Foliage Follow Up April

Foliage Follow Up at Pam's!
The best foliage I have in the garden now is still my Stipa arundinacea, Athanasia pinnata, Phlomis aurea combo. Looks good year round.



I have Impatiens balfouri that comes up every year in a corner of a bed. Actually they come up everywhere but I weed them back so they stay in the corner. They've come up extra thick and robust this year. I suppose I should clear them away from the Euphorbia before it gets swallowed.



Geranium harveyi is a plant that I used a lot when I was going through my silver and yellow foliage phase. The Stipa/Athanasia/Phlomis group was a part of that too. I planted Geranium harveyi at the base of Phormium 'Yellow Wave' along with Sedum 'Angelina' and Dianella 'Cassa Blue'. Sounds like a color combo to set your teeth on edge but it turned out pretty nice. Geranium harveyi is super tough, pretty drought tolerant. Gets a bit leggy though.



Agave attenuata-what can I say? Foliage extraordinaire.



And Geranium maderense is better known for its bloom but I quite enjoy the large dissected leaves throughout the year. I planted 3 of the G. maderense 'White' last year and I was hoping they would bloom this Spring but it looks like I'll have to admire the leaves for another year.



And now back to Spring Break! Day 2 in Joshua Tree tomorrow.

Garden Bloom Day - April

I'm pausing my Spring Break in the Desert for Bloom Day and Foliage Follow Up. I'll continue with Day 2 and 3 of Spring Break in a couple of days.

I recently noticed my Pistache chinensis trees blooming funny little tufts of flowers on the ends of the branches before the new leaves emerge. Kind of cool close up.



Every Aristea I've gotten to know has its own special qualities. Aristea major has lovely large flowers. Aristea ecklonii is a gentian-flowered workhorse for dry shade but Aristea inaequalis has stolen my heart. It has clouds of blue flowers for much of the year and even before it blooms the foliage is a beautiful blue-gray. And it is so tough and maintenance free - totally fine with my dry parking strip. The blue flowers look great with the chartreuse flowers of my Euphorbia characias 'Dwarf' that also populates that area.



Heuchera maxima is such a lovely plant in my garden this time of the year. Another one that is super tough and hardly needs any summer water. I was hoping to get a better photograph of it for Annie's but I've realized it is truly impossible to photograph. It always just looks like a bunch of blurry white dots. Grr. The close-up turned out pretty interesting but that is hardly indicative of the grace it contributes to the garden.





And it is still poppy season in my garden. Can't resist photographing an opening poppy bud. And the Kid can't resist prying open the buds. Here he is hard at work.





The Trichodesma scottii is still blooming in my garden. It is so graceful. Some flower clusters are developing seed which are just as interesting.





Gen II of my Nasturtium 'Evelyn' are coming up in my garden. Have to remember to not put all the flowers in my salad but let some go to seed so I can have generation 3 next year.



My Saturn Peaches are just beginning to pop the dried flowers off. Such fuzzy little nutlets right now.



I'm not a really big rose person and I just popped this White Lady Bank's rose in out of desperation when my lovely Passiflora alata 'Ruby Glow' completely froze one year. But I'm really becoming a fan of climbing roses. They are so romantic looking. And what garden couldn't use a touch of romance?



My Eryngium eburnum is not blooming very much this year. It's getting pretty old. May be losing steam. Too bad, it's another no-maintenance parking strip toughy.



Weeds! Ugg, so many I need to pull. Maybe I should get off the computer and go out there and do some weeding.



And my Puya caerulea is going to bloom this year. The flower is more foliage than anything else at this stage.



See you at Foliage Follow Up tomorrow.

Spring Break in the Desert - Day 1

Last week the Kid had his Spring Break. (I feel ridiculous saying Spring Break-he's only in preschool for heaven's sake!) We managed to get out of town for a few days. I had been wanting to go to see the poppies this year at the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve. Then a friend offered us the use of their cabin in Big Bear. And a road trip was born. Yea, road trip!



Just outside Bakersfield, on Hwy 58, we hit our first wildflower displays. Amsinckia douglasiana was putting on a good show as was Castilleja exserta.



We've been growing Isomeris arborea at Annie's for awhile but I had never seen it in the wild before. Nor had I seen the lovely Bladderpods from which it gets its common name.



The departing storm made for some dramatic light and dark hillsides.



After passing through Barstow we made a right onto 247 and drove through its lovely, deserted spaces. Amazing, the difference in landscape with just a couple of hours of driving.



There were miles and miles of a scrubby shrub that I seem to recall being named Zebra bark, but for the life of me I can't find anything by that name. Anyway, each shrub acted as a nurse plant to groupings of Phacelia, providing protection from wind and probably extra water that is caught by the shrubs' branches. So each shrub had its own wildflower garden skirt. Very charming. Also - high winds were a recurring element in our travels so please pardon the blurry photos.




We headed up the back of the San Bernadino Mountains, into Pinyon Pine forests and snow.



The Kid enjoyed his first walk in the snow as well as making snowmen. They were small snowmen because we hadn't thought to pack gloves and while the air may be warm, that snow was still cold! The first snowman turned out a bit grumpy but the second one seemed to be enjoying himself.



The following day we spent in Joshua Tree National Park before heading back with a stop to enjoy the eye-popping poppies. Check back for the next two posts.

Garden Party

A couple of weeks ago before the San Francisco Garden Show took over my life for awhile, I went to a garden party at Ken Monger's house. A talented garden designer himself, Ken now owns the property that previously belonged to Wayne Roderick. Wayne Roderick, now past, was an amazing horticulturalist and former director of Tilden Botanic Garden and head of the CA native section of the UC Botanic Garden for years, so of course his property has many fantastic plants growing there. Ken has been kind enough to bring seed of some of his more choice plants that we should soon be offering at Annie's. I was thrilled to visit and see what might be blooming. The entrance promised many treasures inside.



A sweet Erythronium blooming:



Fields of just-waking Anemones:





Bulbinella (elegans maybe?)



Bulbinella latifolia doleritica



Marching Crocosmia:



Not of the Plantae Kingdom, but still pretty- Turkey Tails:



Back up at the house, I was loving the Brunsvigia finials:



And the Devil's Claw wall decorations:



The view from the house was lovely:



And the greenhouse held some pretty cool things too:



The host with a green calla:



It was fun to see the Hellebores blooming. Awhile back, Annie's had a crop or two of plants from the seed of Wayne Roderick's hybridized hellebores. I have a few that bloom beautifully in my garden every year. It was neat to see some of the parents.



Some lovely white cyclamen:



I look forward to returning at other times of the year to see the even more wonderful things in bloom.



I'm trying out larger pictures. I hope they are not annoyingly large. Let me know if they are.