GBBD Country Mouse -- Toyons and Monardella to the fore

Note: Town mouse beat me to the bloom day post - so please check out her bloom day pics too.

In my garden the monkeyflower is fading after a fabulous and long display this year, and after feeding many caterpillars, without losing its beauty. But now Monardella villosa is blooming away - not only in my garden but natively on an west-facing slope near here. I've found this plant to be very reliable and easy in the native garden. Here is more of a closeup:


Also in the pictures above is some low spreading thyme I put in to provide some edging for the stone path (which I laid - have I said that before? I'm inordinately proud of myself!). I need to identify a native for this particular garden niche. I kind of took the lazy way out!

Busting out in little creamy white blossoms this week are the toyon bushes - Heteromeles arbutifolia. These grow natively here and I prune them up a bit. Here they are at a distance. I had hoped the native grape would cover the chainlink fence - maybe next year. It's a lovely color though.

(Note to self: tidy away utility area things to behind the wall!). Also blooming there are some extremely drought-resistent non-native salvias, name unknown, which have been there for five years or more now.

Here are the toyon blossoms a bit closer - this was taken at dawn:

Really close they are not so spectacular. It's the way masses of them light things up that is so great:
Some salvias are blooming, but they are scrawny. I'll prune them before their spring growth spurt.

Tip! Las Pilitas web site has a large section with advice on pruning natives.

Here is a blossom of, I think, Salvia "Winnifred Gilman":


It really looks darker than the photo - very intense darkish blue-purple.

Now a couple cautionary tales, of different sorts.

Tale the first: As an expat Brit I like to have a few old favorites - like snapdragons (antirrhinum majus). But here are some in bloom - not in their pots, but escapees in a nearby garden bed, and thriving without extra irrigation. I think this may mean no more snapdragons for me!

Tale the second: Here is a plant that is native, and is in bloom - but isn't doing its job of hiding the chain-link fence (nor is the native vine behind it. I need to try pruning, to see if it bushes up - or else tie it up and get volunteers to grow right there and tie them up too. It's Keckiella cordifolia, Heartleaf Keckiella. It does reseed - I have several little volunteer plants that are very sweet, and I am curious to see how they grow. I don't think the reseeding would be a big problem in a garden - as I could pull these out if I didn't want them.

There is also a native vine barely in the picture - Clematis lasiantha, Chaparral Clematis. It's supposed to cover the fence but has been decidedly wimpy too, not much in the way of bloom. It's pretty, just not very vigorous. These plants have been in place three years. They are healthy enough, just not giving the coverage I had hoped for.

Also blooming is my survivor rose, the one that got rotitilled several times, eaten by deer, and transplanted into the pool garden. It's also got some kind of rose sickness that I haven't treated. But it keeps popping out flowers.


OK, enuf already. But wait, here's one more. A view over the valley I snapped this morning. Hmmm how to relate it to Bloom Day? - Thar's blooms in tham thar hills.... ??