100711 - Terraces

Yesterday, I took a few hundred photographs of the terraces before cleaning up the beds and seeding cosmos for late summer through winter.

10 Spring - California Primrose

Our friend Richard Knight had accumulated a great selection of books, and his widow, Judith, recently gave us several from their library.

I looked through one on flowers and was happy it confirmed the flower I had been calling a California primrose is indeed an evening primrose that thrives in Northern California.

Over the last few weeks, I took several photographs of it in bloom with canterbury bells, delphiniums and love-in-the-mist.

2010 Spring - Canterbury Bells

15 months or so after I started them from seed, the canterbury bells are blooming. The ones in the garden between the garage doors have received the most sun, so they are the largest - about three feet tall by three feet wide - and are more fully in bloom. I especially like the flowers viewed in close up.

100427 - Canterbury Bell

Last night and for much of today, we had high winds and lots of rain. Then, as evening began, the clouds suddenly moved on, and I took this photograph.

This flower is the first to open on the seven canterbury bells I started from seed in February, 2009. You can see the seedlings in their six pack, when you jump to this post in the blog: 09 Winter - Canterbury Bells.

This particular plant is in the garden between the garage doors and has steadily grown over the winter and spring to three feet by three feet. It is the largest of the seven, with dozens upon dozens of blooms covering its thirty or so flower stocks.

I can hardly wait to photograph the other plants as they bloom over the spring and summer.

091231 - Canterbury Bell

This photograph was taken in the new garden just to the top, left of the staircase.

Here you can see a canterbury bell I started from seed in March, 2009. It is surrounded by love-in-the-mist and a mullien promised by the nursery where we bought it to grow to five feet and be covered in yellow flowers.

09 Summer - Canterbury Bell

Earlier this year, Phil and I bought a rare, perennial canterbury bell and planted it in the garden bed, where we had recently pulled up an echium that had taken over the trail at the top, left of the staircase up the hillside.

I must admit this canterbury bell has exceeded all of my expectations. It grows and grows and weekly sends up gorgeous whitish purple flowers faster than I can count them.

09 Winter - Canterbury Bells

At the start of March, Phil bought these canterbury bells from Trader Joe's on Masonic.

They were in full bloom, wilted a bit in the kitchen while I waited for good weather to trudge out into the gardens, then sprang back to life as soon as I planted them near the base of the terraces. The plant is about one foot tall and twice as wide with six nearly identical flower clusters.

In the six pack to the right in the nursery, you can see several tiny canterbury bells I started from seed in mid February. The dry weather over the last year or so has been hard on the delphiniums, so I plan to distribute these throughout the front and back gardens where the delphiniums have died off.

Nursery

Here you can see growing inside the nursery Phil made for Christmas, 2007, six packs of canterbury bells, winter sweet peas and stock. The columbines planted in the six pack to the far right haven't come up yet.

The bottom row has two pots with clarkia, which readily reseeded itself from fall, 2008. Out of view are six little pots containing a red echium each. These are the descendants of the nine-foot-tall mammoth, commonly called "Tower of Jewels," which grew in the fride (FRont sIDE) garden in 2008.

The second photograph shows the view of the terraced gardens from the nursery. Everything's pretty much dormant or growing steadily for a spring show. The fountain works rather well now, though there's still a leak somewhere.

Phil loves the cala lilies near the blue base of the waterfall.

The tinfoil you see hung from string is the most effective way I've found to scare birds out of the yard. It's a bit unsightly, but not nearly as bad as bird netting I used to string up like beleaguered tents across the backyard.

07 Summer - Upper Terraces

These are two photographs from early summer, 2007, when the poppies to the right of the staircase were putting on a show.

The sky-blue sweet peas climbing the fence at the top of the hill were amazing, too.

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.