Wrapping up the Sunset Heights Tour of Homes, and my usual garden diversion. But can you blame me? Anyone should know the first thing one sees is a garden, an afterthought, or none at all.
Photos from the warm mid-80s on 10/5/2014 –
Over a decade before I ever considered moving to El Paso, a certain humility was obvious in how many people act towards others and their town. Also evident was a gentle hand of restraint in how I make a living: the landscape.
Not that horticulture is important or even trendy as a rule here, but where present there’s more panache than much of where I moved from. Only the thirsty was garish; the rest humble.
(more cypresses, lantanas and plumbagos, anyone?)
(but more cypresses, lantanas and plumbagos, anyone?)
And the gallery inside with so much visual art, were a feast. So was a glass of cabernet and those from-the-can, sugar-sprinkled Danish cookies…
While my part of town is in the direct path of UTEP, its mix of decay with a touch of sophistication is so interesting. Fortunately, new parts of town and trendy neighborhoods to my north keep attention away, so it remains more grounded and affordable.
Variegated Privet. Would that be Ligustrum sinensis ‘Variegatum’?
I need to use this one in my designs. I first drove by a mass of that privet, but it looked like a form of some old-flowering-shrub seen more in older areas – Abelia, and so on. I never got close enough until this one.
Most of the privets I recall in Albuquerque were the evergreen Texas or Glossy Privet / Ligustrum japonicum, usually in too-tight a location, often killed by their 20-ish year deep freeze. Not so many here, where they are more long-term, winter-hardy. And some were called California Privet / L. ovafolium or Common Privet / L. vulgare, mostly semi-evergreen both places, until north in z 6 and colder.
