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On Sunday, Keene returns to the museum to begin a weeklong residency during which he will paint 30 to 90 multiples of the same subject, at the same time. The painting-as-performance will change daily in subject matter: animals, flowers, L.A. landmarks, outer space imagery, pop culture icons.
Have an idea for a daylong painting marathon? Keene is open to suggestions. Email your idea to info@smmoa.org.
All of the paintings will be on sale starting at $10, with proceeds benefiting the museum.
"I think of it as very disciplined silliness," Keene said from Brooklyn on Wednesday. "For me, it's a performance. It's about being brave and crazy enough to be creative in front of people."
The Times' glowing review from 2000 said that exhibition was "not just a cheeky critique of high-priced art. While it does take the popular accessibility of Warhol's mass-produced images to the next level, it simultaneously reveals the difficulties of making a living as an artist in America.... It lays bare the unglamorous reality of life as a hard-working artist -- on average, a low-paying job that cannot be redeemed by the Protestant work ethic, no matter how devoutly it's applied."
Keene, who said he has sold more than 250,000 paintings in the last 20 years, also will paint new modular furniture that will be used in the museum's planned outdoor space.
"I didn't intend for my career to be like this," Keene said. "But I got such a positive response that I fed off the energy. It's my favorite way to think about art."
The Santa Monica Museum of Art is at Bergamot Station, Building G1, 2525 Michigan Ave. From Friday through Sunday, the museum store will have discounts on Keene-designed furniture as well as animal-themed items from Danger Dogs, Venice Clay and jewelry by designer Krista Everage. (310) 586-6488.
Some Bergamot galleries will offer discounts on artist catalogs, limited-edition prints, gifts, jewelry, specialty paper and floral bouquets.
Coming Saturday: More coverage of affordable art, including our article on handmade posters.
-- Lisa Boone
Photo credits, from top: Santa Monica Museum of Art; Los Angeles Times; Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
L.A.'s Board of Water and Power Commissioners approved a plan Tuesday to relaunch its Solar Incentive Program, and the Department of Water and Power will resume accepting applications for the program Sept. 1 at 10 a.m. The program was placed on hold April 9 because demand for solar incentives exceeded available funds by a factor of three to one.
"As we relaunch the Solar Incentive Program in September, it is extremely important that we leverage the incentives to achieve the most solar power and encourage as much participation as possible," DWP General Manager Ronald O. Nichols said in a statement. "We also want to grow solar at a steady and sustainable pace while being prudent about the cost to all customers who pay for this program through their rates."
The DWP has increased the budget for the Solar Incentive Program to $60 million for the current fiscal year. It anticipates adding $60 million to the program annually in 2012 and 2013 as well. The $60 million in rebates over the next three years will be funded with revenue collected from ratepayers' electric bills.
For an average four-kilowatt, $32,000 solar power installation, the program previously covered up to 45% of the costs for residential buildings. Through April of this year, the Solar Incentive Program reimbursement rate was $3.25 per watt, or $13,000 for a four-kilowatt system. Starting Sept. 1, the rebate amount will be $2.00 to $2.20 per watt, with the highest rebate amount going to the most efficient systems. A four-kilowatt system with optimum orientation and no shading would be reimbursed $8,800, a less-efficient system, $8,000.
In a statement, DWP senior assistant general manager Aram Benyamin said, "Now that significant tax incentives are being offered by the federal government, we have an opportunity to reduce our incentive levels to be more in line with market pricing, which should give more customers the opportunity to build solar and increase the amount of solar [photovoltaic projects] that can be built through this program."
Homeowners who install solar power between now and the end of 2016 can receive a federal tax credit equal to 30% of the system's cost.
Many of the area's top solar providers, including Sungevity, SolarCity, Verengo and SunRun, oppose LADWP's revamped Solar Incentive Program. They say the reduced incentives would require homeowners who install photovoltaic systems to pay more for electricity than they would without solar panels; the payback period would also increase to as much as 14 years -- far longer than other areas in the state. [Updated 8-3-11, 1:10 p.m.: The original version of this post did not include feedback from solar installers.]
According to Nichols, "In the next few months, we will come back with more leasing options and other proposals for lower-income households."
