Bloom Day: May 2016

Every month, Carol at May Dreams Garden hosts Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. She has quite a few beautiful blooms, and links to gardens from around the world. I gave myself an assignment to go out this morning and find all the flowers in my garden. Here is a look at some of what is blooming in my garden this May:

Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' with almost all white flowers

Clematis Jackmanii with mostly 4 petals this year

Rosa 'Blaze' is still blooming

Oenothera speciosa out in mass

Lantana camara Miss Huff, the only one that comes back every year

the yellow form of Hesperaloe parviflora

Parkinsonia x 'Desert Museum'  in the front garden

the blooms on Senna phyllodinea seem to never stop

a tiny Eremophila is pushing out flowers (hopefully it lives!) 

Centaurea gymnocarpa flowers match the opuntia next to it

Orange poppies!

Manfreda undulata Chocolate Chips is sending out alien flowers again

Poppies with yellow

Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight' smells amazing

Callistemon citrinus 'Little John' showing off

There is more, because it's spring and, as Carol says, May is when dreams come true. But i'm going to go explore other people's blooms at May Dream Gardens! Happy GBBD!

Weekend Gardening

For some reason, the garden is making me really happy this Spring. This weekend it was overcast, and even a little bit of rain, and I did a lot of weeding, and still found some snap shots, most of these from the front garden. 

Cherries! Don't tell the birds...

some of these were sweet enough to eat... i tasted!

still haven't figured out what to put in the planter...

Bright!

this yucca has finally stopped resembling a pineapple

 It got pruned last year during the front garden re-do, without my asking! I'm glad it's back to actually being a focal point in the garden. 

The first of the 'Black Knight' flowers is opening!

All the bloom spikes going up!

 This is my one snap shot of the back garden this weekend... trying to figure out what to do with this area. It needs mulch? more plants? something else? I have been digging holes to catch gophers, but now i'm trying to think of what to do with it...

any ideas?

I hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Monthly Favorites / April

For fun, I'm joining Loree at Danger Garden in looking at some of my favorites for  April. The garden is making me so happy right now!

(Almost) all the opuntias are blooming. As a whole, they get voted this month's favorite!

O. macrocentra always has a million flowers

This one i got from Loree in a plant swap a long time ago! It has the hugest yellow flowers

The prettiest pale pink. I think this is o. basilaris hyb. 'Baby Rita'

this one (o. ficus indica) makes little yellow flowers 

o. basilaris continues to pump out hot pink blooms

While the optunias are this month's favorites, this is currently my favorite view of the garden:

I'm very excited about the Aloe bloom, and all the colors!

 Pulling back to see a bit more:

I'm pretty sure no garden design book would put all those colors together, but to me they look like joy.

Visit Loree's blog post for her, and others, favorites for April, and enjoy the start of May!

Weekend Gardening

Just some pictures from the garden this weekend... while i take a break from figuring out what to do with the tree I accidentally bought at the Huntington Plant Sale on Friday (oops!)

Our native Opuntia basilaris has started blooming

My new Trichocereus cactus has yellow flowers

 I bought it with buds on, but the fact that it matches the yarrow is pure coincidence...

the roses (i think this is 'Blaze') are blooming too 

 The oenothera speciosa is more white than pink because it's in the shade. I really shouldn't let it grow in the gravel path, but it's too pretty to pull right now...

the iris that's been weirdly happy on the slope is blooming again

the other side of the slope continues to be pink and orange

the first of the opuntia macrocentra blooms are starting to open

this is exciting - my first ever aloe bloom stalk!

 I think this is soap aloe (aloe maculata). I've tried to get pups from my parents' garden to grow for years, but we're right on the border of them being hardy... this one seems to be happy.

Also exciting - the first of the new roses bloomed!

This is a hybrid tea rose, Rosa 'Mr. Lincoln'. It's on the southside of the house, but in the shade of some other plants. The first bloom doesn't look like much yet, but i'm just glad it's not dead!

Now to get back to figure out what to do with my plant haul... I hope everyone has a productive (or lazy!) weekend in the garden!

Bloom day and foliage follow up

Just a few shots from the garden in honor of bloom day (at Carol's) and Foliage follow up (at Pam's)....

Yucca blooms adding flowers to this foliage dominated vignette

Agave is finally happy in this spot!

This one was a tiny pup 3 years ago... It needs mulch!

This 'cream spike' is like a foliage flower...

Can't wait for the bottle brush to start adding flowers here... There are so many buds this year!

Agave 'kisso kan', in the ground (!), another foliage plant that looks like a flower...

And no post would be complete without a view of the hillside right now...

Every day, there are more ice plant blooms

Orange and pink!

Random Shots

Here are just some of the gazania rigens that are turning the hillside orange. I always have to smile when I see these for sale - these are self-sown. Although I'm always tempted by the pink-ish ones... maybe introducing some genetic diversity would be good?

the shading on this one is pretty

these are a pure yellow, no rays at all

in person, this one is a dark orange, fading to dark yellow

light and dark orange

this one is orange, no rays

here the stripes go almost to the edge, and look like brush stokes

this one is a very light yellow

I wonder if buying a few pink ones at the store will help get a greater color variety? Although I have to admit, the yellow/orange color scheme on the hill side in the spring is working out nicely:

Almost like it was planned that way!