Clik here to view.
In a Vase On Monday: Prelude to Spring
With plenty of sunny days and warmer temperatures, my garden is waking up. Gardens in coastal Southern California never entirely shut down but they take the equivalent of a cat nap.They appear to be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
So the back patio shrank...
When we enlarged our kitchen last year, the back patio shrank. The 70 square feet we added to the kitchen had to come from somewhere. We moved our patio bench, chairs, coffee and side tables, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A look at foliage before flowers entirely take over
We're clearly on the cusp of spring here and flowers will be demanding more and more attention as the weeks go by - it's hard to ignore them when something new seems to pop into bloom every time I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: The new and the old
At this time of year the garden seems to produce something new nearly every day. Last week, I saw something I'd never seen before and it took me a minute to realize that the first of the species...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Late February Blooms
Inevitably, as soon as I publish my monthly Bloom Day post, something else pops up in the garden. That's especially true in early Spring and, with temperatures close to 80F yesterday, it certainly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wide Shots - Early Spring 2020
I started taking wide shots of my garden in September 2013, initially posting them monthly. As my garden matured, I transitioned to a quarterly schedule in 2016 but last year, during our remodel, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: More bulb blooms!
The second of the two species tulips I planted in early December began blooming late last week so it kicked off my search for materials to include in this week's arrangements. Unfortunately, Tulipa...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wednesday Vignette: Everything is relative
I thought I had a lot of Osteospermums in bloom.Single-petaled varietiesDouble-petaled varietiesHowever, this display at Seaside Gardens in Ventura County put mine in perspective:They were all over the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Road trip!
A friend and I made our Spring sojourn to our favorite garden centers in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties last Saturday. I've posted on all of them before but there's always something new to see or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: Sun, Blue Sky & Fluffy White Clouds
We got a teeny tiny amount of rain Saturday night and awoke on Sunday (late due to the start of Daylight Savings Time) to clear blue skies, scrubbed clean of their usual dingy brown layer of smog, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wednesday Vignette: Drip, drip, drip
We were promised rain this week. One article in the Los Angeles Times mentioned the possibility of one to four inches of the wet stuff. I didn't expect anything on the upper end of that range but I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bloom Day - March 2020
It's been raining on and off all week. While we haven't received as much rain as some areas of Los Angeles County, we've accumulated well over an inch in that period and I've made a major dent in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: My personal challenge
Yesterday I set myself a personal IAVOM challenge to create an arrangement around a flower I couldn't conceive pairing with much of anything.This is Salvia africana-lutea. The flower color is a mix of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wednesday Vignette: The good and the bad
As I suddenly have extra time on my hands, I spent a large part of yesterday in my garden. I noticed a couple of interesting and unexpected things, one good and one bad.On the good side, I nearly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spring Blooms to the Rescue!
It's been a surreal and very turbulent week. Trying to fill gaps in the pantry as grocery store shelves go bare. One activity after another abruptly cancelled. Limited to talking to friends by phone...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: Finding peace in arranging flowers
Officially, Californians (and residents of New York and a few other states) have been under orders to shelter at home since Friday but, from a practical standpoint, our movements came to an abrupt halt...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wednesday Vignette: My happy place
I share photos of the south end of my garden all too often it seems and here it is again. But it's looking really good! The rain we've enjoyed off and on for most of this month has washed the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Focusing on foliage
Despite my flower fixation, I've been making an effort to focus more attention on foliage over the last few years. In Spring, it's easy to ignore foliage altogether as there's always another flower...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a Vase on Monday: Garden Magic
I felt utterly uninspired when I walked into my garden on Sunday to pick material to use in a vase. It wasn't that the garden had nothing to offer - it's Spring after all. The problem was that the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What needs doing
Although I've theoretically had more free time since our shelter-at-home order went into effect on March 20th, hunting down supplies, touching base with friends and family, and a project I felt...
View Article