Plants I'm Growing: Aloe polyphylla

Aloe polyphylla is a fairly hard-to-find aloe variety prized for its large spirals of small leaves (its Latin name means 'many-leaved'). I have two, one doing poorly, the other very happy. Watering the garden this morning, I was thrilled to see that the larger of the two appears to be very happy, indeed; it's preparing to flower. It has developed a large cluster of buds.  I've never seen this variety in flower before. Looking forward to it... 

Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms--Yarrow "Moonshine," Aloe Buhrii (2011)

First blooms of 2011 yesterday on the Yarrow called "Moonshine" and on Aloe Buhrii, one of the most successful aloes here. It shrugs off the cold (it's a native of high elevations in South Africa), blooms reliably, and has attractive yellow-green mottled leaves in a pretty rosette. Coincidentally, both plants bloomed on the same day also in 2010, on May 15. Thus, both plants calculated a botanical year--from bloom to bloom--of 369 days. "Moonshine" bloomed on May 8 in 2009, for a year of 372 days in 2010. Aloe Buhrii bloomed on May 11 in 2009, for a year of 371 days in 2010.

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: Aloe Buhrii, Achillea "Moonshine" (2010)

First blooms today on Aloe buhrii and on one of the yarrows in the garden, Achillea millefolium "Moonshine." Aloe buhrii has been among the most successful aloes in the garden, chiefly because it's a native of high altitudes in South Africa and therefore has no problem with the winter cold. It was completely unaffected by the cold winter of 2009-2010 (cold for Santa Rosa; it got down to about 23 degrees). The first flower among many on a strong central spike opened today to reveal the tips of a few stamens. This plant bloomed in 2009 on May 11. A year according to Aloe buhrii was therefore 369 days.

Likewise, "Moonshine" has been the most successful of all the Achillea millefolium varieties I've tried in the garden. Most live a year or two and then disappear. This plant has come back reliably for five years now. It blooms over a long period. The native bees seem to love it (there's one drinking nectar in the photo here). In 2009, this plant bloomed on May 8, for a year of 372 days.

Many yellow flowers, not all as successful as these.

Plants I'm Growing: Aloes

At year-end I visited the Ruth Bancroft Garden, in Walnut Creek, a small but interesting collection of cacti and succulents. A lot of plants were covered for frost protection (a disappointment), but quite a few aloe varieties were blooming. There was a small selection of plants for sale. I added three frost hardy (I hope) new species to the garden--Aloe pratensis, Aloe mudenensis, and Aloe distans. Staff member Brian Kemble kindly provided me a list of the more hardy aloes. His list can be found various places on the Web, for example on the site of the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (the link is to the list, not the garden itself). A pleasant detour. (The photo shows a large Opuntia, or prickly pear, with a persimmon tree in the background--no aloes.)

Plants I'm growing: Cuckoos and Clocks, Aloes and Woes

It's said that English gentleman used to vie for the honor of reporting the first cuckoo call of spring each year. (I wonder how many imagined cuckoo calls got mixed in with the real ones and how much paper and ink was consumed staking the claim?) No doubt, the origin of the cuckoo clock is buried in there somewhere. Quaint.

OK, I admit it. I like this way of marking the passage of a year. Englishmen used cuckoos. Egyptians used the flooding of the Nile. I suppose there are any number of natural cycles that could be tracked to gauge the duration of a year. Over time, it would be interesting to see how closely these approximate the astronomical year. It wouldn't surprise me to learn there are people whose hobby it is to follow some natural indicator of the passing of time. So, this is hardly a new idea. I like it nevertheless. 

For several years I've made half-hearted attempts to record the first bloom date of the various plants in our rather diverse garden as a way of marking time. Kept up long enough and carefully recorded, a record of these dates might provide a bit of interesting quaintness for someone to ponder in the future. Typically, I have scribbled notes on scraps of paper and then promptly lost them or given up mid-year. In short, I've never really made a go of this little project. With January 1st looming, however, I'm thinking of trying again. Dates reported here might be easier to keep track of than scraps of paper. Stay tuned. 

Our Aloe arborescens (a large aloe native to South Africa) put up a flower stalk this year for the first time. I've waited several years for this plant to bloom. What else offers showy spikes of bright red flowers in the middle of December? So unexpected, so welcome. Unfortunately, the plant is sensitive to frost. Planted with its back to a stone wall that blocks wind and radiates heat from the sun, it's well protected, but the single flower stalk has blackened and gone limp, a rather depressing development. I will have to wait another year for the chance to see it, a year spent wondering if it will bloom. When it's time to put up another shoot around Christmas, will I be able to see it? I don't know. I can only wait. Perhaps I will be able to use the annual withering of my hopes for this blossom as one of my garden indicators of the annual cycle; it may simply be too cold for it.

(The plants here were photographed at the Strybing Arboretum, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.)