plants as compass (february bloom day)

I was look­ing at my bloom­ing Agave atten­u­ata and noticed some­thing for the first time. The flow­ers on its spike have been open­ing asym­met­ri­cally, with the south-facing buds open­ing a few days ear­lier than the ones on the shaded side. I guess it’s the agave equiv­a­lent of moss grow­ing on the shaded north side of a tree trunk. As I looked at all the agaves in the neigh­bor­hood, I was notic­ing the same thing: All the south-facing buds open first. It makes sense, I guess, with the sun-warmed buds devel­op­ing sooner than the ones grow­ing in the shade. There must be a botan­i­cal term for this–I’ll see if I can’t look it up sometime.

Some­thing else I noticed the other week was that two of the lit­tle rosettes grow­ing under­neath the growth pro­duc­ing the big spike are also bloom­ing. They’re nice, but the blooms get pretty lost in the foliage.

And com­pared to the big main spike, which must be some­thing like twelve or more feet from base to tip, you can see how it’d be easy to over­look the lit­tle pups…

In the photo above you can make out this big red aloe in the back­ground, Aloe arborescens. The clump began as a one-gallon plant in the early nineties. Now it’s prob­a­bly six feet tall and twelve across.

Feb­ru­ary in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia is a busy month for flow­er­ing plants. Here’s a selec­tion of what else is bloom­ing in the garden.

This raised planter of Oxalis pur­purea is the first part of the gar­den that vis­i­tors encounter as they head up the front steps. Dozens of white flow­ers and a lone pink one in the front. Oops.


Ver­bena lilacina, greened up from the rains, begin­ning to hit its stride.


One of sev­eral plants of Nuttall’s milkvetch, Astra­galus nut­tal­lii, that I raised from seed last summer.


Snapdragon-relative Galvezia spe­ciosa ‘Fire­cracker,’ never a pro­lific bloomer for me, though mine’s a young plant.


The pink-flowered, purple-leaved form of Oxalis pur­purea.


Car­pen­te­ria cal­i­for­nica, a Cal­i­for­nia plant that reminds me a lot of sasan­qua camel­lias in its sim­ple con­trast of sta­mens against broad petals.


First flow­ers on Phlomis mono­cephala.

Feb­ru­ary flow­ers on a yel­low cras­sula that I’ve for­got­ten the name of…


The final blooms of the sea­son on another cras­sula, your basic jade plant, Cras­sula ovata…

The fra­grant Solanum parishii, a wide­spread Cal­i­for­nia native, doing bat­tle on the slope gar­den against ice­plant, Alger­ian ivy and Bermuda buttercup.


Free­way daisies (Osteosper­mun) below, with black sage (Salvia mel­lif­era, pros­trate form) above.


Keep­ing up the daisy theme, Arc­to­tis acaulis hybrid…


Another acto­tis, ‘Big Magneta’…


…and a final photo, a final arc­to­tis, shown against a piece of gar­den art made from glass, steel, and concrete.


As always, my thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day. Even with snow on the ground many places up north, there’s still plenty in bloom today in warmer, more south­ern loca­tions, and on win­dowsills and green­houses around the world. Check them out [ here ].

February 14 2010 10:10 pm | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • • •

32 Responses to “plants as compass (february bloom day)”

  1. Joco on 15 Feb 2010 at 2:20 am #

    Hiya James.

    High Sum­mer, I call this.
    Never mind Feb­ru­ary: looks more like August to me.

    Free­way Daisies? Those pre­cious, exotic Osteosper­mum which never quite make it in my gar­den?
    Are you imply­ing they grow untamed in road cracks?
    Surely not.

    That Car­pen­te­ria cal­i­for­nica, I have always cov­eted it. Saw it in an open gar­den, but never found it for sale.
    Don’t think it would sur­vive a severe win­ter, do you know?

  2. Nell Jean on 15 Feb 2010 at 5:20 am #

    Thank you for shar­ing what will be sum­mer blos­soms here. It’s encour­ag­ing. I need free­way daisies along my driveway!

    Happy Bloom Day.

  3. Katie on 15 Feb 2010 at 6:00 am #

    Suc­cu­lents are my weak­ness. It is like a dis­ease. Thank you for shar­ing with us for Bloom Day!

