Category Archives: other gardens

Trying to befriend borage.

nature, other gardens, , ,

Everyone I have ever talked to about borage tells me how it self-sows enthusiastically. The several plants I’ve set into my garden in the last few years all died without reproducing, almost without blooming. So today when I stopped by a favorite garden center I bought  one more plant… I might beg some from friends again, too, but I wanted to get on with trying.

I bought pansies and poppies and kale and pak choi… last night my friend Sophia gave me seeds and gardening gloves, so I’ll have plenty to do when the rain lets up.

On my way out to the car I noticed a large area near the lot that was planted with borage, and I walked over that way to admire. Of course, this borage was acting normally; it had spread hither and yon and bees were  busy drinking from the underside of the flowers as from umbrellas. I got my first bee picture of 2019 — at least, most of a bee. 🙂

I didn’t make my exit, though, until I’d also explored as far as the two rows of apples on the other side of the lot. This part of the county resembles the fields and vineyards I’m used to, in that yellow flowers are brilliant right now, between rows of trees or grapes, or along roadsides. But instead of the usual mustard, here there was sourgrass (oxalis) blooming for miles and miles.

I knew it was a tiny apple orchard through which I was picking my way, through the mud and dripping grasses (in my church clothes), because — squish! I looked down to see that I had stepped on an apple and broken through its tenderized skin to the thoroughly rotten insides.

The next time I show you a photo of borage,
I hope it will be of a robust plant in my own garden!

Not true, but pretty.

nature, other gardens, , ,

I often walk past a blue plumbago bush in the mornings. If I had a bigger property I’d find a place for one of these plants, because they do seem to bloom over a long period and are fairly unthirsty. It’s taken me years to be able to remember the name plumbago, or even to find out what the plant looked like. I must have pushed it away from my consciousness because the word is only one letter off from lumbago, which means lower back pain, and the sound of which reminds me of a problem that has plagued me for most of my life.

I didn’t ever notice until Tony mentioned it, that a truly blue flower is rare, because they are usually “blushed with purple.” Today I got up close and noticed that the petals are indeed veined with purple, and as I look now at the photos the whole flower is starting to appear lavender blue. Maybe that is because it’s being seen indoors, whereas this morning it was reflecting the blue sky?

I forgot to take a picture of the whole bush, so here is a different species I saw online:

From now on I will be looking closely at all the blue flowers I encounter!

“The earth is filled with Thy creation…”

nature, other gardens, senses, , , ,

My neighborhood is full of beauty, too much to truly see – I’m not big enough to take it all in. When I go down a different street or path, and even on the same old route, I always find some bit of leaf or flower so exquisite I can’t comprehend it.

This little rose is on an overgrown and untended bush with hundreds of others, a block from my house, and when I get to within ten feet of them they come right at me with their enthusiastic olfactory greetings, giving themselves to me and saying, “Love us!” I do. I almost weep over them.

A few streets over, I met some beauties who were less assertive,
but made me think that a wedding was about to happen.

Last of the whites, my close neighbor Vera’s roses
are the whipped cream on the wedding cake:

 

I think this rose is a Double Delight. It was a double delight in any case:

And lastly, a pittosporum in bloom. They smell like orange blossoms!
I’m hopelessly in love.

Historic and overcast with sun.

bees, family, nature, other gardens, , , , , , , , ,

Of course, every day is historic. Today grandson Brodie ate with a fork for the first time! And lest I forget, it’s the day of the Total Solar Eclipse 2017. My view was as at right.

Last week I was in Monterey, California, where the sky is also commonly white in the mornings. I’m guessing that today Soldier’s family couldn’t see the natural and rare wonder above the overcast there, either.

bee balm

 

 

But as is also typical, during my brief visit the sun would come out within a few hours of the start of day, and we enjoyed many lovely walks in the neighborhood, and outings a little farther afield.

 

 

 

 

Earthbound Farm in Carmel Valley has paths to wander through various gardens with a teepee, a fort, a store and café, berry patches…

It is the perfect place to examine snails, red peppers growing, tiny leaves or flowers. Below is a weed I’ve often wanted to get a good picture of – it helps to have a boy’s finger for comparing size:

Laddie especially loved the aromatherapy chamomile labyrinth. I think he might have walked that path for an hour if we had not moved on.

artichoke in bloom

In the Alphabet Garden we saw a plant, or at least a place where a plant had grown, for every letter, including Echinacea and Bean.

On our walks in the neighborhood we saw familiar flowers and plants that Liam and I have noticed many times now, as well as some new ones. I haven’t had time to research most of them, like this:

But I did learn Sea Lavender, what Liam described as having a rattle-like sound to the flower heads. Only the white parts are the true flowers, what I assume this bee is sipping at:

Flowers love to grow on California’s coast! Here are several more I don’t know – if any of my readers knows them, please share.

Below, a tall bush in Soldier and Joy’s back yard:

Awfully fancy, this one:
Joy and I drove down to the Monterey Bay Recreational Trail and walked with three boys, two bikes, a double stroller and a baby pack. We looked for a long time into the water next to the boat docks and I saw my first jellyfish and skate not in an aquarium, plus lots of hermit crabs scuttling in and out of rock crevices.  It was beautiful down there.

I have been to visit Monterey twice this summer, to offer a little adult company to Joy while Soldier is working on the east coast. So we chatted and talked and talked some more, which may have been the cause of the boys being even more rambunctious than usual. I was amazed at how when it involves three boys ages 5, 3, and 1, every activity, even something as soothing as Grandma reading to them, devolves into roughhousing.

I don’t have a good picture of that. Just imagine a tangle of six arms, six legs, giggling faces and tousled hair, all somehow hanging on to my lap, with an open storybook underneath it all. It was a multi-sensory experience that will go down in my history book as a sunny day.