[ Lost in the Landscape ]

january bloomday

Happy Jan­u­ary Bloom Day, folks!

Lots of pic­tures this month.

Okay I cheated, with some mul­ti­ples of the same plant mixed in. But a big dose of perky orange in the dead of win­ter seemed morally acceptable.

I guess it’s a typ­i­cal South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Jan­u­ary, with some ever-bloomers mixed in with the winter-flowering plants or last of the fall plants. You can hover over an image above to get the name, but here’s a quick run­down on the Jan­u­ary back­bone plants.

Some plants that say “Cal­i­for­nia” but are from other places:

Aloe arborescens

S. Hot Lips

Pro­tea ‘Pink Ice’

Laven­der

Arc­to­tis

Oxalis pur­purea

…and the really noxious

Oxalis pes-caprae

Cal­i­for­nia natives:

Core­op­sis maritima

Salvia ‘Bee’s Bliss’

Salvia spathacea

There are also a few other things in bloom that didn’t make it into the mix, things like ‘Dr. Hurd’ man­zanita, but you get the idea…

Thanks as always to Carol of May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day. Check out the Jan­u­ary post to see what the rest of the world looks like in the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary [ here ]

January 14 2012 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • January • native plants | 23 Comments »

not for sale to minors (november bloom day)

Things have slowed down. It’s Novem­ber for god­sakes. But stuff keeps hap­pen­ing in the garden.

Prob­a­bly the most remark­able thing bloom­ing is this, a var­ie­gated muta­tion of Salvia divi­no­rum.

I noticed the var­ie­ga­tion a few months ago and will try to prop­a­gate the part of the plant with speck­led leaves. A sport par­tially lack­ing chloro­phyll would be at an evo­lu­tion­ary dis­ad­van­tage out in the wilds, but gardeners–We’re weird–we’ll prop­a­gate these runts just because they’re pretty-like.

This is prob­a­bly the most dra­matic of the alli­ga­tored leaves. Even though many leaves are var­ie­gated, you can see that it hasn’t stopped those parts of the plant from flowering.

Enough of the leaves, this being Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day. (Thanks as usual to Carol of May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing this monthly meme on every fif­teenth of the month.) Let’s take a look at the flowers.

The blooms are fuzzy up-close, like some other salvias, includ­ing the Mex­i­can bush sage, Salvia leu­can­tha, a depend­able low-water plant that’s com­mon in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and beyond. This blos­som looks very friendly in a lisp­ing, come-hither, snag­gle­toothed sort of way.

Unfor­tu­nately if you’re a gar­dener under the age of 18 in Cal­i­for­nia you can’t pur­chase this plant. In some other states own­ing a plant can buy you three years in prison. I’m sorry but all this sounds ridicu­lous. Peo­ple some­times com­plain about a gov­ern­ment being a “nanny-state,” but many of the states where you hear that claim being made loud­est are ones that are likely to ban this plant. Hey, look at the cool flow­ers! Look at the the cool leaves! This is obvi­ously a plant with orna­men­tal value, just like Gramma Olive’s opium poppies.

Flow­ers are scarce all around, but if you look deep enough into many plants you’ll see a few hardy hold­outs still in bloom. And with win­ter on the way, there are a pre­co­cious win­ter bloomers start­ing to do their thing. This one’s ger­man­der sage, Salvia chamaedry­oides. As far as I know, this plant the rest of those fea­tured here are per­fectly legal to grow everywhere.

Another salvia, the com­mon but cool “Hot Lips”

Oxalis pur­purea, white form

Paper­white narcissus

Galvezia spe­ciosa ‘Firecracker’

Galvezia juncea, a species from near-by in Mex­ico, a mem­ber of the snap­dragon family.

And here’s another local with a name change pend­ing. Was: Iso­meris arborea; Now is: Per­it­oma arborea. Gack.

A rare local native, some­thing I’ve known as Core­op­sis mar­itima. But in the new Jep­son man­ual all the Cal­i­for­nia species we knew as core­op­sis have been moved to the genus Lep­tosyne. Lep­tosyne maritima–that one’s going take a while get­ting used to. (Sorry for the ragged half-flower. That is all that sur­vived the week­end rains.)