  4. Country Mouse on 15 Feb 2010 at 7:19 am #

    We call them free­way daisies in cen­tral Cal too — and yes, they grow any­where, like gera­ni­ums. Gosh such a lot bloom­ing — def­i­nitely a month or more ahead of us up the coast. Lovely post. My pics from yes­ter­day are all fuzzy. Maybe I’ll take a turn in the gar­den now before the sun gets high, try again…

  5. Melody on 15 Feb 2010 at 7:25 am #

    Plants are fas­ci­nat­ing, aren’t they. I won­der if the blooms on other plants do that too? I will have to check this summer.

  6. Carol on 15 Feb 2010 at 7:53 am #

    James your fourth photo is amaz­ing! What drama in your Agave atten­u­ata … you have many beau­ti­ful blooms but this one steals the show for me! Striking!

  7. kate/high altitude gardening on 15 Feb 2010 at 9:14 am #

    Oh, how lovely to stroll through the blo­gos­phere to a place where it’s ‘sum­mer.’ I’m months away from snow melt. It’s freez­ing at my place. So, this tour through your gar­den was a great joy. Almost solved my cabin fever! :) )Happy GBBD!

  8. Noelle/azplantlady on 15 Feb 2010 at 9:49 am #

    Wow! What a vari­ety of bloom­ing plants. Your post reminds me why I loved to gar­den in Cal­i­for­nia when I was a child. How inter­est­ing about your agave flow­ers begin­ning on the south side…I will have to check to see if that is also hap­pen­ing on the flow­er­ing agave here in Arizona.

  9. noel on 15 Feb 2010 at 10:01 am #

    aloha,

    what a cel­e­bra­tion for bloom day, i love the detail infor­ma­tion on the agave bloom­ing to the sun, also love the car­pen­te­ria flower. what a nice col­lec­tion you have bloom­ing today. I enjoyed read­ing your beau­ti­ful post today:)

  10. Dorothy/Gardening with Nature on 15 Feb 2010 at 10:42 am #

    Love those agaves. I’ve got to find a way to get more of them into my landscape.

  11. Brad B on 15 Feb 2010 at 10:58 am #

    You have a ton bloom­ing right now. I didn’t real­ize any of the solanums had scent. And I like that Car­pen­te­ria cal­i­for­nica. Also inter­est­ing about the blooms and sun. Of course I’ve noticed my plants that get more sun bloom ear­lier, but I never thought about parts of the same plant or bloom stalk doing that.

  12. Helen/patientgardener on 15 Feb 2010 at 11:19 am #

    Its nice to see some­one with lots in flower

  13. Town Mouse on 15 Feb 2010 at 12:11 pm #

    Wow! Your car­pen­te­ria is bloom­ing? I always bite my nails whether mine makes it for Gar­den Tour day (April 18). Ah, well, there’s Cal­i­for­nia, and there’s South­ern Cal­i­for­nia ;->

    Happy bloom day

  14. Gayle Madwin on 15 Feb 2010 at 12:45 pm #

    With this many flow­ers already, your blog should be called “Feb­ru­ary Dreams.”

    Some­day I hope to have the shade and the space to ateempt to grow a Car­pen­te­ria cal­i­for­nica. They’re so beau­ti­ful, but I don’t think I have any appro­pri­ate spot to put one right now.

  15. lostlandscape on 15 Feb 2010 at 2:02 pm #

    Joco, we call them infor­mally “free­way daisies” because the tran­sit depart­ment planted them in mas­sive quan­ti­ties on the sides of free­ways. It’s been hard for the plant to attain any sort of respect as a result because they were so com­mon. The car­pen­te­ria is listed as being reli­ably hardy to 10 degrees F. Depend­ing on your cli­mate, it might be an option for you.

    Nell Jean, a big swath of free­way daisies next to the dri­ve­way would be perfect!

    Katie, I’m slightly less smit­ten with suc­cu­lents (prob­a­bly tem­porar­ily) than when I first planted many of these in the early 90s. Still, even if they’re not my total infat­u­a­tion right now, I still love them and what they do with­out demand­ing much water.

