I have to have that heather.....I apparently like the tall heathers, just not the low growing ones. I've seen a tall one alongside a road here recently in pink that I like and when I asked Bex if her uncle has that one, she said, yes, but it's so invasive that he won't even give her one....I need to see about that...lol...I wish you could smell that white one....

The wild Broom is starting to bloom....

Witzenberg Conebush (leucandendron)...

I managed to miss getting the name of this one...have e-mailed Bex hoping she knows what it is....it's a beauty.

Update on that unlabeled yellow flowered plant posted above...we know it's a barberry, but don't know which one. Oddly enough, Rebecca had sold that one to the people doing the Botanical Garden some time ago and the label has been lost and the woman who runs the Garden has contacted Bex for the same reason...what is it?...lol..

fiat said:Kelli, Wonderful Iris Pallida! Always want to grow blue or violet Iris, but skeptical about wrong weather zone. Surprise at your 10a zone still growing Iris so well. How would you opine growing Iris at 9b and in container? Thanks

I don't know how they would do in a container but I'm guessing it would be all right if the container is big. Irises don't bloom as well if they are crowded.

'Brandy'

Update on plant posted the other day...



This is telopea oreades "Gippsland Waratah" / "Victorian Waratah"

Blooming Amaryllis (Hippeastrum 'Samba'):

Wow, that's a bright one!!

Thanks, Sue. Yeah, I do very much like the bright red/white color.

California poppies and other wildflowers are blooming in the county parks and open space preserves hereabouts... some of the shrubs are in bloom too, but most things I can't recognize, sorry. (There are salvias and Ceanothus in bloom at one of the county parks, but I don't have pics.)



Image looking south, on the east side of Los Gatos Creek CP; some small orange daisy groundcover is atop the creek bank; also present are purple and yellow wildflowers. (I have never been able to figure out if the ubiquitous yellow wildflowers in bloom this time of year are field mustard, or one of the Oxalis species. I haven't a clue what the purple wildflowers are, but right now they are in abundance on the east side of the creek, at the south end of the park.)



Image from the east side of Los Gatos Creek CP; the orange groundcover flowers and one of the purple flowering plants.



California poppies at Fremont Older OSP. (Sorry for the lousy photo; it was the upper corner, cropped from a picture I took of my dog when we were hiking there yesterday. There are also lots of purple flowering things on the sunny hills at Fremont Older right now, but I haven't a clue what they are.)

I do not know the yellow flowers in your second pic, but the purple is Statice / limonium.

Nice place to walk.....

I thought that the purple might be some kind of statice, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the ID.

According to an illustrated list of wildflowers I found for another area (Mount Diablo SP) http://www.ebparks.org/Assets/... , the yellow is either Yellow Field Mustard, or one of two Oxalis species, commonly known as Bermuda Buttercup or Creeping Wood Sorrel. I never bothered to go look closely at the blooms.

I have a few of these (or, at least, some yellow) things in my garden - I should go figure out what they are. (They are maybe not in bloom at the moment, but soon...) According to this source http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG..., they can't be Bermuda Buttercup, because they are seedlings. (At least, I think they are seedlings....)

To my knowledge, the yellow is not Field Mustard, nor Oxalis.......

Cistus skanbergii....okay, the flower is not quite open yet, but there's one that will open in the next day or so and it's just covered with buds. This is its first year flowering....






Erysimum "Bowle's Mauve". We have been here 1 1/2 years now and it has never stopped flowering...











My small ceanothus "Dark Star" has actually doubled in size in the last year and has a few precious blooms....











This is an unknown Aussie from Rebecca...it was a 'leftover' and we don't know what it is or will turn out to be. I have several unknown Aussies from her that will be fun for me to watch. The look of the yellow tips on the stem may be 'flowers', dunno....

I was wrong...the first flower to bloom on my cistus skanbergii has opened today!

Update on the ubiquitous yellow wildflower.... after some searching, I found this valuable website http://www.calflora.org. I had already ruled out field mustard, so I determined that it had to be some sort of oxalis. Searching on oxalis species in Santa Clara County (there are four, only one of which is native), I found the identity of the wildflower: Oxalis pes-caprae, aka "Bermuda buttercup" http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bi... .

As chance would have it, I have a few plants growing on my property. How this is, I don't know... I would have sworn they came from seed, but this oxalis apparently does not have viable seed; it spreads by underground bulbs. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG... I do note that my few plants are all in the ground, not in flower pots.

I took the picture below, today. You can see that it is a perfect match to the calflora.org image, down to the spotted leaves. Unless someone can come up with some other candidate, I think my mystery is solved!


Oxalis pes-caprae, aka "Bermuda buttercup" in my garden

On the non-wild side, one of my two white-flowered society garlic cultivars has started blooming. I have both Tulbaghia violacea 'Alba', and Tulbaghia violacea 'Pearl'. My sole plant of 'Alba' is now in bloom; my three plants of 'The Pearl' haven't starting blooming yet (but are showing flower buds). For inquiring minds, I bought both of these cultivars from http://www.secretgardengrowers... .

(What I would really like is a white-flowered variegated society garlic; it would be just the thing for my Moon Garden. Alas, though... apparently such a plant does not exist, so I must make do with the green foliage.)


'Alba' is in the foreground; the azalea behind the small Japanese maple is 'Southern Charm' (please excuse the mess in the background!)


closeup of Tulbaghia violacea 'Alba'

Oh yes...you do have Bermuda Buttercup...it ran wild on our former property.

The yellow along the drive is the Bermuda Buttercup...the bees love it and our property was wild so I would not have even begun to try to control it...most people swear at it and try to get rid of it...lol..

It can be a pain when it's in the middle of something else that you want; I had to pull it out from some 'Biokovo' Geraniums which I had transplanted. But I like it popping up where nothing much else is going on in the garden, and I definitely love it out in the "wilds" and open spaces, and in the orchards and old farm places around here. It is so cheerful; I look forward to it every spring.