When I was in college, we lived across the street from a wild place, an abandoned and untended avocado grove blanketed with nasturtiums. Their long tendrils would wind up and around the gnarled trunks.
After school, my friends and I would sit under the trees and pick tiny avocados from the low hanging branches and gorge on them until we were full, and then we’d lie back in the pillowy nasturtium leaves and pretend we were forest fairies.
We’d sometimes weave orange and yellow tiaras through our hair, and always pick a bouquet to bring home.
I love their tangy but sweet fragrance and often add the flowers to salads, but only the ones from my garden that I’m sure are pesticide-free.
All the rain birthed my own enchanted nasturtium forest this year.
I remember when rows upon rows of a colorful flowering ranunculus tapestry was only a quirky, delightful curiosity we’d point at as we drove north along the freeway. Back then it was an annual locals-only kind of attraction and now The Flower Fields enchants visitors from all over the world.
I can’t believe that it took me this long to visit The Flower Fields in all its glory, but it’s a definite recommended destination. It was a truly enjoyable day and best of all, it’s simply impossible to take a bad photo there!
The Flower Fields are located off the freeway at Palomar Airport Road in Carlsbad. In addition to forty acres of beautiful ranunculus in peak bloom, there are tractor rides, wine tastings, food, yoga classes, a Mother’s Day picnic, and day-long educational and fun activities for children of all ages.
And a butterfly garden!
HISTORY: The Flower Fields today are a direct result of nearly eighty-five years of floral cultivation that began with Luther Gage, an early settler and horticulturist who settled here in the early 1920s. Mr. Gage brought ranunculus seeds to the area and began growing them in his fields next to Frank Frazee’s small vegetable farm in South Oceanside. In 1933 Frank Frazee also started growing ranunculus and introduced his son Edwin to the art of seeding, cultivating, and irrigating this beautiful flower.
This is what it used to look like — the fields of flowers grew close to the freeway:
1970s. Photo credit: Bob Gardner
INFO: Open daily from 9:00am-6:00pm until Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 14th, 2023) Ongoing Specials (Starting March 6th) Mondays – With the purchase of one adult or one senior/military, you receive one child’s ticket free (ages 3-10)| Tuesdays & Wednesdays – Between 1:00pm-4:00pm, receive $2 off adults, seniors/military and children’s tickets. Buy tickets online at theflowerfields.com
(Excluding the vintage photo, all photo credit to Enchanted Seashells.com) @the_flower_fields
I’m referring to Pride of Madeira, the superstar of my garden!
This plant REALLY loves the environment here at Casa de Enchanted Seashells. I read that it’s becoming invasive in places along the coast and I can see how that could happen as it easily reseeds itself.
Native to Madeira Island, north of the Canary Islands, it’s a tough perennial and can survive all summer with little to no water. Since I think we’ve seen the last of our record-breaking rainfall here in SoCal, that’s exactly what they’ll have to do to survive.
And in a different part of the garden, a slightly different hue…It’s HUGE.
Bees love it too. So do hummingbirds and butterflies.
Pride of Madeira grows to about six feet tall and some of my specimens are twice as wide as they are tall.
I quite literally have dozens of baby Prides if anyone wants to plant them in their garden!
After all the rain we’ve had here in Southern California, every bit of land is awash in springtime color.
A picturesque view of the lagoon, train tracks, and Pacific ocean through Purple Mustard, an invasive weed:
I call this plant Beach Daisy, definitely a weed, if not also invasive…
And finally, I’m impossibly happy because the wildflower seeds I planted last year in my native garden decided to sprout and present me with lovely spires of lupine:
**All photo credit belongs to Enchanted Seashells.
This is my one of my dry riverbeds. (The other one is in the front garden.) I proudly carried each and every rock and placed them with loving intention.
It’s not so dry now! Yesterday’s relentless rain had other ideas.
Casa de Enchanted Seashells gardens are alive, blooming with color and fragrance.
In one week, since the last rain, most of the fruit trees are flowering and my florals are flourishing. It brings much joy to create a bouquet from the fruits of my own efforts, a labor of love.
This lavender is vibrant!
Peaches!
Plums!
More peaches!
Apples!
We’re expecting more rain this week. 2023 has been a crazy wet year in SoCal, but it’s just what we need to end the drought for a while. The only downside is horrible seasonal allergies, but that’s a small price to pay to live in paradise.