Sphaer­al­cea ambigua, the first blooms in a while

An orange epi­den­drum. I think you saw this last month

Gutier­rezia californica–a wispy plant with almost no leaves and a del­i­cate cloud of yel­low flowers

San Miguel Island buck­wheat, Eri­o­gonum grande var. rubescens, def­i­nitely not peaking…

Euphor­bia Dia­mond Frost–This hit just a few years ago and every­one was talk­ing about it. Now…almost noth­ing. Inter­est­ing. Gar­den­ers aren’t fickle, are they?

Des­per­ate, flower-starved times call for desparate mea­sures, in this case the macro lens for these tiny creep­ing thyme flowers…

Gaura lind­heimeri

Camel­lia Cleopa­tra, yes it was in bloom in Octo­ber for that month’s Bloom Day

And, finally, a few shots of everyone’s favorite this time of year, Pro­tea Pink Ice. Happy Bloomday!

November 14 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden • plant profiles | Tags: flowers • Garden Bl • gbbd • laws • November • politics • Salvia divinorum | 24 Comments »

october bloom day

This san­tolina sums up the state of the gar­den pretty well. Peak flow­er­ing was in the past or hasn’t started up yet, but I’m enjoy­ing where it’s at right now. This par­tic­u­lar plant bloomed four months ago, but I liked the dead flower heads so much that I’ve left them on the plant.

Cal­i­for­nia fuch­sia, Epi­lo­bium ‘Route 66′ peaked about 6 weeks ago.

We actu­ally had some sig­nif­i­cant rain–0.4 inches–last week. It was appre­ci­ated, but it also knocked off some of the plant’s flowers.

But it still looks pretty good. Here it is giv­ing a lit­tle shade and color con­trast to a chalk dudleya.

Blad­der­pod (Iso­meris arborea) is a reli­able bloomer for the times of year when most of the other natives have stopped bloom­ing. It’s never cov­ered with flow­ers, but there always seem to be a few on each of the ends on its branches.

Not peak mon­keyflower sea­son, either. This is all that’s bloom­ing right now. One flower.

Corethrog­yne filagini­fo­lia is another reli­able plant for this dif­fi­cult time of year.

And you can always count on the grasses. This is pur­ple three-awn, Aris­tida pur­purea.

Among the non-natives this stapelia (S. gigan­tea) pretty much owns the gar­den with its big floppy flow­ers that smell of dead meat. Charm­ing, dis­gust­ing and weird. I don’t apol­o­gize for it anymore.

You know things are slow when you show pic­tures of rose­mary bloom­ing. I’ll apol­o­gize for that, however.

But there’s a lti­tle bit more…

Oxalis bowiei

Don’t put too much stock in plant names. White flow­ers, species name of Oxalis purpurea…

Salvia Hot Lips

Clero­den­drum myri­coides, but­ter­fly bush

A pink Gaura lind­heimeri that either vol­un­teered or came up in a spot where I for­got plant­ing it. That hap­pens sometimes…

The ever-blooming orange epi­den­drum, an orchid that’s def­i­nitely not a prima donna assoluta

Camel­lia Cleopa­tra, one of the garden’s clear sig­nals: fall is here

And there are a few other things:
Yel­low waterlilies
A red aloe I’m for­get­ting the name of…
Red epi­den­drum
Gail­lar­dia pul­chella
A big magenta bougainvil­lea
A some­what pam­pered orchid: Vanda roe­blin­giana

Hope­fully autumn is bring­ing great things to all your gar­dens. Ongo­ing thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day. Take a look at who’s got what bloom­ing all around the world: [ link ]

October 14 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • October | 25 Comments »

visiting crestridge

For today’s Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day I’m doing some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. My gar­den looks a lot like it has in recent posts, so I thought I’d take you along on a tour last week­end of Cre­stridge Eco­log­i­cal Pre­serve, in San Diego County, a lit­tle over half an hour from the coast. The flow­ers were out in force.

One of the inter­est­ing nar­ra­tives of this place is how a land­scape responds to being burned. This pre­serve and many of the homes around it burned intensely in the big 2003 Cedar Fire. A lot of the homes nearby with their new tile roofs and crisp, new stucco look like they’ve been rebuilt out of the ashes.

Same goes for the plants. The Engel­mann oaks that help define the char­ac­ter of the pre­serve burned. But many are bounc­ing back. Really, if it weren’t for the burned snags it’d be hard to guess that this area was cin­ders seven and a half years ago.

