Victorville, CA: Tumbling like a tumbling tumbleweed

High winds are prevailing in southern California and the Central Coast, reports my mother in her first, eyewitness contribution to Urban Plant Research. In Santa Barbara County, she can hardly venture outside because of winds over 25 miles per hour. She also read that over in Victorville, which lies between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, the wind has residents trapped inside for another reason: it has swept mountains of tumbleweeds against their houses, blocking doors and windows! Check out these Google Image search results she sent over:

We here at Urban Plant Research have long been interested in tumbleweeds and urban tumbleweeds (tumbling, windblown plastic bags). Are their tumbleweeds where you live?

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Right through the fence: disruptive plant in San Francisco

 

This fenced-in plant “looks like it wants to escape its enclosure,” writes Megan Mock, who wrote in response to our post on a banana tree invading a bathroom.

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San Francisco sidewalks: steep, lush, vivid, wacky

When the fog lifts from gray San Francisco and Indian summer sun floods the up-and-down streets, the plants and buildings suddenly show their true colors in all their vividness. Some plants are painted on, others are trimmed into submission, while others grow into their own forms, whether creating sidewalk tunnels or two-dimensional trees. Here’s a little photo walk around San Francisco’s Mission and Noe Valley neighborhood back when the sun was shining.

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San Francisco: Ask a Plant Nerd

Real live plant nerds are offering their knowledge to the public at San Francisco’s Mission Community Market every Thursday. Asking a question is free; they also have small, affordable young plants for sale, such as nasturtiums, plectranthus…

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California: suburban plant research by Phoebe

Do you see urban plants in this picture? What about graffiti?

My sharp-eyed sister Phoebe did. She observed some interesting sidewalk phenomena during a recent visit to our childhood home:

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Half Moon Bay, CA: Succulent seaside garden

How many different succulents can you count in this picture?  I tried to count them all and lost track. This incredible garden, which Sara and I saw as we visited a rustic little beach by Half Moon Bay on New Year’s Eve, is clearly the product of human intervention. I highly doubt any natural seaside cliff would be so diversely and densely populated.

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Long Beach, CA: California poppies(?), or, Schlafmützchen

I captured some specimens of California poppy, the beautiful state flower, in Long Beach on our recent trip to California…. or are they all poppies?

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Santa Cruz, CA: Post-Christmas cactus

Once in awhile, in addition to 3d, living plants, I document depictions of plants, too. After eating some fantastic tacos in Santa Cruz early last month, I noticed a blobby little urban mural cactus hiding behind the Christmas decor.

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Santa Cruz, CA: Plants upon plants

Spotted last month on Soquel Avenue, the main drag in the sunny beach town of Santa Cruz, California. This luxuriant viny plant is hurrying up a high wall to join hordes of fellow plants, sitting in a row in little pots. I would love to go back in a year and see if the vine has reached its goal! For that matter, I’d love to go back right now – here in 15 C-below-freezing Berlin, there’s not much greenery to observe or much motivation for going outdoors.

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San Francisco: the fantastic, the amazing Living Roof!

The amazing Megan of Megamoog recently photographed this bizarre-looking green roof and shared it on her Flickr photostream. Though I have been feeling like there are just too many stories about green rooves in the news these days, this one had such a cute, alien, submarine-spaceship look that I had to find out more, so I asked Megan for the scoop. It turns out that this is no average green roof, but something much more wonderful.

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