RELATED:
Los Angeles DWP to again offer solar rebates
Solar power incentives make it easier to switch
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo: Rooftop solar panels. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
Community Garden Dispatch No. 41: Project Youth Green, Pacoima
When Project Youth Green Community Garden broke ground three years ago on a 4-acre parcel within Roger Jessup Park in Pacoima, it was a different world. Founded by the nonprofilt Youth Speak Collective after-school program on land owned by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, the garden paid nothing for rent, water or maintenance.
No longer. Details of a new contract with the city are not expected to be announced until September, but Project Youth Green -- like other community gardens on Recreation and Parks land -- is already feeling the effect of fee hikes. In June the group paid $500 for an annual lease. Now it's responsible for all trash removal, downed trees and repairs to pipes. Fortunately many of the gardeners are professional handymen, some hard hit by the downturn in construction.
“When the economy went bad we had a lot of calls for plots,” says coordinator Laura Robledo, left, as she opens the door to a recycled shipping container that functions as the office, storage shed and library.
A volleyball court is nearby, as is a mural painted by Youth Speak Collective kids. It’s an ongoing project, designed by artist Kristy Salcedo as a way to entice youth into the garden. “It’s the bait on the hook,” Robledo says.
On the path up the hill, a butterfly garden and a bird garden are planted with California natives and shaded by mature eucalyptus and giant California live oak, a reminder of chaparral-covered foothills less than a half-mile away. A medicinal garden contains echinacea, chamomile, aloe and ruda. Robledo uses the ruda, soaked in alcohol, for ear drops. She makes a tea from the chamomile to soothe her eyes.
Pieces of wood bolted to an iron frame form the raised beds pictured above. Elsewhere, 60 plots -- each 10 by 20 feet -- are available to families, but much of the growing here is communal in nature. A core group of five gardeners oversees corn and tomatoes.
When a strong windstorm blew through a few weeks ago it nearly flattened the entire corn crop, largely grown from seed brought from Mexico. Rafael Saucedo and Juan Lopez called other members of the team, and they hurriedly used recycled stakes and string to prop up the plants. Lopez, a mechanic, was just guessing what might work. (That's him at right, using spare wood to make more supports for corn and tomatoes.)
Now the corn is nearly 10 feet high and Rafael Saucedo says it will be ready for harvest soon. He and Lopez have been here since the start, learning how to create a garden that doesn’t rely on pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
The garden’s communal crops will be on display at a summer harvest festival Aug. 27, and the public is invited to sample the bounty. For those who can’t wait, Project Youth Green has a table at the Sylmar Farmers Market, selling produce for donations that might soften the fees expected in September.
Next week: Teodoro Mercado's permaculture experiment at Project Youth Green.
-- Jeff Spurrier
Corrected: An earlier version of this post misspelled Rafael Saucedo's name as Salcedo.
Artwork around Project Youth Green was largely done by students.
More artwork at the garden, which sits within a Pacoima park.
Rafael Saucedo transplants nopal cactuses.
Corn husks are gathered for use in making corundas, which are similar to tamales.
Photos: Ann Summa
A new installment in our yearlong series on community gardens is posted every Wednesday. For an easy way to follow future dispatches, join our Facebook page dedicated to gardening in the West.
Community garden waiting lists
Jardin del Rio, the L.A. River garden
Central America by way of East Hollywood
Growing Experience Urban Farm in Long Beach
In "The Change-Up," which opens Friday, Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman, above) and Mitch Plano (Ryan Reynolds) each wish they had the other's life -- then wake up one morning to discover that their wish has come true and they're now living in very different worlds.
"The Change-Up" was shot in Atlanta, where production designer Barry Robison (working with director David Dobkin, director of "Wedding Crashers") scouted homes for inspiration in creating domestic Dave's beginner McMansion.
"It's not quite Colonial or Arts and Crafts but a pastiche of traditional elements," Robison said of the house. "We noticed that a lot of houses in Atlanta had a similar style: dark floors, white cabinetry, iron railings, creamy walls, which we replicated with Benjamin Moore Linen White, and beautiful fabrics on windows and furniture. We wanted to tap into that."
