February update

Catching the last day of February for an update since I took a few pics around the garden on Sunday.

The cherry blossom tree in the side yard started blooming a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to capture some pictures since it can be so fleeting.  

The front yard is running wild and I'm loving it. There are 2 lavender bushes, a rosemary bush and a few other plantings that have struggled along for the second year. Last year when I planted California Poppies, only 3 bushes grew, but the seeds from them were plentiful and the entire front yard is full of the growing poppies. So far, a few poppy buds are developing, with one bush blooming.

I planted 3 to 4 daisy bushes last year, but only one hardy bush managed to survive the hot sunny days. I'll try to plant 2 more bushes in March or April since I love the vivid color in contrast to the purple and violet blooms in close proximity.

In the backyard, the blooms from the lemon and orange trees fill the air with the distinct smell that delights my senses.

Orchids in abundance

The yellow Cymbidium Orchid plant in the side yard has been in full bloom now for about two weeks. They are absolutely breathtaking and I thought it would take nothing short of a miracle for them to blossom, after years of waiting.

Since the orchid is placed in a tall pot under the cherry blossom tree, it only gets a portion of the late afternoon sun. Throughout the day, bits of the sun lightly filter through the branches and leaves of the tree. I took this image around 4pm when the sun bathed one side of the orchid with light.

I've read that orchids don't bloom for 2 or 3 years after planting and mind took at least 3 years. Supposedly, the Cymbidium Orchid in the side yard can tolerate hot days as long as there are cold nights and can even do well with morning and afternoon sun as long as it is protected from the midday sun. 

In other areas of the garden, the flowers are in abundance. The orange, lemon, and lime trees have few blooms left, but while they were blossoming, the scent was amazing.

The Lavender and Tara's Pink Mallow seem to bloom throughout the year except in Winter. I have the light purple Lavender in the backyard and a more intense purple in the front yard that looks like it's hanging on–there were weeks when I thought it wasn't going to make it and other weeks when it is particularly vivid.

Photina is a common shrub, but when it it's covered in bouquets of small white buds in the Spring, there's a graceful elegance to it-–like a wedding. The blooms were covering most of the sides and the tops of the plant before I trimmed it to manage the width.

When we first moved in, the previous owner had 3 Hydrangea bushes in the backyard with blossoms in a uniform color. Only 1 survived, in an area that only gets a little shade in the morning and plenty of shade late in the afternoon. I recently added three more Hydrangeas in different pink/purple hues in large containers to see if they would work out near the origingal plant. if not, I'll have to put them in the sideboard where there is a more liberal amount of shade throughout the day.

The Jessamine Vine continues to flourish and multiple vines are reaching up toward the cherry blossom tree. I'm keeping an eye on it, since the vine will need pruning after it grabs on to the branches and starts to pull the thinner twigs downward.

Blooms

Even more is blooming. I think the cherry blossom tree is about as full as it's going to get since most of the buds have opened and the floor is covered with spent blooms from earlier ones opening.

Several more blooms are opening on the sideyard orchid.

The potted lavender in the front yard lasted well through the coldest nights of Winter in the front yard. It's finally blooming after several months of barely clinging on.

Cactus and succulents repotted

I am so pleased with the way the cactus and succulents are developing, but I've had to rearrange and repot many of them several times. There are a few that have sprung up offshoots that I've had to detach and plant, allowing the original plant room to develop. The 'Pork and Beans' succulent has vivid colors, but it's one of the few succulents I have that has developed slowly in comparison to others.

I saw a documentary last week, 'What Plants Talk About', and it's full of interesting new research on how plants grow. They war with each other, they grow less invasively when in the proximity of related plants. They can mentor and care for related plants, as shown with old forest growth where a huge tree was networked with all the other trees on the forest floor and providing nutrients it was able to reach above the canopy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrsYRJi3EGw 

The plants 'Pork and Beans' and the hybrid thorny Aloe Vera are in a single rectangular planter. Originally I had also mixed in a couple of torch cactus varieties, but it got overcrowded within a few months.

