high spring (gbbd)

This is it. High spring in San Diego. There are probably more things blooming now in the garden than there will be at any other time of year.

I start with the current state of the agave that I’ve been showing for the last few months. It’s bloomed its way from the base of the flower stalk to very near the very end. The plant will soon die and you won’t see any more photos of it. Fortunately the plant has several other growths to keep it going into the future.

The spike has arced up and come back to the ground, where its final blooms are resting.

I’ve provided a few captions, but there are too many flowers to comment on in detail. For the rest of the photos, hover your mouse to view the names or click to enlarge.

Leaves of the unknown Gasteria.

An unknown gasteria. The flowers are nice, but I grow it mainly for the foliage.


The weird double blooms of this pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophyll 'Tarnok,' shown with the first pitchers of the season.
The bloom of another carnivorous pitcher plant.
Geum and blue-eyed grass.
Salvia lyrata 'Purple Volcano.' It's rather weedy according to Robin Middleton, but it does have its nice garden moments.

The not-quite black flowers of Salvia discolor.

Flowers on the grapefruit. They smell great. And they bode well for a good crop next year.


Thank you thank you thank you to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Stuff is beginning to bloom everywhere. [ Check it out all the blooming gardens! ]


22 thoughts on “high spring (gbbd)”

  1. wow, you weren’t kidding, looks like everything is coming out all at the right moment….how amazing is that! love the carpenteria and the laelia bloom.

  2. Gorgeous! I especially like the Verbena lilacina and the Sphaeralcea ambigua, though I doubt I could grow either one of them up here. (I’m still looking for S. munroana as a potential substitute.) And the agave is stunning!

    I finally finished my own Bloom Day post, and four of my blooms are also among your blooms. I have a Dichelostemma as well, but mine is D. multiflorum and hasn’t bloomed yet.

  3. Wow! Lots of intriguing flowers I’ve never seen before. I was surprised to see the Sarracenia hybrid, which looks so much like the Sarracenia purpurea that grows wild here in Ontario, though our climate is totally different (it is definitely not peak blooming season here, in fact I count myself lucky to have two species in bloom today.

  4. Beautiful Bloom Day post and a great presentation with the mouse-overs.

    Your spring is so different to our spring. Things like blue eyed grass, callas, coreopsis and S. lyrata bloom a little later here. Many of the others dislike our humidity.

  5. James – your garden makes me miss California SO much! I LOVE your Salvia discolor. I will have to see if I can grow it here in NC. Thank you for reminding me of it. My pitcher plants aren’t blooming yet. Thank you for sharing your blooms!

  6. It’s been said already, but wow! What an amazing garden. My faves are the almost-black salvia, fava bean flowers, and pitcher plants. Wish I could smell the grapefruit in bloom from here…

  7. james, i love the purple oxalis/dianella/thyme combo you show – does the oxalis hold up to summertime heat? i might try to replicate that planting, and maybe throw in some salvia discolor or s. guaranitica ‘black & blue’. thanks for the inspiration…

  8. Oooh – such a different set of plants than we have here in the temperate rainforest of Vancouver. I love your photos (as always) and long for a grapefruit of my own. Happy Bloom Day!

  9. Your verbena looks wonderful, and it has a scent?

    I didn’t know about the carpinteria. A beautiful flower and a wonderful town too! We enjoyed their avocado festival a couple of years ago.

  10. Wow. Quite a collection. Some plants I’m not very familiar with, like that salvia discolor, salvia lyrata, bletilla, and of course the carnivores. Very cool.
    I will miss seeing photos of that agave.
    I like those damn crassulas.

  11. Wow, James! Can you give us a wide view, too? I’d love to see the impact they all make together. Those fava bean blooms are almost enough to make me want to plant some (love to eat them, hate to shell them). And the last little agave blooms–how restful in their final repose.

  12. It’s all gorgeous. The flowers kind of remind me of what I would think a prairie garden would look like, with the exception of the pitcher plants; which I think are waaaaay cool.

  13. Thanks for taking the time to show all of these, James. I did laugh out loud at the Crassula captions though. We never appreciate what grows too easily. Thanks for the idea of combining geum and blue eyed grass. We have both of those and have been dissatisfied with their placement. 🙂
    Frances

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