We begin this month’s episode of Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day with the rare lavender-flowered California coffeeberry. Well, actually, there is no such thing and I’m making it up, using one of the older trick in the gardener’s book.

The flowers come from Verbena bonariensis, a tall, stemmy plant that sends it flowers up through any plants around it, making them appear as if they’re blooming with the verbena’s flowers.

The coffeeberry’s flowers are much more nondescript to humans. On the recent garden tour I spoke to a homeowner who was wishing that she hadn’t planted her coffeeberries so close to paths because the bugs seem to go crazy over its blooms, more so than just about any other native plant. Here we have the humble blooms of Frangula (Rhamnus) californica ‘Eve Case.’

The rest of the garden is definitely slowing down. The last few months have been high spring, but you can feel summer’s presence in the lengthening days and the plants slowing down their growth and flower production.

Fortunately some plants choose this time to begin flowering. White sage, Salvia apiana, is one of them.

San Miguel Island buckwheat, Eriogonum rubescens var. rubescens, just getting going.

Winnifred Gilman Cleveland sage, close to its peak.

Gutierrezia californica, California matchweed. It’s not a usual home garden plant, but it has delicate and tiny yellow flowers and miniature leaves that contrast nicely against larger, more substantial plants.

Saint Catherine’s lace, Eriogonum giganteum, probably the most stunning buckwheat. That’s “stunning” in buckwheat-speak, meaning it’s spectacular in a really humble way. Here it is, holding its own against a phlomis from Turkey, P. monocephala.

A closer look at the phlomis above.

We also have a pretty heavy flowering of Island bush snapdragon, Galvezia speciosa ‘Firecracker.’ Looking close, you can definitely make out its family resemblance to the common garden snappers.

A close look at the “rat-tail” floral structures of Verbena lilacina. This species has coloration identical to the verbena that opened this post, but it’s more shrubby, and comes from Baja, not Brazil.

Clarkia rubi­cunda ssp. blasdalei helps extend the flowering into late spring.

If you let your California poppies go to seed, you’ll likely have little scenes like this, young poppy plants sending out their first blooms–not always in the best of places, but there are usually enough of them that some will be coming up where you’d like them.

On the carnivorous plants we have some new blooms. This is a sundew, Drosera filiformis, “Florida Giant.”

And buds on another sundew Drosera capensis, white form.

The pitcher plants, however, are slowing down their flower production, just as the plants start to put out the amazing pitchers that make us want to grow them. These are the intensely raspberry-scented blooms of the ancestral form of Sarracenia rubra var. gulfensis.

During a couple weeks in later spring the orchid cactus, epiphyllums, go crazy with flowers. There’s really nothing orchid-like to their flowers, and their common names is just a piece of wayward marketing. But dang they’re spectacular in their gaudy, tacky, over-the-top-ness. These plants are John’s obsession. Unfortunately he’s not big on plant labels, so here I can only offer you the most generic plant names:

“White epiphyllum”

“A different white epiphyllum,” a plant in total full bloom

A close inspection of the above, Epiphyllum albus differentus

“Red epiphyllum”

“Magenta epiphyllum”

To conclude I’ll share this first flower of the local red columbine, Aquilegia formosa, a species that I’ve always enjoyed but haven’t grown in 10–15 years. Here it is, returned to the garden at last (courtesy last fall’s native plant society sale). Welcome home. You were missed.

That’s a lot of what’s blooming in my garden. Check out dozens of other gardens [ here ] over at May Dreams Gardens, where Carol hosts the monthly bloom day meme on the 15th of each month. Thanks as always, Carol!

So…there I was…watering my pitcher plants…when out jumped this little creature, a black widow spider. Note the bright red hourglass (or maybe psykter or Attic amphora) on the belly of the beast. I’d seen the unkempt-looking webs in the plants and was pretty sure they were in there. Finally, definite proof.

In this shot you can begin to make out the random character of the web they spin. Closer to cobweb than classical spiderweb, but it gets the job done.

What I thought was extra-interesting about the discovery is that the arachnid had set up household in a cluster of plants including the one with the label that you can begin to make out on the left of this image: Sarracenia Black Widow x flava rubricorpa. Sarracenia Black Widow is one of the fetish plants du jour in the pitcher plant community, and it’s the mother of this hybrid made by Travis Wyman. (Thanks to Rob of The Sarracenia Project for the plant!)

A young seedlign of Sarracenia Black Widow x flava var. rubricorpa

(That’s the seedling, to the right. Nice yellow colors, and hopefully the red tones will darken towards black later in the season and as the plant matures.)

