Noelle’s Minature Garden

While bicycling in our neighborhood this Sunday we came across Noelle Le. She makes beautiful minature gardens with potted scucculents, cacti and exotic plants. Here is a picture of an Easter bunny that we bought from her and a couple of other samples of her work.

To contact her : noelle_le@yahoo.com

In the example below, she used an aged wooded log to grow a small garden..it was beautiful.

And some of her creations are small enough to fit on the smallest of desks or bring life into small living spaces.

White Christmas .. or close to it!

We had snow in the Santa Cruz mountains behind our home. This observatory on one of the hills surrounding Silicon Valley was snowed in. Snow is not common and the sight of snow is quite welcome though we have some very cold nights here..

Moved all the hibiscus plants indoor.

Bird with Sunflower

This tiny bird has become quite courageous. It mingles with sparrows and hops on Sunflower and Cosmos plants looking for seeds. It has yellowish belly and wings have a shade of green. See it every morning these days.

Sun Flower : 2009

Sun-Flower

Seedling

We grew sun-flowers this year from the seeds found in a bird-feed packet. Soaked them for a couple of days in water until the sprouts showed up. Then planted them in moist soil during winter rain and protected the seedlings from slugs by putting a cut cylinder of water bottle around it.  Now after about 4 months we have 15-20 sun-flower plants ready to bloom. They attract a number of pollinators. I hope that will be good for near-by tomato plants.

Good Roses

These roses are very hardy – tolerant to infrequent watering and do not attract aphids or fungal diseases common in other roses. Excellent for California spring/summer.

Parrots

6/28/2008
There are some wild parrots in our area. They are usually perched on the high tree tops in the mornings and the evenings. Quite a boisterous couple. You can see one of them hiding behind the leaves.

They are atleast 1 foot long in size. It is easy to spot them once they are in the area.

If I am correct, these parrots are on the list of endangered species. They are called Yellow Headed Amazon parrots based on the California Parrot Project. You can click on the link for California Parrot Project to find more details.

 

5/18/2009

This morning I saw them just outside our home. Two of them again, making a lot of noise.

Tulips

Tulips have started blooming.  These were potted in the patio. There were more in the front yard. But, they have not bloomed “together”, one or two of them would bloom at a time.

I mail ordered the bulbs this year from :

http://www.bloomingbulb.com

Daffodils are looking nice in the front yard too. Someone likes to call them Daffy-dolls. :)