spring time
Even though there's not a very noticeable temperature or weather change, there are still some reliable signs of spring in Los Angeles's South Bay.
The first is a brief period of heavy fog. This is Silent Hill levels of fog, where you can't see one side of the street from another. (for a certain width of street, which if you've played the first Silent Hill, you'll know the streets are quite wide in that game) Eerie to stop at a stoplight that you can't even see!
The second is the perennial ducks. I'm not sure whether it's the same mating pairs from year to year, but pools, fountains, any consistent body of water will have some ducks show up. They would show up at the fountain at Konami (and even walk to the the grocery stores nearby!). These are the ones that showed up at my apartment's pool this year:
It also makes cats think about gardening
I went through the planters on the porch and threw out some old annuals I had put in in the autumn that had died off, as well as the other general plant trash that accumulated over the winter. A couple of annuals were still alive, so I consolidated them into an empty planter where I'd tried to do some onions that ended up getting waterlogged. I added some perlite, so hopefully the new ones won't suffer the same fate.
There were some little plants that came up in my potato container that I don't recognize. I moved them around so they don't have to compete with the potato vines. There also seem to be some narcissus that are coming up, but they don't seem to be substantial enough to expect them to bloom. There were some little four o'clock seeds that sprouted after the main one bloomed back in October/November. I swept up a lot more seeds, so I just added them to the one that had the majority of them, but a couple of seeds have probably ended up in every planter.
The orchid I saved from the dumpster has been very limp and languid lately, so I went ahead and replaced the bark in it and saw that the roots were fairly waterlogged. I think they might revive with some new bark mix, though. I also repotted the only onion I got to root, which still has extensive amounts of green onion shoots, and saw that its root system was pretty healthy, although no bulbs seem to have formed yet.
The last sign of spring, or really "it has rained relatively recently":
How long do snails live, anyway?
The first is a brief period of heavy fog. This is Silent Hill levels of fog, where you can't see one side of the street from another. (for a certain width of street, which if you've played the first Silent Hill, you'll know the streets are quite wide in that game) Eerie to stop at a stoplight that you can't even see!
The second is the perennial ducks. I'm not sure whether it's the same mating pairs from year to year, but pools, fountains, any consistent body of water will have some ducks show up. They would show up at the fountain at Konami (and even walk to the the grocery stores nearby!). These are the ones that showed up at my apartment's pool this year:
It also makes cats think about gardening
Click to viewI went through the planters on the porch and threw out some old annuals I had put in in the autumn that had died off, as well as the other general plant trash that accumulated over the winter. A couple of annuals were still alive, so I consolidated them into an empty planter where I'd tried to do some onions that ended up getting waterlogged. I added some perlite, so hopefully the new ones won't suffer the same fate.
There were some little plants that came up in my potato container that I don't recognize. I moved them around so they don't have to compete with the potato vines. There also seem to be some narcissus that are coming up, but they don't seem to be substantial enough to expect them to bloom. There were some little four o'clock seeds that sprouted after the main one bloomed back in October/November. I swept up a lot more seeds, so I just added them to the one that had the majority of them, but a couple of seeds have probably ended up in every planter.
The orchid I saved from the dumpster has been very limp and languid lately, so I went ahead and replaced the bark in it and saw that the roots were fairly waterlogged. I think they might revive with some new bark mix, though. I also repotted the only onion I got to root, which still has extensive amounts of green onion shoots, and saw that its root system was pretty healthy, although no bulbs seem to have formed yet.
The last sign of spring, or really "it has rained relatively recently":
How long do snails live, anyway?