47th Wedding Anniversary and More Puppy Pics

The top picture shows Latte on the right, along with his great aunt, Kiani; at least I think that's the relationship. Latte will probably be a little larger than Kiani when mature.
So today we celebrated our 47th wedding anniversary by taking care of Latte, our anniversary gift to each other! (We also spent a few hours at Powell's Book Store.)

Gallery Listing for Lynn-Marie Kara

For those who are interested, my wife Lynn-Marie's art works are now represented by Xanadu Gallery out of Scottsdale, Arizona. You can see a continually changing collection of her works at their website: http://www.xanadugallery.com/2013/Artists/ArtistPage.php?ArtistID=5729. You can copy and paste this url address in your browser or use the link above.

Some time with our Granddaughter

Our granddaughter lives quite a way from us, so it was nice to have her with us for a couple of weeks. Today she left and she'll certainly be missed. The first picture is her and her dad; the second is of her with Grandma, Grandpa (me) and - of course - Ladybug.

Dragonfly on Agave

Lynn-Marie had fun taking this pictures the other day. The dragonflies are back, doing their thing. Fascinating creatures.

45th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday, May 4, was our 45th wedding anniversary and we celebrated by...are your ready for this...staying home and mostly doing nothing. Not even answering the phone. And today we're going to follow through with another day of mostly doing nothing. The plants need water, but they're tough, they can do OK for another few days. The grass needs to be mowed. At this time of year it needs to be mowed almost every other day. It'll wait. And so will this blog. Back on Monday!

Mammillaria elongata

Many years ago, Lynn-Marie and I were driving around Southern California - with the list of the California Cactus Growers Association in hand [no longer in existence] - trying to find nurseries which had plants we wanted. There were a lot of small, independent succulent nurseries back then. We'll always remember the one we went to that just knew we needed hundreds, if not thousands, of small Mammillaria elongata plants. We were novices, but not that novice. We already had our share. Which leads to an observation: This is one plant which doesn't really get the attention it deserves. It's easy to grow, easy to propagate, and has a lot of design possibilities. It's just that, since they're so easy to propagate, no nursery is going to make its fortune growing them. (Actually, not many nurseries are going to make a fortune any way!)

As we were leaving that nursery, which had several commercial greenhouse filled with these little thimbles. the owner offered us another deal which we certainly wished we could have taken him up on. He offered us several very large, mature Golden Barrel cacti at an extremely enticing price. But imagine this: a young married couple (now that was a long time ago, wasn't it?), a couple of medium sized dogs, luggage, boxes of plants, in a VW bus. Now add two large Echinocactus to the top of the roof. That was a bit much, even for us in those days.

Enjoy your plants!

Echeveria subalpina

Looking closer into yesterday's image we come across Echeveria subalpina, showing off its hues in the afternoon sun. From central Mexico at medium elevation, it grows without a stalk and rarely offsets, and the color is quite variable depending on the environment. The leaves tend to have an upright growth.

If you can find them, they're well worth having in any collection. Unfortunately, we don't have enough in stock at this time to offer them, but we're propagating...or rather, Lynn-Marie is!

Golden Butterfly Lobivia

For years we've had a plant which was labeled Lobivia 'Easter Bonnet'. Lynn-Marie crossed two of these plants and got these flowers, and the plants are smaller than the Easter Bonnet parents. They were seeded in 1997 and she calls them 'Golden Butterfly'.

While the rest of the country is sweltering under unbearable heat, we're having a couple of days of warmer weather, getting up into the lower 80s F. I don't know if we can take it that hot! :)

Hummingbird in the Greenhouse

The other day when Lynn-Marie was busy potting plants in the greenhouse she received a visit from one of our neighborly hummingbirds. I immediately went to the aloe flowers. All of this provided for a bit of a diversion in the way of trying to tip-toe between the cactus plants (with a sore back) in order to get a good picture. Well...these are the results. I think she did rather well considering all the difficulties involved. Usually, just as you're ready to take a picture they flit off in the opposite direction.

 

Amazingly, this one found its own way out of the greenhouse without any assistance.

Fairy Garden

These are the shoes our two boys wore when they were little (now in their 40s). Each year they get a little more encrusted with lichens and fungi mixed in with the sempervivums and sedum. We call it our little fairy garden. (The dead evergreen pieces are from the coast redwood overhead.)

The photos were taken by Lynn-Marie.

Enjoy your plants!

