I have been intrigued with faces since I was a child. My mom collected flower vases that were faces (popular in the 40's). She also made ceramic faces (figurines) that sat on bookshelves and her desk. I think that image was imprinted in my brain and now my garden has faces, most which support plants.

Many years ago, at the Novato Renaissance Faire, an artist had created cement faces that were displayed on a long fence. Some were plain but many were planted with an assortment of flowering annuals. I had to have one for our garden. Several years later, when the Renaissance Faire moved to Vacaville, I added another face made by the same artist. Years later, we moved to a different home and garden, and were asked to be hosts for a garden tour. When shopping for colorful plants for the garden, another face was found and added. We named that face ‘Zeus'. ‘Zeus' has always had wire-vine (Muehlenbeckia) “hair” that occasionally needs trimming, so ‘he' doesn't look like a ‘she'.

When my cousin, Toni Greer, came home from St. Louis, she began creating faces in clay. Her faces are unique as they are parts of faces: from above the cheekbone to the chin. Plants fit in the area that hair would normally be growing. At Christmastime, she gifted me with a face planted with succulents. It is a treasure! When she created and sold her faces for ‘Art on the Vine' at Wooden Valley Winery, I purchased one for my sister-in-law's birthday. It was a difficult decision to choose just the right one.

Recently, the Vaca Valley Garden Club held their monthly board meeting at the new president's home in Dixon. Her yard had faces everywhere. Framed on the fence, among the flowers, in containers, on a metal rack. I was in heaven among them all and it brought back memories of my mom and why I love faces.

In honor of Autumn, I thought I would quote some James Taylor lyrics. Seems apropos, except for the grass being green when most everyone's is crunchy brown…

James Taylor – September Grass
Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today
And you know I can see summertime slipping on away
A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed
So I'll be king and you'll be queen
Our kingdom's gonna be this little patch of green
Won't you lie down here right now
In this september grass
Won't you lie down with me now
September grass

I thought that the drought was all I had to worry about in tending to my garden this very dry summer. It has been an ordeal to take seriously the challenge of spreading around this very scarce resource – water – so that most of my garden can stay in tact. However, it is like driving forward with one foot on the brake; every growing thing slows down and hurts a little bit for a good cause. 

But just when I thought I had the right enemy in my crosshairs, I saw an article in the July-September “California Agriculture”, the UCANR magazine, by Brusati, Johnson and DiTomaso about the imminent dangers of invasive plants. Now I had something new to ponder. To make matters worse, the New York Times had an article (on August 12) about an agricultural plant invader that sounded like it could only be eliminated by nuclear carpet-bombing. On the one hand there are invited intruders sold to us innocently by nurseries. It seems that the invasive plants originate often as hearty ornamentals sold as easy to grow. And they are. But then they take over and go everywhere uninvited. On the other hand, there are the buff invaders who are the product of glyphosate and other powerful herbicides being overused for weed control and ‘accidentally' breeding a very robust weed which just keeps getting stronger and more herbicide resistant.

So we are beset with unwanted ornamentals which thrive in home gardens under our watchful and loving care and noxious weeds in our state's agricultural industry. While it is enough to make me grateful that I am not doing serious agriculture, it is difficult to avoid unleashed nuisance ornamentals. Just reading about it makes me feel like I invited in house visitors who then refused to leave and invited in all their relatives.

What to do? Several very useful suggestions seem to emerge from my reading. 1. Use herbicides, especially glyphosate, with great care and watch for unintended consequences. Not only can good plants be impacted, but the survivors can thrive. And there will be survivors. 2. Notice the unwanted spread of an ornamental. I use as a guide my feeling that a plant is becoming a weed and is popping up everywhere. Best to dig it up fast and soon; coddling it only gives it more time to move around. Note whether the spread is fostered by an herbicide treatment of another plant. 3. When I go to buy plants at my favorite nursery, I think it judicious to have a list of prominent invaders we all have to deal with (and there is at least a partial list at the end of the Brusati, Johnson and DiTomaso article) and interview the nursery people about the origins of the plant I am interested in. For, instance, be careful if the plant is imported. Remember the eucalyptus!

So, I want to continue to enjoy my garden. Now I have something besides water to struggle with to keep it manageable and part of my community rather than a breeding ground of local invaders which put neighborhood ornamentals at risk.

Happy gardening.

These days, that seems to be the mantra for everything. Just think about it…but in the garden, it's not always the case. One of my pet peeves has been the plant that, through no fault of its own, has been located in such a place that it crowds out everything. I'm talking about Phormium, AKA New Zealand Flax. It's a gorgeous sword-leafed plant, that is available in bronze, red, green and variegated tones. It does flower, a huge stalk that produces insignificant bronze flowers. It takes up space (or, rather, fills space) and can be gorgeous in a mass planting or as a specimen on its own. It is frequently planted too close to pedestrian walkways, and gets hacked back and thus deformed because it hasn't been given the space to flourish and spread.

A more extreme situation is the redwood trees that a friend had removed when she purchased her home. They had been planted too close to the house; the roots were interfering with the foundation and basement and she worried that they might blow over and damage the roof. Then, there are the birch trees on my street in Benicia, beautiful paper birch trees, now quite mature (at least twenty-five years old). They have all been topped (a real no-no), because they grow over the roofline. They were planted too close to the houses, and were too large for the space. As always, it's the plant that suffers…

The moral of this tale? Look for varieties that, when mature, will fit your space, so that when they grow, they don't cause trouble. The space you're trying to fill may need infilling with annuals for a few years, but it's easier to select now, than repent later.