Pitcher plant names can run towards the morbid: Abandoned Hope, Spatter Pattern, Gates of Hell, Green Monster. Black Widow fits right in. And this day the name wasn’t just flaccid posing. Like, you might want to think twice before adding Gates of Hell to your collection.

On the recent outing to The Tunnels we took a little detour to view some vernal pools adjacent to Del Mar Mesa.

The area is a patchwork of land administered by several agencies. But the basic message at most of the parcels is: Sensitive Habitat, Keep Out.

Unfortunately, to the basic American pioneer mindset, “Keep Out” is a message to be resisted. The barricade to the right of this photo is fairly famous locally in commemorating the lengths that some people will go to in order to circumvent a regulation that they perceive to be too draconian. On a dark and stormy night (or it might have been in broad daylight on a clear morning, I’m not sure of the details) a vandal stole a bulldozer and drove it here to tear out the barricade. The vandal wasn’t able break through, but the barrier still shows the signs of the struggle.

Other fences were more easily defeated.

On the day we were out the rangers who were with us spent most of their time talking to the occasional hiker and the frequent mountain biker, explaining that the area was off limits. I guess the lifespan of a fence closing off a trail popular with mountain bikers is right up there with the lifespan of biology lab fruit flies. Most of the cyclists are respectful, but there are a few libertarian rednecks with wirecutters out there.

Once common in the county the vernal pool habitat is now one of the rarest. A nice flat spot that collects winter rains is also a nice flat spot to build your subdivision.

Today, in many of the pools that are left, you can watch the accelerated seasonal cycles. Tadpoles are pretty common, trying their hardest to reach amphibian puberty before the pool dries up.

Much less common are these, San Diego fairy shrimp, Branchinecta sandiegonensis, a critter that’s on the federal endangered species list. Your almost more likely to find them in vehicular tire ruts than in natural vernal pools.

Spike rush, Eleocharis montevidensis, emerging from the translucent water. It’s a common vernal pool plant.

And with this plant we return to the federal endangered species list. This is San Diego button celery, Eryngium aristulatum var. parishii. You’ll find it in standing water, like these plants. But it’s also happy setting up household adjacent to the pools, growing so prolifically that you’re likely to be surprised that it’s endangered. It’s one of those classic cases where a plant is rare mainly because its habitat is being obliterated.

Okay, okay, these photos are probably a little artsy and not particularly useful for identifying the plant…

I don’t begin to profess to know everything there is to know about these environments, but it’s pretty cool to check them out when you get the chance.

More information:
[ at the California Chaparral Institute ]
[ City of San Diego Vernal Pool Inventory ]
[ My April 25, 2010 trip to Miramar Mounds National Natural Landmark ]

Unfortunately, being tethered to one garden on the first day, I missed out on all the other gardens in the central and southern part of the county. But the following day I got a chance to check out Day Two of the tour as it moved to North County. Here are some photos from the weekend. Enjoy!

First Impressions
Some of these are the first things you see at some of these properties. Others are little surprises to discover inside the garden.

Seating
Some places to rest, places to enjoy the garden…

Native Plants Mixed With Other Species
None of the gardens were totally California native, though many were in the 75–95% range. People mixed natives with their favorite ornamentals, veggies, fruit trees or–in one case–with a full-on residential vineyard with Cabernet and Sangiovese grapes.

Homeowners Having Fun
All of these were at one stop, where the homeowner really got wild with some of the garden artifacts…

A dead and dried Hesperoyucca whipplei that’s been turned upside down and spraypainted to look like a giant flower. (There’s a blooming live one in the background.)

A wall of quarried stone and a piece of a broken headstone (the dark piece on the ground). If you stand on your head you can make out the word “beloved.”

Pretty cool rock collection. Check out the one on the right!

In the adjacent succulent garden (mostly non-natives) the mower gets a shed of its own.

Mermaid with a cool hat–or is it a rare cannibalistic baritone horn?

Plants
Some people were there for the landscaping. But I tried to stay focused on the plants. It’s hard, though. How do you compete with naked mermaids?

Arctostaphylos Baby Bear: This manzanita had been planted seven years ago but was already quite a bit taller than I am. I was impressed.

Calystegia macrostegia: Island morning glory

Fallugia paradoxa: Apache plume

Salvia Desperado: a hybrid of S. apiana and S. leucophylla, a glorious mound of big lavender-pink flowers

Random Vignettes
Some random sights I liked.

Alternating bands of blooming ceanothus and light-green-leaved manzanita

Here’s a detail for all of you who like themed gardens, this at the house with the vineyard…

Grasses and a rush aside a long streambed with active water

Not-native poultry

Fremontodendron, ceanothus, bear grass, against a fence made out of dried ocotillo stems

Come make history this weekend: Here’s your chance to join the inaugural native plant garden tour for the San Diego chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

Two days, 27 gardens, native plants, cool gardens, big gardens, small gardens, residential gardens, gardens for an art institute–you name it!

