flowers

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Blooming Thursday: Cosmos Open Up

Tomorrow’s Bloom?

This lovely flower was entirely unexpected. It re-seeded around the corner from last year’s location. As is often the case, the seeds that are hearty enough to survive volunteer status (dropped by a bird, blown in the wind, planted by a squirrel) do well. This is the first bloom of the season with two promising buds (photo, left) ready to spring forth in pinks and yellows.

The fairy garden flowers are holding up nicely. I spruced up the table with a mini bouquet and a table-runner made from leaves. Lindy is the self-appointed watch-cat, keeping those scary garden gnomes I saw on Facebook yesterday at bay.

What’s blooming on your Thursday?

First Cosmo

Lindy Standing Guard Near the Fairy Garden

The Fairy Garden: New Table Runner and a Purple Bouquet

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Garden Guests and Pests and…Anarchists?

I respect all creatures, even the garden pests so I’ve learned to garden around them. Our garden is free of pesticides, baits and traps. That doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed when I round the corner as I did last week and find the squirrel feasting on our pumpkin plant. Grumble, grumble, grumble.  As a society, we’ve encroached so much on nature. Who am I to refuse a bit of my garden bounty in return?

Garden pest…

Slippery Snail

Garden guest…

Relocating to denser shrubs for safe keeping

Garden guest and occasional pest…

Neighbor Kitty, Everybody’s Best Friend

Garden guest, pest and anarchist…

Please, help yourself

Who drops by your garden uninvited?  Have you discovered humane solutions to keep them at bay?

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Garden Party

Blue and Gold

It was a lovely day, surrounded by dear old friends gathered to celebrate Mike’s 50th.  Our friend Laura baked an incredible cake, as delicious as it was beautiful.

In a state known for moderate temperatures, California did not disappoint.  We enjoyed mid-eighties, with a welcome breeze, though we ended up back indoors to light the candles on the cake.

Mike and his friend of 30 years ended the day watching the solar eclipse through binoculars on the front deck.  Such a joyous day in the garden.

Taking Sun Near the Garden Beds

Laura’s Cake Sets Sail

The Crowd

Order Restored

Observing the Solar Eclipse

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Happy Mother’s Day!

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect.  Everything gets reduced to essentials.  ~Meryl Streep

My Mom loved Cyclamens and Poppies

Dedicated to my friend Betsy, who recently lost her mom and misses her terribly.

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Drying Lavender: My Garage Never Smelled So Good

Lavender-Scented Garage

Lavender grows along the front of our deck, creating a dense wall of flowers.  Now that the plants are established they grow up and over on the deck.  The flowers are graceful in the wind and fragrant beyond belief and  they attract bees to our garden.  Flower perfection.

Last week I decided to experiment with sunflowers in pots along the top edge of the deck, so I unceremoniously pruned back a handful of lavender, and set it in the garage for drying.   I needed the narrow space on the edge of the deck to maximize full sun exposure while maintaining a clear path.

I’ve been dreaming of a wall of sunflowers this summer, so if all goes well, we’ll have a row of yellow and orange sunflowers with lavender blooms draped around the stalks.  I’m giddy just writing about it.

Eventually I gathered the lavender in a loose bunch with some string and hung it in the garage to dry.  Our garage smells like a Crabtree and Evelyn shop!  Seriously, why didn’t I think of this sooner?  I’m ready to dry lavender in every room in the house, though my men-folk may feel otherwise.

Can’t you just smell it?

Ladies fair, I bring to you
lavender with spikes of blue;
sweeter plant was never found
growing on our English ground.

by Caryl Battersby

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Next House: Voodoo and Tasmanian Tigers

Garden nurseries and animal shelters have the same effect on my psyche: I want to bring everything (and everyone!) I see home.  I chant my “all things in moderation” mantra, and tell myself I can visit those plum trees and flowering succulents any time I want.   When possible, I stay out of animal shelters all together, since a steady stream of stray cats and the occasional dog make it to my door on their own.  I value the necessary work that our shelters provide, but find it disheartening to see so many animals in need of a good home.  Nurseries, on the other hand are always great fun.

