Hidden Gems: Figueroa at Sycamore Park [Ave 46?]

First, let's start this post off with a little Zapp & Roger. I've heard this blasting from many cars growing up in the 90042 area.

I drive up North Figueroa a lot when I know the 110 might be crowded.  I've always noticed a lot of Succulents across from the Sycamore Park, where the painted arch and stairway is.  I finally stopped and was happy to find an awesome path. When you walk up the [Glenmary] stairs through the arch, that was painted bu students from Franklin High School in 2010, there is a little nook with a Guadalupe altar.  It's a neat little urban moment when you stumble across things like this [and there are tons of them in Northeast Los Angeles  http://framework.latimes.com/2011/07/04/guardians-of-the-guadalupe/].  The stairs are set in a T with path on each side that lead to the houses and apartments up there.  There are lots of euphorbia, aloes, and agaves plated throughout.  There's a lot of trash thrown around, but it still an amazing hidden gem.

     

If you walk further up Figueroa there is another lot full of succulents next to the historic home locate on the corner of Figueroa and Ave 49 next to the school. Note: Do not wear leather soled cowboy boots if you're going to climb a dirt hill = major slippage.

Beautiful bougainvillea tunnel.

Neighborhood Cleanup with The Gun Club

To get to the park that I go running at, I always trip on this overgrown ivy at the bottom of my street, so I decided to do something about it.  I went down there with my green trash can and all the necessary garden tools for the job.  Ironically, For the Love of Ivy by The Gun Club came on my ipod right when I was about to get to work.  The lady who lives next door helped me with the clean up so I didn't listen to anything else after that, but it was a really good moment. Thanks shuffle!

Hidden Gems Ave 57: Cactus House/ La Culebra

I thought this song was fitting just because.

All around the neighborhood I've been noticing that there are lot of yards with cactus and succulent gardens.  There are also lots of amazing little hidden parks and trails.  The yard below is AMAZING.  The house is on Ave 57 and Benner [I live in LA if you haven't guess already].  They have an old Craftsman type of house and a gigantic lot with a huge garden.  I love peeking in to see all their plants. You might not notice the yard because they have a chain link fence that surrounds the property.

View of yard on Ave 57

Across the street from the house is a small art park called La Culebra [The Snake].  All the terraces in the park are formed by a large winding stone snake.  It's really peaceful there.  There are lots of aloe and agave throughout the small park and plenty of artistic details to explore.

One More Cup of Coffee...One More Walk Through

I went to LA Arboretum today kind of just for the hell of it and to see if there were any cactus in bloom since it's that time of year again. It looks like a lot of the aloes are about to bloom, so I'll have to visit in a couple weeks, which is good because the race track will be open then.

The gardens at the Arboretum are gorgeous. The primary focus is aloe [over 150 kind] and small euphorbia. The aloes are stunningly magnificent. Many of them are in tree form. Next time I'm at the Arboretum I want to take a guided tour if they have one. I'm curious about the age of most of these plants, which have to be very old since they are slow growers.

I always have to walk through the cactus/succulent areas twice when I'm at a garden because I don't want to miss anything. I almost didn't get to see the area with the large tree aloes pictured below.

For this post I'm going to share Bob Dylan's One More cup of Coffe. I was thinking it would be a good song to hear at a bar and my friends randomly spun it on their DJ night the next day. This song is beautiful.

Rip Off [Remake] The Old Block...

I want to post pictures of the Haworthia I have. Lee made me a planter box a while back and I planted a little haworthia, aloe, and gasteria garden in it. The original cutting is from the artist Mike Kelly's yard which makes me really happy. A friend of mine was doing some yard work for him, so naturally the cutting was procured [My rip off and reamake]. I didn't have the cutting in the right part of my yard/ correct watering situation at first and almost lost it. The plant is doing really in a partial sun and light watering twice a week when it's hot. Left is a picture of the plant earlier this year right before it bloomed a beautiful red flower. Below is the box and the a picture of the plant and all it's pups taken recently.

Amongst his awesome sculptural and video work, Mike Kelly did the album cover for Sonic Youth's Dirty album [pictured above]. Theresa's Soundworld is a great song off Dirty. Personally, I think Murray Street might be my favorite Sonic Youth album.

Speaking of rip offs and remakes... I have to share two of the best tributes/covers which are Sonic Youth's of Kim Fowley's Bubblegum [1969] and Ciccone Youth's cover of Madonna's Into the Groove.

SONIC YOUTH:

KIM FOWLEY:

Horny Little Cactus

I believe this "little guy," that I bought at the depot, is in the Echinopsis family. I planted it in the middle of July and was really afraid this cactus would burn planting it in such a hot month. Apparently it has rooted and is totally shaking it's tail feathers. I really had no idea that this cactus would bloom. I noticed that it was starting to bloom [and it was frankly quite phallic.] Each day the shoot would get bigger and bigger. I didn't check on the shoot the last two days, so when I took the dogs out today and noticed this huge beauty I was very happy. It's really easy to miss cactus blooms since some displays only last one or two days. This was the best surprise of the day and definitely brought some cheeky, sexy tunes to mind...

Blue Velvet Agaves

I'm stretching these associations but when I was looking at the pictures of these blue agaves Blue Velvet came to mind and naturally so did Roy Orbison because of the best scenes of any movie I've ever seen is the one where Dean Stockwell's character lip syncs In Dreams.

I think that Pantomime is one of the best and overlooked Roy Orbison songs. The little guitar rift that comes in is so good. If you ever come across it on vinyl buy it. Roy sounds better on warm analogue. This is one of my favorite songs and one of the worst youtube videos ever:

These agaves are actually Agaves americana originally from Mexico.They are greenish grey, but I think they look bluish. They have a beautiful woodgrain type of patter on them, so if you've never noticed take a closer look when you see one of these plants since they are all over L.A. Keep an eye on them when and where you plant them because they get very big and once they are established their pups shoot up everywhere. The leaves get up to 6ft each... I hope I can handle those guys when they they grow up.

Agaves americana surround this environmental staue outside the Brand Art Library in Glendale, CA.

Typing "Americana" reminded me of these guys..ah hah

All the Way to Heaven

I'm trying to decide where I want to plant the Alluaudia Procera that I recently bought at Home Depot of all places. In their natural habitat in Southern Madagscar they grow over 20ft tall...All the way to heaven. These might only reach 8ft here. I've seen this plant in other gardens and I'm excited I found one of my own.

The Godz of Thailand

I went to Thailand and Vietnam this April. I knew that sansevieria [the most common is mother in law tongues] are popular in Thailand, but I didn't know what other types of succulents people were into there. A neighbor of mine who is a succulent enthusiast/ hoarder got special permits to buy plants on his vacation to Thailand. Here is a link to the type he bought.

People have lots of potted plants outside their homes and businesses and many of them include different types of sansevieria. Below are some pictures of other succulents and plants I saw at a little market near a river in Bangkok. A lot of people go to this market to eat catfish and take boats to other floating markets. Here's a tune by The Godz, a late 60s New York based garage band, to accompany.

Lots of catfish!

Feeding catfish.

Papaya salad boat. That was good.

Serene