In which I get a closer look at whatās possible in a warmer climate
So Iām in Santa Clara because Iām going to Pantheacon this weekend, and I got here a day in advance so Iād have some time alone to poke around the area a bit (by which I meanĀ ālook at plantsā) - last year my pre-con fun was a day trip a good ways out of the city to see some redwood forest, and then it was WAY TOO RAINY to go outside in San Jose for any reason but food so I didnāt get a good sense of what the cities (I mean landscape) here is like, plus the con hotel is in a concrete business park wasteland - and it has been kind of awesome.
Iām probably not in the most amazing part of the city to take in the scenery, but what I have seen in the (mostly tame and lawn-covered) nearby park, and peopleās yards, has been fun:
Redwoods. Young ones, but still. They are awesome trees.
People grow aloes in their yards, and they get tall and multi-stemmed and go in lots of directions AND BLOOM.
Other really neat succulents.
Palm trees. Yes, the tall ones are super obvious. But also: thereās a really neat variety of palms. Not all of which tower over everything.
And cycads!!!! Iāve seen cycads in peopleās yards!!!
And orchids. Fucking . . . in a mile of housing I saw two houses where people had pots and P O T S absolutely FULL of cymbidiums in FULL BLOOM I mean hOLY SHIT???? (Plus another place with some outdoor potted plants where one had a spray of yellow flowers that looked awfully suspiciously orchid-like but I didnāt want to creep up their walkway to verify.)
A poinsettia shrub taller than me, and wider than my outstretched arms. A+ shrub, really gorgeous.
Lots of bird-of-paradise plants, many blooming.
Jade plants. Outside. Like I mean the place Iām staying has jades all along the exterior wall, and theyāre waist-high on me, with trunks as thick as my arm, with gorgeous dense foliage, and covered with white flowers. Holy shit.
Many other awesome plants I have literally no idea what they even are, but some of them have lovely delicate foliage, similar to a mimosa, and awesome flat seedpods, guess what I have in my coat pocket now.
Oranges. Lemons. Other citrus (kumquats, maybe? smol orange fruits).
Pines but not my pines. These have different silhouettes and texture than the pines I know.
Intellectually I have known for ages that of course people grow orchids (and aloes, and and and) outside in California, but seeing it for reals is a whole other thing. (I have gardening envy.)
And a rather lovely river deity introduced herself when I was in the park and we had a nice visit; there is a strip of trees and shrubs on the edge of the majority-lawn portion, and I wandered through there, along the edge of a creek (small river? I suppose it depend on who you ask, if you know what I mean). While I was sitting down to chat, there was an exquisite flycatcher (a black phoebe) on the far bank, cheeping and darting out to catch insects; after a while he (?) flew to a spot closer to me, and then to the branches over my head, so I got an even better view. I could hear his beak clack when he went after bugs. A lovely gift.
Also I had dinner at a Burmese restaurant, and it was delicious.
I could not live in California, this isnāt my place, but I do like visiting, and Iām really tempted to bail on a partial (or more) day of conference stuff to get up to one of the actual preserved wild areas in the city.
