1310 - Larkspur

Only a few larkspurs thrived during our long, foggy summer to bloom this year.

130302 - Bachelor's Buttons

None -  or nearly none - of the bachelor's buttons I planted by seed have come up in the terraces to the left of the staircase.

This one is among a dozen or so that volunteered late last fall and have overwintered quite well. Most have not yet bloomed, but are instead growing quite massive.

Last weekend, I seeded hundreds of larkspur in the vacant gardens and hope to have much better success with them.

121014 - Larkspur

The larkspur in the side garden did the best this year.

1201 - Larkspur

I cut and brought indoors this pink larkspur just before it rained hard for a few days.

111226 - Larkspur and Sweet Peas

Today I photographed the sweet peas and larkspur in bloom at the top left of the terraces.

Despite this being the last week of December, the burgundy sweet peas show no sign of fading, their vines at least six feet long and now blocking the staircase running alongside the fountain.

The purple larkspur has just bloomed beside other larkspur and a cabbage poppy on the verge of flowering, too.

1110 - Larkspur

A few larkspurs, dwarfed by our cool, foggy spring and summer, have bloomed in the gardens.

I found this one by accident, spotting it beneath the mass of sweet peas at the top, left of the staircase, at first thinking it was a butterfly.

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.

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.

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.

06 Summer - Garden Unfinished

Here is the garden in the summer, 2006, before the terraces were in place.

You can see lots of sweet peas, larkspur, and nasturtiums. At the top left are pink ladies coming up out of the ground like long, pink arms.

Phil is a huge fan of nasturtiums. In fact, he said aloud one day in the gardens how much he loved them, and the god of nasturtiums must have heard him, as that cascade of flowers seemed to appear from no where.

Charlie the owl sits at the top of the stairs. He's supposed to scare away birds, but no one has yet told the birds.