Erigeron | Gladsome Lights

This evening’s view through my kitchen window.

It seemed like most of May was overcast and cold… Oh, I know there were a few sunny hours in there, but I had to turn on the furnace again, and I felt my mood sink. Many days, in the evening just before dusk the clouds would open up and let a few rays through, as the damp marine breeze was blowing in. But at the very end of the month: the sun! the sun! I guess I am a central California girl in my bones.

The penstemon bloomed while the weather was still gray; as soon as there was enough sunlight, I took its picture, from north, south, east and west. Things are really crowded right now by the patio, and the blue-eyed grass is barely peeking out from under that penstemon. I guess the Santa Barbara daisies (erigeron) are not exactly blue, but their lavender tone made me think of this group as layers of blue blossoms:

On the other side of the garden, nigella, salvia and borage definitely make a blue bouquet:

The plum trees got some kind of icky leaf curl on their new growth, from the wet spring I guess. Also, because of the constant rain, we were able to apply a dormant spray only once during the winter. Alejandro came today and cut off all those branches, which were going to get lopped anyway in a couple of weeks, at the solstice.

While he was working, I wandered about like an enchanted queen considering her domain, picking flowers here and there. Though the blues definitely make a splash in the garden right now, they didn’t steal the show from the sweet peas and yarrow in my bouquet. Any day that ends with fresh flowers in the house I count as a success. Garden happiness!

The Mexican daisy “showered down the drystone walls” of Penelope Lively’s grandmother’s garden, and was “a Gertrude Jekyll favorite.” She mentions this plant, Erigeron karvinskianus, four times in her book Life in the Garden, finding its other common name “fleabane” to be disagreeable (as do I).

“And, as for me, it has become a kind of signature plant; in London, it has obligingly seeded itself all round the railings at the front of my house, and down the iron steps to the basement. And it has spread along this side of the square, colonizing other frontages, where others have clearly welcomed it — only one insensitive neighbor has torched it with weed-killer.”

I’ve been surprised at how much I have in common with this London gardener. I also have Erigeron, which my landscape designer four years ago knew would fit nicely into my vision for the back garden. At the time I didn’t foresee how I would love it.

Today it is a bit bedraggled by all the drenching it’s received, just when it was beginning to put on a show after being sheared a month ago. When I went looking for a photo showing it in its glory, I found scenes from the past that show how far things have developed.

Compare that to this morning, and we can see that clearly, one of the first things I must do when the rain finally stops, is to trim back the native currant that has evolved from being simply a pleasant a background to the bench.

Because very soon, I’m hoping one of you will come and sit there with me, while we drink tea and gaze out on the Mexican daisies and other beauties, talking gardens or whatever you like. ❤