The Pre­serve fea­tures a small vis­i­tor kiosk designed by James T. Hubbell, the county’s best known pro­po­nent of organic archi­tec­ture. Wood post-and-beam con­struc­tion with straw-bale infill makes up the walls of the one-room space. Floors are a mix of flag­stone and tile mosaics. Very groovy.

Around the kiosk is a native plant gar­den funded by a grant by the local CNPS chap­ter. Unlike the land­scape around it, this gar­den receives some irri­ga­tion to keep it look­ing more garden-like. But today the gar­den extended seam­less into the sur­round­ing landscape.

The flo­ral high­light of the trip is the the preserve’s stand of the rare Lake­side cean­othus, Cean­othus cya­neus. It’s vivid, dark color and big flo­ral heads make it what must be one of the most spec­tac­u­lar of the cean­othus species. It’s not par­tic­u­larly gar­den tol­er­ant, but given per­fect drainage and no water once estab­lished, it might hang around for a few years and stop traf­fic pass­ing by your garden.

On this trip we saw this lilac, as well as late-blooming exam­ples of the much more com­mon but less spec­tac­u­lar Ramona lilac, Cean­othus tomen­to­sus, and some inter­grades that look like they’re the love chil­dren of these two species.

Below is a lit­tle gallery of the visit. Hover on any image for a label of the plant. Click to see the entire image.

Check out what’s hap­pen­ing in gar­dens around the world in the other Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day posts hosted by Carol, of May Dreams Gar­dens. As always, thanks, Carol!

May 15 2011 | Categories: landscape • places | Tags: Cedar Fire • Crestridge Ecological Preserve • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • James Hubbell • native plant gardens • Recon Native Plants • recovery after fire • red flowers | 13 Comments »

from the desert to the coast

Sun­day I went for a lit­tle plant walk out to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It’s been a good year for desert flow­ers, but it’s not one of those spec­tac­u­lar sea­sons when the ground pul­sates pur­ple with sand ver­bena or gold with brit­tle­bush. Some of the ocotillo were in bloom, and the desert agaves like this one (Agave deserti) were send­ing up their pink and green stalks.

Lots else was in bloom. But as I review the pho­tos from the trips I’m find­ing that I’m star­ing at a pile of images of plants I don’t know the names of. I’ll share more of the pic­tures than this first one once I get them a lit­tle bet­ter orga­nized and the plants matched up with my list of names.

Since it’s Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day I’ll share with you some plants from my gar­den that I do know the names of. Some of these are old friends that have been bloom­ing for a while, and I’ve been shar­ing over past Bloom Days. But a lot of these are just com­ing into bloom for the first time this year.

I thought the blooms on this car­pen­te­ria were fin­ished a month ago, but the plant has sur­prised me with a robust bloom spurt, big­ger than the first one.

Unlike the car­pen­te­ria, this old friend, the tree core­op­sis, won’t be bloom­ing again for another nine or ten months.

Many of these plants sur­vive in the gar­den with min­i­mal added water. The cli­mate in this area is dry in a coastal-influenced sort of way. I might water once or twice a month in the sum­mer, but the fre­quent morn­ing over­cast and occa­sional fog helps keep the plants hydrated. Addi­tion­ally the plants in the gar­den have enjoyed a slighter higher than aver­age rain­fall so thoughts of the dry sum­mer ahead aren’t in the minds of these plants. Spring is here.

This Salvia Bee’s Bliss has been in the ground for over two years, but only now is it start­ing to take off.

Black sage, Salvia mellifera.

The local annual chia, Salvia car­d­u­aceae, with the exotic Phlomis mono­cephala in the back­ground. The chia is one of the coastal plants that also can get to be pretty com­mon in parts of the desert.

Here’s another com­bi­na­tion of plants, the laven­der pink of the sting­ing lupine with the stri­dent gold of the cras­sula rel­a­tive behind it. The con­trast is pretty stri­dent to my taste, but hey, spring isn’t all about sub­tle plays of one color against another…

Last month I showed this orange mimu­lus seedling. That time I got it in focus.

From the same par­ents that lived in this bed comes this other mon­keyflower, this one vel­vety red with almost black detailing.

And here’s another vel­vety red mimu­lus seedling. You might con­fuse it for the pre­vi­ous one, but the flow­ers are sub­tly different.

Nuttall’s milkvetch, look­ing full and flow­ery, close to its sea­sonal peak.

Ver­bena lilacina looks bet­ter for me with a lit­tle more added water than some of the plants around it. But it sur­vives even when I forget.

