My most memorable trip to California was way back in 1979. I was two years out of college and did a lot of traveling, both for the company I worked with and for personal pleasure.

I had arranged to take off the week of Memorial Day with my intent being to go to California. I also wanted to take my wise old grandmother and my two youngest female cousins, who where then 13 and 9. They all lived in Kingsville, Texas, so they took a Southwest Airlines flight from Corpus Christi to Houston Hobby Airport, where I met them. While they were in the air, an American Airlines DC-10 crashed on take-off from Chicago O'Hare Airport, killing 273 people. I knew about it but didn't tell them because I knew we would never get on the plane to California if they knew about it.

During our nine days in Southern California, we did Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, Hollywood, and any and every tourist trap that existed. We even spent the day stepping on every single star on the various Hollywood sidewalks. I think we also took a picture of every one because I had about 5,000 pictures when I got home.

May is a great time to be in Southern California because of all the natural beauty and the many plants and flowers that grow and bloom here. One of the plants that I was first exposed to in 1979 was the Lily of the Nile, Agapanthus praecox.

Those were the days when I was heavily into photography with a Canon A1 camera and every size lens and filter known to mankind. I must have taken 20 pictures of my uncle's single Agapanthus that week as a single flower stalk shot up to the sky, slowly opened, and bloomed in all it's magnificence.

It's Lily of the Nile season right now, and I've been successful at recreating that series of photographs from 30 years ago so you don't have to wait a week to watch them bloom:

The flowers are only in a couple of shades of blue/purple, and white, and they grow best in USDA Zones 9-11.

I love them as individual plants because the magnificence of the flower stalk (properly called a "scape") stands out on its own. However, many people plant them in border gardens:

Presidio Place, a luxury condominium complex in Mission Valley, has garden after garden after garden of agapunthus, which makes for quite an interesting stroll through the complex at this time of year.

For more pages from Russel's Gardening Handbook, click here.

Be sure to participate in our discussion about giving up your ActiveRain points!

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My most recent 20 posts (they'll open in a new window)

1. Americana, courtesy of Burma Shave - 5/9/09
2. It's all in how you market it - 5/9/09
3. Special closet doors for the little ones - 5/8/09
4. Frenetic Friday pop quiz: Would you give up your ActiveRain points? - 5/8/09
5. How to prevent indoor air pollution - 5/8/09
6. WWW (Wordless Wednesday with Words): Elevator and footsies - 5/7/09
7. Just exactly what is a "rain catchment basin"? - 5/6/09
8. What if I want to leave while the clothes are drying? - 5/5/09
9. Manic Monday pop quiz: Level 2 drought alert - 5/4/09
10. Should I keep track of disappearing points? - 5/3/09
11. SST (Speechless Sunday with Text): Not your standard Easter bunny - 5/3/09
12. ActiveRain frustration post - 5/2/09
13. "There's no such address!" - 5/2/09
14. Frenetic Friday pop quiz: We can learn a lot from weeds - 5/1/09
15. You think the economy is bad? Really? REALLY? - 4/30/09
16. Your inspector won't have to do that.... - 4/30/09
17. Points keep disappearing, lots of them. Almost 1,000 of them now! What's going on? - 4/29.09
18. WWW (Wordless Wednesday with Words): You only live once - 4/29/09
19. Any ActiveRain members using Joomla or Artisteer? - 4/27/09
20. Manic Monday pop quiz: Foundations - 4/27/09

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