Thursday, January 30, 2014

Night blooming and heady!


In the woodland today skies are grey with a chance of rain and the rich, heavy fragrance of the night blooming pink jasmine is in the air! The aroma of this jasmine is much heavier and sweeter than the sambac, in fact, it is so strong that I can't tolerate too much of it or I get a headache.


Everything is blooming about one month early this year because of the strange warm weather we've had. The challenge with this, especially the fruit trees, is the danger of frost in the next few months.


In other local news, a developer has decided to build a monstrous box on the site where the native oaks were cut down. I've spent the morning looking over the plans brought over by a neighbor. There are all sorts of challenges with the building plans that go against existing codes for that particular property. The landscape plan was particularly interesting since it is mostly California natives. The problem however, is that they've chosen plants which are native to the Bay area not here in the sunny, hot woodland of Southern California. (Hello?)

Clearly the landscape designer, which by the way has the same last name as the contractor, didn't expect to have a local resident and lover of native plants looking over her design with a fine tooth comb.

Our landscape design is mainly California natives, the back slope is covered with rosemary which I am very happy with since the bees adore it. All my jasmines, exotics and medicinal plants are in pots. We've chosen native plants...or perhaps better verbage is "the native plants that have chosen to be in our garden design" tend to grow in the local woodland and our beloved by the local fauna and flora. This is my vision for every house in the neighborhood, imagine what a fabulous and positive environmental impact that would be!


3 comments:

Unknown said...

It's the sort of problem that is big here in Australia (we're outside Melbourne). We distinguish between native (to Australia - & it's a big place), and indigenous (to our local region). But there are neighbours who think that a tree from Queensland would be a good idea in their garden - & then they have to water it, and the local birds & animals have no interest in it. And they're a step better than the people who move out here for the green & the trees, and then bulldoze the lot for concrete & a couple of rose bushes.

Why do people think like this?

Illuminated Perfume said...

Gosh, I'm so sorry to hear this is happening in Australia! Here in LA we have a few nurseries that have plants specific to California with lots of educational materials showing examples of what exact regions and soil types they do well in. Perhaps that would be a great thing to start up with the help of local government since it would adding drought resistant and biodiversity for the area. The Theodore Payne Foundation here in LA would be a great model to follow.

The film "More Than Honey" shows a group that is studying the honey bee, perhaps that group would be interested in helping out with starting a TPF type in Melbourne...or heck, put a proposal together and put it on Kickstarter!

Sometimes WE need to be the ones to start things up. I met today with a City Planning fellow from my local councilman's office to get them more involved in native plant and honey bee awareness. I was surprised by their enthusiasm and excited at the prospects that we discussed.

Unknown said...

We have & we do, but there are those who cant see the point. There's a couple of year waiting list for honey bees in the inner city, but in the outer suburbs we're trying to support the native ones too.

It is nice at least that we're working at it - the current rewards is a dozen rainbow lorikeets visiting the backyard at the moment - some people pay good money to see them...