Plants are blooming profusely in Pacific Palisades, along walls and walkways.
For Christians, Easter symbolizes not only spiritual renewal but the date usually comes with the arrival of spring, with themes of rebirth and new beginnings.
It seems an apt time to show what has risen out of Pacific Palisades ashes.
The plants in our yard on Radcliffe were blackened as the fire came through on January 7 burning our home. The strawberry plants were hit on January 8, the day the detached garage burned.
On Valentine’s Day, with the help of my daughter and husband, we dug up two cycads (prehistoric plants) and the strawberry plants, which seemed to be alive and replanted them in pots on the balcony of the apartment. When we were in the dirt, there were ants and worms. The birds had already returned.
CYCADS:
These two cycads, which started as small house plants, and I had been growing for 20 years, had been burned by the rapidly moving fire. My mother, a master gardener had done research and said those plants in Australia had come back after the fires there, which is why we decided to try to save them.
Two cycads, which had grown inside for years, were transplanted into our yard on Radcliffe about 10 years ago.
On March 28, one of the cycads started to sprout–the leave come up as fuzzy little brown shoots.
The second cycad is slower to rebound, but there are now tiny little brown fuzzy shoots starting to show and I’m hoping this one will recover from the fire, too.
STRAWBERRRIES
The strawberry plants were green and growing when they were dug up.
April 7, strawberry blossoms are starting to form.
April 20, strawberries are forming.
Beautiful!