Tag Archives: California poppies

In the midst of heady scents.

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It is such a blustery day. My helper in the garden was not able to come at all in March, in spite of trying and getting rained out. I think he might come today, though even if the rain stops, it’s so windy and cold, I do not want to go out there and join in the clean up and pruning and weeding. I will just stay in and do a few Greek lessons, and show you more pictures of the garden.

At right is a birthday card I received from my grandson. He’s doing an extensive series of these drawings of which this is only one family member, so I don’t think he was necessarily implying any resemblance. But I immediately felt that this motherly looking cat was a kindred spirit.

More birthday gifts illustrate this post, made by several of the younger, most practical and artistic grandchildren. The ones who live in California keep writing cards and letters wondering when they will next see me; these, combined with the departure of the Colorado clan after they had been available for hugs for a whole week, gave me the idea of making a quick trip north to see Pippin’s brood this weekend — but stop… breathe… It looks better to wait until after Pascha, and more easily accomplished. So I’m looking forward to that, though even then it will be a challenge to squeeze it in. Because of May travels.

In the front garden, more Yellows and Oranges are flowering to complement the purples and blues. The freesias have never smelled so divine; maybe it is the heavenly dampness in the air that carries their scent to my head such that I want to sit down on the wet sidewalk and swoon a while. In the lower right of the picture below you can see the new ceanothus covered with its Lenten purple. The green shag carpet is baby nigella, which I need to thin out severely as soon as the weather is favorable.

The hen hotpad above is the exception in the group — not made by a grandchild, but sent by my dear friend in Arizona ❤

The irises in the front, which are supposed to be tall, but have been short lately, are sending up tall stems with buds now, and they are beginning to open, just as the yellow California poppies are coming on. Now, if the rain will just stop, and the wind turn into a gentle spring breeze…

No one has played an April Fool’s joke on me today — I don’t think. How about you?

A red surprise popped up.

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California poppies with Iceland poppies in foreground – April 2020

In spring, the California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) swamp the front of my garden, and after a few weeks of exulting in their glory I have to pull them all out and uncover the irises, salvia and other plants that I want to see. A few more weeks, and the poppies have sprouted new leaves and sometimes blooms as well. Here’s an example at left, from just now.

The classic orange color is dominant, so orange flowers keep appearing, and I remove them as much as possible, so that my favorite pale yellow ones can shine.

But this week in the back yard, far from any other poppies, close by the bulbine, I saw a new red one blooming on a little plant. I think I may have scattered seeds for red California poppies here last fall, and forgot about it. This one flower is encouraging me to do that again.

Fairy houses and flowers.

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It’s hard not to step on asparagus stalks when they are barely showing above the mulch like this one. Today I tromped on one that was much taller; I was trying to get a good picture of the irises. It’s the time of year when I need to make a point of going out to the asparagus bed knife in hand at least every other day, and not ignore them as I walk up to the front door.

Every day there has been some special garden-related surprise, including rain, which in turn brings out more sprouts and flower surprises.

This month my neighbors thinned some limbs of the tall Canary Island Pine that hang over their side of the fence — most of the biomass of the tree is on their side — and I am getting a little more sunlight into the back garden, without having to cut down my only tree.

My beloved pale yellow California poppies seem to be changing to orange as they reseed themselves year by year. I’m trying to pull out a lot of the orange ones, but I think it’s a losing battle. This is the only patch of yellow ones right now.

A week ago I went to the coast and updated my Sea Log page. (I fixed it to receive comments now.) One thing I liked about that visit was watching the little shore birds that I think are Sanderlings. I’m showing you this picture because it shows their size compared to sea gulls.

This week was so busy with other things, I couldn’t get away to the coast, but the cold temperatures out there might have kept me away in any case. The sun will shine and warm things up everywhere next week, so I hope to go again.

The day after my last excursion to the beach, I was oddly inspired to walk in my neighborhood. For the last year I had done that very little, choosing rather to vegetate between beach trips. This time I took a path to the east that I hadn’t been on in years; it follows the creek as the stream gets narrower, and the walkway used to come to a dead end pretty quickly. But now, I discovered that it connects with a new housing development and paved sidewalks.

