It’s been a cool summer so far, following on the heels of a sunny but cool spring. I’ve been watching the temperatures in the paper for Fairbanks, Alaska, and most days the official San Diego report has been cooler. In fact it’s been cooler than almost anywhere in the US except for maybe Anchorage in Alaska. Brr.
At my July 4th party I was talking to someone there with ties to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and his thoughts were that this is typical for an El Niño year. The phenomenon that the locals call “May gray” would be slow to get started (as was the case this year), and the dreaded subsequent phenomenon the we call “June gloom” would drag on longer than usual. All that seems to be happening.
The garden natives don’t seem to be worrying about the temperature as much as I’ve been. In fact the late-spring bloomers seem to be having a field day, extending their bloom, looking nice at a time of year when they don’t always. Black sage is often done by this time, but there are a few lingering flowering stems.
For stunning flowers, though, the black sage has passed the baton to Cleveland sage. Here’s the common and gorgeous cultivar ‘Winnifred Gilman.’
…and here’s Winnifred in closeup…
One of local live-forevers, Dudleya edulis, has had one of the more amazing years that I can remember. Here’s an 18–20 year old plant from above, all covered with flowers. In this photo it’s sprawling six feet across from one edge to the other.
The same dudleya, viewed from ground level as it cascades over a short little retaining wall.
The San Miguel Island buckwheat that I grew from seed two years ago, Eriogonum grande var. rubescens, is finally hitting its stride, finally looking the photos I’ve seen in books. Maybe the cooler weather will keep it looking nice longer.
Among the many non-natives that call my garden their home, this is Clerodendrum ugandense, finally perking up after looking like a twig until late in May. I think it’s been a somewhat slow start for this plant this year, but it always waits until the weather warms to look like a plant you want to keep in the garden.
The common ornamental sage, Salvia ‘Hot Lips,’ is grown for its red and white bicolored blooms. I’ve heard that it blooms mostly with white flowers when weather turns cold. In the left photo these are the only two red and white flowers I could find on three plants. The rest of the flowers are white. In the depths of winter, however, this plant is often completely bicolored, so I’m not sure if there’s any truth to this color change rumor.
Some of the plants that I worry about the most are my American pitcher plants, these Sarracenia from the South, where the daily low temperatures these days are often running ten degrees above the San Diego daytime highs. Fortunately these plants seem to respond more to daylength than to temperature, and the plants look pretty good. Still, they might be taller by now where they originate.
Cool as the days may be, one thing told me for sure that I do not live remotely near Alaska. Monday night was the grand opening of the first giant bloom of this climbing cactus, probably Hylocereus undatus. Even if it’s probably been slow getting started this year, it’s probably the best proof that I’m overreacting. Hardy to not much below freezing, one hit of arctic cold and you’ll freeze this plant’s tuchas off.
At eight to ten inches across, the only shy thing about this plant is that it only opens as darkness approaches. People in cold climes covet being able to grow plants like this–or in fact many of our more tender California natives.
That’s definite proof, Dorothy. We don’t live in Alaska. It just might feel that way these cool summer days.
July 07 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: buckwheats • Cleveland sage • Eriogonum grande var rubescens • Hylocereus triangularis • in bloom • night blooming cactus • Salvia clevelandii • Salvia mellifera • San Miguel Island buckwheat • sarracenia • summer • temperature | 13 Comments »
For this month’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day I have some closeup photos of some of what’s blooming in the garden. I’ve done a couple posts on using backgrounds behind plants (Background check / One way to photogrpah a tree). Inspired, all but one of these shots uses a white sheet of matboard placed behind the plants. Each color of background presents a different end result. Using white accentuates dark flowers and stems, and some of these photos are a busy network of dark lines against the light background.
There are some newcomers just coming into bloom, but many plants have been in bloom for several months. When life gives you more of the same flowers…well, I was thinking I’d try to photograph them a little differently.
I suspect the neighbors think I’m odd enough taking pictures of everything in the garden, and I thought it’d be extra-distressing if I were to be walking around the garden with a big white board as well as the camera. As a result all of these are from the quiet privacy of the back yard, with the exception of the one plant without a white background.
Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea.
Lion’s tail, Leonotis leonorus; Desert mallow, Sphaeralcea
ambigua.
Peruvian daffodil, Hymenocallis festalis; Freeway daisy, Osteospermum sp.
Verbena bonariensis; Juncus patens (with fallen leaf caught in the plant).
Some salvias:
Salvia nemerosa ‘Snow Hills’; Ivy-leaved sage (Salvia cacaliaefolia).
On the left is Andean sage (Salvia discolor with its almost black flowers set in light green calyces; on the right is Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips.’
Some California buckwheats:
Flat-topped buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
San Miguel Island buckwheat (Eriogonum grande var. rubescens)
St. Catherine’s lace (Eriogonum giganteum)
Butterfly bush (Clero– dendrum ugan– dense); seed pod of whitetop pitcher plant (Sarracenia leucophylla).
Pink and white double bougainvillea (unknown variety); Agastache aurantiaca ‘Apricot Sprite.’
Pink double bougainvillea (another unknown variety); toloache (Datura wrightii).
Thanks again the Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. It’s a terrific way to build community among garden bloggers wanting to share the flowers in their gardens. Check out this month’s offerings!
July 14 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: buckwheats • Eriogonum • flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • sages • salvias | 16 Comments »
Earlier I shared a closeup photo of a santolina that had flowered but where I hadn’t cut off the spent blooms. The stems had developed a gently lyrical brown counterpoint to the blue-gray foliage.
Fountain grass and along walkway
Here’s what the plant looks like now as you turn off the sidewalk towards the house. (The plant in the background is the common red fountain grass,
Pennisetum x avena ‘Rubrum’.)
I’m treating this as a bit of a rehearsal for what the garden might look like in future years. I’ve set three plants of two different buckwheats in the ground, and I have at least six pots of another buckwheat that I’m raising from seed. These are plants that have umbels of tiny flowers for two or more months of the year. And then the whole flowering assembly turns brown to black.
The first thing a typical gardener would be tempted to do is to chop the stem back. But these dried stems hover delicately over the plants and have a quiet beauty of their own. Once you change your expectations of how to maintain a plant–i.e., chopping off any dead flowers–and let the plants do their thing, they can be amazing in new and different ways. (Of course, many plants look much better by deadheading the spent blooms. It’s the rare garden plant that ages so gracefully as these santolinas or buckwheats.)
St. Catherine’s lace at Quail Botanical Gardens
Here’s a shot from the past weekend of
Eriogonum giganteum, St. Catherine’s lace, past its bloom period at Quail Botanical Gardens. This large buckwheat is native to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California, as well as some of the adjacent coast. It looks a little like Queen Anne’s lace for a while in the spring, and then the stems dry to a warm rust or dark brown that I didn’t capture very well in this photo of a plant in the shade.
It’s a look that’s more informal than many gardens in the neighborhood, a look the coexists easily with dried grasses and casual shrubs, but not with roses or manicured borders of annuals.
I’m preparing myself for the look with some of these untrimmed plants, and I’m already anxious for how the buckwheats will look next summer. And maybe by next summer the neighbors will be ready for the look, too. The untrimmed santolina is just the rehearsal.
October 08 2008 | Categories: gardening • landscape design • my garden | Tags: brown • buckwheats • Eriogonum • Eriogonum giganteum | No Comments »
