1005 - Sweet Peas and Cabbage Poppies

I can never decide which flowers are my favorites. It seems it is usually whatever I am looking at, but I have recently decided once and for all sweet peas are my favorite.

Here you can see I succeeded in growing the sweet peas up the side of the house and nearly into the windows of the front room.

It has been an especially rainy, cool and sunny spring, and I think this is exactly what the flowers needed to thrive.

The cabbage poppies are about five feet tall, their flowers a little smaller than your hands cupped together to catch water.

100518 - Cactus in Bloom

Almost overnight, this cactus went into bloom.

At about fourteen inches tall, it doesn't seem to have grown much in the year or so that we've owned it, but now there are many more flowers than the two or three that typically bloomed at any one time.

The flowers last only a few days and are somewhat larger than teacups.

100427 - Tac

I fed the cats this evening after the rain stopped.

Tac sat on the feral villa (cat house) and lazily kept an eye on me photographing the gardens. You can see she has lost most of her winter coat.

Toe took one look at the clicking camera pointed at her and fled into a neighbor's yard. Tic doesn't mind the camera, but wouldn't sit still long enough for a photograph: he was busy trying to capture a hummingbird, a recent interest for which he has an alarming aptitude.

100427 - Rhododendron

When we moved into this house four years ago, we found a tree severely hacked to the ground. Neither of us could guess what it was for the first couple of years.

Then, as it steadily grew taller, Phil became convinced it was a rhododendron, though it never bloomed.

This winter, it finally grew taller than the fence it sits against and now receives sunlight for most of the day. Almost over night, it went into bloom.

100427 - Love-in-the-Mist and Ranunculus

I took these photographs today after the rain suddenly stopped.

I like how pretty the red ranunculus looks next to the love-in-the-mist.

And I was surprised how large this particular love-in-the-mist has become. Most are only an inch or so wide.

100427 - Columbine

Among cabbage poppies and hollyhocks, several columbines have gone into bloom.

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.

10 March - Anemone

This is one of the first anemones to bloom this year.

Late last fall, I planted over 200 anemones, but most show no signs of coming up. I do not know if it is because pocket gophers or something else ate them or because I purchased duds from an online nursery.

In March, I bought another 160 or so from another online nursery and planted these for next year's blooming cycle.

The anemones that have come up are quite beautiful like this one.

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.