high spring (gbbd)

This is it. High spring in San Diego. There are prob­a­bly more things bloom­ing now in the gar­den than there will be at any other time of year.

I start with the cur­rent state of the agave that I’ve been show­ing for the last few months. It’s bloomed its way from the base of the flower stalk to very near the very end. The plant will soon die and you won’t see any more pho­tos of it. For­tu­nately the plant has sev­eral other growths to keep it going into the future.

The spike has arced up and come back to the ground, where its final blooms are resting.


I’ve pro­vided a few cap­tions, but there are too many flow­ers to com­ment on in detail. For the rest of the pho­tos, hover your mouse to view the names or click to enlarge.

Leaves of the unknown Gas­te­ria.

An unknown gas­te­ria. The flow­ers are nice, but I grow it mainly for the foliage.



The weird dou­ble blooms of this pitcher plant, Sar­race­nia leu­co­phyll ‘Tarnok,’ shown with the first pitch­ers of the season.

The bloom of another car­niv­o­rous pitcher plant.

Geum and blue-eyed grass.

Salvia lyrata ‘Pur­ple Vol­cano.’ It’s rather weedy accord­ing to Robin Mid­dle­ton, but it does have its nice gar­den moments.

The not-quite black flow­ers of Salvia discolor.

Flow­ers on the grape­fruit. They smell great. And they bode well for a good crop next year.


Thank you thank you thank you to Carol at May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day. Stuff is begin­ning to bloom every­where. [ Check it out all the bloom­ing gar­dens! ]


March 14 2010 08:15 pm | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • •

22 Responses to “high spring (gbbd)”

  1. noel on 14 Mar 2010 at 8:36 pm #

    wow, you weren’t kid­ding, looks like every­thing is com­ing out all at the right moment.…how amaz­ing is that! love the car­pen­te­ria and the laelia bloom.

  2. Plantiis on 14 Mar 2010 at 10:00 pm #

    What a great show the flow­ers are putting on! The Tarnok flower looks great!

  3. Brad B on 14 Mar 2010 at 10:06 pm #

    It’s been great fol­low­ing that agave. That flower spike is unreal. You do have a lot bloom­ing. Great selec­tion to share.

  4. Gayle Madwin on 15 Mar 2010 at 2:07 am #

    Gor­geous! I espe­cially like the Ver­bena lilacina and the Sphaer­al­cea ambigua, though I doubt I could grow either one of them up here. (I’m still look­ing for S. munroana as a poten­tial sub­sti­tute.) And the agave is stunning!

    I finally fin­ished my own Bloom Day post, and four of my blooms are also among your blooms. I have a Dich­e­lostemma as well, but mine is D. mul­ti­flo­rum and hasn’t bloomed yet.

  5. Rosemary on 15 Mar 2010 at 5:33 am #

    Wow! Lots of intrigu­ing flow­ers I’ve never seen before. I was sur­prised to see the Sar­race­nia hybrid, which looks so much like the Sar­race­nia pur­purea that grows wild here in Ontario, though our cli­mate is totally dif­fer­ent (it is def­i­nitely not peak bloom­ing sea­son here, in fact I count myself lucky to have two species in bloom today.

  6. Nell Jean on 15 Mar 2010 at 6:23 am #

    Beau­ti­ful Bloom Day post and a great pre­sen­ta­tion with the mouse-overs.

    Your spring is so dif­fer­ent to our spring. Things like blue eyed grass, callas, core­op­sis and S. lyrata bloom a lit­tle later here. Many of the oth­ers dis­like our humidity.

  7. Town Mouse on 15 Mar 2010 at 7:03 am #

    Wow, a lot going on! That agave is some­thing else! I also like the pitcher plants, I’m sure they’ve enjoyed the recent rains.

    Happy bloom day!

  8. Ruth on 15 Mar 2010 at 7:08 am #

    James — your gar­den makes me miss Cal­i­for­nia SO much! I LOVE your Salvia dis­color. I will have to see if I can grow it here in NC. Thank you for remind­ing me of it. My pitcher plants aren’t bloom­ing yet. Thank you for shar­ing your blooms!

  9. Melody on 15 Mar 2010 at 8:39 am #

    I bbet you love this time of year with so much bloom­ing. Gor­geous flowers!

  10. Amy F on 15 Mar 2010 at 9:07 am #

    It’s been said already, but wow! What an amaz­ing gar­den. My faves are the almost-black salvia, fava bean flow­ers, and pitcher plants. Wish I could smell the grape­fruit in bloom from here…

  11. Loree on 15 Mar 2010 at 11:57 am #

    I will miss the agave updates, thank you for show­ing it one last time!

  12. ricki - sprig to twig on 15 Mar 2010 at 2:45 pm #

    Your pho­tos are an exotic treat for this Pacific NW gardener.

  13. andrea on 15 Mar 2010 at 3:22 pm #

    james, i love the pur­ple oxalis/dianella/thyme combo you show — does the oxalis hold up to sum­mer­time heat? i might try to repli­cate that plant­ing, and maybe throw in some salvia dis­color or s. guaranit­ica ‘black & blue’. thanks for the inspiration…

  14. Dirty Girl Gardening on 15 Mar 2010 at 4:02 pm #

    love the fava bean pic!

  15. Stevie on 15 Mar 2010 at 5:22 pm #

    Oooh — such a dif­fer­ent set of plants than we have here in the tem­per­ate rain­for­est of Van­cou­ver. I love your pho­tos (as always) and long for a grape­fruit of my own. Happy Bloom Day!

  16. Martha on 15 Mar 2010 at 6:20 pm #

    Your ver­bena looks won­der­ful, and it has a scent?

    I didn’t know about the carpin­te­ria. A beau­ti­ful flower and a won­der­ful town too! We enjoyed their avo­cado fes­ti­val a cou­ple of years ago.

  17. Christine on 15 Mar 2010 at 8:00 pm #

    It’s like you’ve trav­eled 2 months in time for us in the Bay Area! Thanks for let­ting me peek to see what’s to come for us up here.

  18. Dorothy/Gardening with Nature on 15 Mar 2010 at 8:12 pm #

    So gor­geous — both your blooms and your pho­tog­ra­phy. I am very envious.

  19. ryan on 15 Mar 2010 at 8:38 pm #

    Wow. Quite a col­lec­tion. Some plants I’m not very famil­iar with, like that salvia dis­color, salvia lyrata, bletilla, and of course the car­ni­vores. Very cool.
    I will miss see­ing pho­tos of that agave.
    I like those damn crassulas.

  20. Lynn on 16 Mar 2010 at 4:52 am #

    Wow, James! Can you give us a wide view, too? I’d love to see the impact they all make together. Those fava bean blooms are almost enough to make me want to plant some (love to eat them, hate to shell them). And the last lit­tle agave blooms–how rest­ful in their final repose.

  21. tina on 16 Mar 2010 at 11:08 am #

    It’s all gor­geous. The flow­ers kind of remind me of what I would think a prairie gar­den would look like, with the excep­tion of the pitcher plants; which I think are waaaaay cool.

  22. Frances on 17 Mar 2010 at 2:36 am #

    Thanks for tak­ing the time to show all of these, James. I did laugh out loud at the Cras­sula cap­tions though. We never appre­ci­ate what grows too eas­ily. Thanks for the idea of com­bin­ing geum and blue eyed grass. We have both of those and have been dis­sat­is­fied with their place­ment. :-)
    Frances

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