If You Can't Work in the Garden...

 

The last two weeks have been... interesting. I have been trying to find a healthy balance between rest and activity, hoping to get a grip on the ITBS. It's been a roller coaster, with alternating good and not-so-good days. I can't walk too much (too painful), so walks at the lake are not possible right now - and I miss it very much. My doc send a referral to PT and I'm waiting for their return call to finally schedule appintments. However, not all is bad - the icing at the beginning helped and I'm doing my stretches. I also can do some yoga and thankfully am still able to do some strength exercises with my handheld weights. Things are not too gloomy - the only thing that bothers me is that the weeds are growing.

But since I can't work in the garden, I'm simply enjoying it - and there is much to enjoy (despite the weeds). Some mornings I'm sitting in my Adirondack chair in the early morning sun, drinking my first cup of coffee and listening to the birds. There are so many birds in my garden! It is such a joy to watch them and hear their cheerful voices.

The peonies are already done blooming. I enoyed them while they lasted. Years ago I planted them in memory of my mom who loved peonies. There was always a vase full with peonies on the living room table as long as they were in season. My parents used to buy them at the farmers market (my mom was a very dedicated farmers market shopper and so am I; my daughter is becoming one,too).

The Pacific Bleeding Heart, on the other hand, is still going strong. I grows in a shady part of the garden and has spread quite a bit since I planted the first ones. A California native, it goes dormant in the summer when it gets hot and dry, and reappears in winter. Maintenance of this sweet little plant is zero.

The ground Morning Glory is a prolific bloomer. It doesn't do as well in the ground as it does in pots and raised beds where it is taking off. I cut it back sometime after the first big bloom and it will bloom again. Repeat. Here it shares a raised bed with a salvia that my neighbor gave me (and I don't know the name of) and English thyme. There's also a climbing rose in the same raised bed ("Westerland"), some white alyssum and two kinds of lavender.

Speaking of roses - "Sheila's Delight" is almost through its first bloom; the second bloom is usually less spectacular. Behind it you can see Salvia sclarea (a volunteer) and Watsonia, that I got from a different neighbor. On the ground behind the rose you might see still very low California Goldenrod. Later in the summer it will bathe the garden in a golden glow. It has spread considerably since the first planting. In late fall I simply cut it back to the ground and by the following year it will have multiplied.

Another "multiplier" is Matilija Poppy, also a California native. Its flowers are huge, but don't keep very long. It is a spectacular plant, but difficult to establish. However, once it feels at home in a garden, it spreads. Not as "bad", though, as California Aster (photos of that will come in late summer, I assume). Neither are plants for a small garden.

Yarrow doesn't spread very much and sometimes simply dies over the winter. This kind, "Moonshine" is pretty resilient, but it doesn't like some spots in my garden. I have noticed that with some plants. It's continuous learning - do you feel the same way?

Monkeyflower "Jelly Bean" - another California native - loves morning sun and afternoon shade. This one is not such a "spreader" as its companions and I love its cheerful flowers. A big plus is that the deer leave it alone. In a shadier part of the garden I also have Sticky Monkeyflower which can be found in many places here in Sonoma County.

Speaking of cheerful - of course there are California Poppies. They turn up throughout my garden in the back as well as in the front. You can't really have a California native garden without California Poppies!

Another great drought tolerant plant is the Desert Mallow - and it can also spread. I first saw these flowers in Arizona where it mingled with Saguaros and California Poppies. I knew then that I wanted it in my garden.

Last fall I planted purple sage, also a California native. During those few months it has already more than doubled in size - it is supposed to be fast growing. The bees love it and so do I.

And of course at this time of year there are poppies. Lots of poppies. These poppies are the result of seeds I put on the ground in 2012, and they have re-seeded ever since. When they're done, I take a good amount out of the ground, but let "islands" stand and go to seed. So far it has always worked.

They ceate a wonderful display with Verbena bonariensis. Purple and red is a favorite color combination of mine, especially in the garden.

Sometimes the deer come and nibble on the poppies. Happy deer...

The snails are more interested in the Woolly Sunflower (another California native).

And this little guy? Well, Kibeau is only interested in finding a cozy spot to "supervise".

All these animal and plant faces are for Nicole's Friday Face Off. 

My Battle Against the Weeds

 

For Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room I don't have "regular" art today, but I see my garden as an art room as well. It has dominantly native flowers, but also non-native poppies that I first sowed 14 years ago and they have come back reliably every year since then. What also comes back every spring is the weeds. Some of them I'm okay with, but others are really annoying and spread way too much. Like these ones:

Cleavers (Galium aparine), also known as "catchweed". It's a sticky, vining weed that clings to surfaces - like other plants. It was traditionally used as a medicinal plant, but medicinal or not, it has got out of control in my garden and I don't want it to climb into my natives and choke them. So I had to do something.

First I did the hard work of pulling the cleavers. Since we had some good spring rains in April, they were easy to pull, but gosh! there were so many. After I had cleared an area, I covered the ground with newspaper.

Then I covered the newspaper with a good layer of compost, hoping that this will suppress the weeds for a while.

Since this garden was created on top of an existing lawn after we had bought our home in 2012, by using cardboard and huge amounts of compost (if you're interested how to do that, you can read about it here), this now resembles a lasagna with all its layers of cardboard, compost, newspaper, compost. 

It's a rather healthy, fully organic garden. Even while concentrating on battling the weeds, I still noticed little critters like this orbweaver hanging out on the clary sage (Salvia sclarea).

It is a very big garden and I'm far from done. Unfortunately, I have to pause wielding newspaper and compost because with all the bending (there isn't enough space to kneel on a knee pad while weeding because of dense planting) I hurt my right leg. It crept up on me and I didn't pay much attention to it. But the pain became progressively worse until I wasn't able anymore to walk down stairs in a normal way without stabbing pain. So on Thursday morning I called my GP and got an appointment in the afternoon. He pressed on some parts along my knee and thigh up to my hips (ouch!) and diagnosed Iliotibial band syndrome. Great! Now I'm doing stretches, hoping this will help with the pain, and no more weeding for now (or only in places where there actually is enough space for a knee pad). Wish me luck, please.

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!

A New Chair and Some Cattitude

 

Last week I bought a teal colored Adirondack chair. The Geek was so kind to assemble it for me. Kibeau is sitting in the back, pretending he isn't interested.

But look!

He ventures closer, still pretending he looks anywhere else but to the chair.

But finally he couldn't contain his curiosity. He decided to ... help.

However, just sitting on the back of the chair is not enough. Let's see whether we can get a bit more comfortable.

This helping business is so much fun! Let's just rest the eyes for a minute.

All this helping is really exhausting!

What? The chair is still not done? After all the help?

Finally...

Here I am enjoying my first cup of morning coffee - on the seventh day of March.

And the best thing about this chair? It comes with a wine glass holder!

Cat and human faces are for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

On the internet - I forgot where - I found another wonderful cattitude image that I don't want to keep from you. I can almost hear the cat "speak".