10 Winter - Tidy Tips

This is a photograph of a tidy tips (layia platyglossa) that has gone into bloom at the front of one of the terraces. It is an annual herb native to California.

We bought it late last winter and are happy the plant is already about eighteen inches by eighteen inches and covered in flowers two inches across.

10 Winter - Hyacinths and Tac

The rains returned this winter, and talk of an extended drought in Northern California has subsided.

The gardens are more spectacular than they were last spring, which was very dry.

Here are several photographs I took of the hyacinths at the end of winter. I wrote in another post that I planted over a hundred in late 2009. All of them came up.

My favorites are the thirty or so that bloomed in the garden we named "stump." Because this bed is in partial shade year round, I have had trouble until now finding something besides weeds that can thrive here.

In the last photograph of this series, you can see Tac coming toward me. She rolled around on the hyacinths until I put down the camera and gave her the attention she was demanding.