Front Yard Mystery & Solution

Yesterday while taking down the Halloween decorations, I found an odd little lump or pod in the front yard.

Hand for scale.

It stood out and I’ve never seen one like it before, so I was curious. Was it some sort of larva or bug? Some piece of scat or critter poop? No clue! It seemed to be dry and light, but that’s about all I could tell.

Then today when I was bringing in the weekly groceries, I found another.

Now that I was alert to their existence, I found a third one.

And a fourth on the driveway.

This one has some sort of a stem on the left side, and it’s in a huge pile of debris from the Italian cypress trees along the side of the garage, needles and small branches blown down by that tremendous wind storm here earlier in the week. And there’s the clue that solved the mystery!

I did a Google search for “Italian Cypress seed pods” and got this:

I don’t see any on the eight or ten trees we have growing there, but it’s obvious that’s what they are and where they come from. Mystery solved!

Next question – can I grow new trees from these seeds? One thing about many of the houses we’re looking at in the High Desert is that they’re a bit on the barren side from a landscaping perspective. Almost all have fencing, mostly chain link, but it would be really nice to line those long fences with Italian Cypresses eventually, both for privacy reasons and for esthetic reasons. If these four seed pods or pine cones are full of viable seeds, can I get a stack of small pots and potting soil and start my own personal forest now, then have them ready to go (albeit small) for transplant when the Willett Forever Home is secured?

Why, yes, I can!

My own little minion/Ent legion! It might not be as straightforward as winning the lottery and paying a gardener or landscape designer to buy them from a nursery and plant them for me, but it will probably be more interesting.