Epicactus 'Madelyn'

Day two of Epicactus, this time it's large-flowering 'Madeline', one of our old time favorites. I understand it's a French hybrid, and it produces truly magnificent flowers. The color of the yellow will vary depending on the light but it's always very impressive.

 

These photos were taken by Lynn-Marie.

Echeveria 'Tippy'

We've offered Echeveria 'Tippy' for quite a while now, but it's one of those plants which goes out of stock fairly often, as we just can't keep up.

I should say that Lynn-Marie can't keep up, as she's the one who does almost all of the propagation. We try to obtain additional stock periodically but we also do a lot of our own propagation. At Kara Nursery it's Lynn-Marie and me. That's it. No one else to blame it on. And we're both getting older and a little slower and there are a few more creaks in them there bones. After all, we're in our 70s now.

All of this is to say to our customers that, if we're a little slower getting things out, be assured it's speed, not quality, that's being compromised.

Haworthia bayeri

Lynn-Marie took these photos today while working with the plants. We'll be offering some of these plants pretty soon. The first is Haworthia bayeri from EA937 seed. We posted a picture of some of these about a year ago and they've grown quite a bit since then.

This group of H. bayeri is from DeRust. Grown from 1/4 inch seedlings sent to us by David Martin, they've been growing on nicely and showing their own characteristics.

Enjoy your plants!

Our Work Table

This is the view that Lynn-Marie gets when she's working with the plants: re-potting, propagating, preparing plants for shipment. The plants on the table are there to get closer supervision and the glass of Cabernet to the right is to make the task more pleasant. It doesn't hurt, of course, that it's located directly in front of the heater as well!

Hopefully, we won't have to be using it much more this season.

Out and About with Ladybug

The weather was nice on Sunday and so we all took Ladybug out for a drive. Osita is the one tagging along after the cart. Our granddaughter was with us so she got to try her hand at driving as we headed out down Willamette Blvd in North Portland, near the University of Portland. I'm the one with the camera.

Enjoy your plants!

snow 2012

We finally got our first snow tonight. This is me out in the backyard getting ready to feed Ladybug the mini horse. It's really very pretty, but I'll be glad when it's all gone in a day or two.

I'll be changing my picture for the blog soon. Lynn-Marie took a couple of good photos the other day. This is one of them, taken when we were having our morning coffee in the "sun" room. That's in quotations because it's on the Northeast side of the house and rarely gets any sun, especially in the winter when it would be nice to have some extra light.

And, no, those orange strings aren't coming out of my ear!

Haworthia emelyae var. comptoniana

As we look forward to our expected first snow flurry of the year, my attention goes back inside the greenhouse. Actually, I wish I could have been out in the greenhouses with the plants, but had to spend my time packing plants for shipments to California, Florida and here in Portland. So Lynn-Marie did all the photography, catching these beauties. Wonderful plants with lovely markings.

Of course we still take time most days to have a short break in the afternoon for an Irish coffee or a latte. Yesterday it was lattes made on our little home "espresso" machine. I like to make them with the coffee and milk separated and a little whipped cream along with the foam...plus some dark chocolate shavings and a little cinnamon. Mmmmm.

Enjoy your plants

...and your latte, or...

Epicactus Portrayal by Lynn-Marie Kara

Lynn-Marie has another new art work finished, this one of an Epicactus. It's not one particular Epi, but rather an image which seeks to portray the beauty and impressiveness of these plants in general. I think she does a fantastic job!

Lynn-Marie has been essentially self taught over the years after retinal detachment surgery forced her to leave art school. You can find out more about her as an artist at her (unfinished) website: http://lynnmariekara-artist.com/  It's my job to get her webpages up and going. I promise to all of you...I'm going to get it done before Winter is out...

Lithops helmuthii

I won't be blogging tomorrow. We'll be off to the Oregon coast for a little break and to celebrate Lynn-Marie's birthday ... and a worthy birthday to celebrate it is: 70. It's hard to believe we've been around that long. And we don't hide our years; we're proud of them. Yes, we still do stupid things - or at least I do (can't speak for Lynn-Marie) - I believe we've gained a little wisdom over the years.

In the meantime, here's a picture of L. helmuthii doing its thing. The flower's a little past its prime, but still impressive. It's one of my favorites.

And please, enjoy your plants!

Lobivia (Echinopsis) hybrid by Kara

This is a hybrid that Lynn-Marie created a few years ago. It's doing its thing right now and showing of its wonderful flowers.