flowers

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Vernal Equinox in my own Backyard

Happy spring!  Here’s what’s happening in my own little slice of garden paradise.

To Bee, or Not To Bee?

Raspberry Vines

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~Hal Borland

Flowering Bulbs and Budding Fuchsia

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

Pittosporum Greens

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. ~Mark Twain

Flowering Carrot

Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men. ~Chinese Proverb

The Bees Arrive on Schedule

All things lavender:

Cowichan Valley Lavender Farm: Beautiful drawings and additional links

Lavender Crafts: How to make lavender wands.

Learn more about the relaxing properties of lavender at The Hub

Provencal Lavender Field Maps (for that fantasy vacation to France)

Lavender in art: Watercolor on Etsy.com

 

For additional garden quotes, visit the Quote Garden.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day: Garden Limericks

Pink Clover

I composed a few garden limericks in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

As a gardener I find much to love,
even weeds at the end of my glove.
I once kept a log,
then I learned how to blog,
hence combining two hobbies thereof.

In my garden I learned how to sow,
tiny seeds laid all in a row.
Then I wait for the pests,
snails and rats never rest,
hoping one day something might grow.

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.” –Irish Blessing

Weeds, Masquerading as Clover

The Long View

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Blooming Thursday: Around the Garden

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does your Garden Grow?

Today’s garden surprise blooms in the side-yard: periwinkle. I bought a flat last summer and planted most of it in a pot on the deck with some annuals.  I envisioned beautiful trails of purple flowers cascading over the edge of the pot.    I stopped watering the pot when the annuals went to seed, assuming the rain would take over.  So much for assumptions; rain has been sparse all season. Then the squirrels began stashing peanuts in the planting mix, digging and scooping mounds of dirt on the deck. By February the neighbor’s cat was napping in the pot and I threw up my hands in defeat.

On my rounds today I discovered a handful of periwinkle plants survived the winter in the children’s garden.  Four tiny plants in bloom, each sporting one purple flower.  Also blooming today: The pink and white azalea, one of the camellias, and the broccoli now in bloom.  Against the backdrop of cool, gray skies I spotted one lone bee at work.  Perhaps tomorrow news will get back to the hive.

“For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom. “~ William Shakespeare

From Benefits of Honey

Camellia Perfection

Broccoli Blooms

A Welcome Visitor

Periwinkle aka Vinca

Early Azalea

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Lavender Caper

"...Here's flowers for you: Hot lavender, mints, savory, and marjoram." The Winter's Tale

It’s a mystery. Two summers ago we planted a row of lavender along the front deck. Five small plants with big potential. Within a few months they would be peeking over the edge of the deck, covered in fragrant blooms.

The plants doubled in size, supporting each other as they grew out and up. They bumped up against the lawn; spilled on to the stairs. Except for one. One of the five plants was still below deck. Like the runt of the litter, I reasoned, the smaller plant needed more time.

My well-honed sense of symmetry was eschew; I wanted each of these plants to grow into one cohesive row. The plant seemed healthy. It branched, it flowered, and it grew. Every few days I would lean over the edge of the deck, lifting its branches skyward. Perhaps this lovely lavender had simply lost its way.  “Stand tall,” I encouraged; that space is yours to fill.

I sought the advice of a couple of garden experts. One suggested it was something in the soil. I asked if it was possibly a dwarf variety but they didn’t think so. Nearly two years later the plant is still small.

I’m pragmatic when it’s time to pluck annuals from the earth and I can thin seeds and pull weeds with impunity. Giving up on an established perennial, however, feels like the gardener’s equivalent of throwing in the towel. If only the plant would send me a sign by turning brown, falling over or displaying a visible blight. Then I would be ready to let it go.

June, 2010

February, 2012: One of these plants, is not like the other...

Dwarfed by the Others

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Eudora: Greek Goddess of Rain

When Life Gives You Lemons...

It rained today!  The real deal, too, not just a sprinkle.  I can’t remember a time when so many of us welcomed a cold, February rain.**

If my plants could talk, they would be singing the praises of Eudora.  Their blooms, buds and branches relished every drop.