This is the second time I have spread the thorny plant apart. For several months, the plants and offspring were a bunched mass. The main plant was tightly bound and initially I thought it was a characteristic (shows you how little I know) since there were similar plants I had that were unfurled despite the smaller developments at the base. For about 2 months after I separated the main plant and the offspring, they continued being tightly bound, but shortly thereafter, they spread out as displayed below.  

I have now spread them further and plan on taking the 'Pork and Beans' out of that planter and shift it to it's own, hoping it will then develop more.

The succulents below were getting tall and stalky--without the strength to support height over a few inches. Short of connecting the to sticks (and I considered it), I asked the folks at Navlet's Gardens what was the best course of action and the answer was simple: replant without the tall stalks. I had to lop off the heads of all of them and replant ground level. I kept a couple of inches on some of them, but overall, the rosette shapes seem to be doing better. I wondered if the stalks would continue to unfurl smaller buds and left them in to see if anything continued to develop.

I  have several Aloe Vera variations and like the different formations. I think of this one as a minimalist version. It has a tall stalk and then several primary leaves, unlike the abundant variety.

The variation below, the 'Fox Tail Agave', doesn't have the distinct stalk, but large leaves that unfurl from a tight tulip-like center.

I consider the variation below to be the most minimalist variety I have. It has so few leaves, they are countable at a glance.

I'm not sure, but I think the succulent below might be a Senecio Mandraliscae (Kleinia m.) or something similar. The other plant I have that has some similarities is in the upper right-hand corner of the image, but I'm fairly certain that is something akin to a Dwarf Blue Chalksticks plant--it doesn't have much of a stalk and is more of a ground cover, whereas this plant has a firm stalk base that branches out, strong enough to sustain the leaves in all directions. It has grown to 3 times its size within the past year and a half.

Blooming in January

We've seen more of the rain this time around than in the past few Winters. The drought has been severe for California standards, but at least the storms that blew through the Bay has given us a little relief, although the word is that we needed a daily dose of rain for over a month to make up our reserves. And therefore, rather than feel disappointed, having the rain was a welcome sight and I had hopes of seeing more.

Such a delight to see things started to bloom now, even though it's only the end of January. And for that I feel spoiled since the California temperature, despite the blazing hot Summers, offer cold Winter nights that don't do much damage to the foliage. Since the hot hours of the Sun only seem to last about 5 hours during the Winter, I haven't been watering as frequently. I've been downright remiss at times, but attentive compared to the second year of gardening experience.

After December, I always take stock of what condition everything is in. Whether some things seem to have been none the worse for wear and other things come out ready to face Spring with a fury and other things wither and are gone. I walked around and examined sections at a time, as if I didn't think I could handle a lot of disappointment.

The Pride of Madeira has bounced back so well after the initial falter. I'm assuming I had it in a spot that was too sunny (despite the endurance this plant is supposed to have). It's now got a healthy dosage of shade during parts of the day with only a strong exposure to the sun for 3 hours of the day. I'm hopeful that it will continue to do well if I place it in the front yard when it gets larger. It's supposed to get really large and bushy with purple flowers, and there doesn't quite seem enough room for it to do that where it is now.

Tara's Pink Cape Mallow in one of the larger pots in the front yard looks abundant. The second one has been limping along, but both are blooming with lilac color flowers. I hover over them like a bee in awe. 

The Cape Honeysuckle are all in bloom with their vivid orange flowers. The very first time I've seen them do more than offer green leaves. 

 This succulent eludes me. It used to be in the decaying wooden gazebo and as more of the wood components gave way to allow more sunlight in, it seemed to have started to become more fragile, so I settled in in the side garden where it can get a generous shaded time for a large part of the day, with a healthy dose of sun for only a couple of hours.

The Schefflera has come back and what a relief that is. When we first moved here, it was also in the decaying wood gazebo and looked great, but after the first year, it was not doing well. Moving it the side garden offered some respite from the sun and it survived the Winter, only to come back stronger. 

The orchid plant I have in the side yard has been barren of flowers for 2 years. I've kept it happily despite the lack of blooms because the long green stalks please me. And this January, voila! Blooms. Four clusters of them, no less!