The Easterbrook Wellhead

The Gardens at Lakeside Park have been around for decades but have been experiencing a renaissance recently. Among this new development is a new garden created around an old landmark. The Easterbrook Wellhead was donated to the city of Oakland in 1914 by a local benefactress. After being moved into the garden enclosure (probably in the 40s?) to protect is against vandalism, this beautiful landmark languished into obscurity, known only to those who worked in or visited the gardens regularly, and even they forgot the story behind the fountain.
Now, this rare treasure is well documented and a fitting centerpiece to a garden planted with climate appropriate plants from the various mediterranean climates of the world.

Beaucarnea recurvata

We used to live down the street from a very nice local plant nursery. While we all frequented this establishment, purchasing various supplies and new additions to our gardens, it was also a favorite neighborhood pastime to go 'dumpster diving' to see what they might have tossed out that we might nurse back to health!
One day a neighbor discovered this specimen of Ponytail Palm. She new i would find it interesting so she presented it to me one day on the street. Clearly it had lost its terminal shoot through some sort of mishap, hence it being discarded. I ended up planting it in a public garden where I was a volunteer, along side another, larger, more symmetrical specimen. It was already forming multiple new crowns and made an interesting 'bushy' accent to it larger brother.
Years later, it is starting to catch up in height and is also the first specimen to start flowering!! It was a real treat to see the flowers so close at hand (these plants get very tall and the flowers are always at the top), just head-high. The day I saw it many people also stopped to get a closer look.
Beaucarnea recurvata, native to Mexico (Tamaulipas, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí), is a member of the Agavaceae, related to Yuccas and Century Plants. A well established specimen is very drought tolerant requires little care. Their bases become very broad and swollen, giving rise to the name Bottle Palm. There are some amazing specimens in the Huntington Garden in San Marino next to Pasadena, CA. Too seldom planted in the SF Bay Area, where this one is growing.
My Spanish is not good enough to understand this Mexican video, but I found the hostess so charming and sweet, I wanted to include it here!

More drama in the garden!

My Fucraea foetida has sent up a bloom spike in the last few week, about 20ft or more tall now and starting to send out the secondary branches which will hold the delicate flowers. While related to Agaves, Furcraeas are much more 'refined' in that they are more often spineless and have a more open inflorescence structure. And the flowers hang down so you can see into them even though they are so high up in the air. I find them fascinating.

The straight, green leaves are about 6-8ft long, standing in a dome-like, loose, rosette, often with raggedy edges which are a bit suggestive of spinyness but are not spine tipped. The spike rose like a giant asparagus shoot very quickly, raising all sorts of reactions from the neighbors! It now has its very tip nestled in the branches of the Redwood tree behind, probably higher than I could ever reach with my pole pruners. It truly dominates the intersection in front of our house at the moment.

The current state of my garden

My small parcel of land is in sad disarray at the moment. Not that my climate precludes having 'something doing' at this time of year - indeed, there seems to be activity regardless of my neglect, which is the real cause of the problem. Fall clean-up never really happened, and the 'Christmas clear-away' was also missed!! I'm hoping for a 'New Year's new start', but there is a significant amount of construction and painting happening to my building in the next weeks, so I'm sure that will cause a disruption to my plans as well!

The lower slope, which faces south west, is currently blooming madly with Oxalis pes-caprea! Quite bright to those unfamiliar with this horrible weed, but striking fear into the hearts of those interested in planting other winter growing plants. We have the pentyploid (2.5 the normal chromosomes) mutant which is much larger and far more vigorous than the type (diploid) species. Though sterile (due to the odd number of chromosomes), it more than makes up for it in all other ways. California is lousy with the stuff, the only saving grace being its short season of growth. We removed and sifted out many bulbils last summer, but those that remain seem to be thriving because of our efforts! I merely pull handfuls of the succulent greenage from areas where I have other plants trying to survive, and it seems to make a bit of difference (fewer and smaller Oxalis) over time.

Meanwhile, Geranium incanum is getting ready for an early spring bloom, my plant cascading gently over a wall at the base of this slope. I pull away the mat of stems under those on top of this spill, thinning it out and creating a more delicate effect (this plant can be a thug!).

A shrubby Velvet Groundsel (Roldana petasitis, = Senecio p., Cineraria p.) is growing close by, its large, rounded, scallop-lobed, felty green leaves always attracting interest and an occasional 'feel' from passerbys. Its deep maroon brown-red, clusters of flower buds are interesting until they open to reveal the raggedy yellow daisies (at which point I promptly remove them). Other plants in evidence (among the disarray of weeds and overgrowth!) are Echium pininnana and Geranium psilostemon. The former is a new plant for me, and I am pleased with the rapid growth of its rosette, promising a handsome, tall spike of flowers this spring. The latter is in a 'leaf stage' - a nice clump of rounded, lobed leaves (magenta flowers will surmount this most of spring and summer). Coleonema pulchrum 'Sunset Gold' is very bright right now, looking much like a gold-toned heather. I mean to relieve its 'lumpy' shape by taking selected cuttings when I get a chance, finding that it looks best when allowed to grow in the more horizontal, up-swept form typical of this cultivar. A large unnamed Verbascum has made a huge yellowish rosette in this part of the garden, much to the chagrin of my wife, who constantly reminds me that I said it would be smaller in size (how was I to know! - it had always been smaller in the poorer soils and minimal irrigation in which it grew before!). She feels it sets the planting 'off balance', but is willing to wait for flowering and seed gathering.

Also far too large is Agave angustifolia 'Variegata', planted across the stairs from the site just discussed, and protruding obnoxiously into the walking space! While it is unquestioningly very beautiful, its rounded form of stiff, spiky leaves, a soft celadon green with a broad creamy edge, bedecked with deep red-black thorns, it must go soon! I thought it would flower before growing larger (I seem to have this problem, I guess!) but it does not seem ready to give up growing in girth just yet. I'm going to need to rent a large pry-bar and try and lift this guy out of his bed and move him (somehow) down to a public succulent garden here in town, where he will be a featured attraction, no doubt!

Tecomaria capensis, a melon orange form, towers behind, apparently not minding its shabby seed-pod crown, still throwing out a new flower spike or two, even though the weather long ago cooled lower than it usually prefers. Its dwarf yellow cousin is behind, shooting out long, lax branches in all directions, seeking to claim more horizontal space than its vertical companion. It cascades over the largest Agave attenuata in the garden, whose large, soft, wavy, sculpted leaves were slightly damaged in the last hail-storm, but now are being replaced quickly by fresh, new growth. I hope for a nice, tall, 'foxtail' inflorescence this spring - a thick spike densely clothed in yellow flowers and with a characteristic limp, 'crooked' top. While I feel the garden is a pretty sad sight right now, it does still cause some to stop and admire (or perhaps they are aghast!). Many of you who have read my ramblings before have imagined a large, spacious few acres to contain all that I explain! It is a very modest space, and perhaps much of the content is only evident to the gardener himself (moi). But then gardens are often that way, especially when the gardener has other things to do beside spend the days tending that bit of the natural world (sigh!).