Thirsty Cyclamen

Camellia Buds

Lavender Reflections

Perfection at the end of a Branch

**San Jose’s arid climate averages  just 15 inches or rain a season.  To date (2/13/12) we’ve recorded a mere 2.78 inches of rain, only 30% of normal.

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Garden Wanderings: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It’s fun traversing the garden with my camera in hand.  The lens helps me see things in a different light, though I’m not always able to capture it.  Beautiful, golden grasses grow at the edge of our garden, but I’ve never been able to record and share their beauty as they move in the wind, offset by the vivid blue sky.  The grasses remind me of a film from my childhood of “amber waves of grain.”

In reality, not everything in the garden is as beautiful as amber waves of grain.  This month I’ve decided to capture the good (flowering vines), the bad (frost damage) and the ugly (pine sap) of my recent garden wanderings.  Here goes:

Hardenbergia violacea 'Happy Wanderer' (Purple Vine Lilac)

Wrapping Around the Trellis

Daphne Odora

Frost-damaged Ferns

Pine Sap Clings to the Cat Netting

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Flowering Wonders

The packet of wildflower seeds we planted late spring, continue to produce a few blooms.  We scattered some of the seeds in the side yard with the sunflowers and the dwarf lemon and they bloomed for months.  We still have cosmos flowering in the large pot outside our sliding-glass bedroom door.

Cosmos

To keep that color going throughout our moderate winter, I plant cyclamen each year.  They were one of my mom’s favorites, and always remind me of her.  A friend gave me a red cyclamen for Valentine’s Day one year, and it bloomed for a month on my coffee table.  When the plant seemed to fail, I moved it outside, but it continued to “decline.”  Little did I know then that this plant is a tuber.  It was simply going into its dormant stage.  We have some planted outside near our laundry room and they make me smile each year when they re-emerge.

Cyclamen

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Garden Log: September 17, 2011

Yesterday was all about garden clean-up. It felt great! Tidying the beds and pruning the shrubs appeals to my organizing side.

Here’s what I did:

  • I removed the seed heads from the sunflower stalks and set aside three of them

    Late-season Wildflowers

    for the squirrels.

  • I stripped the remaining leaves from the stalks, and placed them in the side yard to dry. We’ll use them in our “haunted house” on Halloween.
  • I cut a handful of wildflowers and put them in a  vase.
  • I pruned the dinosaur topiary in the children’s garden.
  • I continued my search-and-destroy mission for the invasive plant taking hold in the side yard.
  • Finally, I pruned the Hardenbergia and Jasmin. That job was long past due.

Dinosaur Topiary

I love this time of year when the days shorten, the air crackles and the leaves, even in sunny California, start to turn. The squirrels are busier, the geese are settling in at the neighboring schools and the light winds knock down the end-of-summer smog. Good riddance to that.

Although it’s no longer “PC” to light a wood-burning fireplace,  I must confess to my weakness for that smell. Our fireplace is long gone, but I lift my nose to the wind and catch a drift from the neighborhood hold-outs.

It’s sweater weather. Time to get the broccoli seeds in the ground.  What’s happening in your garden?

Gourmet Squirrel Food: Only The Best For Our Friends

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Cats Among the Plants

Without further ado…

Life Among the Ferns

“I tawt I taw a puddy tat…” ~ Tweety (Looney Tunes)

Kitty Hammock

This better be important...I was napping.

“Nature abhors a vacuum, but not as much as cats do.”                         ~ Lee Entrekin

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“Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, “I’ll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?” ~ Bette Midler

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“Meow is like aloha – it can mean anything.” ~ Hank Ketchum

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“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.”                ~ Author Unknown

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Slinky Takes a Walk on the Wild Side

Just Visiting

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Bagby Garden: How Does Your Garden Grow?

We lucked out with two weeks in the Bagby Garden this summer.  We harvested a few summer squashes but the berries weren’t quite ripe for picking. The greatest treasures, however, always lie in the unexpected: a lizard panting in the sun, bees among the petals of a flower and that earthy, damp smell after an uncommon summer rain.

Bee in the Borage

Latin name: Borago officinalis

Lounging Lizard

This little critter is probably a Western Side-blotched lizard, abundant in the warm, western areas of California.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” -Aldo Leopold. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press, 1949.

All Out Artichokes

Green Thumb Gardener