queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2016-01-15 08:45 pm
queerbychoice) wrote2016-01-15 08:45 pm
January Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
It's January, and not a whole lot is blooming, but it's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, so I photographed what there is. This rose isn't even actually mine, but it was hanging over the fence from my next-door neighbors' yard, so I figured it was fair game. Maybe this particular flower of it is mine.
Along the path to my front door, where I dug out a new garden bed last summer, I've arranged alternating clumps of two different cultivars of the native woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca 'Golden Alexandria' and Fragaria vesca 'Improved Rugen'). The former has yellower leaves than the latter. The picture below is 'Golden Alexandria,' which I planted sooner than 'Improved Rugen,' so the plants are larger right now and have flowers and fruit on them. The overall effect of the alternating plants may eventually be somewhat formal, but for now it hasn't acquired any particularly formal appearance yet because the 'Improved Rugen' plants are still very small and there are a lot of other species mixed in among them.
The front yard also features some tiny flowers on the native Eastern Mojave buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum).
And on the native California goldenrod (Solidago californica).
And on the non-native Brazilian plume flower (Justicia carnea). I inherited this from the original homeowners, but I like it - it's a tough plant that survives all types of weather and blooms whenever it gets enough water, no matter what time of year it is.
In a large ceramic pot in the back yard, a cultivar of the native checker mallow (Sidalcea malviflora 'Purpetta') is budding out. This cultivar is remarkably different from and better than the species. The plant as a whole is considerably larger than the species, and it produces many more flowers and continues blooming for a much larger portion of the year.
In the ground in the back yard, the native Great Valley gumplant (Grindelia camporum) has a single flower on it.
The Japanese flowering quince (Chaenomeles japonica) is beginning to bud out.
Okay, this isn't a flower, but it used to be. I noticed some fruit on the yesterday, today, and tomorrow tree (Brunfelsia sp.) and was struck by how visible the tree's membership in the nightshade family is. You can certainly see the resemblance to tomatoes and potatoes. The fruit is poisonous.
And finally, here's the very first sign of spring! My hybrid larkspur (Delphinium belladonna 'Bellamosum') is budding out! By next month I should have larkspur flowers to show you.
Along the path to my front door, where I dug out a new garden bed last summer, I've arranged alternating clumps of two different cultivars of the native woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca 'Golden Alexandria' and Fragaria vesca 'Improved Rugen'). The former has yellower leaves than the latter. The picture below is 'Golden Alexandria,' which I planted sooner than 'Improved Rugen,' so the plants are larger right now and have flowers and fruit on them. The overall effect of the alternating plants may eventually be somewhat formal, but for now it hasn't acquired any particularly formal appearance yet because the 'Improved Rugen' plants are still very small and there are a lot of other species mixed in among them.
The front yard also features some tiny flowers on the native Eastern Mojave buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum).
And on the native California goldenrod (Solidago californica).
And on the non-native Brazilian plume flower (Justicia carnea). I inherited this from the original homeowners, but I like it - it's a tough plant that survives all types of weather and blooms whenever it gets enough water, no matter what time of year it is.
In a large ceramic pot in the back yard, a cultivar of the native checker mallow (Sidalcea malviflora 'Purpetta') is budding out. This cultivar is remarkably different from and better than the species. The plant as a whole is considerably larger than the species, and it produces many more flowers and continues blooming for a much larger portion of the year.
In the ground in the back yard, the native Great Valley gumplant (Grindelia camporum) has a single flower on it.
The Japanese flowering quince (Chaenomeles japonica) is beginning to bud out.
Okay, this isn't a flower, but it used to be. I noticed some fruit on the yesterday, today, and tomorrow tree (Brunfelsia sp.) and was struck by how visible the tree's membership in the nightshade family is. You can certainly see the resemblance to tomatoes and potatoes. The fruit is poisonous.
And finally, here's the very first sign of spring! My hybrid larkspur (Delphinium belladonna 'Bellamosum') is budding out! By next month I should have larkspur flowers to show you.