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A beautiful day - to shop for plants!
A friend and I spent a beautiful Saturday driving up the coast. We stopped in Carpinteria to visit Seaside Gardens and had lunch on an outdoor patio at a nearby restaurant before driving up to Terra...
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Hustling to plant in advance of rain
Last Saturday, a friend and I went plant shopping. My last post covered that trip. This one shows where the plants landed. I'm not always so prompt about getting my new acquisitions in the ground...
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In a Vase on Monday: Spring is in hyperdrive
March started out warm here but turned cold again (low-mid 50sF/13C) as a storm moved through the area on Thursday into Friday. Unfortunately, the storm blew through without delivering a drop of rain...
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Wednesday Vignette: The butterflies are back
Despite our periodic winter heatwaves, it seems early for butterflies but over the past month I've seen quite a few of them. Not in any mass numbers mind you but they definitely weren't figments of my...
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Early spring bulb blooms
My monthly Bloom Day posts tend to be very long and, as the March 15th early spring bloomfest will probably be especially lengthy, I decided to "split the baby" and present my bulb blooms in a separate...
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In a Vase on Monday: Flowers aplenty
As I ran around my garden taking photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this coming Tuesday, it's overwhelming how much is in bloom. In dry years like this one, I wonder if every flowering plant is...
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Bloom Day - March 2022
Although the calendar says otherwise, it's the height of spring here in my part of coastal Southern California. A few early spring plants are already showing signs of decline and, as daytime...
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Fresh Spring Foliage
With spring generating flowers in my garden non-stop at the moment, it's easy to overlook the garden's foliage. I took a closer look at my garden yesterday and wanted to share the fresh green foliage...
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In a Vase in Monday: Spring Extravaganza
It's been spring in all but name here since early February but now it's official! To make things even sweeter, Mother Nature provided us a touch of rain on the last day of astronomical winter,...
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Juggling plants
Spring may have just made its formal entrance in the Northern Hemisphere but it's already time to prepare my Southern California cutting garden for summer. We've had episodes of warm weather at...
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Spring chores in summer heat
Earlier this week, just as it was starting to get really warm again, I decided I should tackle some chores I'd put off longer than I should have. The tree-sized Auranticarpa rhombifolia shrubs (aka...
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In a Vase on Monday: A personal challenge
In the fall, I planted Dutch Iris 'Eye of the Tiger' bulbs on a whim. The flower was described as blue and bronze and I know there was a photo attached to the bag but, when the plants started blooming...
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Fire and rain
The time has come to deal with the Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' in my cutting garden. It's a colorful attention-grabber but it's out of control and my efforts to prune it into submission have...
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Wide Shots - April 2022
On my regular quarterly schedule, I made a few rounds of the house with my camera in hand to capture the broad views of my garden usually missed in my posts. The photos were taken at various times...
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In a Vase on Monday: Before the weather changes (again)
We got 0.72/inch (18mm) of rain last Monday, which wasn't bad by current standards. Some people in the surrounding area got significantly more but, as two of my rain barrels are now full and the...
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The fire is out
Last Wednesday, I published a post focused on the unmanageable growth of a Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire' I'd planted in a strawberry pot back in 2012.  I'd cut the Euphorbia back many times over...
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Too hot to do much of anything
Last week was very cool and we even got some rain. This week, it's gotten summer-hot with temperatures soaring above 90F (32C) on Wednesday and creeping still higher yesterday. Our humidity level...
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In a Vase on Monday: Bright blue
After a stretch of summer-like temperatures last week, peaking at 96F (35C) in our location but hitting records of 102F (39C) in other local areas, our temperatures dropped back into the 60s yesterday...
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The back slope in April
I ignore our steep back slope much of the year, venturing down that way only to pick lemons when needed, or to provide supplemental irrigation to the lemon tree at the height of summer when it gets...
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Bloom Day - April 2022
Last week's heatwave took the blush off some blooms in my garden this month but there are still a large number of plants in full flower. I've seen signs that some prominent early summer blooms are...
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