Another euphorbia

This is another euphorbia, a perky plant with orange flowers. Too bad it flops. By the way, the weather turned cold. I had to turn the heat on to keep my wife happy and Saturday was rainy. The climate is lovely here in the foothills.

Ghosts

Two plants from my first order from Digging Dog.
This was three years ago when I had high hopes of developing beautiful perennial beds around the level part of my backyard,
Euphorbia characias and aster 'Lady in Black'.
I had euphorbias all over my socal yard. They were wonderful fillers with soft blue green foliage and chartreuse flowers. They would do the same for me up here, I thought. The aster was something new - a plant I had never grown and couldn't have grown in socal. It was supposed to be beautiful with achillea 'Inca Gold' and I was trying to develop beautiful beds so I bought the pair. 'Inca Gold' has thrived (you can see it in the lower right corner of the picture) but 'Lady in Black' and euphorbia were never seen after the first year.

Until now.

After a year when I did not see any traces of either (and you can see that my beds are far from a state where you can easily lose a plant), here they are again looking reasonably happy.

I have no explanation but I am happy to see them.

Verbenia Bonariensis

Ten years ago when I was living in Southern California, verbenia bonariensis was trendy. Everybody was talking about it and how wonderully it worked as a 'see through' plant. I had a few plants growing in my rose bed. I liked it because it was easy, had a presence and looked good as a cut flower with my roses.

I did not think that it would survive in my new garden despite seeing plants my first year in the local nursery. Next year, no plants at the nursery so I bought seeds two years ago. I am terrible with seeds and manated to grow only two plants from a packet. This plant is the only survivor but is looking quite happy. There are even some seedlings growing at the base which I keep forgetting to pot up and transplant.
It's a lovely plant.
My problem is knowing what to do with it. Art and design have very little to do with my garden style. I have a plant. I find a hole and plant it. If it looks good, then I have an unexpected benefit. Right now it is overwhelming my 'Ceclie Brunner' rose since despite being a 'see through' plant, it's got some hefty branches. I won't move it because I know it would die but I need to find some places for it's babies where they will complement other plants. My first thought is to plant them in my summer hyacinth (galtonia candicans) bed. Since I have never grown it (galtonia, not verbenia) before and have no idea what it will look like when it grows up except it will be four feet tall this is a lame idea. Heck, it's the only idea I have so here we go. You see my problem.

Too Darn Hot

The fourth day of over 100 degrees. And without our normal Delta Breeze cooling at night. They promise that it will cool down next week. I caught several of my potted plants looking dead and shriveled by the time I got around to watering yesterday. Happily, they all pulled back to some semblance of life. I fertilized, sprayed and thought about pruning but I.m done for the day. My roses are already past their prime. Next week I will be pruning off dead flowers to prepare for the next wave.

First up today is 'Midnight Blue'. Earlier in the week when it was cooler the flowers were very deep purple. No more.

Below is 'Mermaid' starting around the top of my courtyard.

Raised Bed

Here is my raised vegetable bed completed just two weeks ago with three tomatoes, a pepper and an eggplant. There is room for more but I don't know what to plant.

At bottom a partial completion shot from about a month ago. I have completed two of my resolutions.

Summer is acumen in

The weatherman says it will be 100 by Saturday. Spring is over. We will be rivaling Polecat.

View from the Baclyard

When you leave our house to enter the backyard, you see the slope which is on the way (in it's fifth year) of becoming a tapestry of various greens and textures. Walking out, you enter a covered area which frames the hillside between the columns. The neighbors to the rear are currently visible but as the plants grow to full size, the one story house will be hidden.
The third picture is from our outdoor sitting area looking north and the final picture is of the north end of the slope where one of the three maples is beginning to create some shade

Some Like it Hot

Not the weather which will be more than hot soon enough. Today was perfect Spring weather which we seldom get in Sacramento.

What's hot is 'Hot Cocoa' bursting into bloom. I love the smoldering ashy color of the mature flowers in contrast to the orange flames of the buds.

At the bottom, 'Graham Thomas' just opening it's first buds. It promises to be spectacular.

Calling Ethel Merman

"Everything's Coming Up Roses'

These pictures from my front courtyard show 'Ginger
Syllabub' climbing the bell tower. This is its second year and it looks like it will pull its weight this year. The buds are just beginning to open showing full quartered flowers. They are lighter than I expected but since my few flowers from last year were white in the summer heat, I will take the blush. This variety is supposed to be fragrant but I don't notice much at this stage. The second photo is a closup of the flowers.
Finally at the bottom is 'Mermaid' Only one flower open yet and I don't see many buds so far.

