I was enchanted by the yellow to intense lipstick red blooms against the bright green leaves on this crocosmia. Hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees love them, too!
It’s said that dipping dry crocosmia flowers in water releases a saffron-like aroma. Crocosmia plants grow from corms, which are closely related to bulbs.
The spiritual meaning of this beautiful plant encourages us to playfully engage our emotional strength, power, and will to express ourselves confidently and with enthusiasm.
#FOTD
My son has the greenest thumb EVER. I lovelove the Matilija poppy but have never been able to keep a single plant alive, and this beauty is more than six feet tall in its first year. He told me that everyone who walks by stops to take pics and a selfie in front of this incredible specimen.
This morning a fried egg appeared in the backyard,
a startling yellow ball floating
on a white round of wide petals.
Officially: Matilija Poppy.
It hovers,
this hint of perfection,
above mostly unadorned foliage. — Kari Wergeland’
Romneya coulteri: A shrubby perennial that grows to eight feet, found on dry slopes and sandy washes in coastal sage scrub and chaparral, generally away from the coast (mountain foothills and Santa Ana Mountains).
Like many others in this family this species is a fire follower. While it’s on the California Native Plant Society List 4.2, a watch list for species with limited distribution in California, it’s thriving in Washington state.
I guess I’ll keep trying until I achieve success.
Just a joke, but maybe also partly truthful, especially with all of these planetary energies creating havoc!
What do you think?
From the deepest, darkest part of the ocean to where I feel more at home, following a path on terra firma…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening — Robert Frost
Artist Micell A. via Pinterest
A couple years ago, I rescued a sad and wilted Shasta daisy from the garden center and tended it with love and care. Since then, I’ve divided it into enough plants to fill an entire bed under the dining room windows.
It wasn’t at all reticent about outgrowing container after container until I had no choice but to allow it to freely spread.
Named after the snowy peaks of Mount Shasta in California, the perennial Shasta daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum) seems to be extremely hardy.
Once established, they are vigorous growers and easily spread via rhizomes. They make lovely cut flowers, but I also learned these daisies are toxic to dogs and cats.
They’re not shy about how bold and beautiful they are!
I don’t know when this Cup of Gold (Solandra maxima) vine will stop growing but I’m going to allow it to live freely without pruning.
It’s already outgrown the arbor and now stretches like a canopy from tree to tree…The flowers are about six inches wide with a light tropical fragrance.
For the first time this year, it looks like the sun is almost ready to come out. We’ve had a very gloomy first half of 2023 with a heavy marine layer and unseasonably cool weather.
I’m looking forward to blue sky again!
Thanks to all the rain we had this year, all of my sage plants are healthy and flowering, but this white sage is especially full of delicate lavender-colored sticky blooms.
In fact, the entire plant is more than six feet tall and equally as wide.
This is the variety of sage that’s made into smudging bundles tied with string. “Saging” is the term for burning the leaves of the white sage to cleanse, purify, and protect by dissipating negative energy and spirits.
Smudging (or smoke cleansing) with white sage is sacred to many Indigenous nations of California and Mexico,
I also learned that scientists have observed that sage can clear up to ninety-four percent of airborne bacteria and disinfect the air.
My method is to gather the leaves that naturally fall to the ground and create a smudge stick from them. Sometimes I’ll add lavender, but I prefer the fragrance of white sage all by itself.
Have you ever smudged or is it just a SoCal thing?
I’m so excited! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Red Admiral butterfly. I had installed a solar powered fountain in the pond only minutes before when this little guy came to visit and take a drink. After that, he spread his wings on the sun warmed rocks and I was able to get a good look.
I hope he hangs around for a while…I’ll try to capture better photos if I see him again.
The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) has much more black than the Monarch. It has a black upper forewing with a bright, diagonal red-orange band across it and spots of white on the tips. It also has a red marginal band on its hindwing and the underside is a mottled brown.
I found a poem about this butterfly and had to share. I wasn’t able to learn a lot about the poet, David Wood, but I certainly do like his poems!
Sonnet 68: Red Admiral
Patrolling small stretches of the hedgerow
Like a silent sentry on guard duty,
Other butterflies they will overthrow;
The Red Admiral, nature’s real beauty.
Seen fluttering throughout summers hot days
From buddleia to Michaelmas daisies,
And sheltering from the suns golden rays,
All the people will sing of their praises.
But they cannot survive the winter’s cold
Their life is all too brief, a crying shame:
Alas none of them will ever grow old
Their short life is all part of nature’s game.
Their beauty we cannot take for granted
For they are delicately enchanted.
As I dug a hole for a new plant in the garden last weekend, I had to laugh out loud at the thoughts swirling in my head.
Sometimes when I garden, my brain goes into an almost trance-like state lightly touching random elements in my subconscious like a butterfly drifting from flower to flower.
With no apparent rhyme or reason, my brain began to ponder the top ten things I would do if I won the lottery (which I never will because I don’t play).
At the top of my list is DIRT.
If I had unlimited funds, I’d buy so much good soil that I could replace all the clay and concrete-like death-to-all-plants earth in my gardens. Instead of buying a bag or two at a time, I’d get a dozen truckloads delivered of the finest growing medium that money could buy.
I wouldn’t mind at all loading it up in a wheelbarrow, in fact, it would be a JOY to don my work gloves and shovel that sweetly perfumed soil. I might roll in it too, like a dog–that’s how much I wish I had that loamy organic earth.
Of course, I’d go to South Coast Plaza and splurge on some Chanel, but the dirt would make me equally as happy.
In no particular order, here’s my lottery wish list….
💰Dirt
💰Chanel
💰Fix some things around here
💰A little cosmetic fix on me lol
💰Buy presents for everyone
💰Donate to a few awesome animal rescues
💰Travel to Peru and Paris
💰Visit all the beaches that have beach glass (and a lot of seashells)
*Sigh*
Forget all the other stuff, the truth is that I’d be overjoyed with a mountain of dirt on my driveway.
I’m back to the land of reality, dreading the hot and dry droughty conditions I’ll be faced with this summer as I mourn the death of many of my plantfriends, but for right now, I can enjoy their colorful beauty.
What would YOU do if you won the lottery?
DIL asked for suggestions about flowers for a hanging basket near their front door.
When I replied that I thought a fuchsia would be pretty, she snortlaughed and said,
“Ring-ring-ring, 1980s calling, Grandma!”
I had never before thought that a purple-pink fuchsia dated me as being OLD, haha. It was a great joke…UNTIL she saw mine, asked what it was, and I was able to identify this amazing creation as a…fuchsia!
So NOW who’s laughing?
How could anyone not love this delicate ballerina of a flower?
Fuchsia is a dancer
Dancing on her toes,
Clad in red and purple,
By a cottage wall;
Sometimes in a greenhouse,
In frilly white and rose,
Dressed in her best for the fairies’ evening ball!
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 