Six on Saturday (make that Sunday) - 5/10/2020

Is this just an excuse to play with portrait mode on my phone?

Yes? But "snow in summer" was a willing subject

Not all the pictures are close ups - the poppies look(ed) great this year.

basically taking over that corner

More pictures will be coming soon enough...

The opuntia are getting ready to pop!

that's not an opuntia flower :) 

It's not just poppies in the garden - not sure what this cute little thing is, but it's fighting for space with the poppies

I'm sure it will turn out to be evasive or something... but it's cute for now

Portrait mode is the only way i can get in-focus pictures of the grevilleas

i think our quick heat bleached the color out of these?

Portrait mode also blurs out all the weeds i haven't pulled yet, and the gopher damage. The stupid gophers didn't get this yellow hersperaloe!

excited that my protection system is working... and that i'm getting a yellow bloom!

The cherries are back!

soon they will be red!

Happy Spring!

Wednesday Vignettes: Rainbow / Yellow

...continuing the rainbow project! This started as a project during California's safer at home / shelter in place orders. Looking back at all the pictures i've taken of my garden, and finding a rainbow of colors. I was also inspired by one of my favorite artists, Philippa Stanton at 5ftinf and her book "Conscious Creativity", which talks about color collecting, texture and a ton of other things.

Inspired by her book, creativity, Instagram and with a lot of time on my hands, i went and found all the colors of rainbow in my garden. For today, here's YELLOW:

(sigh... my poor opuntia)

Yellow is a really consistent color in my garden. There were a ton more pictures, but these were some of my favorites. I'm going to post all the colors, so my apologies in advance if it gets boring... But i really wanted to find something positive out of the craziness these last few months. Up next: BLUE

Wednesday Vignettes: Rainbow / Orange

...continuing the rainbow project! This started as a project during California's safer at home / shelter in place orders. Looking back at all the pictures i've taken of my garden, and finding a rainbow of colors. I was also inspired by one of my favorite artists, Philippa Stanton at 5ftinf and her book "Conscious Creativity", which talks about color collecting, texture and a ton of other things.

Inspired by her book, creativity, Instagram and with a lot of time on my hands, i went and found all the colors of rainbow in my garden. For today, here's ORANGE:

Apparently, there's a lot of orange in my garden and life. I'm going to post all the colors, so my apologies in advance if it gets boring... But i really wanted to find something positive out of the craziness these last few months. Up next: YELLOW

Six on Saturday: Weird cherry tree, and new pots!

Just for fun this weekend, here's a look at six random things in my garden...

First off, my very strange cherry tree - can you see it blooming here?

it's on the north side of the house

It's done this the last few years - bloom on the bottom half of the tree first. I assume it has something to do with the roof line of the house?

a closer picture

In a few more weeks, the top will have flowers, and the bottom leaves. In a few more months, there will be lots of cherries, which is really all that matters.

(also - note to self - prune those opuntia...)

Next - i refreshed some of the hanging pots in my garden! I'm still amazed i can keep these alive! This is one of the new ones:

just some easy succulents

 This one is in a bit more exposed location - it already has sunburn:

but hopefully it will adjust...

 both pots have a spot that's clearly rock mulch - that's where the ice cubes go! I water these pots with ice cubes... so that the water can actually soak into the pots. I've had luck with string-of-pearls surviving, so let's hope that continues!

These next two pots are going on their 3rd year!

this one looks much better now that i watered it...

this one looks kinda bad, TBH, but this plant is definitely surviving

I should get around to adding some more plants to that second pot. Perhaps i should brave the garden center next weekend for my weekly "leave the house" adventure/support local businesses, while maintaining social distancing.

Wednesday Vignettes: Rainbow / Red

...and now for something different. This started as a project during California's safer at home / shelter in place orders. Looking back at all the pictures i've taken of my garden, and finding a rainbow of colors. I was also inspired by one of my favorite artists, Philippa Stanton at 5ftinf and her book "Conscious Creativity", which talks about color collecting, texture and a ton of other things.

Inspired by her book, creativity, Instagram and with a lot of time on my hands, i went and found all the colors of rainbow in my garden. For today, here's RED:

A collage, just for fun

I'm going to post all the colors, so my apologies in advance if it gets boring... But i really wanted to find something positive out of the craziness these last few months. Up next: ORANGE

Weekend Wrapup: Escapees & a sad picture

My garden is set up with planting beds edged with concrete edging, to keep the plants away from the decomposed granite (DG) empty spaces. Think of the DG like a desert-appropriate alternative to grass, maybe? It's permeable, and allows any water we do get to soak into the ground. It also lets other things grow, although since the DG isn't watered, usually nothing much grows (other than mutant, alien Bermuda grass, for some reason). In the Spring, all poppies and other wild flowers do like growing in the DG after winter rains. But the edging keeps a pretty clean boundary between the very full planting beds and the "negative space" of the DG.

This has worked really well for a long time... until i noticed this:

this is Epilobium canum

and this is Aloe maculata

Just to clarify, the blue lines are where the edging is. Plants are supposed to stay on the other side...

i mean, this plant has basically taken over the entire bed, so maybe i shouldn't be surprised?

but the Aloes are barely winter hardy here?

For the record, that edging is probably about 5-6 inches deep, and about 4 inches wide. So yea - nature will always find a way? I'm conflicted about whether to pull them out, or admire their tenacity. At least it's not Bermuda grass?

Speaking of sad things, this has always been one of my favorite views in the garden:

Agave ovatifolia  and Opuntia macrocentra, both probably 8 years old, planted at the same time

Those two plants have been growing since the first year that i had a back garden to grow something in. The opuntia blooms it's head off each year, and the agave always looks good. Except...

that is rot... sigh

that is not good

I'm willing to bet a medium sum of money that the Agave is more gopher damage, probably made worse by the wet winter we had? Or maybe the snow? Our winter wasn't usually cold or wet, but the snow was strange. The opuntia is a bit more of a mystery, but there is gopher mound right in the middle of the plant, so hey, let's blame them!

I didn't have the heart this weekend to pull them out... so stand by for future pictures. I'm trying to be excited to plant something different, but honestly, i will likely replant some of the opuntia pads, and get a new agave ovatifolia. I like this combination so much... 7 years isn't that long to wait?