Bonus!

This afternoon I was out admiring and gesticulating at my California Natives garden for my mom and made a discovery. The Blue Elderberry has actually started forming flower buds! Woohoo!

Photos will be forthcoming once they flower out.

Wildflowers in the Garden

The spring wildflowers I planted in my California Natives bed continue on their way. In my last post I showed a photo of mostly-greens with some hints of the apricot of our local Sticky Monkeyflower and the purple-y blues of the Foothill Penstemon 'Margarita BOP.'  But that was weeks ago and now all sorts of colors have inserted themselves into the scene!

Now, crowding in next to the penstemon, Tidy Tips are going nuts.

In among the mounds of poppy foliage, the Goldfields are smiling at the world.

A Lupine stand tall above its foliage with the Sticky Monkeyflower watching in the background.

Here and there among the Goldfields and Tidy Tips and Poppy foliage, a Bluebell pokes its face out of the crowd.

One of the things I decided to try this year was a packet of mixed colors California Poppies (as opposed to the common satiny orange). One of the colors that has popped up is a claret-colored poppy.

Would you believe that all of these flowers are packed into just the front half of this flower bed next to my driveway in San Jose?

You may or may not have noticed the odd weed here and there (I certainly notice, but can't get to them without stepping on something happy). I've also noticed the occasional sunflower sprouting among the natives. Giant, seed-making sunflowers were growing here last year. We'll see what comes of them this year. 

The Western Redbud is now fully leafed-out. No blossoms this year, but it's only been in the ground for a year now. Maybe next year. The Blue Elderberry never completely lost its leaves and hasn't bloomed yet, but it's also only been in the ground for a year now and the naturally-occurring Blue Elderberries are only now bursting into bloom.

In a later post, I'll put together a collection of all the colors of poppies in my garden. So far there's cream, claret, a two-toned mahogany-and-orange, and the standard satiny orange.

Spring is springing!

Spring is really starting to show its colors in my California Natives garden bed. (Photo taken just before the rain started.) In the background you can see the flowers of our local form of Sticky Monkeyflower. To the right you can see the flowers of the Penstemon 'Margarita BOP.' And, if you look really-really closely, you can just about make out a few inflorescences of Hearst's Ceanothus (center front). 

You can't really see it here, but the Goldfields and Tidy Tips are budding up quite nicely. (One Goldfields flower was partially open yesterday afternoon.  Woohoo!) In the mid-ground, in front of the monkeyflower, you can see mounds of Lupine leaves. No buds yet, but lots of leaves.

I'm really enjoying the mix of greens in that bed: blue-greens, gray-greens, yellow-greens, dark greens, Kelly-greens, and, at the other end, some red-greens! Then there are the leaf shapes and textures. There are smooth and crinkly, fuzzy and shiny, skinny and heart-shaped.

All blurry in the right foreground are the leaves of the Western Redbud. It didn't bloom this year, but it has *just* hit its 1-year anniversary in the ground.  Maybe next year.

I mentioned in my previous post that the Hooded Orioles are back. The males (one breeding adult and one juvenile, as far as I can tell) are not cooperating with me with respect to photographs, but the females are doing better. I think the bottom photo is the breeding female and the top one the juvenile female.

Today we are experiencing some much-needed April Showers and the weather is supposed to continue damp and/or skanky for the rest of the week. It should help prolong the spring blooming season. Woohoo!

But, for now, it's nice just sitting here, listening to the rain on the roof.