Flowers – ilikebotanicals

Plant ID Alert: Croton setigerus

My “Leftover” post written at the height of the Covid pandemic has an update. In November 2021, I wrote about a plant that I could not identify but marveled at its ability to transport me from what was a terrible day to one that turned good. I recently went on a walk with someone knowledgeable…

A Happy Wanderer: Rules for Annie’s in Richmond, California

I have a friend from college who is my kindred sister in all things plants. I like being with A especially when we are touring her garden (she has her own de facto botanical garden) our conversations can be about the social and the political, but frequently it circles back to plants we’ve seen and…

On winter.

December is the time of year that I play the spring is coming-and-I am-waiting-game. I accept that cold is a reality (well fifty-ish degrees cold) and that the color brown dominates the outdoors. I do love the brown. It can highlight and hide signs of winter life: the annual grasses sprouting, the leaf fall covering…

The Leftovers.

I love the HBO series “The Leftovers.” It is based on the 2011 novel by Tom Perrotta. There is something about this television series that continues to serve my need for a bit of escape. Some of the moments in episodes make me want to say and point at the television: “Yes. That.” The characters…

This fruit is not for sharing.

My favorite season has my favorite fruit. Punica granatum or Pomegranate could not be more perfect. The thin rind, the explosive sour sweet seed pods are worth every trial and error to eat each one seed at a time with or without getting its red juice all over you. William-Adolphe Bouguereau probably understood that when…

Firecracker Vine.

I was not sure when I brought this plant home from Half Moon Bay last summer that it would survive being planted in a large container. It looked like it had weak stems and appeared to be lacking in general hardiness right after I placed it in the soil. It remained in the larger pot…

Rock the Kalabás Tree.

The Crescentia cujete tree is better known as Calabasas or Kalabás in Kreyol. The tree was growing in the courtyard of the Fort Royal Hotel in Petit Goave in Haiti in 2014. This illustration and the photo I took does not capture how exceptional this tree looks from a distance, with its many 10″ egg-shaped…

Vines both cruel and beautiful.

I saw this Araujia sericifera on the fence at the Morgan Hill community garden. One of the gardeners said it was bitter melon, but I thought it looked more like the “perennial ornamental plant in the genus Araujia belonging to Apocynaceae family.” Apparently the Araujia plant was first described in 1817 by the Portuguese botanist…

Everything’s Coming Up Sunflowers.

In a few weeks, this field behind the San Juan Bautista mission is going to be spectacular. There have been other flower grows in this field. My first year here it was Amaranth (a sea of deep red). Last spring it was sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus); rows of single color red, pink, purple, and one…

Summer is over. The naked ladies are here.

Photo Credit: http://mardeross.com/amaryllis-belladona-bulbs-naked-lady-with-peonies-as-well/ On a walk through town I saw a familiar that aways signifies the end of summer for me: Amaryllis belladonna L. Here in the South Bay (west central coast?) you see them everywhere in late summer on the edges of dry gardens and fences, a stark contrast of rose rose pink and brown….