The living room of Dave and wife Jamie (played by Leslie Mann, pictured at right with Bateman and Reynolds) demonstrates that "they are on their way up the ladder," said Robison, who purchased custom furniture from Bungalow Classic in Atlanta.
He also channeled top female designers, including Barbara Barry and Victoria Hagan, turning the couple's bedroom into a pattern-filled feminine space.
"Dave has left all the design decisions to his wife," Robison said. "He has traded his masculinity for parenthood, and this fuels his desire to trade places with Mitch."
Bachelor Mitch lives in a primary-colored loft-style space in a funky part of town. "It’s a place he found in college and he's never moved," Robison said. "A modern-day man cave for the Peter Pan, arrested-development man-boy."
Indeed, the space is filled with toys, and Robison even painted over a -- purists, brace yourselves -- classic Saarinen table. In the kitchen, below, shelves are filled with robots, colorful dishes and boxes from Atlanta's Antico Pizza. The crowning touch for the retro-influenced space was a Smeg refrigerator in fire engine red. "I just didn’t want to put in the same old 1950s appliance," Robison said.
Keep reading to see Dave's kitchen ...
The Lockwoods' kitchen has cabinetry by Kitchen Craft and polished Vermont granite countertops. "We needed something to energize the unrelenting neutrals and bring color and youth to this environment," Robison said. The solutions: a vivid, patterned green backsplash made of tile from Waterworks, plus floral curtains. The production designer used Colefax & Fowler and Osborne & Little fabrics for window treatments throughout the house.
The couple's master bathroom has a spa vibe thanks to marble subway tiles and lighting, mirrors and plumbing fixtures from Waterworks and Restoration Hardware.
For an easy way to follow future installments of "Set Pieces," bookmark L.A. at Home or join our Facebook page for home design.
-- David A. Keeps
Photo credits: Universal Pictures
Designer Kate Moxham and the architecture research group Materials & Applications have transformed the patio behind an Echo Park literacy center into a captivating -- and shaded -- reading space using little more than the synthetic material Tyvek.
"The short story is that I wanted a shade for the back area to accommodate more students," emailed Joel Arquillos, executive director of the nonprofit 826LA center, which provides free workshops and one-on-one tutoring after school for students 6 to 18.
Wedged between colorful storefronts along Echo Park Boulevard, the once-scorching space is now protected by hundreds of folded Tyvek squares attached to a braided stainless steel net.
"It's beautiful and the kids love it," 826 programs coordinator Marisa Gedney said. "It adds a lot of character. It was just too bright before."
The installation, titled "Superscript," was assembled by volunteers over several months. When the sun hits the floating flags, student writings from workshops and tutoring sessions are illuminated.
"Superscript" can be viewed from the alley behind the center, 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
For an easy way to follow the L.A. scene, join our Facebook pages for home design and gardening in the West.
-- Lisa Boone
Photo credits: Scott Mayoral
Neil Patrick Harris rocks. His latest film, "The Smurfs," took in an estimated $35.6 million at the box office over the weekend and almost edged out "Cowboys and Aliens" -- not bad for a story about little blue folks set loose in New York CIty.
Despite a chorus of bad reviews, including a spanking by Times critic Betsy Sharkey, the Smurfs had enough charm to attract Harry Pottered-out kids. For adults, however, the cool Manhattan apartment sets might have held the most appeal.
Much of the action takes place in the retro-boho home of blues-loving marketing man Patrick Winslow (Harris, above) and mother-to-be Grace Winslow (Jayma Mays), a furniture refurbisher. (Mays, who plays guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury on "Glee," is pictured at right on the set with Harris and director Raja Gosnell.)
The exteriors were shot on location in the East Village at a six-story Classical Revival brick building with Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge views, production designer Bill Boes said in an email.
"We came up with the idea that perhaps in the 1960s the building once housed many artists and musicians and had a crazy history of artistic renovations, leaving a patchwork of mismatched cabinets and vibrant colored linoleum tile in the kitchen," he said.
Set decorator Regina Graves took this cue in creating the look of the other rooms, including a bathroom that dated to 1912 and was outfitted with tiles from Subway Ceramics and a pull-chain toilet from Historic Houseparts.
