080626 - Magenta Dahlia

We relocated this magenta dinner-plate dahlia late last fall, after it and a yellow dinner-plate dahlia had grown into each other.

This dahlia is the first to bloom this year. Yes, its flowers are as large as a dinner plate.

The Mexican salvia rapidly went into bloom the last few weeks, while the lupines, foxglove, hollyhocks and white Pacific Giant delphinium have been stunning for several months now.

080615 - Red Hybrid Lily

Here you can see two red hybrid lilies in bloom. They bloomed a few days before the white ones described in an earlier post.

These flowers are a little smaller than the white ones, though the plants are about the same height.

The red lilies are growing alongside lupines, sweet peas and a perrenial foxglove, which produces larger and more numerous flower stocks each year. The pink flowers of this foxglove are about three inches long.

080615 - White Asiatic Hybrid Lily

This is the first white Asiatic hybrid lily to bloom in the gardens. I planted this and another late last fall.

The plant is about two feet tall, its flowers as large as your hand.

Those are lupine leaves it's growing through.

080608 - Cactus Flower

One of the little cacti next to the waterfall has gone into bloom.

080601 - Pink and White Cabbage Poppy

Several pink-and-white cabbage poppies have shown up in the front gardens this year, some well over six feet tall.

During last month's heatwave, the flowers bloomed and the petals fell off all in the same day.

But now that it is cool and foggy again in San Francisco, the flowers last several days. They are about as large as your hand.

080601 - Sweet Peas

The heatwave we had in early May stunted the sweet peas for a few weeks, but now that the weather's cool, the sweet peas are growing like crazy.

Along the fence at the top of the backyard, I mixed winter salmon sweet peas with a sky-blue variety that did very well last year.

080601 - Red French Flounce Cabbage Poppy

Here's a photograph I took this weekend of the only red French flounce cabbage poppy to show up in the gardens this year.

It is just under five feet tall and very stout, withstanding the blasting wind coming up the hill from the ocean better than anything else in the gardens.

I don't recall any of the French flounce cabbage poppies from last year having several flowers in bloom at once like this one. Each of its flowers is as large as your hands cupped together to catch water.