old men forget

... and I forgot the mimulus in the front walkway, which I had not expected to see bloom again.

The lantana turns out not to be quite dead! I was breaking off the dead wood -- branches thicker than my thumb simply cracked in my hand, and the wood inside was black -- but at the bottom I saw a few green leaves. So it's tougher than I thought. There are more volunteer perovskia than I realised. Most of them will probably die when I transplant them.

I've set some gopher traps after finding a fresh mound. We shall see.

blooming all over

Nearly another two weeks gone by. The freesias are all finished, and some iris have withered, but there are now some white ones open, as well as 15-20 "Eye of the Tiger" and quite a few blue ones. The anemones are quiet, but some Allium neapolitanum are open, and some Ixia near the garage. I'm not too fond of the allium. The T. linifolia are either gone or hiding. Big news: the first Calochortus venustus is open and living up to its name. The Alstroemeria by the gate has plenty of blooms open, and the one behind the house has buds that look very ready. Just today I saw, by the NW corner of the house, a butter-yellow dwarf iris ... I. reticulata? The callas are still blooming.

There are still a fair number of scarlet flax, and the Gilia capitata are quite prominent in the East Zone. The masturshalums are making a good start. Two pinks (Dianthus) that I had more or less given up on are shining out. The gaura are coming along slowly. Some of the true lilies are in bud. The two Rhaphiolepis still look good and the Solanum is excellent. The Romneya is nowhere near blooming, but may deserve to be renamed Godzilla. The Heuchera are fine, and the first snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) is open; it may also be the last. The morning glory bush was lost to a rampaging mole (I hope it's a mole and not a gopher) a day or two ago. One of the dark red "McKana Giant" columbine (Aquilegia) has opened three or four blooms. We may or may not have a Centaurea cyanus. The "Hidcote" lavenders look ready, except for some that didn't survive my attempts at transplanting. Some of the Ipomopsis are standing higher than the others, which may help me decide how to thin them. The California bluebells seem to be fading.

Three of the big yellow daylilies are now open, and a week ago today I saw the first bloom on a Stella d'Oro. The others are not ready yet.

some shall bloom and some shall die

The Grevillea shows no sign of life. Neither does the "Dallas Red" lantana at the bottom of the drive; I'm afraid those few days of frost killed it, though it was quite well established and mulched with plenty of its own dead leaves. I'll wait another month or so to be sure.

The good news is that there is plenty of good news. There are several more T. linifolia poking up, though some are hard to see under the clarkia. One of the "May Night" sage (Salvia nemorosa) is blooming well, half hidden by the Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri), which is not yet in bloom; the blue sage (S. chamaedryoides) is also starting to flower, and the S. greggii has several vivid red flowers. The gaura are showing their first little white flowers. The rose is doing very well, and some callas are open. The Watsonia are starting too. The one behind the house is that dusty pink I remember from last year, and perhaps I should replace it. A fair number of blue iris are open, and one of the strange-looking "Eye of the Tiger" in the east zone. The blue pimpernel (Anagallis monellii) is starting, as are the nasturtiums. We also have our first daylily blooms, the big yellow ones that I got from a neighbour.

Most of what was in bloom stilll is, except that the tulips are completely gone and the freesia and sparaxis nearly so.

fast to bloom, fast to wither

Believe me, things have been growing -- I just haven't been writing about them.

The daffodils are all gone; the Mount Hood lasted about a week longer than the rest. Almost all the tulips are gone; we still have a few of the generic Darwin hybrids, maybe a few Daydream, and three of the bright red T. linifolia. I wish these grew better hereabouts. And of the other spring bulbs, the only ones that I can remember from a few hours ago (my, aren't we getting old?) are the anemones. The sparaxis are not quite over.

I've reconsidered buying more Falconet, since they lasted for such a short time and do take up quite a lot of space. But more sparaix would be welcome, as they combine with other bulbs.

On the bright side, the "coral bells" (Heuchera) are looking well, the Clivia minata is quite spectacular, the scarlet flax are bright and numerous, and my "Daybreak" gazania is best described as unbelievable. The Lithodora diffusa is covered in little blue flowers on both sides of the fence, and the blue thimble flower (Gilia capitata) are also out in force. Oh, and the Indian hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis indica) is doing well, as are the teucrium fruticans and the soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides). I was wondering about he autumn sage (salvia greggii) but it is coming into bloom too.

The plum tree is in leaf, with embryo plums clearly visible, and the snap peas are yielding a few very sweet and crunchy pods per day. Those are the ones I planted in, umm, November. The yarrow I sowed into a December frost has yielded some seedlings, but I think most of the green in that corner is actually low-growing weeds whose feathery texture reminded me of yarrow. In a few weeks I'll know for sure and perhaps do something about them.

