A Gardener's Notebook

Olives, originally uploaded by dewelch. Morgantina is an ancient Greek city her on the island of Sicily. It was taken over by the Romans in 211 BC. Substantial ruins remain and we toured them the other day. In the parking lot, the major patch of shade on this extremely hot day was provided by this [...]

Our cousin, Vito in Regalbuto, does some wonderful plantings, including bonsai olive trees. Here, he has made great use of the traditional cups used for coffee in the ubiquitous Sicilian bars that are on nearly every corner. I love the effect gained by massing a bunch of these together on a shelf. I think it [...]

Grape Vines and grapes in monastary vineyard, originally uploaded by dewelch. I saw this amazing scene when we visited a restored monastery last night in Nicolosi. For me, this sums up the beauty of the outdoors and of Sicily itself. The sun, the vines, the grapes all together. I have had a small dream of [...]

Zinnia, originally uploaded by dewelch. Another lovely flower from our cousin’s garden here in Sicily. Francesca loves flowers and lovingly raises large pots of annuals from seed each year. These zinnias fairly glow in the sharp Sicilian summer sun. We were making plans for a few road trips around the island yesterday and several gardens [...]

Cucumber flower, originally uploaded by dewelch. Cucumbers are on the way in our friend’s garden. They already have corn and some tomatoes on the vine, too. I don’t really have enough sun exposure here to grow veggies, so I have to live vicariously through others. (LAUGH)

Mimosa Flowers, originally uploaded by dewelch. Another photo from our neighborhood walk a few days ago. These are the flowers of the Mimosa tree. We have several in out neighborhood. The leaves are supposedly sensitive — if you stroke them with your hand they will begin to close up their leaves. Unfortunately, these trees due [...]

Magnolia Blossom (Open), originally uploaded by dewelch. Another photo from our little neighborhood walk yesterday. This huge Magnolia Grandiflora bloom was in the shade, but looked wonderful. Used a little fill flash to add some more light. Note the little fly in the upper-left. Didn’t notice him/her when I took the shot. On a camera [...]

Passiflora Flower, originally uploaded by dewelch. Picked up a new camera today, the Olympus PEN E-PL1, a Micro FourThirds unit that is a big step up from the Kodak Point and Shoot and the iPhone 4 I have been using. To try it out, my wife and I went our on a short neighborhood photo [...]

Updated Succlent Container, originally uploaded by dewelch. Last week we visited the Photos: Los Angeles Cactus & Succulent Society 11th Annual Exhibit and Plant Sale. While there we picked up 5 mall plants and today my son, joe, and I used them to refurbish this succulent container. I would love to tell you what the [...]

A bit of blue splendor from one of my recently divided agapanthus in the back garden.