Get more information [ here ]

I’ll be helping with docent duties on Saturday the 28th at a residential garden in Lemon Grove that should be a great real-world demonstration of what you can do with native plants without having multiple acres that extend out with views that stretch to the edge of the continent. (I think that describes many of our gardens.)

I hope to see a few of you there! I’ll be wearing a t-shirt with this photo on it. Others may be wearing one too, so not everyone wearing this tee can discuss garden blogging with you. But the ones who are docents should be able to tell you plenty about the great plants in all the gardens.

The morning opened overcast, foggy, even. You couldn’t ask for a more appropriate day to visit the mysteries of the area the locals call The Tunnels. The location is currently closed to public access until a plan for trails and managmenet is finalized, but I got to tag along on a trip organized by the local California Native Plant Society chapter.

To get to the tunnels you pass a mesa top with blooming chamise, Adenostoma fasciculatum.

More blooming chamise. It’s a signature plant of this chaparral habitat.

Disappearing into the trees: This is the fun-slash-magic part of visiting The Tunnels.

The scrub oak scrub deep in The Tunnels is made up of Quercus dumosa and Q. berberdifolia and towers over you–ten, fifteen feet, even more in spots. Trip leader Frank was calling this old-growth chaparral, an environment so old and established that you can’t tell its age, meaning this area hasn’t burned intensely in many decades or even centuries. In old-growth chaparral you’ll find plants of all ages and stages of life, not just a uniform cohort of seedlings starting over after a fire. Seeing how rich this area is, you can begin to understand how big a lie it is when people insist that fire is essential to maintaining the health environments like this.

Acorns on the scrub oaks.

And before you get acorns the oaks must bloom…

Inside the Hobbit World. Giant scrub oak branches overhead, lots of it with lichen attached.

Did someone say “lichen?”

More branches with lichen.

Even more lichen, close up. I never get tired looking at the stuff.

No Hobbits so far, but wood rats had set up this nest overhead. Strange. They usually nest closer to the ground.

Below there was a diverse understory of plants, rare or common or weedy. This is the common wood fern, Dryopteris arguta.

In the weedy category is this new annoying non-native, bur chervil, Anthriscus caucalis.

One of the cooler understory plants, miner’s lettuce. The species here is Claytonia parviflora.

Toxicoscordon fremontii sounds like a scary plant–so does one of its common names of Death Camas–perfect for this netherworld. Yes, the plant, particularly the bulb, is poisonous.

The buds of Fremont’s star lily. Actually it’s the same species as the death camas I just showed you, only this is its prettier name.

Melic grass, Melica imperfecta, thriving in the shade of The Tunnels.

Another of the understory plants here: early onion, Allium praecox.

Another understoy plant: western dichondra, Dichondra occidentalis. I get dichondra popping up in my garden at home. At first I got excited since D. occidentalisis a rare plant. But then I realized he plant in my garden was a relic of the dichondra species (D. micrantha) used as a lawn substitute in the well-watered suburbia of days gone by.

Yet another denizen of the shade, the pretty prolific and common Eucrypta chrysanthemifolia.

So… what other wonders do you think you’ll find in this magical underground world? How about an abandoned pot farm?

Actually, when I look at this hillside, I don’t really see a pot farm, but I’m assured that there used to be one here. There are little telltale signs, like little basins dug into the slope to retain moisture.

On the way out, back on the mesa top you see sights like this: branches of the chamise, with golden yarrow (Eriophyllum confertiflorum) blooming inside them.

Also up on the mesa is this, Adolphia californica, a plant listed as endangered in California, though it’s common elsewhere (Mexico). San Diego County is the only place in California that you’ll find it.

Mine was a group of people dedicated to leaving a place as pristine or even more so than when you experienced it. Here’s one of the bags people had going of assorted artifacts left by previous visitors (and inhabitants, apparently). Shoes, bottles, wrappers–nothing transcendentally weird this time.

There was a e-mail that went out this afternoon at work: the bees are swarming. And they’re swarming on a window, not some more appropriate opening in a log. Of course I had to check it out.

Armed with my crappy cellphone camera and protected by only half an inch of plate glass I braved the downstairs of my building where the bees were swarming to bring you these photos.

Here’s the swarm from the side you don’t ordinarily see. If Hello Kitty were made out of live bees she would look something like this.

