Rain! But still not enough...

I'm so very happy to note that it has been raining to one extent or another for a couple of days again, sometimes quite heavily, to the point of "urban flooding." (That's the euphemism for, the storm drains are clogged enough with plant and other debris for water to back up in the streets and highways.)

Sadly, we've still not caught up with the "since July 1st" average and we're in the third year of less than average totals, so we're still looking at mandatory rationing, dry hills, and cranky landscapes. But the forecasts for the next several days include rain, so I continue to have hope.

Between the bouts of rain and occasional incursions of sun, the one penstemon 'Margarita BOP' out front (see earlier post) is blooming even more profusely and the others are starting to set buds.  Woohoo! (Sorry, no photo. It's raining!) And new sprouts continue to appear as the existing sprouts continue to grow. Woohoo! again.

Sunday (day before yesterday), Mom came by with her Sawzall (the one I gave her for Christmas a couple of years ago :-) and helped me "prune" my California Grape 'Roger's Red' that we couldn't prune any other way. You know how, when you look up the growth habits of plants, the book says things like "to 3' with an equal spread" or "20' to 30'"? You ever wonder about that 20' to 30' thing for vines? Well, let me tell you that, in the case of Vitis californica 'Rogers Red' it means 20 to 30 feet a freakin' year!

I planted that bad boy (along with generic V. californica and B. pilularis) several years ago along the south wall of my house.  This is a narrow space between the wall and the side fence -- about 5' wide. And, since the fence is right there and the neighboring house is only a few feet farther, it's not all that sunny. Then you factor in all the trees and tall shrubs to the west in the two front yards and there really isn't a blazing amount of sun. Then there are the trees in the neighbor's yard to the east... You get the idea. Straight, overhead sun in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer is basically all it gets.

I watered the three a few times the first season to get them going. [NO WATER GIVEN SINCE THEN.] The grapes took off and completely shaded out (i.e., killed) the Coyote Bush. But the Rogers Red went completely insane and took over, not just the Coyote Bush, but the other grape, the wall, the rocky ground, the fence, the telephone wires, the nandina (hey! it came with the house and I haven't been able to get it to die despite lack of water and hacking back to the ground repeatedly), and anything else it could reach out to and grab.

I hack it back to a stump every year. And every year it just comes back stronger. This year it went across the ground, up the fence, and bridged the gap to the roof where it has latched on such that I'm going to need to get the ladder up there and extract it from the roof. It won't pull down. I have tried swinging my not-inconsequential mass from the stump that is left up there. No go.

So, if you're tempted to plant California native vines:

1) Make sure you have the space

2) Make sure you have a sturdy trellis

3) Do NOT turn your back on it!

Oh! The good news is that it produced a bumper crop of small blackish grapes this year! They're quite tasty even though they're mostly seed. The skins aren't stupendously tough (like Concord grape skins), so you only spit seeds. (Or crunch them if that's what you like.) Shelley loves the grapes. Oddly, I get plenty of birds, but I didn't see them going after the grapes. Not even the orioles. Oh, well. More for Shelley & me!