The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Teenage Angst and the Orchid Show

 

My 14-year-old kept complaining that his socks were wet. “Why do your socks keep getting wet? Is there a hole in your shoe?” He took off his shoe. I took it from him and turned it over. His right shoe was missing its sole. How could he not know one of his shoes was completely missing its sole?

It was raining outside. Ignorance is definitely bliss, but now that I knew of the sole-less shoe, I had to buy him a new pair. So I started to hatch my evil plan.

You see, I had been reading the garden section of the paper and it just so happened that the shoe store was down the street from where the Orchid Exhibit was.

I didn’t have a lot of time to hit the shoe store and the Orchid Show, so this is how I managed it. I drove into the parking lot through a giant puddle, throwing a wall of water over some unsuspecting umbrella carrying pedestrian. Before the car had stopped moving I told my son to undo his seatbelt, run in and start searching through the sale shoes for something his size.

I leaped out of the driver’s seat, my car still rocking back and forth in PARK. I passed my son going through the front door of the store. I ran to the back of the store where the shoes were, bumping into an indecisive sports-bra buyer. I had three pair picked out before my son made it back to where I was holding three stacked shoeboxes.

I threw him into a chair, told him to take his shoes off, and put a different shoe on each foot. All three pairs fit, so I asked him to choose two. He did. We paid. We left.

On to the orchids.

As soon as I told my son where we were going next the angst set in. “I’m tired. How long do we have to stay? Are you going to take pictures? How many pictures? I’m hungry. I have a headache. I have a stomachache. My finger itches. My left arm just fell off. Can we go now? How about now? What about now? Can we go now? Now?”

We ended up spending as much time at the Orchid show as the Shoe Store.

Enjoy my hastily taken photos.

Honor System

My friends and I had a “girls weekend” a couple of weeks ago.

It was all that and more. There was eating and drinking and shopping and spa-ing. We ran along the beach every morning.

We stayed at my friend’s parent’s house, a beautiful estate in Montecito. When it came time to leave, I wanted to give them a gift. Most people give cut flowers but I like to give live plants because after a week or so the plant will still look beautiful.

Throwing out dead flowers depresses me, so I always put it off, even if the flowers are gone and all the decaying petals are lying on the table around a vase full of decaying stems, they just sit there, until my husband says something like, “Honey? Do you want me to take those flowers outside for you?”

My girlfriend kept insisting that her parents were just like she was when it came to keeping plants alive. Which meant that the plants would keel over as soon as I left. I kept insisting that even if the plant did succumb to some sort of plant torture, live flowers would stay alive longer than a bouquet of cut flowers purchased for the same amount of money.

Trust me. I’m cheap. I know these things. This seemed to strike a chord with her, so she drove me to the local nursery, which wasn’t open because it was Sunday. Then she took me to another local nursery, which looked even better, until I noticed that it too was closed.

What kind of nursery closes on Sunday? The answer is the kind of nursery owned by people who don’t need to work on Sundays, the kind of people who already have a lot of money, the kind of people who live in Montecito.

We pulled into the parking lot to turn around and I noticed that all the gates to the nursery were opened and I began to question the fact that it was indeed closed. I got out of my friend’s van and walked toward the entrance. It was wide open. I wanted to run in slow motion towards the nursery entrance like long separated lovers run towards each other in romantic movies but my girlfriends had gotten out of the van and were following me in.


The inside gate was open also. There were hundreds of wonderful and exotic plants in beautiful pots. There were fountains trickling with water. There were wind chimes and garden sculptures. The only things missing were the nursery employees. The entrance to the small nursery’s office was the only door that was closed and locked. All the merchandise was out and exposed and there for the taking.

Now I’m cheap, but I’m not a thief. O.K., I did think about it.


My friend was driving a van after all. All we would have had to do was back up the van, load it up, and drive home. Simple as taking a bottle of pear Ripple from a 7/11—not that I would know what that was like.


I perused up and down the narrow pathways of the small tidy nursery. I wouldn’t even have to stick anything under my shirt I could pick it up and walk out the gaping gateway to the parking lot.

Finally my girlfriends peeled my white-knuckled fingers off a yellow cymbidium, and escorted me back to the idling van.

We drove away from the nursery without so much as a tulip, my face pressed up against the glass watching the little nursery get smaller and smaller, a tear rolling down my cheek.

How To Care For Your Lemon Cypress

I found this arrangement in a little Central California town called Los Olivos in the Martini Valley. I'm just kidding about the Martini Valley part. I don't even know if such a place exists.

I walked out of my yoga class Sunday morning. I was feeling quite grounded, peaceful and relaxed. I was also feeling sort of...peckish. Lucky for me I stepped right out of the Yoga Center into The Farmer’s market.

I bought a couple of yummy things from the Indian food booth and walked toward my car. On the way, I passed a plant booth with lemon cypress trees. They were so cute—they looked like mini trees. I have seen them before in arrangements specifically made to look like mini trees.

Then I saw their special sale price of only $2 a piece. The moment I saw that sale sign, I felt a warm breeze against my face carrying the heady aroma of the farmer’s market food booths. The sky seemed bluer and I could almost hear the birds in the trees calling my name—“cheap, cheap, cheap.”

Ahhh, I love Sundays.

The lemon cypress tree is known scientifically as cupressus macrocarpa. Their cultivar name is ‘Goldcrest’. It is a shrub native to California. Lemon cypress thrives in USDA hardiness zones 7 through 10. Its foliage is lemon-scented in the summer. Dwarf varieties do great as ornamentals in small pots. Larger trees are an interesting alternative to the traditional Christmas tree.

The lemon cypress does best in a location that gets at least five hours of full sun per day.

If you are going to keep them indoors, keep the cypress near the window for maximum light. Lemon cypress plants do best outside, so it can be tricky trying to keep them alive indoors for any length of time. Keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. They also like to be fed on a regular basis with something acidic like Miracid. Do not over feed them.

Lemon cypresses are very susceptible to aphids. Spray them at the beginning of spring or at the first sign of aphids, which leave a black, sooty substance on the tree. This damage can occur quickly, and a lemon cypress may take several seasons to recover from an infestation.

Lemon cypress must be pruned on a regular basis to maintain their natural triangle shape. Pruning is so important, that if the cypress is not pruned it will go brittle and quickly and die.

Placed in an attractive pot, they also make a nice hostess gift. So, when you come to my next party, you know what to bring.

Happy planting.