    CM, I won­der if they planted the free­way daisies en masse up your way or whether the name just migrated north from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Ety­mol­ogy of com­mon plant names would be an inter­est­ing project…

    Melody, with plants, the more I look, the more I find. I agree with you–infinitely fascinating.

    Carol, the agave isn’t just a lit­tle sub­tle poke of color, is it? Sixty-plus days into its bloom I’m still smitten.

    Noelle, we’re def­i­nitely lucky in that we’re able to grow a huge num­ber of plants with­out too much pam­per­ing, and often with­out too much in the way of added water.

    Noel, thanks for vis­it­ing the sub­trop­ics! We can’t grow every­thing you can, but we make up for it with a few of our spe­cial plants.

    Dorothy, the jury seems to be vot­ing for the agave, along with you!

    Brad, I hadn’t real­ized this plant was fra­grant until this past week when I spent more time back on my slope gar­den and noticed this cloud of fra­grance when­ever I got close to it. I’d never noticed the scent out in the wilds.

    Helen, this is about as flow­erey as the gar­den gets, and helps make late win­ter, early spring my favorite time of year in the garden.

    TM, yes, it’s bloom­ing! In fact it started up at the end of Jan­u­ary. If I recall cor­rectly yours bloomed first last year. Go fig­ure. Mine’s a young plant and spent a lot of last year grow­ing. This year it seems to be more inter­ested in things of the flesh, hence the flowers.

    Gayle, it’s a load of flow­ers, all right, and I’m pretty excited right now. My own space for the car­pen­te­ria is just about the ugli­est part of the gar­den, behind the veg­gie gar­den, next to a wood­pile and rusted lit­tle shed. To visit the plant I need to wal­low in ugli­ness. I prob­a­bly won’t be show­ing any whole-plant pho­tos of it for fear of scar­ing every­body with the plant’s location.

  16. ricki - sprig to twig on 15 Feb 2010 at 2:38 pm #

    I try out at least one new site each Bloom Day. Yours is a real find: fab­u­lous pho­tog­ra­phy and a splash of sun­shine for one from the soggy north­coun­try. Thanks!

  17. Susie on 15 Feb 2010 at 2:49 pm #

    Great shots, I love Oxalis unless it’s the weedy type sneak­ing thru my bor­ders & lawn. So many lovely Arc­to­sis cul­ti­vars out now in some really deep & inter­est­ing colors.

  18. ryan on 15 Feb 2010 at 3:07 pm #

    Tons of blooms, so very nice. I’d never heard that about agaves. I like those big giant aloes.

  19. Catherine on 15 Feb 2010 at 3:49 pm #

    I really enjoyed see­ing what you have bloom­ing there, they’re all so dif­fer­ent from what we have grow­ing here. The main spike of the Agave is just amazing!

  20. rebecca sweet on 15 Feb 2010 at 3:51 pm #

    Lovely Car­pen­te­ria! Mine is nowhere near bloom­ing — so it’s so nice to be reminded of ‘whats to come’.…it’s truly one of my favorite natives!

  21. Lynn on 15 Feb 2010 at 5:41 pm #

    Free­way daisies crack me up. And that Agave sure is tak­ing its time, giv­ing you lots of time to observe some cool stuff. Feb­ru­ary in the South­west is a pretty spe­cial time.

  22. Ruth on 15 Feb 2010 at 6:18 pm #

    Hi, James, I looked at your blog ear­lier today and was going to leave a com­ment for you, but didn’t have time at that point, so it was a nice sur­prise to see that you left a com­ment for me! I used to live in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (Altadena) and I truly miss the year ’round gar­den­ing. I loved see­ing your pic­tures that reminded me so much of California.

