Early Spring Garden

 

So far March has been pretty warm in my corner of the world. The last couple days temperatures were hovering around 90F (32C) which is way too hot for this time of year and for me - I prefer the lower to mid 70s (21-25C). Everything is early in the garden and I almost can't catch up with all the weeding I still have to do.

The Calendulas have reseeded and are simply beautiful. I planted them years ago because they remind me of home - they were early bloomers there as well. They readily reseed and have spread quite a bit over the years. They are a wonderful pop of cheerful color during the gray days of winter. They first started to bloom in January just like the camellia in the top photo.

African Cape Daisies are early bloomers as well. My California Poppies are usually later than some of their cousins in the neighborhood, but now I see more and more of their orange flowers in the garden. There will be more coming. They always make me smile.

A few years ago the Photinia died and we eventually took the trunk out, but left it lying on the ground. But one part had survived and has been growing strongly since last year. In early spring the new leaves have a stunning red color.

Since it was so hot the past couple days, the French Lilac is now past its prime. But it was beautiful while it lasted. During the night the delicious fragrance was wafting through the open window into our bedroom - bliss. The Pipevine Swallowtail enjoyed the blossoms.

Pacific Bleeding Heart - native to California - prefers shady spots. It seems to be very happy here since it has spread considerably since I planted the first one a few years ago. Don't they have the sweetest "faces"?

I was VERY excited when this native lupine showed its first blossom (left photo) because I wasn't at all certain that it would come back again. A couple days later it looked like in the right hand photo.

Today it looks like this:

My phone's photo program has an AI option and just for fun I played with it a little bit. I particularly like the watercolor option. It turned one of the lupine pictures into this:

The Mourning Doves are daily visitors. I wonder whether they will build a nest on our solar box again like they did the past two years.

The Desert Mallow has started to flower as well. I really like the soft salmon color of the flowers.

And the Western Fence Lizards are back, racing up and down the fence and soaking up the sun on the rocks.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I saw the first flower of Lauren's Grape Poppy, today there were two. I had bought them as tiny plants last year and they didn't keep very long, but at least they reseeded. This year the plants are much stronger.

I couldn't help it, I had to turn them into a watercolor photo as well.

I really like this.

Since I had so much fun with this, I took a photo from my "Cattitude" post and let it turn into a watercolor. It looks like there are a ton of flowers in my garden - which wasn't the case at the time when the photo was taken (and I'm not cross-eyed either!).

All these faces - human, animal and plant - are for Nicole's Friday Face Off. Come check it out!