Ciscoe's Yard Again

Today is Garden Bloom Day, and I'm supposed to show you everything in bloom in my garden. But I have a much better idea -- I'll show you what's in bloom in Ciscoe Morris's garden!







I was impressed with this place before in April and May, but it really shines in June.

































Looks like Cisco hacked back his giant rice paper plant. Maybe the fire department made him do it.

















After we stopped by Ciscoe's place, we went to my friends' house, where a mother robin scolded me for checking out her young ones.



Cute!

That Giant Plant in Ciscoe's Yard

My merry band of four or five blog readers know that I like to take pictures of Ciscoe Morris's yard. I have not seen any of his TV or radio segments and I have not read his book (books?), so I don't know much about him, other than, apparently, he likes to say "oh la la" a lot. But he lives near a friend of mine, so I like to go check out his yard from time to time.

Anyway, Chuck (who knows far more about these things than I do) has commented a couple of times about a plant in Ciscoe's yard. When I took a photo of it in April, Chuck suggested that it might be a castor bean plant.



But then when I took photos in May, he thought it was probably something else. (He's right.)





This sunny morning I decided to stay in bed instead of going to the gym, and I leafed through the Seattle edition of the May Sunset magazine, which has an interview with Ciscoe Morris:

What is your current plant obsession?

I've got a lot of them. Right now, I'm crazy about Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steriodal Giant' (also known as giant rice paper plant). It really is humungous. It has 4-foot-wide and 4-foot-long maple-like leaves on a 15-foot-tall plant. It looks so tropical.

Mystery solved!

Plants in Wedgwood

Last night we went to Wedgwood to overnight-babysit our friends' 1-year-old while they celebrated their anniversary at a fancy downtown hotel. On the way, we visited a friend who wanted to watch the De La Hoya / Mayweather fight at Georgetown Liquor Company. She sells wine to the GLC, and she brought a bottle of some fancy premier cru Bordeaux. We each tried a glass while the first of the opening fights started, Bautista vs. Medina, and I could tell that Bautista was going to win before either of them even stepped into the ring. I could see it in his eyes.



We pass the Bettie Page house on the way to our friends' house.



And we pass a Ceanothus in bloom.



In the morning we go for a walk around the neighborhood. I'm reminded how Chuck once said, "I don't like Acer dissectum cv. atropurpureum (Laceleaf Japanese Maple), mostly because it's grafted, but also because it looks like the Cousin It of plants. And I totally acknowledge that it's pretty. Sometimes being pretty just isn't enough."

Japanese maple.



Cousin It.



I like this gate.



I like this fence.



Pretty Euphorbia.



I think I'd have put taller plants behind Venus, though I do like the blue at her feet.



Nice.



I like Japanese lanterns in other people's yards, though (like Buddha, like Venus, like the Virgin Mary, like Roman columns, like just about anything) they're too culturally specific for me to want to use in my yard. I think I only want modern and/or natural objects in with my plants. I can't even handle planters that aren't neutral monocromes.



Moments after I take this photo, a woman jogs past me with her dog and apologizes for breaking the rules.



Cute. (Though there will never be words in my yard.)



A beautiful trellis.



Look, it's local gardening personality Ciscoe Morris's house again.



The castor bean plant has grown a lot.

EDIT: This is not a castor bean plant. It is Tertapanax papyrifera "Steroidal Giant" (giant rice paper plant).





I've taken this shot before. Maple, Mondo, moss.







Smoke bush. Lovely.









Ciscoe's Ceanothus isn't blooming yet.



Bye, Ciscoe!



Someone's been hard at work.





Nice colors.



This is totally Seattle. A Japanese maple and a bunch of evergreens.



And I'll show you one photo of our charge, because she's kind of like a rock star, she's so perfectly cute.