  23. Kelly@LifeOutOfDoors on 15 Feb 2010 at 6:29 pm #

    James — I have just one ques­tion for you and all the world? Why don’t we all live in Cal­i­for­nia? WOW, the bounty of a Feb­ru­ary gar­den is mind bog­gling. Thanks for shar­ing — instead of hang­ing my head to cry, I’ll go sit by my fire and rest. For every thing there is a sea­son — it will have to be my motto because I ain’t got a choice! Kelly

  24. Garden Junkie on 15 Feb 2010 at 6:43 pm #

    My good­ness, that agave flower spike is a mon­ster! Agaves here in CT are lucky to get over 2 feet! Thanks for shar­ing a glimpse of what we’re only dream­ing about here in the land of snow! And thanks for vis­it­ing my blog :-)

  25. Martha on 15 Feb 2010 at 7:08 pm #

    Wow! I’m so glad to know about your blog. Such an abun­dance in your gar­den, and your art is so evi­dent in your site design. I par­tic­u­larly like the ele­gance of your ban­ner at top. Thank you for vis­it­ing me at Gulf Coast Greenie.

  26. Jean on 15 Feb 2010 at 7:37 pm #

    Wow, that agave bloom is just mas­sive! You have so many cool plants. Plants that I would love to grow. I keep stretch­ing to grow some of them but this year I’m not sure if my agave is going to sur­vive the freezes and snow so well.

  27. lostlandscape on 15 Feb 2010 at 8:29 pm #

    Kate, nice that you could stop by and warm up a bit!

    Ricki, thank you! We’ve had a few days of rain our­selves this win­ter, but it’s been sun sun sun for a few days now.

    Susie, I agree that there are a lot of cool ver­sions of arc­to­tis that are com­ing on line. I find they mix really well with the Cal­i­for­nia natives in their cul­tural require­ments, even if they’re a lit­tle gaudier than most of the local plants. I read that the oaxlis I planted can be trou­ble­some, though so far it’s noth­ing like the low mon­ster oxalis that invades flowerbeds or the yel­low Bermuda but­ter­cup that’s all the scourge here near the coast.

    Ryan, it’s def­i­nitely not hard to like these big red aloes, but I’m start­ing to worry if this one might be hon­ing its designs to take over the front yard.

    Cather­ine, each area does seem to have plants of a cer­tain “look.” I think the species of areas like yours are pretty exotic-looking as well.

    Rebecca, the car­pen­te­ria is only a cou­ple years old, but it’s becom­ing one of my favorites as well.

    Lynn, I sus­pect I’ll still have some­thing agave related next month con­sid­er­ing how slowly it’s mov­ing to the end of its bloom stalk. But I think by that point it’ll be couched as an elegy…this great plant that took two decades to flower, bloomed for three months, and then died back to the ground…

    Ruth, I spent a lot of my child­hood years not too far from Altadena. It’s def­i­nitely one of the gar­den spots of the Los Ange­les area.

    Kelly, win­ter is great here, but our sum­mer gar­dens are dry as toast, so you and much of the rest of the coun­try will have way cooler things going on then!

    GJ, I enjoyed my blog visit. It’s inter­est­ing what sim­i­lar plants do in really dif­fer­ent locations.

    Martha, thank you! I enjoy work­ing on the design of the blog almost as much as I enjoy work­ing in the garden.

    Jean, I hope your agave makes it! The species in my gar­den would turn into a pop­si­cle if the tem­per­a­tures dropped any­where near what you’re going through right now.

  28. Kelly on 15 Feb 2010 at 8:45 pm #

    Love the Astra­galus nut­tal­lii! What a sweet plant.

  29. Loree on 16 Feb 2010 at 10:44 am #

    Thank you for shar­ing more pic­tures of your bloom­ing attenuata…and the obser­va­tion about the blooms open­ing dif­fer­ently on the sunny side. Isn’t nature interesting!?

  30. Elephant's Eye on 18 Feb 2010 at 12:50 am #

    ‘Free­way daisies’?! Ouch! LOL

  31. Jan (ThanksForToday) on 19 Feb 2010 at 10:35 am #

    Hi James, thanks for vis­it­ing! You cer­tainly have an amaz­ing array of blooms. The dif­fer­ence in our win­ter cli­mates is read­ily apparent…for exam­ple, I’ve never seen an aloe grow­ing here;-) In VA right now we have sev­eral ft. of snow on the ground. Your Car­pen­te­ria Cal­i­for­nica is lovely.

  32. Greg on 01 Mar 2010 at 7:25 pm #

    A lovely Feb­ru­ary flower garden!!

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