The lighting and reflections didn’t help make for good photos. I think this might be a better self-portrait than a picture of the swarm…

I wasn’t the only picture taker out this afternoon–something you can see in this shot if you look close enough.

And being on the back-side you could get a pretty close look at the colony.

Crappy photos but pretty cool event, huh?

Every time I do one of these posts I worry that I’m showing you the same things. But since I stare at these plants for hours on end I hope you don’t mind the repeat appearances of some of the things that are still blooming. But in addition to the forever bloomers there are a lot of new things starting up this month.

Here’s an overview of the irrigated raised bed. There’s a native coyote bush in the back that I raised from seed, and it seems fine with this somewhat moist location. In front of it are some blooming exotics: a potted Euphorbia lambii with its chartreuse flowers, an Arctotis hybrid “Big Magenta” in the lower left, Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’ to the right and a honey bush (Melianthus major) in the background, right, with its dark red bracts.

Euphorbia lambii detail.

There’s a lot from California (or very nearby) in bloom:

Verbena lilacina (from nearby in Mexico)

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) livening up the edges of the veggie plantings.

Some of the last flowers on the black sage, Salvia mellifera.

Takes 1–3 of Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman.”

A red monkeyflower seedling from a cultivar that died a couple of years ago.

The local stinging lupine, Lupinus hirsutissimus.

The local coastal sea daisy, previously called a coreopsis, I’m trying to get used to its new name, Leptosyne maritima.

Another ex-coreopsis, Leptosyne gigantea.

The local bladderpod, Isomeris arborea, with one of its bladder-like seedpods to the right.

Island alum root doesn’t so incredibly well for me. I suspect that I’m not watering it enough to make it bloom like mad like I’ve seen it do locally.

A fremontia that we have in East County, Fremontodendron mexicanum. It’s a plant that’s been imprisoned in a gallon pot from a plant sale last fall, waiting until I figure out where to put a really big plant.

The giant island buckwheat (Eriogonum giganteum) in bud. Last year the gophers got to it. I thought it was doomed. Looks like it’s pulling through.

San Miguel Island buckwheat (Eriogonum arborescens).

A succulent dudleya that you find out in the eastern parts of the county, Dudleya saxosa ssp. aloides.

Carpenteria california, in bloom since December.

The California poppies started up last month. They’re close to peaking.

This plant, a spreading form of chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) known as ‘Nicholas.”

And from other places we have:

Verbena bonariensis.

An unknown red aloe or aloe hybrid.

Three takes on santolina, S. chamaecyparissus, more in bloom than last month.

The rose geranium in the herb garden is a total monster. Pretty in lavender-pink, though. And it’s pretty easy to pull up.

Yah, yah, yah, this protea all over again…

You’re witness to the final moments of this Mexican evening primrose. It’s a noxious weed in the garden, and I pulled it up five seconds after I put down the camera.

Nile, oblivious to all my weeding and survey work in the garden.

Another weedy plant, Homeria collina. Not nearly as bad as the previous one, so it usually gets to live and reproduce in my garden unless it comes up in a seriously bad spot.

Fortnight iris, Dietes iridioides. Another pretty but really weedy plant. It’s still coming up from seed left by plants a decade ago. This is a flower on the one plant that gets to live.

A couple of takes on blooming graptopetalums.

Silver jade, Crassula argentea, just coming into bloom.

But of the exotics, the most splashy right now are the American pitcher plants, the sarracenia. These carnivorous plants have leaves modified into the bug-catching tubes that are often mistaken for flowers. But you’ll see the floppy mop-top flowers that these guys produce.

S. alata and flowers.

A natural hybrid, S. ‘Leah Wilkerson,” flowers and new pitcher.

A hybrid of S. flava by S. oreophila. The pitchers are just opening, and will turn a much more intense combination of red and yellow.

Happy Bloomday, every’all. For more gardens check out Carol’s April 2012 Bloomday post [ right here ].

Yikes! But unless I’m Zeuss I’m thinking this wasn’t my doing. At least this was one of this situations where you can say that you’re glad it wasn’t worse.

This will be my last tourist post from the land of dangerous tornadoes: a quick visit to the sculpture garden at the Nasher Sculpture Center, a city block of calm in the heart of Dallas.

Let me start off with my award for Best Use of Bamboo in a Museum Setting. Access into the outdoor sculpture garden is blocked by the sort of fence that you see most often in in museums, the kind where there are uprights spaced a few inches apart and set in concrete below the level of the ground. It’s an attractive fence option, and one that’s less confrontational than many. Here at the Nasher it’s softened further, with the uprights camouflaged in a grove of green-culmed bamboo.

