I spent the first two weekends in August visiting southern California on a soccer vacation and I had a blast. While my son warmed up for his soccer matches, I got to explore the beautiful Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California.
The Great Park is a beautiful, sprawling sports facility and I walked around shooting every plant I could get close to. The vegetation completely blew me away, especially the Canary Palm (Phoenix canariensis) courtyard.
El Paso
This blog is about the green world, not about politics, but this blog post is different.
When it came out in the news that the White shooter in El Paso, Texas was deliberately targeting Latinos, I was completely disgusted.
What I saw at Irvine was totally different. I saw Latino soccer kids playing hard and little kids playing in Miscanthus grasses; and some walked by with ice cream, the way it should be for all kids! Of course, I didn’t ask for permission to take the photos and luckily nobody reported me to the police.
Miscanthus grasses look beautiful in the wind and the Latino girls just added extra playfulness to the picture. I thought it was great that here at a huge soccer event people were unmolested. So, let’s remember these happier pictures.
The design here makes sense since we are in sunny Southern California. Ornamental grasses look great, especially in a light breeze and they don’t require much water or maintenance.
The girls are playing in Miscanthus and there is one Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima) specimen in the foreground. My own son likes to hide in Mexican feather grass. This grass works well in British Columbia all the way down to Mexico.
The generous layer of mulch not only suppresses weeds, it also keeps moisture in. And that’s critical.
My future posts will cover more California plant species that were new to me. Botanizing on soccer vacations can be a lot of fun!
But for now, let’s pray for all of the recent shooting victims in the US.
