She Ain't No Bonnie... She Ain't No Daisy

Two things I didn't know this fall: Lithops bloom this time of year and a white woman named Ruth Copeland, who I found about through my friend Stone, was involved with work on the Parliament-Funkadelic's debut album, Osmium.

Lithops are often known as pebble plants or living stones.Lithops generally do not like too much water especially when they go dormant in the summer. This one I had in a pot on the porch and it got a lot of water in the recent rain. I removed what looked like old, rotted leaves and moved the pot to a dry area. The plant must have been happy because it produced a beautiful daisy like bloom.

Here are some helpful tips from the San Gabriel Valley Cactus & Succulent Society for caring for Lithops.

Back to the music...Ruth Copeland co-produced the Osmium record with Clinton and wrote two of the album's tracks: 'Little Old Country Boy' and 'The Silent Boatman'. These tracks are unusual in Parliament-Funkadelic's catalogue, and show the influence of Copeland's interest in country and British folk music. Copeland is definitely has an amazing voice and is talented writer, but I think this collaboration came about because first, she is gorgeous, and second, they were on the same label. I use to be a big fan of Parliament-Funkadelic when I was younger but I never explored the history of the band. I've never heard their "folk" side. I think if Ruth was Bonnie of Bonnie and Delaney she probably would have worked with Parliament much longer... Now that woman has soul!

Weirdest Parliament Song EVER... Folk/Funk You can totally hear her influence.

These are the Lithops that were shown at the San Gabriel Valley Cactus & Succulent Society 17th Winter Show & Sale. at the L.A. County Arboretum on November 6th. They had a lot of beautiful plants in the show. Beautiful Copiapoas and Mammillaria.

I love this cover by Ruth Copeland!

This Aint No Disco- Succulent Topiary

I love the California Cactus Center in Pasadena. It is overpriced, but they have so many amazing plants to look at and the staff is very knowledgeable. I think they are all members of the San Gabriel Cactus and Succulent Society [Hardcore Enthusiasts]. They have these topiaries around the center that may or may not be for sale but they're kind of cool. I felt inspired to make one. All they are are wire structures that are lined with chicken wire. For mine, I filled the structure with soil, added the plants, both rooted and non-rooted, and stuck moss in the exposed chicken wire.

My topiary looks a bit phallic. For the main structure I used a upside down tomato cage that I stuck the legs in to form the the top.

As usual a song always comes to mind when I'm looking at plants or for the most part doing anything. When I looked at the topiary the other day, it was Talking Heads " Life During Wartime," which is actually quite a political song on their Fear of Music album co-produced by Brian Eno. I thought I would talk about the evolution of Brian Eno from Roxy Music and beyond, but if you don't know of his magic look it up. It's a very important chunk of musical history from the early 70s to the birth of New Wave...

Here are some other succulent topiary ideas I came across:

http://cactuscreekdaily.com/love-it/succulent-cactus-wreaths-

http://community.adn.com/node/125533

and just to give you that fuzzy feeling... Give this one a listen for nostalgia's sake!

Good Old Opuntia

I have three different types of Opuntia [Prickly Pear] in my garden.

The Opuntia ficus-indica is the first cactus planted in the yard by my old room mate's mother who use to come and visit. She planted it to eat with eggs and in salsas. I have never picked and ate any of it myself because I didn't want to do all the cleaning. I think this video changed my mind.

They have beautiful yellow rose like blooms on them and grows very fast. I have to trim about 10 big paddles off of it a month. If you do not trim them they will grow very tall and wide. Prickly Pear were considered the most devastating "weed" imported into Australia. It had a horrible impact on life in rural eastern Australia during the early part of the 20th century. Special acts of Parliament were passed to enforce control measures in an attempt to halt its spread through Queensland and New South Wales.