The pale Ver­bena lilacina ‘Paseo Ran­cho’ was just start­ing to bloom last month. It’s start­ing to wake up for the spring.

Some parts of the gar­den get treated to more fre­quent watering.

This Cal­i­for­nia but­ter­cup, Ranun­cu­lus cal­i­for­nia, comes up reli­ably every year in an area of the gar­den where lawn meets unwa­tered gravel.

Blue-eyed grass, Sisy­rinchium bel­lum, appre­ci­ates a moister spot as well.

Geum Red Wings, a pretty, infor­mal plant.

Hum­ming­bird sage, Salvia spathacea, is a Cal­i­for­nia plant from moister places than my gar­den. Even in semi-shade it looks best with water two or three times a month.

And these last two of these go about as far from desert plants as you can get with­out get­ting aquatic plants. Both of these grow in my bog gar­dens, with their feet in stand­ing water most of the year.

Sar­race­nia flava var. max­ima is one one of the first plants in the bog to put out flow­ers. The com­mon descrip­tion of the scent is ‘cat piss,’ but I think that’s a lit­tle too harsh a descrip­tion. The flow­ers are nice, but most peo­ple grow these for the pitcher-shaped leaves.

A cou­ple more sar­race­nias, a dif­fer­ent S. flava in the back, and a hybrid of S. flava and S. alata up front.

Head over to Carol’s blog, May Dreams Gar­dens, to check out all the other blog­gers cel­e­brat­ing Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day!

March 14 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: desert plants • flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • native plants • water use | 22 Comments »

february bloom day

I’ve just returned from a week away and haven’t had a chance to inven­tory every­thing that’s bloom­ing this month. Besides, you’ve seen a lot of it already. Here are a few snap­shots from today of what’s new or what’s changed.

Car­pen­te­ria cal­i­for­nia was look­ing great for the last two months. Now, the petals are all drop­ping, and this is as close to any­thing resem­bling a flower left on the plant.

I keep think­ing the nar­cis­sus are fin­ished bloom­ing, but I found this yel­low one bloom­ing beneath the jade plant. Bulbs–you gotta love how they’re these lit­tle sur­prise that pop up where you for­got you planted them…

This ver­bena lila­cena was bloom­ing last month, but it’s look­ing even bet­ter now.

Here’s the pale Paseo Ran­cho clone of the pre­vi­ous verbena.

Sting­ing lupine, Lupi­nus hir­sutis­simus. No, the photo isn’t upside down. For some rea­son the plant is. It started grow­ing up, and then did a U-turn and headed for the ground like an errant mis­sile. I some­how sus­pect gophers had some­thing to do with it.

Here’s an upright spike of the pre­vi­ous lupine…

Spharul­cea ambigua, desert mal­low, start­ing to bloom.

Look­ing very much like the pre­vi­ous mal­low, this is S. munroana. For some rea­son this species is sup­posed to be a bet­ter gar­den plant than the pre­vi­ous spe­ceis. In my gardne the plants are vir­tu­ally iden­ti­cal, and if any­thing the basic desert mal­low does bet­ter for me.

A seedling of a Mimu­lus auran­ti­a­cus hybrid. Its color is def­i­nitely lighter than the scar­let ones found locally.

Ranun­cu­lus californicus

Bul­binella frutescens(?)–Edit, Feb­ru­ary 25: Actu­ally, accord­ing to Oscar Clarke, it’s Bul­bine bul­bosa. Thanks for the assis­tance with the ID!

Euphor­bia lambii

Blue dicks, Dich­e­lostemma capitatum

Rose-scented gera­nium (pelargonium)

Among the edi­bles in bloom, this is rhubarb. This is my first attempt at grow­ing this plant that sup­pos­edly doesn’t like any­thing warmer than Zone 8. I’m not sure that I really like rhubarb, but I was curi­ous to see how it would do, par­tic­u­larly since my local trusty nurs­ery was sell­ing it.

Flow­ers on another plant–apricot–that likes colder cli­mates than mine. Unlike rhubarb, I know that I love apri­cots, but I really can’t grow them well. This year, maybe because Novem­ber was so insanely cold, the tree so far has a few dozen flow­ers on it. Still, I won’t count my apri­cots until they’re picked.