A few days ago, we had a special weather alert telling us it actually might SNOW on the beach!
The temp dropped significantly. It had been raining off and on all day and I was SO hopeful, as excited as a first grader; sadly it didn’t snow here.
There were a few flakes several miles up the coast, and measurable snow just a bit inland, but nothing at Casa de Enchanted Seashells.
While I waited in anticipation for SNOW, I looked off in the distance and snapped this photo from my deck.
The perspective is a bit skewed as the apartments aren’t that close. They’re more than a few blocks away and the mountains are further than they appear here, too, actually about fifty miles east. I think it’s because I used a different camera lens and setting.
If you ignore the ugly and invasive apartments defiling my view, I think that’s Palomar Mountain covered in snow. It could also be the Lagunas; regardless, they both received several feet of snow while we had more than four inches of rain.
This Lemonade Berry tree has almost completely taken over my front yard, surpassing our wildest intentions.
Once again, my brilliant Angel Boy didn’t think far enough into the future when we turned our front garden from lawn into a haven for California native plants.
Lemonade Berry (Rhus integrifolia) is an evergreen shrub or small tree. It tends to grow upright (10- 30 feet tall), but sprawls next to beaches. It’s often found in coastal canyons where it sometimes dominates entire hillsides. (YES!)
The Lemonade Berry’s petioles are pink or brownish and leaf blades are leathery. The flowers appear from February to May. The fruit is red to gray and has a tart flavor which gives the plant its name. Lemonade Berry is an important wildlife plant and the berries are a significant food source for birds and small mammals.
The Cahuilla and other California native peoples ate the fruits of the lemonade berry raw. They soaked the berries in water to make a beverage, and ground the dried berries into flour for a mush or to add to soup. It also has medicinal uses.
As Food: Ripe berries of the sugar bush or lemonade berry can be soaked in hot water to produce a tart lemon-tasting beverage. Steeping in almost boiling water produces a stronger drink than steeping in sun-heated water. For a strong drink, you will need a ratio of one-part berries to two parts water.
These berries make a tart snack if picked right off of the bush, but only if sucked for their juice; the pulp is not swallowed. The berries have small hairs that can upset your stomach. Enjoy the bitter refreshing taste and spit the berry out when done.
Medicine: Tea made from the stems can be used to treat coughs. The tea made from the bark, berries, or leaves steeped in cold water can be gargled for sore throats and cold sores.Caution: Some people are allergic to the bark, roots, and leaves, so use it sparingly the first time.
Some info curated from Santa Monica Mountains Trail Council
California Lilacs, or Ceanothus, are some of our most fragrant and colorful shrubs here in California. They are also evergreen and very drought tolerant.
Our extreme rain has caused my prize ceanothus plant to bloom like it’s never bloomed before.
What’s even more amazing is that a few years ago I thought it had died and planted other things in its place. When I noticed a few sprouted leaves, I decided to watch and see what happened.
Magic happened where I couldn’t see; beneath the topsoil.
Today, it’s taken over the entire area next to my driveway. It’s a testament to tenacity, determination, and perseverance; great qualities to emulate.
This ceanothus is so vibrant and alive that it takes my breath away.
Thanks to the wonderful Marilyn from https://teepee12.com/, I learned that what I thought were House Finches were really American Robins.
I didn’t even know they called Southern California home, but I saw a note from our local Audubon Society that confirms it: “Have you read about the abundance of Robins in San Diego County this year?”
I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and looked out at an amazing sight. There were literally dozens of chirpy birds invading my garden, SO MANY I couldn’t even count them all.
At first I thought they were finches, which are plentiful here, but as I learned, was incorrect. All those birds were American Robins!!
I no longer have feeders because of my arch nemeses, RATS, so what they’re feasting on here is actually an invasive species, a Brazilian Pepper tree that somehow sprouted into the neighbor’s yard and they didn’t get rid of it like we did.
There’s no way I could capture as many as there are, but I’d say definitely more than fifty of these lovely red breasted birds are visiting Casa de Enchanted Seashells.
This makes sense because they’re eating red berries from the pepper tree.
They stayed for about an hour, saturating my world with their most delightful song and chirpy calls to friends and family. Every tree in the garden is full of these guys as well the rosemary and lavender bushes.
I’ve never seen anything like this. For me, It’s as exciting as spotting a pod of whales or dolphin. I’m grateful they chose my garden to visit. Pure joy!
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 