The second "Opuntia" I got was the Opuntia basilaris, the Beavertail Cactus. I got this one from a cutting in Joshua Tree. It took two years for the cactus cutting to really root and it finally started growing more paddles last spring. I stayed in the Gram Parsons room at the Joshua Tree Inn when I got this cactus, so I'm picking Hickory Wind to accompany this post. The Byrds were pushed into a country direction when Gram Parsons briefly joined the band in 1968. Above is the "mama" in Joshua Tree [2008]. Below are the spring shoots and summer shoots [2010].

The third Opuntia I have is from El Paso, Texas. My boyfriend Lee brought back a heart shaped cutting for me from his Grandmother's yard when he went to visit during Thanksgiving of 2008. These plants are insanely resilient because I must of had that cutting in the paper bag he gave it to me in for a couple months. Then it was laying around the yard because I didn't know where to plant it. Some optunia grow very fast and get very large and I didn't know if this was the case with this kind. I decided to put it in a pot for the time being. Finally this spring it liked where it was and began rooting and growing.

Last Thanksgiving I went to Texas and got see the mama plant at "Babe's" house. No trip to Texas would be complete without Texas's own Roky Erickson.

Baby Sun Rose Lemonade

Aptenia cordifolia aka Baby Sun Rose or Ice Plant native to South Africa. I have a lot of love and pride for this plant. It took two years from a small cutting a friend gave me to grow into the vine that it is today. It is finally over the retaining wall and is doing exactly as I planned. One day I hope it covers the whole thing because it is beautiful over the wall. I'm not much of a fan of the plant used as ground covering or near other plants because if you don't keep an eye on this stuff it will take over everything it is near.

Unfortunately it is also the thrown for the "Lizard King." My dog Ozzy likes to chase lizards that hide in the plant. I always think of the Doors when he does that, but I'm not posting a Doors video. I'm not really into the Jim Morrison "persona." As dogs are dogs... Ozzy also pees under the plant on the retaining wall. So the Baby Sun Rose gets Baby Lemonade by Syd Barrett on his second album Barrett.

Ruscaceae Sansevieria Needs Sleepy Sun

My cousin introduced me to a new band recently called Sleepy Sun from San Francisco. I checked they're tour date and it happened they were playing last weekend 7/24/10 at Pappy and Harriet's in Pioneer Town near Joshua Tree.

Every time I go to Joshua Tree or Pioneer Town I try to visit the Cactus Mart in Morongo Valley on my way there or back. I might not always get something, but it's fun to look at all the stuff they have there. I boughta beautiful succulent this time that is in the Famly: Ruscaceae; Genus: Sansevieria. I can't find it's exact name. It needs filtered sunlight [Sleepy Sun] or it will burn. I think I have the perfect place to plant it.

After the cactus nursery excursion, later that night we saw Sleepy Sun play. They were in a great line up. Jay Babcock, the editor of Arthur Magazine, is now booking shows at Pappy and Harriet's. He invited the Radar Brothers of Atwater, CA to play that night. They played a great set and their sound was crisp and clear. It looked like their keyboard player was mixing some of their sound when he was playing. I'm not a music writer, so I'll try my best. The Radar Brothers reminded me of a more modern, interesting version of the Stone Roses. There were a lot of pop elements to the music that built up into a layered wall of noise that brought it all to a "fascinating crescendo."

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound followed and then Sleepy Sun came on. I like what I would call "New Psych" including bands like the Black Angels, so to me Sleepy Sun falls into that category. Their set BLEW ME AWAY. It was one of the better bands that I've seen in a while. I felt like I was totally transported away by their music and that doesn't happen too often when I see newer bands play.

The Traumatic Aeonium Urbicum

As you're going to figure out a lot of the succulents I have are from cuttings that may or or may not have been permitted. I feel like I may have redeemed myself by giving lots of plants away, but who is to say.

I got my first Aeonium Urbicum from a cutting I "took" from my friends Chris's old house in 2008, when he was editing Anavan's Traumatology video.

That's the first cutting on the left. You can see it already started shooting out little babies underneath the main head.

I'd give you technical terms but my books are down in the garage...

ANAVAN "Traumatology" from ANAVAN on Vimeo.

