urban-horticulture

I was just visiting my Dad’s house in Monterey and sipping some Ridge wine out on the patio and noticed two large sunflowers in the backyard! We have no idea how the seeds got there because surely my Dad didn’t plant them. He’s not as interested in gardening as I am. Here are pictures of Dad’s sunflowers that appear to have edible seeds!

About a year ago, I was fantasizing about my dream house.  I was pondering weather to move back down to Monterey and live in Carmel.  My dream house would be a tiny Hansel and Gretel cottage (preferably with all the candy bits) with a garden in the back twice or thrice the size of the main dwelling itself.  There I would come home from work and spend most of my free time tending to my lusciously green garden.

Alas, I’ve moved once again.  Most of you might be guessing I am some sort of gypsy lady, but I promise you I am nothing of the sort.  Life happens…  Break ups happen.  And now being on my own in my own studio apartment downtown I can focus on my real passion, which is the roof top gardening.  It’s funny where life takes you.  I had to find a new place to live quickly (and I think I found it within a week).  I had put the word out and whether you want to call it karma or kismet, my good friend Geraldine found me her next door unit.  It’s a tiny studio, however the “roof/deck” is perfect for my gardening.  I get tons of sun which is a great blessing.  I still have the same plants but added new loot to my collection from Lowes last night.

Here are a few pictures I snapped this morning.

I located these white flies and webs underneath my shamrock’s leaves.  I have had my shamrock plants since March and have never gotten any kind of disease till now.  I had moved my shamrock’s to my cubicle at work since they seem to prefer the indoors compared to the outdoors (where their leaves got burnt this summer).  I’m not 100% sure of this insect that had found a comfortable home underneath the leaves of my shamrock but my guess is that it was a “white fly”.  I’m sure I could have sprayed the leaves with an insecticide or Neem oil.  I just chose to remove the infected leaves instead.

UPDATE TO THE MYSTERY OF THE GIANT WHITE FLY!

Thank you UCCE Master Gardeners!  Here is their response to my inquiry.

• UCCE Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County

  Could be whitefly: compare yours with the Pest Note,http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7400.html. Aphids also often get on indoor plants – aphid key athttp://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/KEYAPHID/1color.html. Wash off leaves & if necessary remove some (as you did!) Note that spraying (even w/ organics) will kill any beneficial insects nearby who might eat the pests. BTW you could try the shamrock in part shade outside – no need to deprive the cubicle though, but propagate from the original.

  

  Giant Whitefly Management Guidelines–UC IPM

  www.ipm.ucdavis.edu

  UC home and landscape guidelines for control of Giant Whitefly.
  It did turn out to be a Giant White Fly.

I was dashing over to the Container Store at Santana Row and noticed these beautiful flowers hanging from the palm trees. I was so impressed at the arrangement of the flowers bursting from their pots, that I had to share a picture.

I was just watching a home video with Christian and got visited by a ladybug. So lucky to be attracting beneficial insects!

Lady Bug

Black Beetle

Thanks to my friend Bob’s encouragement, I was able to fiddle with my camera and get this shot of a Black Beetle on my Vanda orchid a week ago. If you zoom in on the picture, click on this image and then click on it again in the new page, you can see the beetle’s long hook like nails used to climb plants I suppose. He’s definitely in the “benefical instect” category.

I’ve been singing this song for the last four days, because we had a BIG heat wave last Thursday.  Half of each pot of my herb and flower seedlings got wiped out!

Affected worst were Catnip, Purple Basil, Sun Flower, Foxglove (totally kaput now), Allysium.

The contenders were Four O Clocks, Mint, Succulents (Cape Blanco and Lithops), and all my other plants that were in the shade,  and lemon tree.

Here are the pictures of what remains:

So my mint plant had just recovered from a good pruning from one month ago and was flourishing.  Yesterday I noticed holes and black spots appeared on some of the leaves.  Today there were a lot more holes so I decided to document this occurrence.  All it is is a hungry little caterpillar!  This is totally harmless.  I in fact love having caterpillars around as they always remind me of Eric Carle’s book The Hungry Caterpillar.  I find the whole metamorphosis into becoming a butterfly is so fascinating.  If I were to cook with my mint, I could just make sure to clean the mint leaves (as I normally would) and just make sure I haven’t added the caterpillar into the meal by mistake.

Wikipedia Entry for Lithops