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…

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.

It’s spring, all right. The garden continues to bloom away manically, but the outdoor places around town have been no slouch, either, when it comes to flowers.

This Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, hosted by May Dreams Gardens, features a gallery of some blooms from the garden mixed in with blooms from Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego.

In the top photo from Mission Trails you can see that the yellow-flowered deerweed, Lotus scoparius, has colonized many of the sunny areas that burned four and a half years ago. As the landscape recovers, other plants will come in and stake their claims. The second image from near the top of Fortuna Peak shows that other areas are also recovering from the fires, though slower than farther downslope.

You can hover over each image below for its name, or click it to see a larger photo. While you can probably tell what’s a wild plant and what’s in the garden, there’s an answer key at the end if you’re into quizzing yourself. (A few of thee are tricky in that they’re local native plants that have been incorporated into the garden.)

Answers:
Wild, garden, garden;
garden, wild, wild;
wild, garden wild;
garden, garden, garden;
garden, wild, garden;
wild, garden, wild;
wild, wild, wild.

May Dreams Gardens has been hosting the Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day for a while now. This is my first go at it, with a big sampling of what’s blooming in the back yard garden right now. Several of the shots are of the same plant, so it might seem like there’s more in bloom than might first appear: When life gives you fewer flowers, you look at each one closer!

In the photos above are:

• Ranunculus Tecolote (white)
• Oxalis purpurea (white form)
• Oxalis, random self-sown hybrid
• Salvia nemerosa ‘Snow Hills’
• Alysum that has self-sown from a planting 15 or more years ago. The originals were white and purple. The new ones come all-white, or mixtures of white and purple
• African daisy (arctotis hybrids)
• Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum)
• Solanum pyracanthum
• Cestrum fasciculatum ‘Newellii’
• Mother of thousands (Kalanchoe daigremontiana)
• Protea Pink Ice
• Melampodium Derby
• Aeonium species
• Your basic calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica)
• Euphorbia lambii, in bud
• Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii
• Mizuna, escaped from a vegetable garden planting 10+ years ago
• Alpine strawberry
• Hopi red dye amaranth
• Heliotrope
• Bird of paradise
• Epidendrum orchids (red, orange)

I have a few cool California natives beginning to flower in the front yard, and I’ll post more of them soon.

In bloom are Aloe arborescens (orange-red) and a crassula species or relative (yellow). To the right, not in bloom but still dramatic, are two clones of a tree aloe (Aloe barberae). The low filler plant to the right is the California native coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis pilularis ‘Pigeon Point’). I don’t normally love the neighbor’s big pointy juniper in the background, but I think it completes this picture nicely.

San Diego’s Balboa Park houses one of the prime local collection of cacti, succulents and other desert dwellers from around the world. The Desert Garden, the larger of its two succulent gardens, was established in 1976, but many of the plants are senior citizens much older than the age of the garden.

Aloes star in its January landscape, with red and orange torches of flowers that double as hummingbird magnets.

And shown here, lurking in the shadows, is one of the local hummingbirds, staking its territory.

Among the big, mature specimens are several dragon trees, Dracaena draco. In this first photo, on the near trunk, you can see a reddish patch where the plant’s red sap has dried. When cut, these plants ooze a fluid that in some European legends was purported to be dragon’s blood, hence the plant’s name (draco = dragon).

This is a public garden, and so it’s subject to funding glitches and battles over civic priorities. I’d consider the garden to be in great condition considering those limitations.

One thing I would have loved to have seen, though, would be more plant labels. I encountered so many interesting species, but very few of them had name tags. I have this thing about needing to know the name of a plant–Call me compulsive. But the lack of labels drove me crazy. I realize, however, that tags don’t come cheap. And in a wide-open public garden, labels can walk away with pieces of succulents in the hands of evil plant addicts.

One of the plants that was labeled was this Natal Bottlebrush, Greyia sutherlandii. A bit scrappy-looking as a plant, but what great flowers!

Also labeled was the Madagascar ocotillo, Alluaudia procera. I loved the spiral patterning of its spines.

Another problem with this being a public garden is that there are quite a few specimens where people’s temptations to carve their initials in the plant life got the better of them. This euphorbia was scarred many times over. But that wasn’t going to stop it from blooming.

After visiting the garden I was surprised by how many shots I’d racked up in the camera. And for some reason, the majority of them were verticals. Is there something about succulents–particularly the upright-growing kinds that mimic the way a human stands–that scream out for photographing them in an upright orientation?

Some yuccas, I think, with spent bloom stems.

Boojum trees, Fouquieria columnaris, native to Baja California. This plant is in the same genus as the California desert’s spectacular ocotillo, which interestingly isn’t related to the Madascar ocotillo, above.

Aloes and kalanchoes in bloom.

The main garden is a flat, easy stroll over wide decomposed granite pathways. As part of a recent expansion, the garden now also includes this switchback down into Florida Canyon, also part of Balboa Park. The plants along the descent are still young, but should look spectacular in a decade or so.

Not everyone in the world loves cactus and succulents. They might point to the defensive spines many of the plants have, and they might say the sculptural shapes of the plants don’t look soft and cozy like leafy shrubs or fragrant roses. Next to the Desert Garden is Balboa Park’s rose garden. During springtime, thirty seconds of walking would take you from the world of cactus and succulents to a garden manic with flowers and heavy with the aroma of roses. But on this bright January day, the adjacent roses were pruned down to naked stems and piercing thorns. It was the cactus and succulents that looked warm and welcoming.