The grevillea shows no signs of life. A week or two ago I cut off most of its foliage (to prevent dehydration) and poured several gallons of water around it, but I see no effect. The piece of malacothamnus that I tried to transplant has not grown, but the Ca. bluebell looks healthy. A few days ago I noticed what looked like "volunteer" seedlings of the Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia); that plant also spreads by underground roots, but I dug around these and they seemed to be true seedlings. I've moved three of them to where they can perhaps do some good. The columbines that I planted out a few weeks ago are, at least, alive. The ipomopsis rubra has enormous numbers of children. For now, I just watch them grow, but I can see that before long I'll have to pull a lot of them out.

Blooming

I was too lazy to write this blog up last week, but there are some changes with the warmer weather. Butterflies and bees are visiting. Here's a quick list of what has bloomed:

• scarlet flax
• calochortus, pale purple, likely C. Cupido
• tulips: the white T. clusiana "Lady Jane" with red outside, and the pink-and-yellow T. bakeri (I think), and one of the Darwin hybrids ready to open
  
• "bird's eye" gilia tricolor which I promptly pulled out
• plenty of osteospermum African daisies
• plenty of freesias
• the plum tree, covered with blossoms and quite wonderful
  
• a few "Johnny-jump-up" violas
• a little of the Vinca minor periwinkle
• a great deal of the Lithodora diffusa "Grace Ward"
• the scarlet and maroon cyclamens
• two poppy anemones (A. coronaria) gorgeous dark blue/purple
• some California bluebells
  
• in unison on the same day, all of the Falconet daffodils, followed by the Carlton and with the Mount Hood ready to open -- I was ready to give up on these last year, but perhaps that frost helped them along
• still plenty of grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum)
• the harlequin flower (Sparaxis tricolor) but only behind the house.
  

And a few things are finished: the true hyacinth, the Tenby daffodils (N. obvallaris), and the dwarf iris. Some purple crocus are still doing well. I've pulled out the scarlet flax from the lower half of the front bulb garden. It grew too tall too soon and made it hard to see the tulips. The snap peas have their first tiny pods.

Last weekend I tore out two shrubs under the north wall of the house that didn't belong there and planted a "Plum Passion" fringe flower (Loropetalum chinensis) and a "Newport Dwarf" (tm) escallonia. I've tried planting out another lion's tail (Leonotis leonuris) after the first one died, and the last of my indoor-grown yarrow seedlings, of which I think all the first lot died.

It's going to be dry. I may turn on some irrigation (groan).

More transplants

The things I transplanted two weeks ago are, at least, not visibly dying, and the phacelia actually looks better than it did. So on Saturday I took some lavender bushes (dwarf Hidcote) that I didn't need in front of the house and shifted them to the dry strip on the east side, in the hope that they'll establish themselves there before the rains end.

I also took out the frost-damaged parts of the plumbagos, since another hard frost is now quite unlikely. The smaller of the two was so badly bitten that I left very little of it above ground; the larger looks strange, since there were a few upright canes still alive, but otherwise only the ones lying almost on the ground had survived. I'm sure it will be fine in a few months. The former corner lawn is now thick with yarrow seedlings, so I tried thinning them out (it isn't easy). The front walkway is thick with morning glory seedlings; two sweet peas just east of the fence are an inch or two high. I've never grown those before.

One of the osteospermum daisies has put up a flower. The first spring starflower (ipheion uniflorum; triteleia uniflora) is open, as are a few more daffodils (but the paperwhites are gone). The cyclamens continue quite glorious, and the Clivia (clivia minata) has some flower stalks visible. The plum tree has many buds, some of which are now open. There are still a fair number of dwarf iris and some crocus, mainly purple but a few yellow. The hyacinth still looks good. The biggest of the snap peas has a flower or two.

This morning I did the dull, dirty, but important job of resetting and staking the edging strip along the front garden path. This had eased its way up out of the ground over the past year or three and was flapping. And, of course, I pulled weeds.

Transplanting

The weekend of the 10th was a busy one for me. I finally shifted the "Noell" grevillea from its rather shady spot under the north wall of the house to what I hope will be a better place. It was a fair size already and I hope the roots I had to cut were not essential to its survival. I also tried moving a California bluebell (phacelia campanularia) and two offshoots of the Fremont bush mallow (malacothamnus fremontii) because they weren't any use to me where they were. They look even less likely to survive.

This past weekend I moved another calla or two, and saw signs of life in the ones I moved earlier. I finally fertilised the plumbago. And shifted a few surplus "Johnny jump up" violas to the northwest corner, where I had tried to sow some seeds of that species, but apparently without success.

The dwarf iris are doing very nicely, as are the Tenby daffodils (narcissus obvallaris) and even a few of the generic big yellow daffodils that were sold as "King Alfred type". Tulips are poking up all over the front garden. The sasanqua has lost the flower it had, but I'm not sure if this marks the end of its season, since it rarely has more than one flower. The plum tree is covered in buds, and the remaining rose is showing leaves. The evening primrose (oenothera speciosa) has spread far too widely and I'll have to do something about it. The cyclamens are much as before; so are the primroses (primula).