February Ice Storm Part I: The Descent

The winter of 2020-21 had, until last week, been yet another incredibly mild one, so far even warmer in my garden than the previous year. The lowest temperature I saw over the 19-20 winter was 24F/-4.5C, and it was looking like I might make it out of 20-21 with a low of 30F/-1C! Zone 10a!

Then the weather forecasts started getting ominous. As meteorologists started talking of an impending arctic blast event, various weather apps started showing insane lows of temperatures in the teens (F), which seemed absolutely apocalyptic even though a low of something like 15 or 18 isn’t abnormal for here. But it is indeed unusual for such lows to be happening this late in the season. My dreams of having January be a colder month than February were quickly melting.

Closer to the actual onset of the storm, this weather app finally showed what turned out to be fairly accurate predictions (temps in C):

Friday, February 12, after a dusting of ice pellets, the snow commenced. Looks relatively benign at this stage; 9:30am.

Backyard view out my window. Quercus hypoleucoides on left, Eucalyptus perriniana center, in blue. We’ll be seeing these again as the storm progresses.

By about 4pm we had about 2″ of mostly fluffy snow.

I have several young hardy Agaves in the ground in various locations. They’re small enough that 2” of snow can make them look really cute with just their spines sticking up.

Agave parryi var truncata
Agava montana
Agava ovatifolia ‘Huasteca Giant’

Agave ovatifolia ‘Frosty Blue,’ a gift from a dear friend in California, is right up under Grevillea ‘Ivanhoe,’ reportedly a zone 9b plant. Also pictured here is an Asparagus fern. This spot right outside my front door is very protected (or so I think…), and gets extra heat from the house where there seems to be a leak. You can put your hand there and feel warm air flowing out.

Agave ovatifolia ‘Frosty Blue’ earning its moniker, with Grevillea ‘Ivanhoe’

I clipped a temperature gauge onto the tender Grevillea just to see how much warmer it is here. At the time this picture was taken (10pm Friday), the outdoor ambient temperature was about 25F.

16 percent humidity doesn’t seem right, but I do believe the 32F reading.

Speaking of Grevilleas, G. miqueliana var moroka has been supplying hummingbird food for a few weeks now.

I can never have enough bird food flowers on winter blooming shrubs, so here’s my spectacular Arctostaphylos ‘Myrtle Wolf’ which is also right by the front door. If you’re a manzanita fan and you don’t have this cultivar yet, change that!

Arctostaphylos ‘Myrtle Wolf’

The last thing I did before retiring my iPhone camera for the night was take some pictures of my young trees in the backyard. By this point, the precipitation had turned to freezing rain and we were in for a real ice storm. 9:30pm and icicles are long:

8:30 PM and the roof icicles are getting long – about 10-12″ here.

The next few tree pics were from around 10pm. First up is Quercus hypoleucoides. This handsome fellow has experienced getting bent to the ground once before, so I was confident it would be fine no matter what.

Quercus hypoleucoides

Now let’s check on Eucalyptus perriniana, who has only been in the ground exactly a year. I had it staked initially, but had actually removed the tie to the stake just a handful of weeks ago. So you can see the metal fencepost stake here but the tree is not connected to it.

Eucalyptus perriniana, the spinning gum

I actually staked this olive in preparation for this storm, because I realized after checking on it a couple weeks ago that it was a bit rocky in the ground – not firmly rooted. It was initially leaning more to the left, so I placed the stake off to the right and gave it a loose, low tie. Two stakes probably would have been ideal, probably.

Olive ‘Leccino’

Finally the tree I am actually, at this point, concerned about. Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. asplenifolius, the Catalina Ironwood, is an evergreen with big ferny leaves that are going to catch and hold a tremendous amount of ice. It’s very strongly rooted, so I wasn’t worried about it falling over like with the olive; I was more concerned about it snapping branches.

Lyonothamnus

And look closely at that picture. At this point, I actually had not even noticed it, but one branch was already snapped. It’s on the left about halfway up the tree. See it? I didn’t until just now, as I am posting this! The reason I didn’t notice is because 1) it was dark and 2) the portion of the branch that broke off didn’t make it to the ground! It was stuck hanging in the tree, glued to the lower foliage by the ever-increasing load of ice.

My phone has this really pretty amazing feature of automatic long-exposure for night photos. So what I was seeing with my own eyes was significantly darker than what you see in these 3-second exposure pics. I am frankly glad I missed the snapped branch that night, or I would have worried more.

In the next post I’ll show you what I woke up to find the next morning. And I think I’ll make a third post for all the obligatory artsy ice photos that are so irresistable when this sort of thing happens.

Plants in the mail!

Back when I was really into cars the running joke was about how you should always have your car parts mailed to your neighbor, so your wife doesn’t see how much you’ve been ordering online (and how much $$$)… Well, it’s no different with plants, but this time, it was fellow blogger Lance Garden Riots who had the order sent to me!

