Gardening for nature, walks with my dogs and the books I’m reading.

[MarkD]

February is usually ‘early spring’ in bayside Berkeley gardens. This year while sometimes still cold, windy and raining also includes sunshine and pleasant conditions. Here are a few early blooms to start the year (not that there haven’t been flowers every day, but here are some that are just starting up. The first belongs to a small African bulb called Babiana. I like the way the blue inner parts show up against this white form.



This orange pincushion flower is starting to color up.



A bromeliad flower.



This dainty little fuchsia is new for me growing here with a couple cuttings of a friend’s beautiful low growing Plectranthus.



This Aloe castenea is one of my favorites for its bloom.

 

[MarkD]

A friend of mine, Gerhard Bock, who lives out in Davis, California and writes the blog called Succulentsandmore recently posted some photos from Jim Bishop's garden in San Diego which I got to visit with one of my local garden touring groups known alternately as the Hortisexuals or the Bay Area Horticultural Society depending on who we're trying to impress.

Anyhow I'll link Gerhard's blog too but I"ll start here with a video by a Southern California and gardening personality which he linked in his blog because I like seeing gardens in videos. Part 1:

Part 2:

Here is Gerhard's blog about Jim's garden: Jim Bishop's one-of-a-kind garden in San Diego

 

[MarkD]

A friend of mine, Gerhard Bock, who lives out in Davis, California and writes the blog called Succulentsandmore recently posted some photos from Jim Bishop's garden in San Diego which I got to visit with one of my local garden touring groups known alternately as the Hortisexuals or the Bay Area Horticultural Society depending on who we're trying to impress.

Anyhow I'll link Gerhard's blog too but I"ll start here with a video by a Southern California and gardening personality which he linked in his blog because I like seeing gardens in videos. Part 1:

Part 2:

Here is Gerhard's blog about Jim's garden: Jim Bishop's one-of-a-kind garden in San Diego

Oh my, I just discovered this slide show of photos taken by noted garden photographer Saxon Holt which Gerhard also included in his write up of Jim's garden. These are even more stunning: Bishop Borden Garden | PhotoBotanic Stock Photography Garden Library

 

[MarkD]

So my time in the garden has decreased as my first event just went away as the Rock Garden Society realized they had too many gardens lined up for one day. As a result I’m getting to spend more time noting what needs doing to suit myself and friends without striving for show garden tidiness. Have gardening gloves off more often so I can snap pictures more easily.



Loving the color harmony between the green splotches on the larger, mostly white leaves of this Plectranthus and the foliage of the pink flowered fuchsia.

This Acacia cognata is in bloom and the flowers smell like fresh baked sweet bread.





The bees love it.

https://flic.kr/p/2pA9bV8

A few miscellaneous flowers.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

What a sanctuary you have Mark. It’s gorgeous. The sounds around your garden are so peaceful and tranquil. It looks and sounds relaxing. Create your gardens the way you want.

 

[oldsunbird]

You are not only a fantastic gardener, you are a great photographer too! Your beautiful pictures leave me breathless.

 

[MarkD]

You are not only a fantastic gardener, you are a great photographer too! Your beautiful pictures leave me breathless.

Thank you and @PeppermintPatty for the moral support. Glad you liked the photos.

 

[MarkD]

First bamboo Iris flower of the year:



Gratuitous pic of my dog Ember in the back garden.



A different orange pincushion flower in the side garden. Possibly ‘Tango’.

 

[MarkD]

In the first photo of my last post I showed the first flower of the year on my "Bamboo Iris" whose botanical name is Iris confusa 'Chengdu'. I’m not sure whether the blue form I have is the species and this white form I photographed the other day at the Blake garden is a cultivar, if the situation is the opposite or if both forms are naturally occurring.



I think I like the blue one a little more but perhaps the sculptural aspect of the flower is more apparent in the white. What is hard to capture in a photo is its growth habit.

All the fans of fairly typical Iris foliage emerge atop 18” to 2’ high canes which look much like bamboo. I have mine growing in a large pot with a variegated Toad Lily. But I think I’ll try growing it in the ground too where it can make a more substantial presence as it fills in by way of runners.

Here are a few more snaps taken the same day, mostly from less formal more natural feeling areas of the garden.

 

[MarkD]

More about the Bamboo Iris: I moved my pot with it and the Toad Lily out onto the driveway to better see the stems. Here is what I got:

From below:

From above:

Detail of the stems:

The foliage of the Toad Lily growing in the middle of the pot while the iris seems happy to run around the edge:

As you can see I do sometimes nerd-out about plants.

 

[Sliverfox]

I enjoy looking at your flowers,especially as growing season hasn't started here in NW PA.
Nice to see green leaves & flowers.

Thanks for sharing your garden.

 

[MarkD]

I enjoy looking at your flowers,especially as growing season hasn't started here in NW PA.
Nice to see green leaves & flowers.

Thanks for sharing your garden.

Very happy to share the green. One year my wife had some artwork in a show at Wave Hill, an estate garden and cultural center in the Bronx, NY. Having heard of the garden I went with her to the opening around Easter but was disappointed to find the garden still recovering from winter. Now I’m more careful timing trips back east.