Astra­galus nut­tal­lii start­ing to come into its own. Some species are called locoweed, and not much more than two pounds is sup­pos­edly enough to kill an aver­age cow. Don’t think less of me when I tell you that one of the rea­sons I planted this species was to see if it might help me con­trol the gophers. I can’t say it’s done any­thing to reduce their numbers.

Not every­thing is peak­ing, of course. Here’s chalk dud­leya in bud. Check back in a month or two to see it in bloom.

Thanks as usual to Carol at May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing this fun gar­den blog­ger meme. Take a look [ here ] at what else is bloom­ing in other gar­dens around the coun­try, around the world.

My pre­dic­tion: a lot of the colder-climate gar­den­ers will be post­ing on the Valentine’s Day flow­ers they gave or received. I hope you all had a god one. Mid­dle age has struck and I don’t look so hot in my Cupid out­fit any­more. You’ll have to set­tle for flow­ers deliv­ered this way…

February 14 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • in bloom | 24 Comments »

january bloomday

The big aloe, Aloe arborescens, up close

Here goes… Jan­u­ary bloom­day, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gar­dens.

The front gar­den, like the rest of my lot, mixes Cal­i­for­nia natives with exotics from all over. Our local blad­der­pod in the fore­ground, yel­low and perky and vir­tu­ally ever-blooming, with a big clump of aloe that owns January.

Folks in colder cli­mates may be drool­ing a bit, but there’s a price for year-round gar­dens: Year-round weeds! Since this is Bloom­day, let me start off with a few weeds in bloom, doing their best to gen­er­ate even more weeds. There are times when I think that it might be nice to live where you can for­get about weed­ing for three months or more…

Weedy night­shade, right before I pulled it up

Weedy cham­momile rel­a­tive, Pineap­ple Weed

Pure yel­low evil, from the big fam­ily that gives us sunflowers

Weedy grass

Cal­i­for­nia native Corethrog­yne (Lessin­gia) filagini­fo­lia duk­ing it out with weedy alyssum

But through the magic of pho­tog­ra­phy, an artis­tic medium well suited to telling lies and half-truths, here are some blooms for the month. I could tell you there are no weeds around these bloom­ing plants, but then I’d be lying. Big time.

From Cal­i­for­nia, and the Cal­i­for­nia floris­tic province:

Hum­ming­bird sage, Salvia spathacea

A pros­trate form of the local black sage, Salvia mel­lif­era, pick­ing up its flowering

Our local very fra­grant night­shade, Solanum parishii

Win­nifred Gilman sage, with a few scant flow­ers, not quite buy­ing into the fact that spring is coming.

Tree Core­op­sis or Giant Core­op­sis, Core­op­sis gigan­tea, still a ways to go before achiev­ing tree status

San Diego Sun­flower, Bahiop­sis (Vigu­iera) lacinata, bat­tling ice­plant on the slope

One of almost a dozen mon­keyflower seedlings. It is def­i­nitely partly Mimu­lus auran­ti­a­cus, but other species could be involved.

Ver­bena lilacina

A lone Coast Sun­flower, Encelia cal­i­for­nica, with way too many weeds back on the neglected slope garden

Santa Cruz Island Buck­wheat, Eri­o­gonum arborescens

Our local chap­ar­ral cur­rant, Ribes indeco­rum, pleas­ant, not spectacular

Arc­tostaphy­los man­zanita Dr. Hurd

Astra­galus nut­tal­lii, from the Cal­i­for­nia Cen­tral Coast

Okay, every­one, say awwwwww. Car­pen­te­ria california

From beyond California:

Your basic pros­trate rosemary

The last of the bicolor nar­cis­sus. I didn’t get the cam­era out while it was look­ing nice.

A kalan­choe species or Edit Jan­u­ary 17 Cotyle­don orbiculata–see first com­ment from Elephant’s Eye

Your basic jade plant

Cras­sula mul­ti­cava, a low ground­cover with vaporous lit­tle jade-plant-like flow­ers float­ing above it

Arc­to­tis Big Magenta

Another Arc­to­tis hybrid

Your basic pros­trate rosemary

Peo­ple gen­er­ally grow aeo­ni­ums for their foliage…

…but they also have a month or so when their flow­ers can upstage the plant.

And humans aren’t the only species that appre­ci­ates the flow­ers. Look closely and you’ll see quite a few ants going to town…

Two forms of Oxalis pur­purea, pur­ple– and green-leaved. It’s pretty, but best con­tained in warmer cli­mates where it can spread.

