Next Bouquet

 

This week's floral arrangement, made from florist flowers, not from-my-garden flowers.  

 Delphinium (quite bedraggled IMO), Tuberose (sweet fragrance!), mini Carnations ("Carns" in floristpeak), button mums, barely visible dark red Dianthus, and the small white daisies on the left, can't remember what the instructor called them besides "fillers".  

The garden is quite bedraggled.  I'm still cleaning up damage, plus more wind howled through last night, snapping off the latch on one of our garden gates.  One thing I do to keep small plants alive in 50mph winds at 10% humidity is set them in a tub or bucket with a few inches of water:

That has saved many a plant.  The roots do not rot sitting in water--the wind sucks the moisture out of the plants so quickly they keep pulling up water to keep themselves alive. 

More wind, more wind, though not as bad as that nightmare that destroyed Pacific Palisades and Altadena.  The "news" moves on to other subjects, but people are still missing, people have still lost their homes and possessions and in some cases their lives and livelihoods.  Others celebrate with glee and plan  different kinds of destruction.

I got the ladder out to cut off the grape vine that had grown out of the protective cage it was planted in.  The grape tomato had also grown out and up of the same cage. Climbing the ladder showed the cage's roof hosted a surprising plenty of ripe tomatoes.

Pretty good for January: 

The wind has died back--time to get out there again.