My husband and I have a saying between us when we pine for something we unattainable: next house, code for it’s not going to happen.  So…in my next house, I’ll plant the following:

Ruby Clusters: Jewels for the Common Gardener

Tasmanian Tiger: Where the Wild Things Are

Voodoo: For my Tim Burton Inspired Fairy House

If you had the space and place, the time and the money, what would you grow?

Plants available at Almaden Valley Nursery in Silicon Valley.

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Blooming Thursday: Geranium Containerem

Geranium: Old Faithful

Geraniums are the garden work-horse. In our zone, they flower three seasons  of the year and remain hardy down to at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit. They enjoy full sun and a good soak during the summer months, but the rest of the year they just hang out in the pot, content. Our pretty-in-pink geranium asks for very little, yet produces these beautiful blooms. I don’t see geraniums in local gardens like I used to, so perhaps they’ve fallen out of favor.  When I envision geraniums, I imagine them tucked up along white picket fences or grazing the corners of a bucolic cottage porch.  Time and again, geraniums appear in greeting cards and calendars, imparting a sense of nostalgia and harmony.  I saw several varieties when I traveled through Europe in 1989, dreaming of recreating that essence when I returned home.

Do you have geraniums in your garden?

Geranium Pink

If I were a paint color:
Several shades of subtle pink

Geraniums: Cheerful Splendor at the Edge of our Deck

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Blooming Thursday: Enjoying the Rain

We’re enjoying a wet spring break, with rain falling most days.  I woke to a heavy squall around five this morning and never got back to sleep.  The sound of rain at that hour is soothing and invigorating, unless of course you’re a cat.  Falling rain is simply annoying.  Our kitties cast a backward glance as I open the door, as if to say “make it stop!”

If the flowers could talk, they would tell a different tale.  I’ll attempt to interpret with photos, below.

Raspberry Flower about to Fruit

Through the Grapevine

A New Garden Addition

Pink Azalea Closeup

Refreshed

Candy-cane Azalea Smothered in Blooms

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Blooming Thursday: The Color of the Day is Pink

A Natural Bouquet

The color pink can “stimulate energy and can increase the blood pressure, respiration, heartbeat, and pulse rate,” according to All About the Color Pink.  Conversely, prison walls are painted  lighter shades of pink to calm aggression and anxiety.

When choosing flowering plants for my garden, pink is my top choice.  Pinks contrast beautifully with green, and they are softer and cooler than reds. I’ve planted pink clover, Impatiens, cyclamen and geraniums in the past along with carpet roses and azaleas.  Interestingly, the star jasmine starts out with pink buds, morphing into white when fully in bloom.  The flowering blossoms on many of the fruit trees are also a lovely shade of pink.  Our now-deceased almond tree served as the focal point of our garden for years.  We were  sad to see it go.  We’ve since replaced it with a four-in-one fruit cocktail tree with equally magnificent flowers, but it will be a few years before it grows to the same magnificent size.

What’s your favorite pink bloom?

Four-in-one Fruit Tree

Flowering Bulbs

Jasmine and Mousy

Yes, I am pretty darn cute

Okay, just one more cute kitty picture. Look at those pink ears and that adorable pink nose.

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A Case of Mistaken Identity

Well I’m embarrassed! Yesterday I posted a photo thinking it was a carrot about to bloom. Imagine my surprise today to find this beautiful California poppy flowering away in the sun.

Yep! That's a Poppy

For starters, I’ve never planted poppies. It’s our state flower and we’re not supposed to pick them. I worried that if I planted poppies I would be tempted to snip a few blooms to bring indoors. I’m no law-breaker!

Closing Up Shop for the Night

We planted carrot seeds last summer. That they never grew is irrelevant. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nature has her own schedule. When the foliage first appeared at the soil line, I dug down with a finger and discovered an orange-colored root. I was sure it was a carrot. I looked up “carrot foliage” today and it does resemble our fair flower.

Buds and Greens

It’s not that I’m disappointed to have our beautiful state flower in bloom, but that I was so convinced it was otherwise.   I snapped a few photos late in the day, but the skies were clouding over so the lovely bloom was already closing up shop.

Never a dull moment in the garden.