"We wanted the apartment to feel a little cluttered but lived in and well loved," Graves said. "We did this using multiple layers of old, new and found items. Grace and Patrick are a quintessential New York couple that goes to thrift stores and flea markets on the weekends and aren’t embarrassed to bring home that great metal step stool they found on the sidewalk ready for the trash."
The kitchen gets its old-timey feeling with patterned Portuguese wall tiles from Solar Antique Tiles and a floor made from Azrock Cortina Grande tiles in orange and yellow. The butcher block is antique, and the island was made from IKEA's Norden table painted yellow. The pedestal dining table with a cast iron base was purchased at Olde Engine Works Market Place in Stroudsburg, Penn. "It was in the café section of the antique center and not for sale," Graves said. "I actually begged the owner of the antique market and purchased another table to replace that one."
Keep reading to see the Winslows' boudoir and learn how the living room got Smurfed ...
The Winslow living room has a mix of contemporary pieces including a Petrie sofa from Crate & Barrel and a striped rug from the ABC Carpet outlet in the Bronx. The coffee table is vintage. "We wanted to portray the living room as partially Grace's studio, filled with paints and tools for her craft of painting furniture," Boes said. "Grace's feminine touches make the Smurfs see a familiarity with their own homeland and feel at ease."
Later in the film, the apartment gets Smurfed when -- spoiler alert -- the magic seeds that Clumsy planted on the fire escape grow into the apartment, covering the walls in flowers and foliage. The pillows on the sofa are made from Judy Ross fabrics.
For an easy way to follow future "Set Pieces," join our Facebook page dedicated to home design.
-- David A. Keeps
Photo credits: Sony Pictures Animation, Regina Graves
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Judges' chairs on "X Factor," "America's Got Talent"
Every Monday we post a recently built, remodeled or redecorated home with commentary from the designer. This week we focus on the remodel of a 1968 travel trailer.
Project: Airstream Ambassador renovation.
Design and construction: Josh Ganshorn of Able & Baker, Ventura.
Designer's description: For inspiration I visited NASA’s 1968 Airstream trailer used as a mobile quarantine unit for Apollo 11 astronauts returning from the moon. Although I had been dreaming up how I wanted to execute my project, seeing the NASA trailer helped to fine-tune my vision.
I began by asking, “What would I do if I were designing for Airstream in 1968?” Since I wasnʼt even alive in 1968, I could only create a design based on my impressions of the era.
One of my client's few requests was to open up the floor plan. Although the kitchen was one of the Airstream’s most impressive features, it was not what my client needed. And because this Airstream would be placed in a permanent location, we took liberties with the electrical system. We added enough power to support a new refrigerator, convection oven and on-demand water heater. In the event the client did want to travel someday, some original systems were left in place so that the trailer could be towed or hooked up at an RV park and still have a working refrigerator and basic lighting.
We removed existing (but not original) jalousie windows and had custom aluminum dual-glazed awning windows made. We added a new air conditioner to battle summer heat. The interior was sprayed with low-fume acrylic paint with no volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.
The project was a crash course in Airstream culture and history. Throughout construction we met interesting and enthusiastic people who stopped out of curiosity and occasionally offered advice (some of it useful!). The Airstream is parked in a beautiful garden of a Greene & Greene home in Fresno. To see more of the project, keep reading ...
Above: A photo of the Airstream in Las Vegas, N.M., east of Santa Fe, before it was hauled back to California.
Above: The view from the entrance before the renovation. The galley kitchen sits in the foreground, a sleeping area lies beyond, and in the distance is the door leading to the bathroom. The interior was dark and cramped.
Above: Another pre-renovation photo looking toward the bathroom.
Today: The same view after the renovation (also seen at the top of this post). I created a semi-oval, sliding pocket door with a large window of white plexiglass. It separates the bathroom and preserves privacy while still allowing light to pass. The original door was pretty narrow, and I redesigned it with cool curves and made the top half 4 inches wider. One side of the door is walnut, to match the kitchen, and the other side is maple to match the bathroom finishes.
