature with multiple walled in rooms, sunken gardens, pergolas, fountains, trellis rooms, rock gardens and you name it! Best of all, are the old trees on the property planted during the early days; they are quite spectacular.

I believe that we spent about 15 minutes touring the garden before running off to fuel the hungry. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful visit. Maybe, better in many ways because I did not have the time to linger and criticize or redesign parts of it in my mind.

By the way, I received an update from RJ that his hollyhocks are growing just fine. Given Rochester's growing season I hope they are well along by now for they will soon be history.

Other Gardens

My back has been on the fritz this week so I have spent quite a bit of time on my back reading. I have been re-reading The Tales of the City series of books from my youth by Armistead Maupin. I lived in San Francisco when Armistead was writing these as installments in the San Francisco Examiner. They are a commentary on the lives that many of us led at the time and it is all so much fun to regain entry into that past. Soon after Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone were assassinated many of us felt that the dream was gone and we left San Francisco.

I returned to Los Angeles, where I had, mostly, grown up to re establish my life there as well as what was to be my first in-ground garden. My first garden, I had kept cymbidiums on the fire scape of my San Francisco apartment, no doubt against the law. These large orchid plants loved the cool evenings and the often sunny days in The City.

The return to Los Angeles was not easy or direct. I had tried, in vain, to reestablish a romance in Brussels where I spent better part of a year. The return to Los Angeles took me to my mother's large apartment in Atwater. This section of Los Angeles was known for its unusual Egyptian styled houses and as the home of the old Franciscan Pottery. The move home was a difficult one. I had to admit failure and regroup. Fortunately, my mother saw this as a great opportunity for us to be together. She and I became best of friends and developed the best relationship imaginable. I did not linger long in any depressive state. I was almost 30 and there were worlds to conquer and a house to buy.

I had given myself a deadline to buy my own house by saving what amounted to $300 a week until I raised $15,000 for a down payment. The sum would take almost a year. In Los Angeles you could still buy houses for a reasonable sum of money in the early 80's. I wanted everything and had very little to spend.

I spent weekends with various Realtors. They all showed me houses with questionable wall paper, carpeting and chandeliers but their pitch was always about how wonderful all these amenities were. The houses were shit but in their mind the wallpaper, carpeting and chandeliers made up for it. I realized that I would never get much so I would have to settle for location, character and possibilities and in March 1982 I saw such a house.

The ad in the paper described it perfectly "arty hill-top home." It was a mess! Did I say it was a mess! It sat on a small flat footprint at the top of Alvarado Street at the Corner of Cerro Gordo (fat hill in Spanish). It was a few blocks away from the silent movie era Hal Roach studios where the Laurel and Hardy and the Keystone Cops had chased pianos and each other in those incredibly steep hills. It had a view (on a clear smog-less day) of all of Los Angeles from the Hollywood sign down to Catalina Island.

Louise Martinez, the owner, was by any description a Bohemian. She had quite a flair and saw in me either as a sucker or someone to take over her hill-top kingdom. The house was in no condition for normal bank financing so she had managed to put together a package to finance it herself and live off the interest. I was young and crazy enough to find the deal and the finally agreed price acceptable - $75k. I gave my down payment and had a very little mortgage to pay off; although I had everything in the world to do, to make this house and its future garden mine.

The house had a few great panes of glass that once opened up would take in the views. There was a large Agave americana that took up two parking spaces. Huge patches of Opuntias that produce the cactus apple and the nopales favored by Mexicans clung to the dry hilltop rock hard clay terrain. The beautiful powder blue Plumbago was the groundcover. Masses or a very tenacious reed existed in on the slope where I later found out the sewer leaked. Three or four old Eucalyptus had been butchered and I thought they might recover. There was a massive overgrown patch of irises that smelled of salami. The piece de resistance was a hedge about 130 feet long of Jade Plant. It stood about 4 feet tall and mostly encircled the front of the property. When I first saw the house it had been in bloom and it looked like it had snowed in LA.