Two More Arilbred Iris

Both are gorgeous but only one is unmistakenly an arilbred. 'Suspect' on top shows beautiful color. I thought maybe it would be deep blue from the buds but you can see that the falls are red that is nearly black with maybe a bit of aril shading with a golden apricot color in the upright petals. It has two stalks with two large blooms each (one had three but I foolishly knocked off the top one while planting some bulbs next to it.

The flower on the bottom is 'Oyez ' which is a very popular Arilbred and you can see why from the picture. It has the domed shape of the uprights and the smaller circular falls with both sporting the aril tracings overlaying the basic pick and cream color. This plant, when I received it last fall appeared shriveled and dead with only a patch of green on one leaf. I put it is a pot to nurse it along (spraying it with Ultraboost) until it was big enough to plant just this spring. I didn't expect it to bloom but it put out a stalk with one bud which became the beauty in the picture. I can't wait until next year.

Palms

Blue (top) and Pindo (bottom), the survivors of a collection of babies purchased many years ago, nursed along in Southern California and finally dragged kicking and screaming up north.
They are all hiding from the plant cops because it's illegal to have them anyplace that can be seen from the street. Just one more of my misadventures with the plant cops to be featured in a post as soon as I finish it

The blues are native to Mexico but seem to tolerate cold just fine. The Pindo surprises me. It is a relatively tender palm but seems happy here. I have done nothing to baby it either.

Another Iris

This one in blue. I no longer know its name but it's a standard bearded.

More Irises

The first two pictures are of 'Elegant Lass' a border bearded variety. She definitely deserves the name and is putting on a spectacular display for her first year. My dwarf lemon seems determined to grow sideways and you can see the fruits behind the second picture. Keep in mind that Lass is not much more than one foot high so it is rather unseemly for the lemon to invade her space. It is time to straighten him out.

On the bottom is my dutch iris. He has been with me since the second year and always puts on a good show. For all my complaining about the plants that I can't grow here. I should be fair and point out that iris were something I never considered growing in LA.

Survivor

This handsome little guy has stuck with me from the very first summer. I bought him at a local nursery when I first began looking for perennials to fill my sunbaked and empty beds surrounding the level backyard. I was taken by his golden green color and the promise of blue flowers. Now, I can't recall his name but I could probably find it quickly should it be important.
He isn't a non-stop bloomer but you can see that he is ready to put out some nice blooms now. What I love about him is that he is still with me and putting up a good show despite the scorching summers and the stony soil.
If I see any more like him, I plan to give him some company.

Early This Year

Making an appearance much earlier this year than normal, kniphofia 'Bleached Blonde'. I have enjoyed it because it provides a block of green spiked leaves up my slope. Also it doesn't receive any landsacpe watering, just what naure provides.

This one is supposed to rebloom although it never has for me. Maybe this year with the early start, it will.

The suspense is killing me.

Don't you just hate a tease?

Tiny Bit of Sunshine

Hidden among the dutch iris I found this tiny delight. There are some up the hill also. I don't know what I was thinking when I planted them.

Iris Number 2

Iris number two is also an arilbred and I still have the label, Bagdad's Folly. It has more of the aril shape and more shading but for my money, nameless number one beats it.

Number one pushed out two bloomstalks and boasted four flowers open at one time while Bagdad only managed one bloomstalk and one flower.

I don't remember selecting yellow flowers but so far it's two for two, yellow

Encores

Rosa mutabilis in its final color. I know I called it brick red before and here it is cherry but in actuality, the color is more a blue red. Whatever, it's silky petals are lovely.






My still nameless arilbred iris looking even more lovely with two bloomstalks and four open flowers.

Oh... I looked it up. It's name is Burra Sahib.

Narcissus Malfunction

Normally, narcissus are problem free. I just plant them and they bloom. This clump of doubles is an exception. They grow well and set buds but the buds either dry up in an early stage or develop fat healthy looking buds which are ready to open which stay closed until they rot. I broke these two to get the amount of opening you see but even then, they never opened fully.
The first year this happened, I decided that a rainy spring had hampered their opening but this year was a dry spring and they still don't open.
I don't know of anything to do other than to avoid doubles in the future.