Is it winter or spring in Southern California? The calendar says it's winter but it's feeling more and more like spring. Unlike gardeners in many other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, we don't like to rush winter here. Winter is our rainy season, or that's supposed to be the case anyway. Now I'm not wishing for heavy rain - the folks in the burn areas don't need any downpours. But some nice, gentle rain parsed over a period of days would be very, very good. We had a chance of such rain last week but we got nothing.
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| When the last storm moved out late Friday afternoon, my season total (measured from October 1st) remained stuck at 1.27/inch |
At least the haze over the Los Angeles Harbor cleared, giving us a better view.
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| Saturday morning's view looking from my back garden toward Angel's Gate, the entrance to the Los Angeles Harbor |
My vases for IAVOM this week are as schizophrenic as the weather. Winter blooms dominate my first vase.
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| This vases features the red and pink blooms characteristic of January here, including the splashy flowers of Calliandra haematocephala (aka Pink Powder Puff) |
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| I used the small silver glass vase I picked up in December |
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| Leptospermum 'Pink Pearl' hogs the limelight when the vase is viewed from above |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: Calliandra haematocephala, Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey', Crassula multicava, Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl, and Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola'(Lobularia maritima aka alyssum was included but not shown in close-up) |
In contrast, my second vase screams spring, even to my eyes.
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| The starting point for this vase was the foliage of the variegated Hebe 'Purple Shamrock' |
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| The rain in early January prompted Euryops 'Sonneneschien' to produce its almost florescent yellow blooms |
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| A stray Lisanthus bloom complemented 2 Anemones growing inside my lath house |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: blue and purple Anemone coronaria, Argyranthemum 'Mega White', Erigeron glaucus 'Wayne Roderick', Euryops chrysanthemoides 'Sonnenschien' , Eustoma grandiflorum, Nemesia 'Sunshine', and, in the center, Hebe 'Purple Shamrock' |
There's another slim chance of rain later this week but, as the odds are even lower than they were last week, I'm not counting on it. The good news is that Northern California is getting somewhat more rain than we are down south but, without a February or March miracle, the rainy season here is looking like a major bust, with rain totals prospectively even lower than they were at the height of the drought in 2015.
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| The new vases ended up in the front entry and the master bedroom. Last week's vase featuring Leucadendrons is still in good shape on the dining room table, needing only new stems of Lotus berthelotii to refresh the arrangement. |
For more vases,
visit our host, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