Sleepy Oxalis pur­purea flower, slowly unfurl­ing as the morn­ing advances, feel­ing blurry until until the sun hits it.

Green rose in bud…

Green rose unfurled…looking a lit­tle less green.

Check­ing out the gar­den, pho­tograph­ing flow­ers, you get to see what’s going on in the gar­den. I’ve men­tioned the weeds already. Now, let’s add gopher holes into the mix shall we?

While I’ve pretty much given up try­ing to con­trol the gophers, I can at least pick away at the weed­ing. Okay, enough blog­ging for now. Time to pull some weeds. But maybe I’ll check out a few more Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day posts first…

January 15 2011 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • weeds | 25 Comments »

bloom day: natives at home and in the wild

This is why I enjoy grow­ing native plants: On a quick hike through my nearby Tecolote Canyon Nat­ural Park there were a few plants bloom­ing away, hardly aware it’s mid­sum­mer and three months since the last real rain. And when I came home some of the same species were bloom­ing just as exu­ber­antly in my gar­den. That’s a great sense of con­nec­tion with the wild, and I get a sense that parts of my gar­den are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­ti­nu­ity of nature.

The com­mon Cal­i­for­nia flat-top buck­wheat, Eri­o­gonum fas­ci­c­u­la­tum:

In the wilds (actu­ally a reveg park­ing strip) with sea­side daisy (Encelia Californica)

At home, one the eas­ment slope gar­den, doing bat­tle with the neighbor’s sacred iceplant

Blad­der­pod, Iso­meris arborea, with its bee-magnet yel­low flowers.

Trail-side

At home, in a mixed plant­ing of natives and exotics

The totally awe­some sacred datura, Datura wrightii.

In the wilds, the form with a pale laven­der edging

Also in the wilds, the all-white form

…at home, also on the slope garden

Amaryl­lis bel­ladonna (“naked ladies”) is native to South Africa, but there were two lit­tle clus­ters in the canyon. They don’t really col­o­nize the canyons and gen­er­ally aren’t con­sid­ered inva­sive. They were a sur­prise and I won­der if some­one planted them here. And at home I also hap­pened to have the first of them bloom­ing in the garden.

One of the ‘wild’ amaryllis

…another of the ‘wild’ amaryllis

…and the amaryl­lis back home, in the garden

In the canyon there were a few other things going at it:

Blue elder­berry blooms and fruit (Sam­bu­cus nigra ssp. cerulea, for­merly Sam­bu­cus mex­i­cana)

Oenothera elata, a prim­rose that blooms on tall spires

Lau­rel sumac, Mal­osma laurinia

Coy­ote melon (Cucur­bita palmata). It’s gen­er­ally con­sid­ered ined­i­ble. I tried one once. I agree.

Nes­tled in the dead stems of the inva­sive fen­nel is this other non-native. It looks like some sort of gar­den nicotiana

Your basic Rosa cal­i­for­nica flower…

…and pods

The very cool fiber optic grass, Isolep­sis cernua

And at home were some Cal­i­for­nia plants that either weren’t bloom­ing in the canyon or aren’t native to this area:

Nuttall’s milkvetch, Astra­galus nut­talii, with its noisy rattle-like pods

Cal­i­for­nia sealaven­der (Limo­nium cal­i­for­nicum) the only sta­t­ice native to California

Cleve­land sage at the end of its sum­mer bloom­ing, with the gor­geous grass, pur­ple three awn (Aris­tida pur­purea)

San Diego sun­flower (Bahiop­sis lacini­ata), not look­ing great, but con­sid­er­ing it’s bat­tling ice­plant on the slope gar­den and hasn’t been rained on or watered in over three months, it’s not doing that badly

The desert mal­low (Sphaer­al­cea ambigua) could prob­a­bly stand being cut back a bit, but it still has a small few blooms on its almost leaf­less stems. I’m really com­ing to enjoy the light green, slightly yel­low color of the plant, a great con­trast against sil­ver or dark green foliage

If the naked lady amaryl­lis weren’t porno­graphic enough, here are some of the non-natives bloom­ing in the gar­den right now. It’s August, and the flower count isn’t what it was three months ago.