 

[Sliverfox]

You would enjoy the DuPont estate near Lancaster Pa.,,Longwood Gardens.
We have been several times there.

Their Christmas displays are lovely to see.
Cannot imagine all the time & labor that goes into them.

Check online, hopefully they will show more than what we PA. residents get to see.

 

[MarkD]

You would enjoy the DuPont estate near Lancaster Pa.,,Longwood Gardens.
We have been several times there.

Their Christmas displays are lovely to see.
Cannot imagine all the time & labor that goes into them.

Check online, hopefully they will show more than what we PA. residents get to see.

I've only been once and loved it, though not quite as much as nearby Chanticleer in Wayne, PA. I'm Facebook friends with one of the designers there so mostly I just love the place. There was something about the intensively but unimaginatively planted areas linking featured parts of the garden that I didn't love. But the many featured parts and the conservatories appear frequently enough that one doesn't have a chance to suffer. I had a similar reaction to Butchart gardens in Victoria, Canada. So many wonderful parts to love and such huge expanses of repeated combinations seemingly they're just to serve as a kind of general wall paper.

 

[MarkD]

A few more recent photos. First a few I haven't been photographing quite so much recently: 1) Iochroma coccinea; 2) Dombeya burgessiae; 3) Ferula communes.

Then a few I just can't pull my camera away from: 4) the Pincushion flower 'Tango'; 5) today's bamboo flower; and 6) the potted fuchsia & plectranthus.

Some more info about some of them from the nursery from which most of them come:

1) Iochroma coccinea

2) Dombeya burgessiae 'Pink Form'.

3) Ferula communis "Giant Fennel"

 

[MarkD]

Took Ember to Albany Bulb on San Francisco Bay, on a day with some rain before and after our visit. Nice the way the light changes so much from moment to moment on such days.

Ember draws my eye often on these walks.

Though the landscape exists on a former landfill, the created art of guerrilla artists along with feral plants and animals in the foreground always compete for attention with the fantastic views of the bay in both its natural qualities and man made structures.

 

[MarkD]

I wonder how well this will work. I loaded a themed slideshow which my iPhone puts together from my photos under the "For You" option in iPhotos. This one is from about this time of year, last year.

https://flic.kr/p/2out3R3

 

[PeppermintPatty]

I wonder how well this will work. I loaded a themed slideshow which my iPhone puts together from my photos under the "For You" option in iPhotos. This one is from about this time of year, last year.

https://flic.kr/p/2out3R3

That was fabulous. Occasionally my phone does. I take a lot of photos of my husband and every once in a while it will organize some of them and play them to me like you’ve just shown. That was beautiful.

 

[MarkD]

That was fabulous. Occasionally my phone does. I take a lot of photos of my husband and every once in a while it will organize some of them and play them to me like you’ve just shown. That was beautiful.

Good to know, thanks. I’ll try not to overdo it but sometimes..

 

[RadishRose]

I wonder how well this will work. I loaded a themed slideshow which my iPhone puts together from my photos under the "For You" option in iPhotos. This one is from about this time of year, last year.

https://flic.kr/p/2out3R3

Mark, it wouldn't play on your post, but it did on Peppermint patty's. Very nice!

 

[MarkD]

I just shared a link to a Flickr tribute album for Corwin on your-very-favorite-photos from out in nature or a garden thread but maybe I’ll share it here too. These two friends have both passed, Bill on the right several years ago and Corwin in red on the left. Bill was a Jungian analyst and one of my favorites to talk to when my wife’s group of women artists and their mates got together.



Corwin was a patent lawyer and a really nice guy. He just passed in the last couple weeks having been on hospice care at home for some months. In this photo we are at Corwin and Marjory’s house for the Christmas party several years ago. That’s one of Marjory’s paintings on the wall.

Saturday we’re going to visit Marjory for the first time since he passed when the women artists group meets next Saturday. We’re hosting the group again next month for tea in our garden. Here are photos from past teas in our garden. In the first one Marjory is in turquoise across the table with Corwin beside her. Bill’s widow is wearing the red hat and I’m probably shooting over Bill’s head.

Me talking with my hands again.

 

[Mr. Ed]

It’s not quiet the season for nature walks here unless cold temperatures are your thang.

 

[MarkD]

Mark, it wouldn't play on your post, but it did on Peppermint patty's. Very nice!

Weird. I'll never understand why some tech things work and some don't and some only work sometimes.

 

[MarkD]

It’s not quiet the season for nature walks here unless cold temperatures are your thang.

Looks like we might be going to get some more balmy temperatures soon. But probably more rain tonight. The beat goes on.

 

[MarkD]

Recent pictures between puttering in the garden and walks with my girls (wife and dog). One native that is a workhorse for pollinators is Ceanothus 'Dark Star' which is currently about four feet tall and maybe six feet across.

https://flic.kr/p/2pDnbXn

Took the picture of Ember on a separate walk with her at the beach yesterday. She is like "hurry up old man". The whippersnapper!

More pics of plants from around my garden in the last couple days.

This Giant Fennel (Ferula communis ) is about 7 feet tall now with flowers beginning to show: