The Giant Amsinckia of Union City

 This giant Amsinckia flower is stretched oout over five or six stories overlooking a play ground in Union City near the BART station. Kudos to the artist!

Who painted this amazing mural?

It was Mona Caron. Check her on Facebook and on Laughing Squid.

The Quincunx, mystically considered

Huge fan, I am, of reading old gardening books.

While looking for some good pictures of roses for the current Días de los Muertos art project, I ran across this odd word - Quincunx. Odd and old, not to mention hard to pronounce.

Wikipedia has an entry for it. Merriam Webster has a definition. Visually it is the five spot on a domino - four dots on the corner and one in the middle.  The origin is thus: "Latin quincunc-, quincunx, literally, five twelfths, from quinque five + uncia twelfth part". According to MW, first known use was 1485. Now I'm still thinking how does 5/12 relate to planting.

Both the California Nursery and Fancher Creek Nursery talked about orchard planting and the Quincunx. Roeding's Fruit Growers Guide (1919) probably helped disseminate the information.

Visiting with your favorite deceased horticulturist

The redwood has embraced this gravestone.

This is an early start to thinking about this year's Días de los Muertos. Maybe these are thoughts you have when you take out the old tomatoes and start thinking about planting fava beans.

Last week our landscape drawing class had a field trip to the Mountain View Cemetery. On the way up the hill, Bryn and Robert and I had a conversation which, because we were in a cemetery, it was only slightly morbid. Where did we want to be parked when we are done with our earthly bodies?

Over the years of taking care of the older folks, I have decided that I want to be sprinkled about in some of my favorite mushroom hunting grounds. I'm hoping to hitch a ride up and down the xylem and phloem of a redwood until I settle into a ring of wood. That redwood might be long lived enough that I could spend some time there before being made into a fence or a mole den.

So that's what I said - I just want my folks (whoever they are at that time) to sprinkle me up and down the coastal forests. [and that includes some local ones which shall remain nameless]

The Undecidable Woods - Le Bois de Lauzelle

Le Bois de Lauzelle is located in Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium.
The trees may be beeches.
I will look through my pics to see if I can confirm.
Photo by M. Balk

When Little Bart was in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, she posted this picture of le Bois de Lauzelle on her blog. The photo of green trees and red forest floor immediately resonated with something that I had seen before. I pictured a horsewoman, gliding in and out of the trees, at least sort of, but in an odd way.

Branch Studies

Oak tree branch and rocks and hills

Whenever I hike in our local parks, I see the scenes that Eyvind Earle painted. (No, silly, not Sleeping Beauty's castle)

His landscape pictures capture the look and feel of the coastal hills of California - coastlines, green or golden rolling oak hills, long shadows of cattle or trees. Many of his pictures have a tree branch in the foreground. I have wondered about those tree branches. 

Thirty-Six Views of Mission Peak

Many of us Fremont-ers treat Mission Peak as our Mt. Fuji.
Wherever we go we have our own "Where's Waldo?".
This view is from Sabercat Creek.

I really love the  Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji. Each picture has Mt. Fuji in it somewhere, either prominently or somewhat hidden. When you look at each picture, it's like looking for a friend in a crowd or .... a "Where's Waldo?" game!

Tomato Sepal Sprites

At this time of the year, Tomato Season, I am always amused by the tops of the fresh garden tomatoes. Also known as the sepals of the tomato flower and fruit, the tops are very animated looking, almost like little happy people.

Illustrated Plant Nut picture

The original Illustrated Plant Nut picture was inspired by a sculpture called "De Zee" or "The Sea".  It is commonly known as Dikke Matilde (Thick Matilda) and is near Leopold Park in Ostende, Belgium. The artist is Georges Grard (1901-1984) who was influenced by Aristide Maillol, Charles Despiau, and Pierre Renoir.

Chorus of Winter Buds

This is a really sweet book that shows the winter buds of plants that look strangely human: Chorus of Winter buds.

This book is very reminiscent of Karl Blossfeldt's photos from Urformen der Kunst, only with poetry and a humorous slant.

I first heard about Karl Blossfeldt while taking a drawing class with my daughter and several other grade-school children.  What fun that class was to see how kids draw.