July Blooms on the Ridge


Carol at May Dreams Gardens, we thank you for putting on the monthly bloom day every 15th of the month. Here's a few of the blooms on the Country Mouse property. Above, Monardella villosa with some cultivars of monkey flower, and also seaside daisy.

Here are some planted (i.e. not indigenous) California natives blooming around our place. Where I can, I show the form as well as the blossom, so you can consider the plant as a whole, and make a few comments.

Of course, California poppy! Not the local coastal variety - planted these before I knew better.

Dang I forget the name of the above.

Matilija poppy, "fried egg plant," Romneya coulteri - blossoms. Totally drought tolerant.

- Form. Tall - Can be a spreader.

Heart-leaf Penstemon, Keckiella cordifolia - Blossom. Also drought tolerant.

- Form. Sprawling, blossoms at ends. Maybe with pinch pruning it would be bushier. Reseeds. From Southern California. Can be nice in the back-of-border - I like the gangly, fountaining form but it needs something to balance it I guess.

Mock orange, Philadelphus lewisii - blossom.

- Form, distorted because much chewed by deer. I had given this plant up as it got so badly chewed - it is in a half-wine barrel, not watered, and this year it came back and is only partly nibbled. I'm thinking about planting it in the pool garden to give it a proper chance. It has soft green leaves. Las Pilitas says that it is drought tolerant but does better with a little water in dry areas. Also this:
Wild Mock Orange is a deciduous shrub that grows fast to 6 ft. in height. Mock Orange has fragrant, white, 2 inch flowers in May-July.
I think Winifred Gilman sage. Plant not doing so well but lovely intense colored blooms, and nice sagey smell.

Spice bush blossoms fade fast but...

... more to come! See my post on this plant here.

Not quite in bloom but a stunner - Sometimes called queen anne's lace I think, Erioganum giganteum. Deer proof. Not a local native but very happy here, and yet doesn't seem to reseed. Biggish woolly leaves, hard to see for all the massive umbels.

Clarkia Planted from CNPS seed obtained locally. I planted three sorts and am not sure which this is - may be Clarkia lewisii, rare locally. Close up of furled flower in the morning:


Next a few local indigenous natives.

I think this is gnaphalium californicum, California everlasting, and not Anaphalis margeritacea- pearly everlasting.

Local sticky monkey flower, mimulus aurantiacus, with gnaphalium californicum catching the sun in the back ground - I'm not sure now if the pink form has another name, and I'm getting mixed up. They are just budding now.

And golden yarrow, Eriophyllum confertiflorum is blooming still - it's been going for a long time, along with the monkey flower, also still in bloom.

Not the best pic but - toyon bloom beginning, with morning glory intertwined. Below is a better blossom...


Heteromeles arbutifolia
. I wonder if the berries will go black again this year. I'm wondering if I can put sticky stuff on the trunks to stop the ants from getting up and setting up their aphid farms. I don't have a picture of the whole plant - they get leggy and rangy but can be endlessly pruned. I keep threatening to coppice them and then pinch prune them to get a more compact growth.

This is a madia - Madia sativa I think. Very sticky and sappy. Also huge. We also have slender madia, but unfortunately, not the gardenworthier common or elegant madia.

It's so huge and the flowers are tiny little things on the top! I let it grow because it's native and I find it interesting - but not in flower beds. I don't have a lot of flower beds as yet.

And now a few non-natives...


Culinary sage growing against a potted native california grape.
Last but not least, a visit to the greenhouse, in use even before finished - a few tomatoes and a sweet pepper.


Tomato blossom!

As I was walking around this morning taking these photos, I glanced out to see a slightly misty valley. Lately it has been very foggy in the mornings, staying overcast till late morning, and remaining cool, but today was light and sunny. (I'm learning to embrace our phone and power wires.)


Off to enjoy visiting other bloom days!

Comments

Queer by Choice said…
What a good idea to show the form of each plant! I had never relized that Matilija poppies could get so tall. And that's an absolutely gorgeous foggy view you captured.
jo said…
First: you link goes to your June bloomday post.
I got here anyway :-)
That is going to be some greenhouse! More like a conservatory.
Romneya is so lovely. I mourned mine getting lost. I wish it had spread in my garden. Wild Philadelphus? Amazing.
Country Mouse said…
I'm just going to add a couple more pics I didn't have time to!
Christine said…
Wow, I don't know where to begin! Everything looks fabulous and I love the combo of the monkeys with the monardellas. Is that little yellow one an encelia?
The only Philadelphus I've seen in the wild was in the Trinity Alps, growing among a little seepy creek falling down a steep hillside, keeping the lilies company.
Oh, your place is just beautiful. I'm so glad I stopped by. I think the one you forgot the name of is some sort of coreopsis -- around here we call it tickseed coreopsis.

I wish I lived somewhere where the "Cowboy's fried eggs" would grow, I have loved that plant since I was a little girl living outside of San Diego. Oh well, at least I can come over here and visit it, enjoying it vicariously.

Thanks for the tour, I really enjoyed it.
Lisa said…
Love your photos! The garden looks great.

I'm going to be a hopeless nerd, and suggest that the common name on your buckeye is Saint Catherine's Lace.
Country Mouse said…
Thanks QBC, I thought it might be useful to people considering native plants to know a bit more about these summer bloomers. Later I'm going to do a post on summer bloomers.
Thanks, Jo for the alert! I added a link in the june post to redirect folk here.
I'm lazy - I still have to look up the yellow daisy one. Christine, I think Encelia californica sounds right - rather than coreopsis, HMH. You'd have to see the rest of the plant, really.
LAR - yup, I knew it wasn't right when I typed it: Saint Catherine's lace. Obviously different from the lace worn by Saint Anne :-)

Thanks, all for dropping in. I'll catch up with all'yall, in the upcoming.
chuck b. said…
Everything is beautiful and I love the misty hills. I would add Romneya to my garden in a heartbeat if I had the room. It will have to wait for the next garden.
Town Mouse said…
Oh, how I miss my garden looking at your pictures. But it's great to see how well everything is growing.

Happy Bloom Day!
I like your heart-leaf Penstemon, the hummingbirds must love it.

I just bought a Winifred Gilman sage a couple of weeks ago for a dry area on a hill, I loved the red stems on the new growth, and you're right, it's very very fragrant. Mine's not blooming though, well, not yet anyway.

I agree that your everlasting looks like Gnaphalium californicum. I think Anaphalis margeritacea is more yellow in the center when it blooms.
You've got a lot of great things to share, even as the summer shifts into 2nd gear. I like the pearly everlastings a lot. A little strip next to a freeway exit near here has a near-monoculture of them, probably not a healthy ecosystem but awfully spectacular in its quiet way. I'll second Christine's guess that the yellow daisy is likely an encelia (E. californica?). You'd mentioned not seeing the giant buckwheat self-sowing, but this past year, which was unusually moist for us, I noticed dozens of little 'uns around my plant. The plant is fairly new to me, so I don't know if this is normal. Also your area may have other plants that would quickly out-compete the seedlings. Several have survived in the ground as of now, but they have a long way to go before they make it to winter.