White Flower Season

The white flower season begins here in the garden of pure fumes with gardenia, then gradually overlaps with jasmine sambac which overlaps with plumeria.  I was lucky to get extra gardenias from my mothers plant which is much larger and more abundant than mine.

The gardenias are now done but we are in the thick of jasmine sambac bloom time just as the plumerias are starting up.

Currently I have lots of different potions brewing, but the most amazing is a toss up between the gardenia enfleurage and the jasmine enfleurage which was layered over a violet enfleurage.

In the Garden: Gardenias

Despite watering and pulling weeds, the garden has pretty much been abandoned since February when I began putting the course together. (I really need to find a gardener to help out!) In the meantime the gardenias, both here and at my mothers, have started their bloom cycle which means a 2016 gardenia enfleurage is underway.

When I swap the big fragrant gardenia flowers out I put the spent ones in a bowl in the kitchen to infuse the air with their fragrance.  Its amazing how long the scent of those big, leathery flowers will last and change over time.

Rain!

The rains have FINALLY arrived to Los Angeles! I'm so happy as I am sure the woodland plants and beasties are as well. We were able to get all the natives we purchased at the Theodore Payne Foundation and redo a few of the walls around our 1950's ranch style house completed within hours of the rains arriving.

Since we are up in the hillside and have had several challenges with water drainage on from our own and neighbors properties we've slowly been making adjustments. The hard work over the last fifteen years here have paid off. The only thing still on the list is to create a system to capture water into a tank for irrigation as well as a grey water system.

Since we've had a little respite the last few days we purchased a few more plants, more native ceanothus and artemisia but also drought tolerate, a bee loving rosemary, a couple flats of lantana and two types of cistus, also known as rockrose.

As soon as Greg got them in the ground this afternoon it slowly starting sprinkling again. Yay!

Jasmine Tincturing Summer 2015

Although the jasmine blooms seemed to get to a slow start this year they sure have been producing dynamically lately!

Every evening or morning I harvest the little flowers, take photos and add them to the 190 proof grape alcohol. Sometimes I filter the alcohol before adding the flowers, besides that, I do these tasks every single day and will continue until the cycle ends, usually in November.

The amount of photos I take daily is probably as abundant to the blooms. At the moment I have three glass mason jars filled with the aromatic elixir in my refrigerator. This fragrance potion ultimately goes into Blossom, a citrus and herb cologne I created based on traditional formulas. I'm experimenting with using the tincture like a bitter added to cocktails.

Each time I filter the infused alcohol I pour filtered water over the spent flowers I drink the heavenly tonic with Greg.

The biggest challenge each day is figuring out how I will shoot a new and interesting photo of the process, I feel like I've shot every possible potential image and then a new one, thankfully, presents itself. Here's a few from this morning....

Spring in Summer

Some of the plants in my garden are acting as if its Spring, even though we are in the middle of Summer. I'm guessing this is due to the extremely weird weather coupled with a little extra watering with our shower water. If you didn't know, California is having a massive drought and thus we are suppose to be mindful about our use of H20. Here at the woodland cottage we take showers with tubs and buckets to collect the water and use for our plants.

The fairy duster planet we put in the ground back in the Autumn of 2012 or so has gotten quite large, has had some children and is FINALLY attracting honey bees. Yay! For a little while there we thought there was something wrong with it. I am not sure why it took so long, but, relieved that the reason why we purchased it is now manifested. Judging by how many honey bees are on it all day long I'd say hands down its the favorite plant in the entire garden.

I love how the flowers of the Fairy Duster first appear like little balls of yarn which slowly unfurl into their magnificent red strands that then call over all the different pollinators.

The Matilija poppies, which didn't flower last year have now started to bloom. I thought they weren't going to produce flowers this year because in the neighborhood and other parts of the Santa Monica Mountains they were blooming back in Spring. Ours generally bloom in July, thus I'm thinking it must have to do with where they are placed. Something else that is happening with these is that they are spreading. This is exactly what we wanted! In a few years we are hoping that they will be covering a quarter of the front slope.

Other positive things happening in our garden is that lots of natives have been coming up on their own accord, like Quercus agrifolia, our native oak, and Artemisia californica. This is especially potent since our neighbors continue to hack down large grandfather oaks in the area. When I see people cut down those ancient trees I can't help but think humans are one of the stupidest species on the planet, really. I mentioned to Greg that before allowing someone to purchase a house here in the woodland people need to be asked the question "Can you be a steward of our woodland flora and fauna?" If not, than hey, go find another seat on this airplane.

The Birds and the Bees

The heavy rains from last week gave our very dry earth a much needed soaking producing a few blooms in the garden.

The girls have been hard at work collecting nectar and pollen. A hive check is over due, which will likely result in a frame of honey or two.

The Cistus is flowering. I went out to photograph the blooms in the afternoon and saw the petals on the ground, seems I've got to get out there super early in the morning if I am going to capture a photo of the flower without sunshine hitting it. The evergreen shrub, also known as Purple Rock Rose, is not a California native but tolerates drought, poor soil and little maintenance like its neighboring plants.

The front slope is finally filling out a bit. The wild roses and Matilja Poppies (pictured above) have been spreading on there own, while animals have been seeding here and there.

Meanwhile, the succulents that were planted on the lot by a previous owner are doing quite well. I'm not particularly found of them since it perpetuates the myth that cactus are California native plants. Greg really likes them though, so we are putting them all along the fence side of the driveway where the slope doesn't need strong roots.

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!

In the Garden: Early Spring

Here in the Southern California woodland Spring arrives early, even when we've had little to no rain. The first flowers to appear our on the back slope covered with rosemary, these begin to blossom as early as November. Right now the purple sage, botanically known as Salvia leucphylla, is blooming and the girls are all over it in the morning. I've noticed the honey bees tend to prefer plants when they are hit by the sun, at least in the morning at this time of the year. Probably because they are elemental beings of the sunlight.

I patiently observed them this morning, waiting for the perfect moment to capture one of them at work. On Monday while when I was doing this I got a shot in the arm by one of the girls, not quite sure why (!) but I figure little doses of api therapy are always good as it is used in Europe to assist a wide variety of ailments.

The reason this particular salvia does so well in our garden is because it likes clay soil, something of which we have in abundance. Besides being a great plants for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, the native quail love the seeds. Once established it needs no water!

This one is on my list to get more of, in fact, might be good to get a bunch of them!

Causing Great Happiness

We are in mid July and the jasmine harvest is in full swing. In the past I would harvest the delicate, white flowers in the morning. This year I am harvesting them in the evening at about 10pm once the new blossoms are freshly opened with their intoxicating fresh floral pure fume. The word intoxicating is defined as "causing great happiness", I can't think of a better descriptor for jasmine sambac flowers at the moment.

Each night the harvest is different, sometimes it will be only a few flowers, tonight it was about twenty with an even larger harvest coming in the next few days. The cycle, like the moon, expands and contacts.

I keep the glass jars with the organic, grape alcohol and flowers in the refrigerator. Once the jar is full I will filter it, remove the spent flowers and continue to add more until once it is full again. Like the blooming cycle, the process of adding new blossoms is a cyclical pattern.

The 2012 jasmine sambac flower tincture appears in the new edition of Blossom, Chiaroscuro and Cimbalom liquid.. I've added samples in glass, mini spray bottles in the shop yesterday. The jasmine tincture in progress will be featured in the next edition of Blossom and subsequent editions of Chiaroscuro and Cimbalom liquid natural, botanical perfume.

Instagram

Yesterday, after brunch, I installed Instagram on the I-pad just before heading out to work in the garden. Instagram is a free photo app fun that lets you add a filter to transform the image, something I normally do in photoshop.

I had thought that it was only available to those who had smart phones, until I realized that the I-pad will accept the app, even though its not a phone. Hooray! The only thing that I am a bit skeptical about is that I've heard that Instagram keeps all rights to your images, that sucks and thus will require some mindfulness with using it.

Loved into Being

 "A garden, where one may enter in and forget the whole world, cannot be made in a week, 

nor a month, nor a year; it must be planned for, waited for and loved into being."

~ Ancient Chinese Proverb

Today I am continuing work on the Figure 1: Noir LookBook. Tomorrow is Earth and Honey Bee Awareness Day which will find me at the Backwards Beekeepers booth at Santa Monica College from 3- 5pm, in their brand new Organic Learning Garden.

Here in our native plant woodland garden the sacred white sage (Salvia apiana) is blooming along with many others and the spectacular Matilija poppies (Romneya coulteri) have big bulbs ready to open soon.

Back when we removed all the non native invasive plants from our yard and decided to plant natives we didn't know what we know now. So much learning comes from doing. The reason our native garden has been so challenging is first our own limitations back then of understanding native plants and how they grow. The other two factors which took awhile to figure out is that the front slope besides being clay soil also contains large amounts of fill and some toxins given off by the non native eucalyptus tree roots. Slowly but surely, with determination, the front slope is finally starting to take shape. We still have more planting to do.

It's happening now!

For the last two months there have been little signs of Spring here in my little wild wood garden. First is the ever persistent non-native grasses, which pop their vital green sprouts up after the first rains in the late Autumn.

While in the Santa Monica Mountains, close to the coast the white ceonothus blooms across the hillsides, my blue variety slumbers...until today! for some reason, this event is always very exciting, I squeal in delight when she surprises me with her beautiful, delicately scented, cerulean blooms.



Meanwhile, the plants and seeds we put into the warm earth of the early Autumn are thriving with lots of volunteer natives making an appearance. In two different locations we have Artemesia californica, cowboy sage, coming up on its own. The wild roses and Matilija poppies are sending out underground shoots and spreading nicely.

Baby oaks are all over the slope, thanks to the acorn fairies, the squirrels.

I can just imagine the excitement in the bees hive, which reminds me, must do a check and add more boxes for the honey flow!