Landscape « Rivenrock Gardens Cactus Blog… go to www.rivenrock.com for edible cactus

compost/mulch newsletter

Geri Miller is a Master Gardener in the Los Angeles area. She installs and helps people with their home gardens, and visits schools and restaurants to install gardens. She started a group called HomeGrown Edible Landscapes. She also has a monthly online newsletter with great links to various gardening information. This is her monthly message for march 2011… it deals with maintaining and increasing soil health through composting and mulching. VERY MUCH worth subscribing to, (note one of the articles on composting was written by us).

Thanks Geri

Rainy Day Mushrooms

We got hit with a pretty good sized storm.. probably the biggest load of rain we’ve gotten in a few days in the last ten years. We got about nine inches of rain in five days. This is about one third of our usual yearly rainfall totals.
Overall, it’s been a fairly moist autumn for us this year… we’ve been getting rain for about three months now.. and we haven’t even irrigated for the last two months. In the winter we like to reduce watering so the plants have less stored water susceptible to freezing.
All of this water stored in the soil has led to a growth of mushrooms every time we get a couple of storms roll in (they usually come in twos and threes). We went awanderin’ today and got some photos of some mushrooms behind the house. These ones are growing on an oak stump.

: Mushrooms on oaks

: Mushrooms on oaks

: Mushrooms on oaks

: Mushrooms on oaks

: Mushrooms on oaks

: Mushrooms on oaks

Sunset on the cactus plantation

Sunset photo

Sunset on the cactus plantation

February Flowers

Some photos I took along the roadway last month…
just as the wildflowers started blooming.

Wild Native Peonies

Lupines

Alyssum (a native plant) and Gazanias, naturalized along the roadway by a neighbor.

More gazanias…

Madia

Most places have their beauty especially illustrated with rampant color at one time or another.

Laurel Canyon

Laurel Canyon Terraces

Laurel Canyon Terraces

Laurel Canyon is a very picturesque area of homes just outside of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood area.

   It is also very steep in many areas. Driving through it I noticed that one homeowner many decades ago had built a series of terraces made from broken concrete on the steep canyon walls below his house.
   The terraces seem to have held well through all of these years and now support an abundance of trees, such so that the terraces are now almost hidden.
   I am impressed with the engineering of the terraces, they are some five feet high or more, and built on a very steep slope. I’d recommend against this type of shoring for this particular project. I’d worry the slope might be too unstable to support the added weight of the many tons of concrete.
   But I’d say the terraces have been in that spot for a good forty years. So, so far it has weathered time and the elements well.

Rivenrock Terraces

looking down from our Western Terraces

looking down from our Western Terraces

Rivenrock terraces from across the way

Rivenrock terraces from across the way

This is the view of some of our terraces from across the way

New Photo Gallery

We just put up a new photo album. It is arranged into twelve albums and has over 1,300 photos.

The photos cover some of the beaches, hills, deserts and cities of California.

http://www.nopalcactusblog.com/photos

Sunset

Nopal

Nopal

The sun sets over the Grassy Knoll

Bob Jones Bike Path…. near SLO-town

City-to-the-Sea….. the Bob Jones Bike Path

Bob Jones was an early naturalist of the area… he pushed and after some time, the Southern Pacific Railroad ‘right-of-way’ was used to make this trail. It runs from the 101 Freeway, to San Luis Bay….

This is really a great place for locals and visiting vacationers to walk… it follows the creek… so you are in the canopy of the willows and other water-loving trees. You are likely to see waterfowl… and if very early in the morning, before the joggers and roller-bladers come out, you will likely see much local wildlife.

The Bob Jones Bike Trail is a very safe place for a family or lone females to roam, I’ve even seen uniformed Sheriff’s Officers on bicycles patrolling this path! Yay, go cops! It passes alongside the properties of several resorts and private homes, so there are many vacationers as well as locals who will use this paved trail for recreation. You are not likely to be alone on this trail, it can actually carry a large number of people on weekends and holidays. The scenery is nice and the trail is a very beautiful example of California river-stream habitat… and on hot days, being under the cooling canopy of the trees and near the cool water… very nice. Yes, this is a good place to be on a warm day.

Cactus of Rivenrock-a video

I came upon a video we made about 30 months ago.
It is the cactus of Rivenrock.

Some people are surprised to see that some of our cactus is so very tall.

Cactus

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