Peter Walker gets the credit for designing the outdoors spaces here. He’s probably now best known for joining Michael Arad during the final stages of the winning design for the National 9/11 Memorial, probably one of the highest profile public art and landscape architecture projects out there. I know him best for Library Walk, a design he executed at UCSD, a work that I step on several days a week.

In the phrase “sculpture garden” sculpture comes first. Like the project at UCSD that I walk on, the spaces at the Nasher are deferential to the art. But the spaces never just lurk the background.

Where the art isn’t so prominent are the spaces where you can really notice Walker’s work. Steps leading down from the garden level break up the geometric regularity with two trees, and species of tree change as the spaces go from open to enclosed, small to large in scale.

The plantings and hardscape are flattering participants for many of the works. This is Barbara Hepworth’s Squares and Two Circles (Monolith) a work from 1963.

Walker’s garden glows with an aura of rational structure, a sense that works really well with a lot of these sculptures.

People want to see your Serra if you have a sculpture garden. Here’s theirs, lit with nice dappling light.

Hedges take over the role of walls in interesting ways. Not a revelation, but nicely done. Here you have a short “wall” providing crowd control for George Segal’s Rush Hour.

The members of this crowd haven’t fared as well. (Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Bronze Crowd, bronze, 1990–1.)

In this garden space you’re free to walk around and make connections and receive your own private epiphanies. Like, Joan Miro and Mark di Suvero both used circles and similar diagonal lines! Oh wow.

There’s lots of indoor space here too, with works by lots of modern notables in light-filled pavilions by the ubiquitous museum architect Renzo Piano. I’ll leave that report to Lost in the Museum.

After these Dallas posts it’s feeling like I’ve been away from home too long. It’ll be back to my garden next time.

March and April can be eyebrow-deep in flowers. But the winter rains that give a big boost to the plants haven’t arrived this year. Take these tiny chia plants (Salvia columbariae) as examples. This is some of this year’s seed-grown crop, nothing taller than two or three inches. The previous years they were closer to two to three feet tall–and stunning. Little water, big difference.

Out front, where many of the natives live, maybe 95% of the irrigation is natural rainfall. The plants would look better with supplemental water, so I sometimes wonder if I’m doing a bad PR job about natives if the garden sometimes looks a little straggly. I’m not sure whether it’s tough love on my part or just having gotten used to not needing to water. In the end the plants do seem to to pull along, and maybe that’s the more important message about the natives: They don’t always look great (how many of us do?) but they can survive without taxing the local water resources.

For the most part the following are plants, California natives and from farther afield, that came into bloom recently. A lot of the old dependables are still blooming away, oblivious to the season…

Win­nifred Gilman salvia

Verbena lilacina

An unknown lavender that self-sowed

Another view of the stinging lupine, backlit to show the little prickly hairs

Stinging Lupine: This plant is fairly well armed with tiny, unpleasant little hairs. But it’s a local native that’s totally dependable for a month of color.

Solanum pyracanthum: The species name of this nightshade translates into “fire thorn,” pretty appropriately named. As the leaf dries the thorns are the last to lose their color.

The common gray santolina, new flowers against the dried remainders of last year’s flowers. In my book, the soothing brown dried heads of flowers look lots cooler against the silver foliage than the egg-yolk yellow of the fresh blooms.

Salvia chamaedryoides

Salvia Bee’s Bliss: a plant that a lot of folks rave about. It can be slow to get established, but once it gets going it’s pretty tough and a great source of flowers for 2–3 months.

Phlomis monocephala

A mystery oxalis species–I lost its name. The leaves are ordinarily dark green, but the plant is dying back for the year, and the dying foliage is this subtle mottled effect.

Melianthus major, Honey Bush

Hummingbird sage, Salvia spathacea

Homeria collina

The silver-with-red leaved silver jabe plant, Crassula arborescens

Grapefruit flowers: kids, this is where grapefruits come from.

Geum Red Wings

Gaura lindheimeri

Sarracenia flava var. maxima, the first of the pitcher plants to have bloomed this year.

Euphorbia lambii

Eriogonum arborescens

Dichelostemma capitatum, Blue Dicks. Beautiful in the garden in huge groups, they’re also really delicious for the gophers.

Desert mallow, Sphaer­al­cea ambigua

Daffodil–I think it’s Ice Follies. Not many daffodil hybrids come back reliably in Southern California, but this is one of the classics.

Another look at Crassula multicava

Another crassula, C. multicava, with billowing heads of tiny flowers in winter and spring (and maybe longer if you water them more than I do).

Coreopsis maritima, our local native coreopsis, that’s undergone a name change to Leptosyne maritima.

The first California poppy of the season

Blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium bellum