I’m a big fan of having a colorful array of flowers in my yard blooming throughout the year. But without splashes of white to offset all that color, it just tends to run together. With satiny white petals, and bright and cheery yellow centers, the Shasta Daisy fills that roll of color balance very nicely!
Continue reading Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum)
There are few flowers that I don’t like. On the same token, there are few flowers that I love. I love California Poppies.
Continue reading California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
The scent of lavender is incomparable. Good thing that lavenders tend to be profuse bloomers!
Continue reading Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas)
I didn’t use to pay much attention to chrysanthemums in my earlier days. They just seemed so “common place” and were always the cheap plants at the nursery. But at some point I decided that my garden needed that quintessential splash of color in the fall, so I thought “what the heck”.
Continue reading Chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum morifolium)
Take everything you thought you knew about the taste of fresh strawberries and throw it out the window. You know nothing! Nothing at all!! Not until you have tasted an Alpine Strawberry can you speak to me about the amazing goodness of strawberry flavor. They’re like candy, but so much better. It’s strawberry, but like strawberry flavor on steroids. There is just no comparison.
Continue reading Alpine Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
Gaura also goes by bee blossom, wand flower, and whirling butterflies, and if you see it growing you totally understand where these fanciful names come from. Dainty pink flowers dance on long sprays of thin stems that shoot up from the ground. The flowers start in early spring and continue on until winter comes.
Continue reading Gaura (Oenothera lindheimeri)
It was by pure accident that I discovered California fuchsias. The Old Man and I were in the process of transforming our dull, and rather dead (thank you drought), yard into a more water-wise and heat tolerant landscape. An internet search for drought tolerant plants to use led us to the discovery of a nursery, not too terribly far away in the neighboring foothills, that specializes in California native plants, which by their nature are rather used to not getting much rain.
Continue reading California Fuchsia “Silver Select” (Epilobium canum ssp.)
There are a few herbs that are routinely featured in Greek cuisine, and rosemary is one of them. Often paired with garlic (of course!), it adds a distinct flavor to stews and meats. I prefer to use it fresh, but if you have home-dried rosemary it works just as well. I have not been as impressed with commercial dried rosemary, so if you have the space to grow your own it is well worth the effort.
Continue reading Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)
This has to be one of the most interesting plants in our garden. The small, but profuse, orange blossoms coat the stems that emanate from the base of the plant and stick around for months on end. The leaves are an eye-catching bright green. Plant this and you will be able to enjoy the quintessential hum of summer as bumblebees and hummingbirds will flock to your yard. When the sun shines on it just right, the flowers seem to glow like magical little lights.
Continue reading Orange Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua)
Mostly Greek 