Now, to be fair, he didn’t really do it to hide it from his wife. It’s because we went in on the order together to save on shipping, and the delivery timing coincided better with a time I’d be able to receive it.

It’s always interesting to see how plants are shipped. I was impressed with this method!

plants in a shipping box

Flowers by the Sea is a mail order nursery specializing in Salvia, a genus that I find particularly interesting, not only for their utility to pollinators, but also because so many are drought-tolerant heat lovers and that’s a pretty important niche in any west coast garden especially inland.

Continuing with the unpacking, under the layer of peanuts there are plants, each in a 4″ pot, very carefully wrapped in 2-3 sheets of newsprint:

plant wrapped for shipping
Salvia pachyphylla ‘Blue Flame’

The first one is Lance’s – Salvia pachyphylla ‘Blue Flame’ aka Giant Purple Desert Sage. It doesn’t look giant here but the foliage smells wonderful – that classic desert sage scent. I can’t wait to see what Lance does with it!

plant wrapped in paper

The taller plants had been folded over inside the paper – you can sort of see that here (I’ve unfolded this one). There was very little breakage.

salvia plant in pot

The above pictured was the only plant that had any of its soil come out of the pot, and as you can see it was only a bit of a dusting.

unboxed mail-order plants
The whole shipment

Here they are all unboxed. My two are the Salvia africana-lutea ‘Kirstenbosch’ (in front with the brown flowers) and the one directly behind it which is Salvia x jamensis ‘Full Moon’. I had also ordered S. semiatrata but unfortunately it was out of stock by the time they shipped.

Now here they are one day later – they’ve unfolded a bit and I have all the confidence in the world that they’ll continue to do so and in a week there will be no remaining evidence of having been folded over for shipping. Pretty neat technique!

boink

In other Salvia-related news, I’m changing up the area by the front door which involves removing (finally, phew) the gigantic ‘Hot Lips’ as well as (at least most of) the culinary sage ‘Berggarten’. Both are very successful plants there, but dangit, I want more interesting things in that highly visible area. Honestly I’ve been sort of stuck, design-wise, in this area for a while (analysis paralysis, anyone?) but my housemate Kate got me unstuck. Basically, she said the Hot Lips is boring and the red and white color is pretty gaudy, and the culinary sage is just an oversized blob that belongs in a less prominent spot, if we’re going to have it at all. Despite my myriad excuses for leaving those plants (both of which came with the house) in place for so long, I knew immediately that she’s absolutely right.

Anyway stay tuned – here’s a “before” pic:

culinary sage plant
So very successful. But I’m over it.

Lastly, I’m happy to report that my S. discolor made it through the winter in its pot, protected under my patio right up against the house. Now it’s out in the garden looking very pretty!

Salvia discolor and that’s Digitalis ‘Honey Trumpet’ at left

Happy gardening.

April: Migration begins

Now that I’m seeing nighttime temperatures pretty reliably in the 40’s, I’ve been moving some tender plants outdoors gradually.

First up is the lime (Citrus hystrix), who looks better than ever before coming out of winter indoors. Last fall it got a re-pot into a more free-draining mix, and, it’s been under an LED grow light all winter. It’s had a great winter, even flowering and fruiting!

 

This Colocasia has actually been out here for maybe a week or so. It did not like the 33° dip we had a couple nights ago and I expect it will lose all these leaves. Just as well since they’re all small and etiolated.

 

Two of four mature Pelargoniums. The green one is a rose geranium and the other is ‘Vancouver Centennial’ which might be my favorite – although the fragrance of the rose-scented one is to die for.

Look at this gorgeous foliage. The flowers are a bright carmine and just stunning against these leaves.

Not pictured are a couple of Monsteras and other indoor subtropicals that I’m taking outdoors only during daytimes for now. Eventually I hope to give most of them summer vacations outdoors – at least, the hardier ones that can take cool summer nights.

Lastly a flat of vegetables that one hardened off and need to get in the ground. I kind of love how these look.

It’s three varieties of lettuce, spring cabbage (Quick Start), peas (Oregon Sugar Pod II), and the single sweet pea that actually germinated of the 10 or 12 seeds I sowed. Not sure what’s up with that but I tried again and set the tray outside so we’ll see.

Post update:

Apparently we’re in for a bit of a rainstorm with possibly significant wind.  Some people actually put tinfoil over the tops of the pots and around the trunks of their citrus to avoid rainfall causing waterlogging but I’m lucky enough to have a bright covered patio so everyone goes under that if it’s pouring.

Grace’s comment below inspired me to add this last frost date thing, which is better than just saying “April 20” because you can see that it’s a matter of declining probability:

What does “Wp Ap” mean? My guess is Airport.

I like that data for 24 and 28 degrees is included.  The link to the page this came from is in the comments below.

 

Next up: last month’s visit to Little Prince nursery, then we’ll take a stroll around the garden and see what’s happening in the landscape.