Welcome to my November garden! I'm cheating a little this month by including some blooms seen in my travels this week, but THIS handsome beast you'll recognize from previous posts. Rudbeckia 'Indian Summer' has been blooming for nearly 5 months! Rudy is getting a little tired now, but can still manage a stunning closeup!
Zauschneria californica (California Fuchsia) is a pretty little native that, to be honest, is also looking a little seedy these days, but if you look past that you'll find these exquisite orange flowers that look great with its blue-green foliage.
Fatsia japonica also blooms in late fall/winter around here. Those little sorbet-cup florets are constantly humming with bees and hummingbirds.
Salvia 'Anthony Parker' (a hybrid of Salvia elegans and Salvia leucantha) is just opening its first blooms. See
here for more details on this gorgeous hunk of sage.
Callistemon 'Little John' is also putting out his first puffballs of the season; another plant with great glaucus foliage in a neat, rounded shrub 3'-4' high.
Another fabulous winter bloomer is
Tulbaghia simmleri 'Cheryl Renshaw' which is NOT stinky society garlic, and in fact has a lovely fragrance. Cheryl Renshaw is actually a friend of mine, and was honored by a British collector to whom she sent some bulbs, sweet!
This is that cute dwarf Crassula that was so cherry red all summer; with cooler weather is takes on more normal coloration...and it blooms!
There are still some lovely roses around, like this pink carpet rose.
Or this single, lovely bud of 'Pure Perfume'
And this single red climber (a legacy from my old gardening neighbor, now growing on the fence between our houses). I love how autumn light makes everything glow!
Here's a few out-of-season head-scratchers to add to the mix. I've mentioned my Cerinthe major before, which is still blooming like crazy. I won't argue if it's going to keep being this photogenic!
At a client's house this week I also spotted this Cercis occidentalis (Western Redbud) with fall color AND spring blooms??? Somebody is confused here!
Also this lovely dark blue Agapanthus, who must think it's July...
This week I also visited
Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, CA and grabbed a handful of blues, like this English Lavender.
The farm has many mature oaks and conifers, so the Hydrangeas come by their blue flowers very honestly in that acid soil!
Lest you think we Californians live in some perpetual spring, let me assure you that there will be bleak days to come. I think we have three of them scheduled for mid-January. Until then, our flowers will simply continue their slow, graceful decline.
Thanks, as always, to Carol from
May Dreams Gardens for being the heart of Garden Bloggers' Bloom day. Visit her site for links to Bloom Day posts from all over the world.
"We can have flowers nearly every month of the year." ~ Elizabeth Lawrence
We had our first frosty morning last week; not a killer, but enough to whiten rooftops and leave its unmistakable mark on the landscape. The Boston Ivy on the back fence seemed to transform to scarlet overnight.
The variegated English Ivy took on some pinkish tones...
The Pomegranate leaves began to turn gold...
Some of the Nandina leaves started to curl and condense their colors...
The Dodonea is about as purple as it's going to get...
And the tropical Manihots have left the building.
I am not a winter person, and this time of year tends to fill me with cold foreboding. Even a charming string of hearts isn't a consolation when I think of the bony stem that will soon be all that remains. As winters go, ours are nothing to complain about, but that does not make my primeval reaction to the shorter days any less real.
So I'm thankful for things like the sweet faces of late roses that remind me of high summer.
And for the Chinese Pistache in front of my house. As I write, the mid-afternoon sun is making it glow with every vibrant shade of red, russet, orange and gold that I can imagine. And I feel warm again.
Posts
