07 Late Fall - Waterfall Views

These are three photographs I took of the waterfall on the same day late last fall.

Phil thought growing nasturtiums over the waterfall would look nice, especially when they were in bloom. But he's recently pulled up whole sections, since the plants grew very densely, blocking the view from the stairs of much of the terraced gardens.

I think the cacti were especially happy to say Bon voyage! to the nasturtiums, which had grown over them and blocked their afternoon sunlight.

In January, 2008, we had a terrific winter storm with hurricane-strength gusts. The wind shoved through that fence at the top of the terraces the huge cactus in its container, shattering both fence and container. It also bent upward the copper sconce draining water into the waterfall's blue basin.

We transplanted the cactus into a larger container and put it to the far left of the stairs, but left the shattered fence where it dropped. We're going to build a trellis there later this year.

The copper sconce hasn't worked properly since the storm, so Phil recently took it apart and is re-foaming it later this spring, when he plans to rework one section of the waterfall that has had a slow leak.

Easter, 2008 - Flower arrangement

This is the arrangement I made in the front room on Easter, 2008.

Those are pink, purple- and-white, orange, and dark pink ranunculus surrounded by yellow alyssum, pink prairie mallow, salmon winter sweet peas, and two small, blue anemones.

080318 - Winter Sweet Peas

Here's a short video of the fride (FRont sIDE) garden, front gardens and, especially, the winter sweet peas, so you can see how much they've grown in just a month.

Also, in this video, you can see columbines, delphiniums, two rose bushes, cabbage poppies, foxgloves, coreopsis, California poppies, tiny hollyhocks, and a second planting of sweet peas in the fride garden. These sweet peas are in partial shade, so they grow slower than the ones next to the cabbage poppies.

This video starts with an echium called "Tower of Jewels." It grows to nine feet, and blooms up the length of its stock, its flower clusters a show-stopping scarlet red.

071231 - Imperial dahlia

Here's a view from the gardens of the Pacific Ocean on New Year's Eve, 2007.

The imperial dahlia, also know as tree dahlia, had reached a height of about fifteen feet before going into bloom.

I remember this day as sunny and warm.

Only a week or two later, though, we had a massive winter storm, with lots of rain and hurricane-strength gusts, which ripped this imperial dahlia in half.

I scavenged its flowers to make a nice arrangement in the front room.

080313 - First Salmon Winter Sweet Pea

Here it is!

Our first sweet pea in bloom for 2008!

On its packet, it is described as a salmon- colored winter sweet pea. You can see it has both yellow and salmon coloring. It is very fragrant. I'll add another photograph to the blog in a few days to show how much it has grown since it was last photographed in February.

06 Summer - Gerbera Daisy

We put this gerbera daisy in a pot in the summer, 2006.

It almost immediately had huge, stunning flowers, which lasted for several weeks.

Then, it went dormant for the winter and following spring, before reappearing in the summer, 2007.

We realized it had grown too large for its pot, when it grew massive, crowded leaves, and looked ready to crawl out, its flowers much smaller than those of the previous year.

We'll put it in a larger pot before this summer comes.

080309 - Anemones, Hyacinths and Stock

I cut these flowers today from the backyard gardens.

The purple stock and purple, blue, pink and magenta hyacinths surround the anemones, the ruffled, purple-and-white one unique in the gardens and my favorite this year.

06 Spring - Larkspur and Sweet Peas

Several weeks ago, I scattered larkspur seeds across the garden alongside the fence you can see in this photograph.

They should be coming up very soon.

You can see here that we had sweet peas and larkspur blooming together in the spring, 2006.

I hope this year looks as nice.

080306 - Terraced Gardens

I took this short video of the gardens this afternoon, when the sun was descending behind the evergreens southwest of our house.

I'll do a similar video in a month or so to show how rapidly the gardens change, as spring approaches.

070725 - First Oriental Poppy

This was the first Oriental hybrid poppy to bloom in the summer, 2007. We had planted four others earlier that spring, but all apparently died.

Yesterday, while watering and weeding the gardens, I noticed four plants that looked neither like weeds nor like any of the varieties of annual poppies Phil and I have been seeding throughout the winter.

I was happy to realize they were the four poppies long thought dead.

I read in a flower catalog that Oriental hybrid poppies have twice the number of flower petals as their natural cousins.

080304 - Sunbather

I watered the gardens this morning, then pulled up dozens of grass and impatien seedlings coming up everywhere.

I was almost done tearing out strangle vine climbing down a fence, when I noticed this sunbather on the wooden steps between the hot tub and lemon tree.

He was about eight inches long and about two fingers thick. He kept a watchful eye on me, as I photographed him from different angles.

070722 - Hydrangea

This hydrangea looked like a dead tree trunk when we moved into the house in the winter, 2006. But that spring, it grew several leaves, so I knew it was doing okay, though it didn't produce flowers that year.

By the summer, 2007, it had grown much larger and was in bloom for several months.

It is even larger this year, and I look forward to photographing it in bloom this summer.