The full-height closet cabinet literally rounds the corner with small, elegantly curved walnut doors. We designed the doors and drawers with integrated scoop pulls that provide a sleek look and limit injuries in this compact space. The built-in rotating metallic globe is a highlight. We added the red location arrow and a miniature Airstream figurine, which remain stationary while the globe spins.
More cabinets provide additional closet space. We knew we wanted to keep the Airstream control panel, seen on the right. We re-wired and relocated it, and now it controls a sliding futon at the other end of the trailer.
One of the design challenges was to make use of the wheel wells, which took up valuable floor space and could not be removed. We resolved this problem by concealing the wells in cabinetry and creating built-in seating on both sides of the trailer. We tried to make the most out of every square inch, so we created small but deep cubbies for books and sketch pads just below the bench.
The wheel well on the other side of the trailer has more shelving. One of the most common questions people ask is, "Where did you get all of these cabinets?" People are often surprised to know that most of the interior was fabricated in our woodshop.
Above: One side of the kitchen before the renovation ...
... and the other side. Because the trailer was not going to be used for much cooking, the client decided to forgo a kitchen sink and instead uses the bathroom faucet for everything.
Now the appliances are set toward the rear of the trailer. We installed a small convection oven, a refrigerator with separate freezer and a water-boiling electric teapot. We also included storage for wine (seen in an earlier photo). The desk drawer contains inputs for a laptop or iPod and connects to the surround sound system. The Formica countertop has plenty of room to prepare food or spread out art supplies. The reverse view is seen below.
Above: The view toward the other end of the trailer. Deciding how to replace the original fold-out sofa bed was one of the biggest challenges. A fold-out futon seemed logical, but most conventional futon beds require side or rear access for set-up. With our layout, that wasn't an option. The solution was a combination of custom hardware and off-the-shelf garage door track, rollers and motor. In the sofa position, the frame takes up very little space; it slides down into bed position with the push of a button, revealing a small bookshelf behind the futon.
Above: The original sleeping compartment.
The new futon, lowered to reveal the bookcase in back. The overhead cabinet is one of the few original components that remained largely untouched. The doors had a walnut veneer, which dictated our use of walnut in the new construction. The cabinet originally housed a Motorola stereo system; now it conceals two new speakers.
The entry/exit.
The Airstream today, nestled in the garden of a Fresno Greene & Greene home.
-- Compiled by Lisa Boone
Photo credits: Kevin Lindholm and Jen Zahigian
Pro Portfolio appears on this blog every Monday. Submit projects to home@latimes.com.
Follow future installments by bookmarking L.A. at Home or joining our Facebook page dedicated to California home design.
Home and garden events are listed below. Suggest your own via reader comments. Submissions must be fewer than 75 words and must be for one-time events with legitimate value to other readers. No store promotions and no frivolous links, please. L.A. at Home staff will determine which submissions will be made public.
Aug. 2: The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum presents a family-friendly evening of interactive theater performance and dance as part of Descanso Gardens’ Summer Family Series. Bring a picnic (usually not allowed in the gardens, shown above). 5:30 to 7 p.m. Included in garden admission of $3 to $8. Open until 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays through Aug. 25. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. (818) 949-4200.
Aug. 4: Bob Sheppard performs in conjunction with Descanso Gardens' summer Jazz Evenings. 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursdays through Aug. 25. Included in garden admission of $3 to $8. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. (818) 949-4200.
Aug. 6: Kimberly O'Cain, water conservation coordinator for the city of Santa Monica, leads a class on the basics of drip irrigation. 9 to 11 a.m. Education Center, Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers & Native Plants, 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley. $25 to $35. (818) 768-3533.
Aug. 6: Landscape designer Steve Gerischer demonstrates how to create container gardens with native plants, from small balcony vignettes to large-scale landscapes. 1 to 3 p.m. Picnic area, Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers & Native Plants, 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley. $25 to $35. (818) 768-3533.
Aug. 6-7: The Culver City Garden Club holds its 58th annual show and plant sale. Highlights include a judged exhibition of plants, flowers and edibles; a compost workshop courtesy of L.A. County's Smart Gardening Program; and free starter plants for kids. Noon to 4 p.m. Aug. 6, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 7. Culver City Veterans' Memorial auditorium, 4117 Overland Ave. Free. (310) 203-1482.
