Table Decorations for the Holiday

I don't really like lots of Holiday decorations in my condo. There is only just enough room for the people and the furniture, so once you start adding trees and garlands, it starts getting pretty claustrophobic. Yet to have nothing to show the holiday season is here seems kind of miserable, so I usually have flowers and table decorations then at least everyone knows its Christmas.

So here's a few ideas, depending on the time and energy you have available:


No energy - bunch of flowers from the supermarket



Longing for a hawaiian vacation - tropical flowers and cones. This is easier than it looks, simply buy a bunch of tropical flowers from the supermarket or florist, then combine them with sprigs of fir tree and cones held in place with thin wire.





Need to make more of a Christmas splash - use a gold plate and gold baubles combined with gold and red candles. This was inexpensive to create by buying the materials from Cost Plus or Crate & Barrel and it makes a great table centerpiece.



If you need something for a sideboard or small table, use pot pourri with cones in it, or spice it up with large baubles and marbles.

First Day of Winter in San Diego

Well today is officially the first day of winter - December 21st. What an amazing day. I went outside and was in awe at the ocean and the weather. It was warm and sunny and the waves were wild. Surfers were out in force, so I went back inside to get my camera to capture some of the scenes.

















I guess it doesn't get any better than this.

Container Plants for the Holiday Season

I guess because it's the holiday season, I thought I would introduce some holiday plants into my patio. Every year when I lived in England I would buy a Christmas Cactus and, as usual, it would last about a week and then become kind of weak and buds that had managed to sprout would fall off. I have since read that this is because of the central heating in most homes in the winter in England. So now that I'm in San Diego, and I can keep the cactus outside on the patio, I decided to buy one and try that. I read that they need a well lit spot, but no direct sunlight and an ideal temperature of between 55 and 70 degrees. Well, that is just about ideal San Diego weather, so I figured this was a no brainer.



So, as you can see from the picture above, I bought a beautiful pink cactus and hung it proudly on the patio. Every morning the hummingbirds would stop by and check it out, and it looked great. Not only was it covered in flowers, it was also covered in tiny buds. OK, problem number one - about a week after I bought the plant in early November, we had a period of Santa Ana weather. This meant that the daytime temperature, even by the beach, reached about 80 degrees with full sun shining down on my cactus, and the evenings seemed to take on that cold desert feeling. I am not sure what the night time temperature was, but I think it was too cold. I tried to remember to move the plant to a shady spot if I thought it was going to be really hot during the day, but I think I missed a few days. Problem number two - I had to go out of town for a few days, so I wasn't able to monitor progress very closely. Watering also seemed confusing in this weather - I read that the plant should be watered as a normal plant, not allowed to dry out, but not over-watered, and misted frequently. Well, that didn't happen. So when I returned most of the flowers and buds had fallen off, but the plant didn't look too unhappy. I watered it and hung it in its usual spot, but then we had a week of extremely cold weather (for San Diego) where the night time temperature dropped to below 40 degrees. So now I have the plant you see below, it seems healthy enough, but definitely has no further interest in flowering.



Fortunately, not all of my holiday plants failed. The other plants I tried - to get the red thing going - were, of course, poinsettias, which had also been difficult to grow in England. (Despite the fact that I've been in the States for over ten years, I am still mesmerized by the fact that during winter in San Diego you can wear flip flops to the mall without getting frost bite. So consequently, I still like the idea of putting what would be an indoor plant in England, outdoors in San Diego.)



I did not buy the poinsettias until the beginning of December, and we have not had any odd weather to date. No Santa Ana winds, El Nino rains, desert nights, just the usual morning fog, and everything seems OK so far.





The other plants I thought I would try were cyclamens which continue to puzzle me. I had them in the garden in the spring and they seemed fine and lasted for quite some time, but I bought two in the summer and both died within a week - I suppose it was too hot, as they didn't appear to have any diseases or pests. The two I have now are doing OK, but one seems stronger than the other, so we'll see what happens. The other plant I bought (because it matched the display I was planning) was a pink anthurium. This sounded very temperamental, needing an average warmth of 60 degrees (I am sure it's been more and less than that at times) and protection from summer sun, so I am OK on that. I'm not sure how long these plants will last, but with the way things go, I'll probably be the only one with poinsettias in July!

Delays to the Vision

As I mentioned earlier, I had become totally obsessed with the idea of creating an amazing container garden in my tiny patio. The only problem was that after purchasing my container plant book and many more visits to Barnes & Noble, I could only wait to get started. The City had apparently been planning to do this major work in my street, which involved digging up my patio, for the past five years. It had been delayed yet again. It also entailed many visits by the City Engineer to the site, and meeting after meeting with the HOA Board. By the time everything was squared away, we had got to the "rainy season" for San Diego, so the work had to be put on hold until it looked as though it was safe to come out again. So I read my books and made great plans, visiting The Home Depot Garden Center and looking at the various plants for sale in Vons and Ralphs, planning how they would fit into my new scheme of things. Then, almost a year later, a date was announced for the work to begin.



Great, it was all coming together at last. Actually, I’d never really done any gardening before and the houseplants I’d had, except for the type that they suggest children start with, usually shriveled up and died or got waterlogged at the last minute. I grew up in England and my parents were avid gardeners, but as a child and teenager I’d never had any interest in gardening, plus I have a phobia about most kinds of bugs, so that’s also a drawback, as the garden seems to be full of them. Anyway, this was a minor detail, I’d read the Container Plant book and was ready to go. So when the City eventually left, we had an area with nothing in it except for the bougainvillea. The large trees had had to be cut down so the whole area was blank. We’d decided to tile part of the patio, and put river rocks down where the soil had been and stand the container plants on that. Now it was time to make our first plant purchases – but where do you begin?

Container Plant Obsession - How it Began

I guess it all started when we moved into this condo. We had always had a patio at our previous address, but never really did much with it. So when we moved here and were told that the City needed to replace some underground piping and that unfortunately our patio would have to be completely dug up in the process, it started us thinking that it was a great opportunity to really change the whole layout and make something amazing of our new yard.

We always thought it had potential, but at that time it didn’t look much. Even though it was small, approx. 12 ft. x 12 ft., it had two large trees at the back that overshadowed everything and a patch of soil that was held in place by some old railway ties. Someone had planted some roses here, but they didn’t ever get enough light to grow properly. The only thing worth saving was a large bougainvillea which covered the entire back fence. I think if I consider carefully, this is when it all began. I went to the local Barnes & Noble and looked at all the books on small gardens, container gardening, patios and balconies, tiny gardens, etc., and finally purchased a book which was to become the foundation for my obsession.



The book had some great pictures of tiny little areas full of flowers and shrubs, and then detailed descriptions and pictures of how to grow them and look after them during the four seasons. I will add at this point, that I live in Southern California by the beach, so I don’t really get your typical four seasons, but felt I could adapt this information. The only other book I had on plants in pots was one I had bought when I lived in England, and this book dealt mainly with how to look after houseplants in a centrally heated living room, again making suggestions for the four seasons. When I looked through it I could see strong similarities between a centrally heated living room, and a California desert climate, so this was book was my other inspiration and now I was ready to begin.