06 Summer - Clarkia from Mendocino and Humboldt counties

This is a rare clarkia from Mendocino and Humboldt counties.

With a little protection from birds, each seed will sprout. The small plant is very green and grows low over the ground, with pink or purple veins in its leaves. It eventually grows to about three feet by three feet and takes on a drier, woodsy look. Almost over night, flower buds develop, and soon there are as many flowers as leaves.

I leave the spent flowers on the plant and collect the seed pods, when they are black or brown and very brittle.

This plant is from the summer, 2006, and I have already started its descendants in six packs and seeded our fride garden with good results.

07 Spring - Busy Bee

Last weekend, I was in Hollywood, California, buying magazines for work, so I missed the storm that hit San Francisco. Phil says it rained and rained Saturday and Sunday, with wind gusts reaching 70 miles an hour.

When I came home from the trip, I was surprised by the garden, which was lush and showed no damage from the storm.

I took this photograph in the summer, 2007. Bees are drawn to the echium at the top, right of our gardens. I followed one around on a sunny day and took several photographs of it at work.

070813 - Oriental Poppy Salmon

This was our first oriental salmon poppy to bloom.

The plant is still massive and even in mid-winter has sent up two flowers, though neither is as spectacular as this one.

080218 - Winter Salmon Sweet Peas and Cabbage Poppies

These photographs are for my friend in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is still in the clutches of Old Man Winter.

I took these photographs today in our front yard. You can see the winter sweet peas are not only working their way up their trellis, but they've begun growing flower shoots.

Sweet peas are one of my favorite flowers, so I'm looking forward to these going into bloom.

Phil calls the poppies in front of the sweet peas by their common name, "cabbage poppies." They are sold under names like "breadbox poppies" or "Turkish poppies." They grow to five feet or so and produce flowers the size of your hands cupped together to catch water. And, yes, they smell unmistakably like cabbage.

The yellow flowers in the next bed are coreopsis and thrive well in San Francisco. Between them and the poppies you can see a foxglove.

Summer, 2006 - Hollyhocks, Sweet Peas and Phil

That is Phil standing next to the first hollyhock we grew in the gardens in the summer, 2006.

The sweet peas did great here and elsewhere in the gardens, as you can see in other photographs.

Having never gardened prior to moving into this house, I was astounded by the size of this hollyhock, which continued to grow to about fourteen feet.

You can see to the right of Phil a container holding a cactus and several impatiens in bloom.

Right now the impatiens' descendants are springing up all over the gardens. We're relocating a few, giving several away to friends, and moving the rest to a public staircase not far from the house.

080113 - First Icelandic Poppy

Icelandic poppies are one of Phil's favorite flowers.

This one bloomed in January, 2008, after several days of warm weather.

We were sitting on the staircase admiring the Pacific Ocean in the distance, when I thought the lighting was right to take this photograph.

06 Later Winter - Mexican Salvia

In San Francisco, I've discovered nothing attracts hummingbirds more than Mexican salvia.

People tell me Anna's hummingbirds like hollyhocks, jasmine, lemon blossoms, etc., but they will take up permanent residence in your gardens if you have Mexican salvia.

Two small patches were here when we moved into this house. Both have thrived with nothing more than regular watering and occasional fertilizing. (I use an orchid fertilizer 20 10 20 - one scoop per gallon - throughout the gardens.)

I've just mastered features on my camera that enable me to photograph the hummingbirds, who bathe on nasturtium leaves hanging over the waterfall, dive-bomb interlopers, and zoom around Phil and me in the gardens.

Mexican salvia is very easy to grow. A deleafed stick, long thought dead and used as a marker for a newly planted ranunculus, was discovered growing leaves and roots after a few weeks.

Stay tuned for photographs of the hummingbirds.

080209 - Terraced Gardens

I took this photograph today from the top of the terraces looking down at the gardens to the right of the staircase.

You can see past all four terraces to the row of cala lilies edging the dirt pathway alongside the terraces.

Today, it was sixty-five degrees and stunning. The anemones and crocuses were in full bloom, while the ranunculus continue to charge up out of the ground. I cannot wait for them to bloom, too.

The cacti and succulents have definitely perked up now that the sun is drying out the gardens.

Next to the the hot tub is the white Pacific Giant delphinium I've staked several times to support its flower stalk almost three feet in length. I hope it blooms before the next rainstorm, since flower stalks this long typically collapse under the weight of wet blooms.

I planted poppy and larkspur seeds in the gardens today. The relative barrenness of these winter gardens won't last.

070430 - Garden Stowaways

In April, 2007, I was sorting several flowers I'd brought in from the gardens, when I noticed these two stowaways on a kitchen table.

The blue delphinium is a dwarf variety that grows low to the ground and has flower stalks reaching three feet in length.

The purple lupine is a Russell hybrid. It was disappointing its first year, but in the spring, 2007, had nearly two dozen flower stalks longer than two feet.

06 Summer - Hot Tub Fence

We built the hot tub fence in the summer, 2006. The fence posts were sunk in three feet of cement, while the fence itself is louvered vertically to allow in as much light as possible.

One of the first things we did when we moved into this house was build the hot tub's foundation. Its perimeter is cinder blocks held in place by rebar. Twenty-six bags of gravel were used to create the level surface it sits on.

I took this photograph at the top of the stairs, which led to nowhere until we finished the terraces that winter.

The sweet peas and larkspur were incredible. You can see the larkspur closest to the hot tub fence hadn't yet bloomed. When they did, they cut off access to the staircase, and we had to walk through the gardens to climb the hillside. I overplanted.

07 Spring - Blue Grape Hyacinth

Today, our first blue grape hyacinth made its way above ground.

After nearly two weeks of solid rain, the weatherman says this week is supposed to be very nice, with sunny skies raising the temperature to the high fifties and even low sixties.

This photograph is of a blue grape hyacinth that came up in the spring, 2007, in a partially shaded garden near the back of the house. At first, I thought it was the lone survivor of several bulbs I had planted, but then dozens joined it over the next few weeks.

Phil says he has seen carpets of these cover a garden or hillside in Idaho.

070705 - First Canterbury Bell

We were very happy when this canterbury bell did so well.

In the spring, 2006, we planted one with purple flowers, but it died fairly quickly. I think I was under-
watering it.

This pink one continued to bloom through the summer and mid-fall, growing almost three feet tall and reaching long branches of flowers across its terrace toward the sun.

Its flowers were about twice the size of your thumb and smelled wonderful, like torillas fresh out of the oven.

070701 - First Cactus Flower

This cactus flower came into full bloom in the summer, 2007, without being noticed for several days.

The cactus itself is a surprisingly small plant and sits in a container, which spent a year and a half mostly hidden under a massive Pacific Giant delphinium.

I think I actually gasped the day I was plucking dead delphinium leaves off the Pacific Giant and stumbled upon this flower.

The cactus has since been moved to a more prominent location in the gardens.

080201 - White Anemones

I took this photograph today.

These anemones are located to the right of the stairs on the second terrace.

For several days, they both looked on the verge of opening, but I had little hope for them, as it rained almost day and night this week.

Today, the sun was out for much of the morning, giving one flower just enough of a boost to spring open.

In this photograph, you can also see a round nasturtium leaf, several sword-like ixia leaves, a few hairy poppy leaves, and a toadstool.