August Blooms on the Ridge

Sparse they are but there are some blooms. Over time I'll get more focused on building up a garden with pretty plants that bloom at different times of the year and all that - but right now it's been mostly about weeding and removing things. We did spend a day in the pool area yesterday and made quite a difference though. OK, on to the blooms!

Winifred Gilman, not a lot of flowers but intense color and also aroma when you walk by.

Wee modest crimson-tipped flow'r, Robert Burns called the Scottish mountain daisy. I call this some kind of Astragalus that grows here unbidden.



Some Gnaphalium californicum, or similar - these are pinkish and everywhere.


Mexican sage, non-native - survives on no water and much loved by hummingbirds.

Another modest native, Eriogonum californicum, also survives with no irrigation.


Honeysuckle, non-native.

Seaside daisy, Erigeron glaucus, getting to the end of its bloom period.


A planted sticky monkey flower, Mimulus aurantiacus.


Another planted sticky monkey:


Monardella villosa, really nearing the end - a short bloom period it seems. Maybe that's the weather this year.

More gnaphalium - it's everywhere, growing wild.

Tis the time for the little dome shaped webs to appear everywhere:


California aster, Aster chilensis - very sweet - very much a spreader:


Reliable non-native hotlips sage, blooms and blooms and blooms, and the hummingbirds love it.


Tiny flower of the ugly Madia sativa that grow here and that I kind of like anyway:


More of same, or related Madia:

Locally native, western morning glory bloom Calystega occidentalis.


While I was there I saw these snowberry berries - this is the creeping snowberry that grows wild, Symphocaripos mollis.


OK, this one is a weed, bull thistle - but it is a thistle and I am a Scot:


Here's our native sticky monkeyflower, Mimulus auriantacus - still blooming away.


Like a little jewel, the blossoms of Bee Plant, Scrophularia californica


Here it is in a delicate messy tangle that I like. Usually it grows straight up and is immediately consumed by caterpillars:

In the pool garden area, these survivors won't die. They were here when we got here. I've decided now that I like them. They don't spread, they don't need water, and they are a lovely color. And I wish I could remember their name but I'm having name blankness - you all know what they are.


Another survivor, a southern native, heartleaf penstemon, Keckiella cordifolia.


Another southern native, Encelia californica. Maybe I'll use more Southern natives in this hot dry part of the garden.


Non-native pea bush - in the same non-irrigated area.

FYI here's how it looks from a distance - a bit gray and not a lot of blossoms right now.


Non-native, Cape honeysuckle - still a few blossoms. This is the one I meant to train along the fence but never got around to...

It grows into a huge straggly but dense bush. The fence helps to support it at the base I think. I'm going to whack it back and see what happens. You're supposed to do it in late winter.

Spilling from a pot, the Sphaeralcea munroana, individual blooms looking nice, but foliage looking quite withered. I think I have it in the wrong place.

Abutilon, non native.


A Canna lily that resprouts in a big pot. I love it! So big and vivid. But they get very messy very quickly.


I love the yellow edge to this one:

And my old English garden standby, snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus, which also refuses to die and now lives a sheltered life in a pot.


Last but not least, St Catherine's Lace, Eriogonum giganteum, a channel islands bloomer. Starts white, then pink, then a nice brown - it's stunning! Gets water from the neighbor yard, I think - I never water it.


White at the start:

Then pinkish:

I love having this month by month record of what's blooming. I hope over the years that it gets better, especially during our dry summers. Though this year, we've had so much fog drip and so many cool days - El Nino year weather - that the blooms are lingering longer.

Thanks for dropping by, and thanks to Carol at May Dream Gardens for putting on the show. Off to see the other blooms now...