OK … by March we’ve gotten fully into the wildflower season. Forthwith, here are a plethora of images from March and early April, highlighting the annual “invasion of the wildflowers”:
I had a forest of Arroyo Lupines (Lupinus succulentus)
Lupines and the first of the Elegant Clarkias
I love the Lupines, but my goodness they do take over the garden! I will confine them more for next year.
A collection of Bird’s-Eye Gilia (Gilia tricolor)
Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa)
Toward the west through a forest of Elegant Clarkias (Clarkia unguiculata)
A sea of wildflowers (mostly Clarkias — the Lupines had mostly gone to seed by this time) along the path.
Clarkias galore!
Clarkias in front of the Cleveland Sage, which has not bloomed yet.
The start of the “Farewell to Spring” wildflower season (Clarkia amoena)
All in all, I had fewer wildflowers than last season — which was by design. I felt they literally took over the yard last year, so I made a special effort to pull up many of the Clarkias before they went to seed. (I tried to do the same with the Lupines this year, lest they overwhelm the garden next spring.)
In other developments, I added a number of milkweed plants to my collection, which had been somewhat decimated by caterpillar activity last year:
In the back yard, the plants I added had grown somewhat, which was encouraging, since I’ve had so much trouble with the back hill. Here’s the overall look of the hill in March:
It still doesn’t look like much, but it’s made some progress since last year. Here are the additions from the fall, individually:
I added another Joyce Coulter Ceanothus (bottom) to match the larger one at the top. The larger one is about 3 feet across — not as big as it’s supposed to get, but at least it has survived!
I also added a second Bee’s Bliss sage below the existing one, since the top one has done much better than I expected.
Coast Sunflower (Encelia californica). This is native to our Orange County area, so I thought it might do well. It has grown and even produced a couple of blossoms.
Lemonadeberry (Rhus integrifolia) — another Orange County native. It’s growing quite nicely.
Saint Catherine’s Lace (Eriogonum giganteum) — a native of the Channel Islands. It should get huge, but it’s not quite there yet!
My potted rushes (Juncus textilis), intended to hide the part of the back yard used as a litter box by my cat, are doing quite well:
Finally, my cactus (Opuntia mocrodasys) has been delivering some pretty blossoms:
Later spring update coming soon!
Cynthia's Native Garden 