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.