Saturday flowers

This small flower with its bright lavender stamen never opens further than this. Yet it packs a punch of color. It grows in the yard of my friend Megan down the street. Its botanical name is Malvaviscus arboreus, or "Turk's Cap" and it's related to the hibiscus.

This vine grows on my neighbor's fence - it's covered with bright orange flowers and tons of buds. It's Thunbergia gregorii, also called "Golden Clock Vine."

This vine grows on a gate to a driveway down the hill. More shy to bloom - there were only a few clusters of flowers open, but they are such a pretty color they stand out. It's also a Thunbergia - and how different it is from it's relation, above! I think this is Thunbergia grandiflora, the "Blue Sky Flower."

The bright vermillion flowers of Tecomaria capensis, or "Cape Honeysuckle," a vigorous shrub growing in a front yard down the street, attract hummingbirds in our mild autumn weather.

These are the flowers I encounter on my morning walk. Here in Southern California, they're still blooming, well into November.

Get your Goat

We went to the Alameda Swap Meet a while back, and we were hungry when we got there. The swap meet is dominated by one big restaurant, but there are other small vendors set up selling specialties.

You could get bacon-dogs, tacos, churros, roasted corn, and agua frescas.

I saw this vendor, heating tortillas for tacos, with a big roasting pan of braised meat. I asked her for a taco - they were $1.50 each - and before she fixed one for me, she looked at me a bit sternly and pointed out that this was "chivo" or goat-meat.

I nodded. Fix it up. She gave me a taco on a paper plate, and I added some chopped onion, cilantro, and hot sauce from the bottle.

Roasted goat-meat tacos. It tasted like goat, for sure, but it was pretty good.

Green woods

All it takes is one autumn rainfall, here in the Santa Monica Mountains, and the annual grasses that set seed this past spring sprout up, a tender new green in the shady areas beneath the coast live oaks. This fresh grass will grow through the winter's rains, until the rangy weeds of spring lengthen and flower and, finally, set seed and die again.

The hills, which have been dry and brown since May, are now vibrant with new growth. Here is a shady oak grove we pass each morning on our walk. There's a stone bench set beneath the trees. A nice place to sit and contemplate the changing of the seasons.

Vertical gardens

Garden at the Musee de Quai Branly, Paris

Staying a while with the idea of green Jodi is exploring at the Women's Colony - we all love gardens, especially when we encounter them in a city, where they are like an oasis of green amid the concrete.

But space is limited in cities, so you have to be creative. Like this guy.

Patrick Blanc is a French botanist, artist, designer, engineer and gardener. He specializes in the creation of Vertical Gardens, or Le Mur Vegetal - the vegetal wall.



In Paris, at the Musee de Quai Branly, he has planted the walls of the museum's administrative building with a lush assortment of tropical plants, and we saw it this summer when we visited - an amazing surprise when you encounter it from the sidewalk.


Blanc's technique involves a steel framework attached to a wall that holds a PVC plate covered with thick non-degradable felt. Behind the felt are a network of pipes or hoses that allow water to trickle down the wall to a gutter at the base - from which it is pumped back to the top to trickle down again. The felt absorbs the water by capillary action. Plants are set in holes cut into the felt-covered plate, and their roots cling to the soaked felt like mosses cling to rocks on cliffsides.


The plants can be arranged in a layout that can be patterned almost like a tapestry or patterned carpet, clustering colors and textures in swirls or lines or curving swaths.


Blanc has created Vertical Gardens indoors or outdoors, for private clients or for large public institutions. Some of his installations are part of restaurants or retail spaces; others may be temporary. Recently, he installed a wall in Tacoma, Washington State at the Goodwill-Milgard Center.


You can go to his website and see a list of his installations world-wide. You can also see a presentation about his work, and read news stories about his Vertical Gardens.

Maybe there's one near you - or you'll just have to go to Paris.

Paris Window Shopping

Dig this crazy motorcycle!!

Displayed at the Marche Paul Bert, in the flea markets of Paris at Porte de Clignancourt.

Now that's a ride! What kind of gas mileage do you suppose it gets?

Don't be one

You know what this is. Sometimes you gotta remind yourself not to behave like one.

Today at a staff meeting chaired by my Boss's Boss, we were encouraged to ask questions about a new initiative being planned at work - the message was "We are trying to be as transparent as possible, and we know that many of you have questions, and we want you to feel safe voicing your concerns."

So I asked a question. I wanted to hear Boss's Boss's take on the initiative. Buzz-words had been used to describe our goal that could be interpreted many different ways - what were the specifics as he saw them? I have had little day-to-day contact with him, so I had never heard his take on it. I was genuinely curious.

Later today my supervisor grilled me about why I asked it, saying she was worried that I lacked understanding about her directions to me. She said Boss's Boss had asked her why I asked it, while they had lunch after the meeting.

Thanks for the positive reinforcement. I'm not asking any more questions at staff meetings.

Green

Over at The Women's Colony, Jodi challenges us to present photos that showcase the color GREEN.

The startling green of an oak leaf, blown from the trees to the pavement after a spring storm.

The cool, toothed green leaves of the tropical plant Melianthus major, thriving in the warm California sun in the garden.

Close-up - the pod of a lotus blossom, after the bloom is spent, in a friend's water garden.

A bowl of savory, slow-cooked, chopped greens from my favorite barbecue stand, J & J Burger Shack on West Adams in L.A.

Fresh green beans and English peas on sale at the Santa Monica Wednesday Farmers' Market.

The green tinged pottery of classic California Bauer pottery, seen here at an antique show.

A dusty green velvet chair, inviting us to sit and read, in the stacks of the famous bookstore "Shakespeare & Co." on the Left Bank in Paris.

Fruit from my lime tree, high summer, in Southern California.

The brilliantly painted Victorian James and Bessie Hale House, circa 1887, preserved at Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles. Green predominates the spectacularly gaudy color scheme.

This guy, green as the leaves, fattening himself up on flowers and bugs before his transformation into a beautiful butterfly.

Green!