Ongoing:
Craft shows: “Ann Weber: Love and Other Audacities” is an exhibition of cardboard sculptures made with a stapler, box cutter and shellac. “Jennifer Angus: All Creatures Great and Small” is a wallpaper-like installation featuring about 3,500 brightly colored insects pinned to the wall. $5 to $7. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Ends Sept. 11. Craft and Folk Art Museum, 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 937-4230.
Frederick Fisher: The architect has created a site-specific installation featuring literal and metaphorical ruins. Free. Otis Ben Maltz Gallery, first floor, Bronya and Andy Galef Center for Fine Arts, 9045 Lincoln Blvd., Los Angeles. Ends Sept. 1. (310) 665-6905; www.otis.edu (click on “public programs”).
Life at the Miramar: Rare photographs, documents and other artifacts depict life at Santa Monica’s landmark home-turned-hotel from the late 1800s to the present. Ends Oct. 18. $3 to $5. Santa Monica History Museum, Santa Monica Public Library campus, 1350 7th St., Santa Monica. (310) 395-2290.
— Lisa Boone
Photo credit: Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times
Please send listings at least three weeks in advance to home@latimes.com or Home section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Plastic bubble wrap and other plastic air pillow packaging are not recyclable in L.A.’s blue bin. Although the wrap is made from low-density polyethylene plastic No. 7, the adhesives used to seal the sheets of plastic are not recyclable.
The Bureau of Sanitation recommends reusing plastic bubble wrap and air packaging or donating it to shipping firms, such as Mail Boxes Etc. Popped packaging should be placed in the black trash bin.
Because policies and recommendations can vary from city to city, each week we ask a sampling of officials from various municipalities to weigh in. Can you recycle plastic bubble wrap in …
Arcadia: Yes
Burbank: No. It can be brought to the Burbank Recycle Center and placed in the plastic film bin.
Culver City: No
Long Beach: Yes
Los Angeles: No
Manhattan Beach: No
Riverside: Yes
Santa Monica: No. It can be brought to the Santa Monica Community Recycling Center for bundling with like materials.
Torrance: No
Ventura: No
THE FULL SERIES:
Can I recycle packing peanuts, Ziploc bags, milk cartons, wine corks ...
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo by Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
There’s overdoing it, and there’s what I did. After sowing a pound of sunflower seeds last winter, eight months later, the phrase “height of summer” can now be taken literally. In lieu of a front hedge, I have sunflowers. One astounded woman even came to my door asking when and how to plant them. Neighbors call my home “the sunflower house.” Out back, my yard is a vertical meadow.
I’d known that our native sunflowers easily reached 12 feet tall, but I’d never appreciated what happened when you planted roughly 200,000 seeds. The upshot out back from the fraction that germinated feels less like a garden and more like a field. From a distance, a sea of yellow ripples in summer breezes. Following a long path into the back garden, the person strolling becomes engulfed. There have been games of hide and seek. Then there’s the scent, less floral than edible. When the sun hits the sunflowers, the garden smells like a pan of freshly baked cookies.
This tease should come with a caveat – the sunflowers in question are not the massive-headed domesticated sort that can be crushed for oil or provide seeds for trail mix. They are wild, the type that sunflower growers and most seed companies call “weeds.” The first thing that strikes you on crushing a dried flower head is how small the seeds are compared with their commercial and culinary cousins –- smaller than a grain of rice. Only after ordering wholesale from S&S Seeds in Carpinteria, a company that specializes in wild land restoration, did I check what I was doing by sowing a pound. Their formula is ¼ pound per thousand square feet. It was dumb luck that I wanted to cover about 4,000 square feet, though it took some culling to free up the vegetable plots.
The reasons for planting so many were five-fold: First, second and third, I love them. A mere glimpse out the window at their waving heads can pierce the darkest of moods. Unlike many commercial single-headed sunflowers with names that connote their enormity (Mammoth, Titan, Giant), the heads of wild sunflowers are small and each plant produces many blooms on a steady progression of arterial branches. One plant is quite capable of turning into a towering bush. The flowers just keep coming. So do the finches, which now commute from flower to water fountain as if my backyard were an endless loop produced by Disney.