As I was trying to take a picture of a pair of shy Mallards, I spied a little toy house on the other side of the water. Then another upstream, and another… altogether there were dozens of woodsy houses and scenes with gnomes, fairies and toadstools that someone had put a lot of work into. I am going to show you a sample.

A few like this one with the red door were built against trees, and some were nestled into the banks, mostly on the far side where I couldn’t easily go. One was built on a stump in the middle of the stream. They all looked a bit weathered, which made me wonder how they didn’t get washed away in winter storms. I guess it’s a sign of how little precipitation we got this season.

A gnome in a tree swing, fairies having a tea party out of doors… My very favorite was this “Fairy House Laundry” with its sign by the door assuring customers that when treated at their establishment, “Stains magically vanish.”

Another fun thing about my walk was meeting two strangers who were happy to talk to me, like in the old days. Though I didn’t have time to extend my outing just then, it appears that with the add-on to the old path, I could walk for miles toward the hills. Even if the “adventure” would mostly take me through a new subdivision of houses, the novelty of it appeals and I want to do it soon.

Back to the greenhouse, here are a couple of the sprouts I’m seeing:

The bottom one is nasturtiums. Last time I looked the summer squash and the calendulas were coming up, too. And now that we are in March, my greenhouse is getting a little sunshine in the mornings and afternoons. When I go inside, it always feels cozy the way seeds would like.

Last but not least, the Green Beauty snow peas are living up to their reputation for being big. I’ve picked three so far and they are over 5″ long, so I am very pleased. That “blushing” you might notice is natural to their personality. Though the calendar doesn’t say so quite yet, I know that Spring has arrived.

Fava beans, and moving on.

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It’s convenient that my next-door neighbor has gone camping this weekend, because I need his yard waste can. I forgot to ask him but I am pretty sure he will be okay with me using it to load up with all of the garden clippings I’ve collected in just two days. He has his dragster parked long-term and rent-free on a few inches of my driveway so he likes to feel that he is doing things for me, too.

The fava beans were a big job! Yesterday I cut all the pods off the 30-something plants that grew from two packets of seeds I’d bought online. I might have started the harvest earlier if it hadn’t been so rainy. As it was, I got caught in a surprise shower in the  middle of the process. Before the last week of rain the beans were overflowing their planter, thus:

But by the time I got to picking them, they had grown a few more inches and were  getting infested with insects and maybe disease, and were just a mess generally. Here are a few shots showing how the project developed over the day. By the evening I was sitting under the wisteria shelling the creamy green beans out of their pods, which I dropped on to the patio at my feet. Just the plants and the pods of these Vicia faba — also known as broad beans or horse beans — filled most of my own large green waste bin.

It was slow going, but I shelled a couple of quarts of beans. That didn’t make much of a dent in the tubful, and I needed to do some other kinds of work still before bed; the thought occurred to me that I could offer them on a county freesharing Facebook group I belong to, so I took pictures and posted them, and this morning  a woman came and took half of the remainder. Tomorrow another member is coming and maybe she will clean me out. I could eat all the beans myself eventually, but I have so many things needing doing right now besides shelling favas… like cooking the ones I did shell!

While I was waiting for the lady I thought I’d do a little deadheading – ha! I ended up spending hours on the front garden, yanking out the poppies that want to cover every other plant, shearing one wallflower bush, cleaning up the irises, weeding. Oh, yes, and taking pictures of pretty flower pairings, or trios, and the asparagus in its ferny state with Johnny Jump-ups. I dragged the neighbor’s can over to my driveway and started piling in the green and flowery trimmings.

A Painted Lady butterfly was drinking at the chive flowers, and making me think that she was showing off for the camera. Unlike most butterflies, she did not flutter away as I drew near, but did pirouettes, and flew from bloom to bloom striking different poses. Perhaps the strong drink was making her lose all inhibitions. All the while I slowly came closer…  and then she came closer to me, spread her wings on the flower right in front of me and let me watch and admire her at her work.

Her wings are a bit tattered, I can see now in the closeups. I wonder if a bird tried to make lunch out of her… Speaking of birds, I think I may have made friends with a certain chickadee. I will tell you about him later; right now I have to head to rest and sleep so that I can tackle more garden tasks tomorrow.