The aeonium urbicum grows low to the ground and forms clusters. Like must succulents and aeonium you can just snap one off the main plant, stick it in the ground and it will take off. If you plant cuttings in early spring they will grow like CRAZY because it's cool enough for them to root right away. Now I have these aeoniums all over the yards.

[top] February 2010

[bottom] Front Garden July 2010, Huge mounds from the cuttings I planted in the spring

It took me a while to get this because I really got into gardening during the summer of 2008. So I learned a lot about plants getting sun burn and taking too long to root because it's hot. The aeonium urbicum will sun burn, so if you plant one in the summer put it in a partially sunny spot. Water planted ones that are in full sun regularly to prevent burning. Like other aeoniums the urbicum will grow a lot of "air roots." These are roots that are on the stems of the plants above the ground that allow the plant to take in extra moisture from the air. So on the note of air I'll leave you with a song I've been really into lately Air by Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera.

Aeonium [arboreum] Pandemonium

Spring 2010 Aeonium about to bloom [left]

In my mind pandemonium means crazy and aeoniums grow like crazy and do some odd unexpected things. The name Aeonium comes from the ancient Greek "aionos" (=immortal). According to Merriam-Webster pandemonium means

Main Entry: Pan·de·mo·ni·um

Pronunciation: \ˌpan-də-ˈmō-nē-əm\

Function: noun

Etymology: New Latin, from Greek pan- + daimōn evil spirit — more at demon

Date: 1667

1 : the capital of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost 2 : the infernal regions : hell 3 not capitalized : a wild uproar : tumult

Pandemonium is also the name of a recent Pet Shop Boys album. The first Album I ever bought was Pet Shop Boys Introspective, but that's a whole other story. Now, when I think of the word pandemonium I hear Black Sabbath's Paranoid album in my head and when I see aeoniums ... So before I start going on and on about aeoniums let's get the mood ready.

Here's a little background to get started with

Aeonium is a genus of about 35 species of succulent, subtropical plants of the family Crassulaceae.

Most of them are native to the Canary Islands. Some species are found in Madeira, Morocco and in eastern Africa (for example in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia). The rosette leaves are on a basal stem. Low-growing Aeonium species are A. tabuliforme and A. smithii; large species include A. arboreum, A. valverdense and A. holochrysum. They are related to the genera Sempervivum, Aichryson and Monanthes, which is easy to see from their similar flower and inflorescences. Recently, the genus Greenovia has been placed within Aeonium.

The Tree Aeonium (Aeonium arboreum, Aeonium schwarzkopf or Aeonium korneliuslemsii)

Aeonium arboreum var.atropurpureum

This was the first aeonium I ever got and one of the first succulents that made me obsessed with succulents. A friend gave me a large one with an awesome curved trunk in late 2007 that was purple and a really small one that is very dark purple that almost looks black. I didn't know how fast they grew and how well adaptable they are. During that time I also heard the Monks for the first time and listened to Black Monk Time over and over again for about two months.

It seemed like it took forever, but those first two plants took off. When the tree aeoniums are in season, they branch out. You can just snap off one of the branches and stick it in the ground and it will grow into a new plant. [Give it a little time before you water it so it doesn't rot.] Now I have so many plants from those two.

At one point I thought that I was killing the plants because they go dormant in the summer and winter and drop their leaves.

I didn't know that eventually the aeoniums bloom these huge, unbelievable yellow blooms until one day it happened to the plant with the curved trunk. I didn't know if this aeonium was like certain agaves and yuccas that bloom and then die afterwards. After not finding any information on the subject, I cut the top of the plant off to try and prevent it from dying after blooming. The plant continued to bloom after I cut the whole top of it off and it did die, but it gave me lots of babies before it went.

March 16, 2009 April 20, 2009... The Stump Bloom

In the late winter/ early spring I threw one of the aeonium cuttings in the ground and that one bloomed right away.

I think it may have been a branch off the curved bloomer that died. I think they do die after they bloom because this one looks done. You never know with these guys... Maybe it left seeds when it bloomed.

March 2010

July 2010