Salvia Hot Lips and a big pink bougainvillea

Closer view of Salvia Hot Lips. As the weather warms, this one of three plants is show­ing more red with the white in the flow­ers. The other two plants are still mostly white

A really fra­grant gin­ger, Hedy­chium coc­cineum ‘Tara’

Soci­ety gar­lic (Tul­baghia vio­lacea) is a com­mon xeriscape plant, but it’s so adapt­able that it’ll grow with its roots stand­ing in water, as you see here in the pond. It has as much of an aroma as the gin­ger, but I wouldn’t exactly call it fragrant…

But­ter­fly bush, Clero­den­drum myri­coides. The flow­ers are nice, but peo­ple don’t talk enough about how pleas­ant the plant smells when you touch it

…and under­neath the but­ter­fly bush, this tidy lit­tle lead wort or dwarf plumbago (Cer­atostigma plumbagi­noides). It does fine in dap­pled sun­light with very lit­tle added water

A cac­tus and some suc­cu­lents drap­ing over a wall. Bloom­ing is Cras­sula fal­cata, in the same big fam­ily as all the Cal­i­for­nia Dud­leya species

…and a closeup of the Cras­sula flow­ers, show­ing the red petals and lit­tle gold shocks of the sta­mens. This one’s worth look­ing at up close

These last plants def­i­nitely aren’t Cal­i­for­nia natives, but they’re native to some­where. If I lived in those places, I’d prob­a­bly want them in my garden.

Check out the other gar­den­ers around the world par­tic­i­pat­ing in this month’s Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day. Thanks as always to Carol of May Dreams Gar­dens for host­ing this event.

August 14 2010 | Categories: gardening • landscape • places | Tags: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • hiking • native plants | 16 Comments »

blue and orange (gbbd)

The color com­bi­na­tion of blue and orange reminds me of noisy kid­die toys, of hard molded plas­tic wait­ing room chairs, of harshly lit 1970s fast-food restau­rants try­ing unsuc­cess­fully to look mod­ern and friendly, or of jer­seys for some high school foot­ball team. With two col­ors scream­ing at each other from oppo­site sides of a color wheel, it’s not a com­bi­na­tion that brings me a lot of joy or peace.

But spring is here, and part of the far back yard has been bloom­ing away. Its main col­ors are–you guessed it–blue and orange, mainly hot orange Cal­i­for­nia pop­pies and sky blue flow­ers of nemophilia, baby blue eyes.

As much as I gen­er­ally don’t love these col­ors together, it’s hard for me not to like this lit­tle zone of perky chaos.

Even the blue flow­ers against the brick hard­scape rein­forces the blue and orange (or blue and orange-red) colors.

But in a gar­den you hardly every have two strong flower col­ors alone. The vari­eties of leaf green serve as peace­mak­ers, sep­a­rat­ing the war­ring col­ors and inject­ing their own shades into the gar­den color palette. Other sec­ondary leaf or flower col­ors help the enrich the palette and keep the peace.

From some angles a softer blue-gray pro­vides a back­ground to the hot orange flow­ers. Here the foliage is the now-common chalk fin­gers, Senecio man­dralis­cae. It’s still a blue and orange theme, but the blue is less emphatic and the orange is per­mit­ted to dominate.

Lit­tle pock­ets of cool-colored plants pro­vide areas of visual rest. Here’s baby blue eyes and chalk fin­gers with a dark purple-black aeo­nium. Pre­tend I cut back the dying nar­cis­sus foliage…

Some view­points let the cool col­ors pre­dom­i­nate, with just a few punc­tu­a­tion marks of poppy orange. New into this photo are whitish-violet flow­ered black sage (Salvia mel­lif­era), magenta free­way daisy (Osteosper­mum), with a softer orange-red desert mal­low (Sphaer­al­cea ambigua) in the upper left corner.

I’ll have to rethink what the com­bi­na­tion of blue and orange means to me, at least in the gar­den. These flow­ers may be gone in a cou­ple of months. Maybe this a com­bi­na­tion that I should embrace and asso­ciate with “spring.”

Spring is bring­ing lots of other col­ors com­bi­na­tions and other flow­ers to gar­dens around the world. Check them out at May Dreams Gar­dens, where Carol is host­ing yet another Gar­den Bog­gers Bloom Day. Thank you, Carol!

April 14 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: baby blue eyes • blue • blue flowers • California poppy • color combinations • Escholzia californica • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • Nemophilia menziesii • orange • orange flowers • seasons • spring | 19 Comments »

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 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • spring | 22 Comments »