GardenBook

 There is a lot of spring going on here in my garden at the present, and some rain at last. The rain accommodatingly watered in the new haul from the SF Garden show (a post on that is upcoming) and the numerous plants that were moved last weekend . This week, Rosa banksia lutea is peaking , and gets the nod as my favorite. This is a plant I really should not have, as it gets gargantuan and requires draconian cut backs twice a year to keep it from swallowing the house and anything else in it's path.    A couple of years ago I considered having it removed, but it has over the years become a bird habitat ..you can see how the thatch and sheltering branches mimic a thicket of sorts. The bird feeder is about 20 feet away off to the right .  In winter Lady Banks is bare and lets the western sun into the house, in summer her foliage provides shade. The sweet yellow flowers are fleeting but abundant , drooping over the patio.  Have a look-see over at Lor...

 Tuecrium crispum has made the cut this week. This plant is easily overlooked , nothing flashy at all. Grows close to the ground and just does it's job asking very little in return. It's job here is to live under a Crepe Myrtle on the hell strip and provide some sort of greenery in dry shade. This week I was weeding said hell strip, which involved sitting on the ground right there where Mr T. Crispum lives. Look how cute his foliage is !  Summer flowers on this Teucrium are white, and really pretty insignificant. It sailed through the 20 degree mania we had last winter , sailed through both summer and winter drought, and spreads politely to about a 2x2 carpet . Swing on over to the Danger Garden to check out more faves !

I enjoy March in  my garden; it seems like something new happens almost every day.Business trips, rain, and a collapsed fence have kept me so occupied in the last few weeks , I think this mornings bloom day camera stroll was the first opportunity I had in a while to slow down and 'see' what the garden was showing me. The long awaited rain followed by warm temperatures nearing 70 was just what those resting plants needed to wake up .Unfortunately the weeds woke up too. This tulip is 'Big Smile' , and unlike most of it's kinfolk, this is the third year it has returned for me , with just as much size and vigor as the first.  This ornamental Oxalis continues to tough it out in a bad location beneath a birch tree that likes to suck up all available water. Silene dioica My beloved Erysimum ..variegated with yellow blooms. Brunnera 'Jack Frost' The green section !    Euphorbias in bloom everywhere..this one is 'Blackbird...

 Winter has not been kind in many quarters of blog-dom, and though my climate is relatively mild , the persistant cold temperatures earlier in the season along with drought and a frenzy of renovation related shovel-pruning in fall has left me with  a pretty barren garden.  The Hellebores are about all I have going this month, and they started late at that . I'm enjoying them even more than usual now that they have become the solitary attraction here.  Thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams for her hostess-hood of this monthly event for garden bloggers world wide...

 I've done a fair amount of 'rose editing' in 2013 . I embarked upon this particular journey a couple of years ago when it became clear to me that  my garden was not going to get any bigger, and 60+ roses were using up valuable real estate. Many of the roses that have since been sent to the compost facility were either in decline, duplicates or under performers. I had gone from buying one or two roses a year , to buying none; there was simply no place to put them. As of today I have slimmed down my assortment to around 35, a couple of which have questionable status going forward. One of my keepers is the David Austin rose , Lady Emma Hamilton. I bought her the first year she was introduced to US commerce, and she has proved to be a prolific bloomer, very disease resistant (no sprays are used in my garden ) and has a nice shrub-like appearance never displaying the awkwardness that some of the modern roses are prone to.  I admit that I have tendency to plant things too clo...

 It's my habit to look back on gardens visited at the end of the year; and at the same time I start to look forward to what the next year holds. 2013 was particularly fine and I have high hopes for 2014. Any year that I have the opportunity to visit my friends in New England is a good one for me .  What accident of fate made me a California girl ? A beautiful , diverse state--4 hours to the dessert, 3 hours to the Sierra Nevada, 1 hour to our spectacular coast. 5 hours I'm in Oregon, 7 I'm in San Diego.Walk out my door, I'm in wine country. None of this is taken for granted. And even so, when I venture away from here , I can clearly see the attributes of places that are not California. My friend Sue is a New Englander, born and raised. She does battle with bugs that don't hang around at my house -thank god. She lives with that humid thing -but the tropicals love it.It actually rains in summer  and you can't buy that kind of water.  In July I have to put on lon...

 Even the Alyssum are fried. Not a single bloom in my garden this month..the Camellias closed up shop, the Lavenders that were blooming away  merrily in November are waving the white flag. Several nights in a row of consistent temperatures in the low twenties have laid my garden low. To many of my friends east of the Rockies, my twenties are mundane and maybe even warm-ish .I was significantly under-prepared ;plants that I routinely leave out for the winter appear quite dead. On the plus side, the weighty decision of whether to cut back now or wait til spring has been taken off my hands-might just as well cut ! Thanks Carol , for the opportunity to see what blooms in gardens around the globe. Except for mine.