Wildflowers (five lakes trail)

The sierra mountain wildflowers were abundant this weekend!

trillium? poking out of mazanita

Milkweed?

sunflower

Buckwheat?

penstemon

Indian paintbrush

Native CA Grass Sod

I was really happy to see this post from Bay Natives Nursery in SF on Facebook about their native grass sod options:
  
"Native grass sod now available by the square foot in six different flavors."

Sod Flavors avail:

• Fescue blend (Festuca occidentalis, F. idahoensis, and F. rubra) 
• Grassland Mix (Koelaria macrantha, Deschampsia elongata, and Festuca rubra) 
• Bentgrass Sod (Agrostis pallens) 
• Bioswale Sod (Hordeum brachyantherum, Hordeum brach. ssp. calif...ornicum, Nassella pulchra, and Festuca rubra 'Pt. Molate') 
• Heartland Sod (Nassella pulchra, Nassella cernua, Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. californicum, and Molate fescue) 
• Preservation Mix (Koelaria macrantha, Nassella pulchra, Nassella cernua, and Molate fescue).

Monkey Flower

California Fuschia

I Have killed these in the past, so I was very very happy when this one got to the point of blooming...

I've killed them in the past by over watering, so I planted this one right away in wine barrel #3, which gets the most direct sun, and avoided watering too much right near the plant.

It's looking healthy and happy, just a bit scrawny. If it survives to next year, maybe it will expand it's territory in the barrel...

Some info on California Fuschia:
Blooms in late summer/fall - 6 to 12" high by 36" wide, blooms for a long time and hummingbirds like it. cut plants back after it finishes blooming. some varieties send out runners, is drought tolerant in cooler areas, needs water in hot full sun summers. cold hardy to zone 8a.

Wildflowers

On some hikes this spring I've seen a great collection of CA native wildflowers.  I'd like to share a few of the photos I took with you here.

Indian Paintbrush - The color on this one is gorgeous.

Gilia

Columbine

Also, the local Lowe's had a impressive display of wilflowers in their parking lot this year.

Garden Tour

Yesterday I went to about 7 gardens on the Bringing Back The Natives Garden Tour.

Clearly, based on the name of the tour, the gardens must have some significant percentage of CA native plants. I went on this tour last year too, and it was a lot of fun to see what people were doing with their spaces.

The stand out this year was a garden in Clayton. The owners had very distinct and complete garden areas. which were separated out by type Edible, Fall, Succulent, Native, and Dark

The Edible garden was really fantastic, the owners had so much crammed into it, but it was still beautiful! and it was in their front yard!

Here's a shot from the other side

and from the street:

Red Monkey Flower

I heart monkey flowers, they are CA natives, so they do fantastic in my zone, and they bloom like crazy once they are happy. I bought this guy last year at Annie's Annuals. It's just started blooming...I love the color on this bloom!

Blue-eyed grass and Euphorbia

Wine Barrel #1 is blooming away.



This Wine Barrel contains Blue-eyed grass, Euphorbia Amygdaliid, Sticky Monkey Flower, Bat-faced Cuphea, and a Delphinium. The Delphinium and Bat-faced Cuphea will bloom later...

My favorite combo in this planter is the Blue-eyed grass and Euphorbia blooms that compliment each other so well...

Climbing Penstemon

I bought this plant either from Annies Annuals, or from another nursery carrying Annie's Annuals plants a couple years ago. It had a hard time last year, but this winter, it has had a growth spurt and is looking like it's going to do pretty well.

This Climbing Pentstemon (Keckiella Cordifolia) is a California Native and a hummingbird attractor. It's supposed to bloom May-July. I'm thinking it might be interesting to plant it somewhere with the Cape Honeysuckle, which has been blooming in November/December, to provide a mostly-year round hummingbird feeding area...

Here's some more info on it from the Las Pilitas Nursery: http://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/plants/keckiella-cordifolia

Manzanita

 

Last July, I went to a garden that had an interesting Manzanita, I asked if they propagated it in their nursery, and they said "no, they couldn't propagate it from cuttings." to which i thought "BS." So, since no one was patroling the garden to tell me not to - I took a small twig off the bush (yes - I know, I'm a terrible person) and tried to propagate it at home. The twig made about 6 cuttings, two of which never sprouted roots, and three of which I killed by letting the growing medium dry out in the fall. One survived, and now it has a bud on it! I'm so very happy about that. Hopefully it will make it to an actual plant.

Buckwheat

I went on hike in the sierra mountains this weekend, and saw lots of gorgeous wildflowers. Here's a photo of some buckwheat (red maybe - though it was definitly pink in color) that was growing all over the trails.

Cornflower Farms

I went to the Sacramento Zoo's King of Feasts event on Saturday night, and won the bidding on a collection of CA native plants from Cornflower farms. I have never actually been to their nurseries, but have been meaning to go for quite some time. They are supposed to have a strong selection of ca natives, and based on their donation to the zoo for the auction, I would agree.

My winning bid got me a Bearberry, a California Fuschia, a Red buckwheat, blue idaho fescue, allen chickering Sage, and a hummingbird sage. They also provided an information sheet to go with the plants.

Wine Barrel #1

I have a few wine barrels that I planted with mostly native plants last summer, this is #1.

 

This one did the best, I think because it didn't get quite as much late afternoon sun as the others. In it there is sticky monkey flower (orange blooms), blue-eyed grass, euphorbia, the bat faced cuphea, and a delphinum(not blooming in this picture). It also had carrots that didn't do so well...but I'm thinking I didn't leave them in long enough.

Blue-eyed Grass

I bought three little 2" pots of blue-eyes grass at a local native plant nursery last year, and planted them in a wine barrel in the front yard. They hung on through the summer, but were never more than a few little 4" tall blades of grass in the pot. but after going through the winter, early this spring they exploded into these 12" tall blades with tons of beautiful blooms! They look especially good with the orange sticky monkey flower that blooms at the same time, and the euphorbia with the bright green bracts.