Everyone I knew thought I was crazy for taking this amount of work on. Yet, I did and I still get the same reaction from new friends when I propose new ideas or far flung projects. I have, by destiny and reality been given opportunities to have choices. I have tried to make lemonade out lemons. Sometimes the ade has been sweeter than others but while I have been trying it has been fun. I am not much into laying about and doing nothing.

As an aside which got me to Blog on this topic, I had mentioned re-reading the Tales of the City books. When that series was made into an American Playhouse PBS production it was filmed down the block from my old house. Sometimes in life you get a complete circle...

Say What?

Downpour in the Garden

On August 8, Michael Bruce and I were featured in an article in the Courier Post about two gentlemen who had “cut out their lawns”. The article entitled “Shaggy Gardens” by Renee Winkler http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20090808/LIFE02/908080301 (goodluck getting to website) is a term quoted from a conversation between the author and me, that describes part of my philosophy on gardening: Gardens look best when they are not manicured and have a leftover shaggy look. The article although flattering in nature did not mention much about why two plant professionals, a renowned florist and a landscape architect, might have chosen this approach. Having drinks with my friend Elena, she complained about missing context. Her mind, that of a lawyer, immediately went to the crux of the matter on what was missing from this article. The history of lawns and the statistics of lawncare: pesticide overuse, acreage allocation, energy utilized to maintain.

I understand why a local newspapers might not want to deal with hard facts instead of feel good stories: decline in circulation, apathetic public, etc, etc. I am not a professional writer, nor am I making a statement on the writers and editors of this article, but it makes you wonder why bother writing a meaningful story and then place it on the Saturday paper if you can’t give your writing public something more than fluff and pictures?

Lawns in America are the democratic response to a European leftover practice employed by farmers and nobles alike that started in the Middle Ages. The word lawn is an old English and Dutch derivative place name where animals went to graze. These naturally occurring Lawns were maintained by grazing animals (horses, sheep, cattle or other livestock) and were made up of multiple species of plants and grasses (like meadows). Nobles enlarged their domains by bringing the lawns close to their houses for the natural landscape effect and using animals as lawnmowers! With the invention of the push lawnmower in the early 1800’s the expanse of lawns grew from what was traditionally kept by animals and an army of serfs with scythes.

The lawnmower evolved from a mechanized blade to steam, to the gasoline powered engine to the electric quieter motors and some of the solar mowers we have today. Americans did not believe in serfs and we are an industrial power so our thinking brought about a multitude of practices that eventually included: a cheap lawnmower for everyone, specialized lawn seeds for specific applications, fertilizers to make these deficient lawns grown and herbicides to kill anything other than the few select grasses in lawn mixtures to thrive.

Statistics vary but I will give you a few that I have found. For some further insight check out: http://www.backyardnature.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl.h,content=381 . Regardless which statistics are correct, the numbers are impressive. Americans spend 40 billion dollars on lawncare and as the population ages more money will be spent.

• 80% of all U.S. households have private lawns
• Average American lawn is between 1/5 -1/3 acre
• In the U.S, alone, it is estimated that there are more than 31 million acres of grass (An area equal to the New England states. Over 80% of this grass is found in residential lawns.)

Similarly, pesticides and fertilizers are a major concern to our environment and have been the panacea to the American Lawn. Concerns over the runoff of these chemicals from our lawns into our water worry many. Studies have been done linking algal blooms with too many fertilizers. Often, we turn a blind eye to many things we don’t want to understand or hear. Yet there are many concerned parents that are wondering the wisdom of bringing in a specialist lawn care provider with a chemical soup that is quickly applied to the benefit of having a rich green lawn so their children can go romping in it minutes later. As a child growing up in Cuba, we kids would wait for the moskito fog truck to come by so we could play soldiers in the mist! Wonder the chemical makeup of the fog and what effects it has left? It is no wonder that Canadian provinces and many European governments are banning the use of chemicals applications to lawns.

Finally, lawns cannot grow everywhere without major rainfall or irrigation. If you are lucky enough to live in a place where a lawn can exist naturally enjoy it while you can. With tightening water restrictions due to drought, population growth or other limitations we shall see the price of water continue to rise to levels not imagined.

I wanted to make a point about the Courier Post article that simplified my reasons for not having a lawn. I have not dealt with the time it takes for upkeep or that it is just a lawn and not more. Please note that I am not on a personal vendetta against lawns. They have a place, if a limited one. I recognize that golfers in wet Scotland invented a scenic sport around it; children, dogs, picnics and lovers need it for fun and frolic. I simply choose not to be a slave to one.

Meanwhile Back in the Garden

It is the first week of August and the garden seems a little spent and mainly green. We are having one of the best summers I can remember. The rain has come down in torrential buckets at times and has taken enough of a break to come back again when needed. This said, lately the rain has come a little more frequent, but given the heat the plants can sure use it. It is hard to consider but we are part of the Tropics during this season: humid, hot and sunny. Plants, for the most part love it.

A few weeks ago the garden was a lot more colorful with a sea of Daylilies towering about 4-5 feet above the ground. With a combination of Bee Balm and some straggling roses it created an opportunity artists to take advantage. The weather had been warm and dry and really wonderful for weeks on end. So outdoor lunches and visits to the garden to draw or read and relax were numerous. Often times, the only place that is comfortable in the garden in Summer is under the willow by the pond. Here, the tree canopy creates a magical breeze not found elsewhere. It was nice to regain the entire garden for outdoor activities during these weeks.

Vori installed himself on the walkway and in an afternoon cranked out a wonderful crayon-pastel rendering of the garden. Julia and I have been on his case about selling his art. He is immensely talented, but like many an artist he creates it for himself and is often unsure of how his product comes across. I can tell you he is good, very good at that. I may have to photograph some of his portfolio and put it on the blog.

Many years ago I visited a couple in the Washington DC area where I discovered a wonderful plant. The Japanese anemones grew in this magnificent wet garden near the Potomac River. Here banks of pink and white Anemones were floating, not unlike my Daylilies, on long stems with delicately shaped flowers that also resembled Japanese Irises with those floppy petals. The two ladies that called this garden home, immediately brought out a spade to split out a plant for me to take. I was thrilled and took the plant home to another garden that I shared.

The plants never grew very much in this garden because it was very sandy and they managed to grow but not like in Washington DC. Eventually, when I bought my house I dug up these puppies and moved them to a shady location but a dry one at that (see all the knowledge you think you have sometimes goes out the window!) The Anemones fared better than before but never really made a spectacular showing. Last season I dug them out, as many as I could find and relocated them off the main bed in the back where it is sunny and wet. This year that plants have flourished and are showing many buds. With any luck it will be a good season for them as well. They should bloom later but to tell you the truth I have not cared for them closely where they were so I am not sure exactly when to expect them.

I am a glutton for work at times. I love Crotons (pictured above) but they don't like to overwinter in dark places. I grew up with them in Cuba where they were used as hedges ten feet tall. There, you could snap a branch and stick in the ground and it would grow! My Mother, in Los Angeles, had the ordinary ones you buy in grocery stores. She had bought this little ball shaped plant a foot tall and grown it to a monster of about five feet tall.

When my Mother died I brought her plants East. I felt a responsibility to continue growing something that she had cared for so lovingly for so many years. Her Malanga (a form of tropical ivy also sold in grocery stores) has managed to grow ten years after her passing. Other plants I brought from her balcony grew so large that I donated to conservatory gardens. Her Croton somehow, I managed to kill. Fortunately I managed to make enough cuttings that I handed to friends so I can at some point get a plant from the original back. Julia has one that has grown larger than my Mother's original plant. Last time I saw it it was almost 7 feet tall. I think this may have something to do with women and how they care or not for plants. I know it sounds sexist but what can you do?

So when I was visiting my cousins in Tampa I found this strange little Croton that I do not remember from the tropics. It has skinny leaves and maybe it will require less light to overwinter during our grey period. I will try and give this one a go before I lay claims to some of Julia's cuttings. I will tell you that upon close inspection it already seems to be providing home to mealy bugs so I have my work cut out.