Spring Garden Trail of Blooms mid April

 Creating this  trail of posts on early spring blooms which grace us for such brief time,  I have had to look up the spelling of more than one flower.

Tuesday, April 15th, the Delphinium was  just about to open.

  I learned that it's named  from the Greek word for dolphin
and my Delphinium being still in the bud, I was able to see why this is so.

By the 18th of  April,    

 the little dolphins were already transformed.

The Cecil Brunner is climbing onto the new gazebo 

where its small pink roses burst open this week as well.

                                                   This showy volunteer bloomed when I wasn't looking.  Digitalis purpurea  or foxglove is not  native to California and is considered a wild land invasive.  They grow readily from the seeds they cast and bloom their second year.  If  left to their own devices, they can, in the right conditions, crowd out native flora.  I've left  a few of those I found in my garden, but have curtailed them against a wall.  The bees like them, they fly right into the spotted chambers. A prescription heart medicine is made from a chemical removed from the plant.  Be aware, if you have animals or children, that every part of the plant is poisonous.  

On a rotting stump amidst a variety of more green and growing volunteers, 

this mushroom shone like gold in the morning sun. There are many treasures in life that I don't know near enough about and fungi are one of them. I learned a little about mushrooms in the last few years and  know enough to approach each one with wonder and let them be for the various kinds of good they can do.

More rain would of course be appreciated here in "Zone 14,  Northern California inland with some ocean influence" as it would across the rest of the state.   As the days continue to warm and the spring flowers pass one by one, I know I'll want to visit the ocean blue and feel its cooling influence more directly, but for now the weather is warm and gentle and much appreciated. 

April In The Redwood Empire Early Flowerings Continue

                                           Posting  photos and sprinkling a few descriptions  down the page reminds me of those packet postcards  that unfold like an accordion.    This one is for you.

Sun starts showing up sometime after 6 am these days.  This was about 6:30  Monday morning.

Phoebe wasn't ready to get up yet.

We  met brother Steve at the Point Reyes Station House for breakfast.

 Poppies are in out in abundance in the coastal range and the green hills in the morning light  are a feast for the eyes.  My driver  wasn't stopping for pictures and I couldn't have done the views justice.  Spring has come fast and will likely leave us just as quickly.  I hope there are beautiful vistas greening up in your neighborhood  too.

Back at home not everything is green...check out these new rose thorns!

  

And the iris are bursting open!

The old shed next door is crushed with roses and vines.  The new neighbors will be taking it all down and out eventually but in the meantime I am enjoying its wild abandon.  It is part of my northwest view from the deck and it reminds me of cabins and shed in the valley where I grew up.  My brothers and friends and I had names for all the derelict buildings and stories often sprang from our  fertile  imaginations if not our explorations.

Remember if you click on these photos they will load larger and then use your back arrow to return to the blog.

Grape vines leafing ...we were up in the 80's this week but its cooling down the next few days.

I could have started tomato seedlings, but I haven't  so how could I resist the display at the grocery? I bought  a nice ready to plant specimen called a Brown Sugar Heirloom and maybe if I get it in the ground today I really will have medium sized tomatoes in 75 days.

It will go in a gopher basket of course...

So there it is...you got an accordion  postcard from  the 

with best wishes from,

Jeannette

It's April...Projects Spring Forth and the Blooming Continues

    When a concrete mixer and a pumper truck show up an hour early it gets your attention. Fortunately, Mark knows to be ready sooner than you think you'll need to be and so he was prepared for them.


And that has been an underlying theme for me of late, "being ready."  The various transitions in my life present an opportunity, the freedom of making new choices.  While it  would be easy, on some levels, to reconstitute the work and other situations I had in place before the seven year work jaunt we did in a different locale and while there is the risk of stalling and stagnation, I want to be careful what I engender.    

I find the garden, down on my knees or when it is a bit too wet, on my haunches, a good place to ponder.    

When the trucks and men showed up, I retreated to the back of the garden under the sprays of Bridal Wreath Spirea.

These bushes remind me, I was perhaps 6 years old, of an unsupervised  learning by doing experience I had.  My family's home had a long hedge of Bridal Wreath along the driveway. These bushes can send out rather unruly shoots and  I thought  I could shape them up a bit.  I  began cutting and trimming and stepping back to view my work the way I had seen others do, but  every cut I made created a new problem. I didn't understand the structure of the bush and didn't anticipate what would be revealed as I cut away. By the time I was discovered devotedly trying to fix my mistakes, one of bushes in the middle of the row  was "pruned" just about down to the nubs. 

Poor shrub, it was a  long time in coming back to the size and majesty of its  neighbors.  My father made some incremental adjustments to the blooms on either side to blend in my handiwork as much as possible. 

While  I have learned quite a bit since then, about plants and pruning, they still seem to be always teaching me about love and life. There is much to learn in the garden...  analogies, metaphors, cautions and encouragements...they all seem so  available and I need them for every other realm of life.

I let these do pretty much what they want...

This little bush is Breath of Heaven, I have to be careful pruning it too.

Brushing against it release a gentle fragrance.

I let the poppies decide where and how to grow as well.  If they pop up in the middle of a path or snuggle around the kale, I just can't get myself to pull them.  It is against the law to pick the state flower out in the wild, so why not in my garden?  

                                        
These blooming onions have some young poppies to tangle with and they should get along fine.  I don't want to disturb either one of them until it's time to thin or harvest.

                                     It's hard to sit for more than a minute this time of year...the weeds are lush and launching seeds and the cycles of sun and rain are what every little green plant has been waiting for. My intention is often to get the garden pulled together, after all I do need to get on to other things, but the weeds are laughing at me and asking, "Who are you trying to kid?"

The concrete truck can't keep any of the load...so Mark made a skirt for the back side of a shed to use  any "extra."  You don't want extra but it is often inevitable because you really don't want to run short on your project.  His calculations of the slab he needed were pretty close and so our prepared "extra" place didn't receive anymore than 2 hops of a hop scotch. Now we wish there had been a little more extra. But it's a  project for another day, an old fashioned project. No big pumper truck will come, he'll mix up the bags in the wheelbarrow and shovel it out.  

As I was saying, I'm trying to pick up on these lessons to pay attention, be ready in advance and be careful of what I engender.  I see that one project does seem to beget another.  

It's April...no joke!