GBBD September - Country Mouse Report

For a really great show of blooms, demonstrating how lovely a California native garden can look this time of year - go see Ms Town Mouses' post! My post will feature few blooms as we have few. We have had much fog, and relatively little sun of late. I'm not focused on blooms this year - propagation and weed removal are my themes. Let's see what next year brings... Anyway there is one standout (also featured in Town Mouse's garden) and that is a Channel Islands plant, Eriogonum giganteum:

You can see how it's starting to turn a lovely rusty red - I love how it morphs slowly from dewy white to rusty red over a period of many months.

Another southern plant flowering in the garden is Encelia californica, Coast Sunflower. For a nice shot as you see it in the wild, check out this lost in the landscape post. I think here it is a little foggy for her pleasure:


Here she is in whole, behind and to the left of Duncan who is pointing something out to me. Probably something furry:


Another channel islands plant, Keckiella cordifolia, still blooming but in a scraggly kind of way - this is a volunteer actually:

Duncan on patrol, and my trusty snapdragon in front, blooming away, and a Spanish lavender that volunteered and I stuck in a pot. BTW you can see we added a board along the top of the new fence - the neighbor on the other side was concerned deer might jump into our pool area and over the fence into his orchard - so we did the neighborly thing.

The dubiously native Sphaeralcea munroana is blooming scantily. I would put this with something more lush perhaps so the pretty blooms show up against a better back drop. Or maybe it just isn't happy.


Love this non-native abutilon - it managed to squeeze out a flower...


Winifred Gilman sage - a cultivar of Salvia clevelandii - still scents the air with its foliage. And pops the odd flower out all the time, but only one or two.

She's actually a bit scraggly too - and I think it's just too shady where she is right now.

I impulsively bought three more when I was at the nursery for a watering wand the other day. I just love the scent - I'm going to find a sunny and well-drained spot for them, close to the house.

This Lessingia filaginifolia looks a bit ratty but I'm actually stunned that it is flowering at all. It is in a very inhospitable narrow strip between driveway and road, and gets no irrigation and maybe not enough sun either - though it does seem to like a bit of afternoon shade. Yet it survives. I'm going to put masses of these in that spot I think, and they may look better. A good plant for difficult situations:


Here's a closeup - with a bit of tlc I think you'd see more of these pretty little flowers for sure:


Just a few blooms of California Fuschia, epilobium canum (formerly known as Zauschneria californica) - this is a cultivar whose name I forget. This one is a problem for me actually as I would like to propagate our locally native Epilobium canum and don't want them to hybridize.


Ah finally an indigenous native - the sweet little Aster radulinus. When Jeffrey Caldwell came to consult with me the first time, this was the very first "mystery flower" he IDed for me and I was so happy. He said that by removing the invasive weeds I had made room for this little native to thrive. I was over the moon! Now on the Gardening with Natives forum, there has been discussion about growing this in a garden setting. I have seeds to share, but have to get to the seed sharing meetings to share them!


Finally a "mystery flower" IDed for me as Heterotheca grandiflora by Pete Veilleux of East Bay Wilds. (He's giving a talk on propagation Thursday November 4 at the Peninsula Conservation Center in Palo Alto - seed sharing to follow. Hope I don't miss it!)

This flower is weedy, you find it on roadsides. But I'm happy to let it bloom along our roadside. I bet massed it could look quite good... maybe...



Thanks as ever to May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD!