Again with the delays in posting

 When there's nothing to do, you do nothing right?

I need to get out and water today hopefully so there's not much in the way of pictures from the actual garden. Instead going to talk worms, plant size and other stuff.

Walking Rocky the last few days I've noticed 'wormsign' as I call it. Worm poop, worm castings..whatever you want to call it, on dirt areas in the lawns.

This is a good sign of work activity in the ground. In the last decade or so there has been an increase in people asking for worm castings. It's a good source of minerals for soil and is best used in really organic and fluffy soil. Why not in soil like I have? Because I already have clay soil and that's what this is. Worms eat organic material and what comes out the back end is essentially dirt that is extremely fine and slightly gritty. No organics left in it so if you put this in a garden that is already heavy soil it really is not good for improving the texture. But if you have a pot or garden that is mostly compost, this is a good addition as well as just a touch of regular 'dirt'. 

You want the composition of your soil ideally to be about 1/2 organic, 1/4 clay and 1/4 sand. You can also do 1/3 of each which is more ideal for potting soils. Worm castings are not bad, not saying you can't use it but like anything else you need to be aware of where you're putting it. The gardeners have not used any fertilizer at all on the lawns and as you can see, it's typical bermuda patchy lawn but other than the tree roots it's fairly healthy.

Remember that Norfolk pine that they moved? Well it's got issues now and I suspect it may be from a lawnmower running into it.

The bottom band on the barrel is gone so the roots and soil are just expanding. I tried shifting it but there's no help for it at this point, it needs to be repotted. The color is not good either, it's lost a lot of green and some of the branches are browning. Poor thing.

I talked about roses and how to tell when you have to dig them up and how to recognize the root stock. Well here's your sign,

Hard to get a good shot of this due to shade and position but all the branches are coming from the ground, it essentially looks like a climber, which it wasn't, and the former bush trunk is evident in the middle. So much I want to do to fix the landscaping around here and can't do a thing about it since it's not my job nor place to tell people how to do things.

Anyway...bright spots in the garden on the other hand are the signature winter flower for Southern California, pointsetties? No, calendulas.... no:

 All the bushes are just busting out with flowers. Since it is a South Africa native, it's spring going into summer for that hemisphere and therefore, they are blooming here. Several other plants from Australia and other places usually bloom in the winter here because that's their timing. 

On the right of that photo you can see a tall stem with a tuft of foliage at the top. The left side...is a nandina that is about 5 feet tall, (the bush in the background is a viburnum). 

Cat for size comparison accidental

This is a better shot but still a bit wonky. When people see that the mature size of something is say 5-6 feet they gasp, 'I don't want anything that big!'. You know how long it took for this to get that tall and look at it? Spindly, not cared for should have been dug up and replaced by now. My usual reply is, 'don't let it get that tall' or 'then you don't want this bush'. I have seen some nandina that were full and beautiful and full height but it's not common.

So a bit of this and that, don't let your pets chew on your plants, pointsettias or azaleas or trees or garland.. you know the drill.