The fourth reason for what one visiting garden designer, after gasping, called “exuberant” use of the seeds was water. Wild sunflowers need little or no irrigation. While many similarly broad-leafed plants have such high evapostranspiration rates that they will wilt on any hot 24-hour cycle, wild sunflowers have a built-in cooling system in the form of markedly tough and hairy leaves. The botanists behind the Helianthus annuus treatment in the Jepson Manual treatment go one word better, describing these leaves as “rough-hairy.” If you do water native sunflowers in summer, the presiding authorities O’Brien, Fross and Bornstein are absolutely right when they caution in “California Plants for the Native Garden” that overhead water can encourage rust on the foliage. Use drip or simply aim low with the hose.
My fifth intention for strewing so many seeds last year was shade. I was seeding around newly planted fruit trees, native lilacs, sages and fuchsias on land that had recently been, for lack of a better word, lawn. After razor-cutting the mix of weeds and grasses, then smothering it with mulch, I had a lot of open ground between the saplings and seedlings that will in years come to dominate the garden. Though I knew I would have to irrigate the nursery starts, I was worried about how they would fare on an exposed south-facing slope. I sowed sunflowers on the gamble that these crazy tall annuals would afford the nursery starts some shade while also bringing in pollinators.
With constant culling to free up the trees and shrubs, that strategy has worked. As the sunflowers grew, there were also two welcome and wholly unexpected fillips. The emerging army of wildflowers protected the young plants from the crashing play of carousing dogs. Even more usefully, and more remarkably, the sunflowers seemed to be suppressing the grasses and mallows and various weeds of the former lawn.
At a guess, the massive root systems needed to hold up such towering plants and draw water from a receding groundwater table were simply out-competing the lawn plants. But there may be another reason. It’s been in the ether among gardeners for ages that sunflowers may have alleopathic virtues –- that is to say, they may emit chemicals that suppress growth of plants near them. Agronomists are even exploring their potential to stand in for herbicides. So they may actually be serving as a natural alternative to weed killers, a tool that I personally balk at using when murdering lawn. Whatever the reason, the vertical meadow as transition from lawn to native, fruit and vegetable garden is proving more successful than I’d ever dared hope.
I should add that the sunflowers did not have to contend with the ultimate noxious lawn plant, Bermuda grass. For those of you wondering if I haven’t switched out one problem for another, you may have a point. However, I’m not worried about feral sunflowers next year. They’re easy to weed when young, though I doubt I will be culling too heavily.
Sunflowers are famed for youthful heliotropism before thickening stems leave the flower heads fixed facing due east. This year I found that wild ones will face any direction that is not already filled up by another flower. If they germinate in the shade, the stem will crawl right along the ground until it hits sunlight from any direction, then it will begin growing upward.
I have gone deep and long in this section in the past on the history of our wild sunflowers, about how a sunflower is not one flower, but many little disk florets crowded on a head called a “composite” and about how the seeds are not technically seeds but little fruits called “achenes,” so there is little point in reprising that. The only thing that returned me to the subject here was this recent, blowout experiment and to add some planting tips. For those interested in a raucous meadow next year, the best time to pick some ripe seed heads is now through October. The ideal time to sow them is between Halloween and New Year.
If you collect your own seeds, and only want to cover a couple hundred square feet or less, a pocketful of flower heads, each of which will be stuffed with dozens of tiny achenes, should do it. Allow for attrition by birds. Pick them when brown, after the yellow “petals” (actually ray florets), have dropped. The folks at S&S Seeds estimate that the achenes can last up to three years if kept in a cool, dry, dark place. When you’re ready to plant, crumble them up over the soil, rake them in and mulch. With luck, rain will do the rest. If you water in the fall, which ideally shouldn’t be necessary, keep watering so seedlings can send down the all important tap roots. As they germinate and fill out, thin them.
Or not.
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-- Emily Green
Photos, including of her neighbor Jasmine, by Emily Green.