The Desert Garden is located across Park Boulevard from the Natural History Museum on Balboa Park’s museum row. The garden has no walls, no entry fee, and is open 24/7, 365 days of the year.

If the 2.5 acres of the Desert Garden isn’t enough of a cactus and succulent fix, cross Park Boulevard and take a stroll over to the Balboa Park Club, maybe ten minutes on foot, and take in the parks original 1935 cactus garden, which, according to the park’s website, was established “under the direction of [San Diego gardening legend] Kate Sessions for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition.” There you’ll find “some of the largest cactus and succulent specimens in the Park,” along with a nice collection of proteas.

Growing up, my family would spend the morning of New Year’s Day gathered around the television setting, watching the Rose Parade. Overtaken by misguided jags of inspiration, I’d make my own little parade floats out of little cardboard boxes and whatever flowers were available.

My family lived in the same valley as Pasadena, though inland a few miles. The two locations essentially shared the same climate profile, something around Zone 9B. Don’t believe the propaganda about the Pasadena area having gargantuan fields of roses blooming everywhere in January. Yes, you’ll find roses, but not in the same number as other flowers.

Instead, at my parents’, the plant that was dependably covered with flowers on New Year’s was the jade plant. They had a couple plants in the back yard that were about as tall as I was, and they supplied more than enough little starry white flowers to completely cover my artistic creations.

Now, all grown up, I have a jade in the front yard. This year, with the bizarrely warm fall we had, the plant was confused and started blooming in November. Here’s how it looked yesterday. Not totally covered in flowers, but with plenty of flowers to go around–unless someone needs to build a major float.

So, with that photo, let me wish you a happy New Year’s! May 2009 bring you piles of flowers and interesting plants and good times with people who care deeply for you!

I wanted to have a little more fun with the pictures than showing you a slideshow of the garden. Only the first one, Camellia sasanqua ‘Cleopatra’ with an attendant ant, is a basic straightforward shot. The rest are cropped and then collaged together. See if you can guess what everything is.

There’s an answer key at the end.

Camellia sasanqua

Monday florals 2

Monday florals 1

Monday Florals 3

Monday Florals 4

The answers (top to bottom, left to right):

Camellia sasanqua ‘Cleopatra’
Paperwhite narcissus
Alyssum
Plectranthus verticillatus (Creeping Charlie) flowers
Epidendrum hybrid, red
Solanum pyracanthum
Thai basil blooms
Strawberry blossom
Melampodium Derby (volunteer from last season)
Epidendrum hybrid, orange
Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’
Cestrum elegans
Gaillardia pulchella (Blanket flower)
Salvia nemorosa ‘Snow Hills’
Rotheca myricoides ‘Ugandense’ (Butterfly bush)
Heliotrope
Zinnia volunteer from 2007 season, finally showing itself
Salvia cacaliaefolia (Ivy-leaved sage) with caterpillar
Strelitzia reginae (Bird of paradise) from below
Salvia sagittata (Arrow-leaved sage)
Oxalis purpurea

Flowers of Portulacaria afra

In its native habitat this plant can be good forage for elephants. (And I’m sure you know that the elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party.) According to a treatment on this species by Robert J. Baran, 80% of the diet of elephants in South Africa’s Addo National Park consists of this plant. Hence one of its common names, “elephant bush.”

Outdoors in San Diego the plant is ridiculously easy to grow. Full sun, occasional summer water (ca. every 2–4 weeks) and well-drained soil are all it asks. If you want more of the plant, break off a chunk and set it some dirt. Instant new plant.

Its flowerings are rare here, however, and it’s easy to miss the little pink puffs of smoke that hover over the plant for a couple weeks.

Portulacaria plant

The plant reportedly also does well indoors in colder climates. Its easy-growing nature has caused a lot of people to call it as a variant of the classic beginner’s jade plant (Crassula ovata). But aside from the cursory similarities the plants are in completely different families. If you’ve been lucky enough to live where it’s warm enough to see them both bloom you’ll definitely believe that their relationship is pretty far apart.

Mealybugs haven’t been an issue with this plant for me outdoors, but they seem to be an occasional problem when it’s grown indoors in bright sun. Shade-grown, over-watered succulents seem to attract the critters. Try a brighter spot, and cut down on the watering if the little beasties are a problem.

Overall, this is a happy plant that easily crosses party lines. But you might want to keep it out of sight when the elephants come to loll about in your koi pond.

Stapelia gigantea with my hand for scale

Stapelia gigantea showing furry petals

Center of Stapelia gigantea

And did I mention that if you stick your nose into the flower the aroma might remind you of hamburger left in an unplugged refrigerator for a couple days? Although the camera scared them away, you can imagine that flies find this the most irresistible flower. It’s no surprise that one of its common names is “carrion flower.”

The genus Stapelia has other stinky flowers, though most with the exception of S. grandiflora have much smaller flowers. A number of closerly related genera in the Stapeliae tribe also have stinky but amazingly intricate and beautiful flowers. Hoodia gordonii, the plant that has become popular as an appetite suppressant, also belongs to this same group of plants.

Growing Stapelia gigantea is easy–actually, too easy in Hawaii and Australia, where it’s considered a weed. Basically give it bright light (it might not bloom in shade), protect it from freezing, and supply it with light to moderate water. (It tolerates not being watered for two or three weeks, thanks to its succulent stems, but it’s happiest with some moisture.) Mine is growing well in a shallow clay pot about eighteen inches in diameter, in regular potting soil.

If you or someone you know has a youngster attracted to crawling, scary bugs, turn them on to this plant. They’ll be a gardener for life.