Del Mar Manzanita

I've had a Del Mar manzanita (Arctostaphylos glandulosa crassifolia) in my front yard for 20+ years. It's one of my all-time favorite plants, partly because of where I got it. In the 1990's when I was working at the City of Carlsbad, there was an apartment project planned at the NW corner of El Camino Real and Cassia Lane. I read the environmental study for the project and learned that Del Mar manzanita grew on the site. I was interested because this subspecies is found only in a narrow band stretching from Torrey Pines to central Carlsbad on eroding sandstone bluffs.

The first stage of new construction is called clearing and grubbing. It's where all the vegetation is removed and the ground is leveled. Before this happened on the apartment site, I dug up some small seedlings and planted them in my front yard. One of them did really well, and that's the one I still have. It has done really well in the Leucadia sandstone of my garden.

One of the interesting differences between manzanita species is that some of them develop their flower buds in fall, months before they are going to bloom. These are called nascent inflorescences. A. glandulosa is one that does this. The photo below shows a nascent inflorescence on my plant right now.

Some time in January or February the nascent inflorescences will transform into their distinctive upside-down-urn shape.

Fishhook cactus Update (Mammillaria dioica). I wrote about this five days ago when I first saw buds on it. The photo below was taken today and it shows the flowers more wide open and the other buds developing nicely.