Spring!

Looks like we made it, to spring that is, and I for one could not be happier. It's so nice to be sliding into the growing season, look around the garden, and see life, not the scorched earth hellscape I've faced the last two years (after bad winter weather).

The Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Nanjing Gold' blooms went on uninterrupted by cold and ice, and have been loved by the hummingbirds.

After I tried to find Helleborus foetidus in a local nursery and kept striking out a friend gave me seedlings from her plant, this is the first year I've got blooms...

The bottom half of this photo shows both Grevillea rivularis (L) and G. x gaudichaudii (R). They were knocked back to nothing after winter 2024, they're looking good now, maybe there are blooms in store there too?

One of my favorite views, looking south along the front of our home.

Euphorbia rigida

Love the acid green/yellow coloring.

This container grouping is on the south side of our front doorsteps.

Helleborus Winter Jewels 'Red Sapphire'

Draba hispanica blooming in the large container.

Now a few things in the back garden...(looks like I need to mow the lawn when we have a couple dry days in a row)...

Rhododendron 'Ebony Pearl' with Arachniodes simplicior 'Variegata'.

Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Akebono’

Ferns and aspidistra (no aspidistra death and destruction this year!).

Those metal grid panels are covered with hanging plants later in the season, it's odd to be able to see from the back to the front of this planting bed.

I fear I need to lift the pyrrosia in this stock tank and divide them, they're just so happy. I'm not normally a divider but when you've got cool plants that are starting to bulk up, you really should make more. Not yet visible (old growth cut down, new growth starting to push) at the rear of the stock tank, Disporum longistylum ‘Night Heron’ is bulking up as well.

One of those happy pyrrosia...

My palms are getting so tall! (the one on the far right is still pushing out fronds in recovery from last winter, the frigid wind did a number on them)

Podophyllum pleianthum 

Bamboo, aspidistra, mahonia...

Mahonia eurybracteata 'Indianola Silver'

Mahonia x media 'Marvel' 

Back when I shared photos from our winter event I called out this agave as a likely casualty. Nope, it's still looking good.

Finally a quick little project I had to jump in and tackle one afternoon. We've had a fair bit of rain the last couple of weeks, thankfully I noticed this container wasn't draining well. See the water on the left?

I noticed it when I couldn't do anything about it, but came back the next afternoon and it hadn't gotten any better.

Since I couldn't budge the container to try and get the water flowing out I decided I needed to pull the plants, unfortunate since they'd started to really grow together nicely and create a small community.

I had a large galvanized tub in the garage I wasn't using, so it worked well for relocation.

Once I had everything but the pyrrosia out (it's planted on a large rock) it was obvious just how bad the water problem is.

Oh and when I say large rock, that thing is over a 12" wide, and at least 10" deep. I didn't plan to ever have to take it back out of the pot.

But it looks like I might have to. At least the pyrrosia is high and dry as the rain continues...

 

Here's an opportunity for a little extra blog reading. Pam Penick, of Digging fame, recently shared a post celebrating that her blog is starting it's 20th (!!!) year. She added a Q&A with a few other long-time bloggers, including me. Read that post here, it's a good one!

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

There are 130 acres, so what haven't I seen?

That's the question I asked myself when I booked our tickets to visit the Huntington Gardens mid-November 2024. It goes without saying the Desert Garden is always my primary destination, but even I can only spend so much time there, what haven't I seen in those 130 acres? I've visited the Palm Garden, the Jungle Garden, the Lily Ponds and the Subtropical Garden, the Australian Garden and the Cycad Garden*. Heck on one visit with Andrew's family I even visited the Children's Garden. But looking at the map and searching through the different gardens I discovered a conservatory that didn't remember ever setting foot in!** New territory to discover, I was off...

In route there were a surprising number of ferns.

Sometimes fronted by rather formal furniture.

Sometimes with odd fasciation.

I think they were Woodwardia unigemmata.

It was interesting to see so many of them in Sothern California, and with huge fronds even. 

I was headed to the conservatory (aka the The Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science) but en route my eyes were drawn to a building in the distance with a nice selection of trunking Yucca rostrata out front, the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery.

Naturally I had to walk over and check things out. 

The building below, in the distance, is the conservatory.

Another angle, with a aeonium filled urn in the foreground.

The urn.

Damn, those are some happy cycads!

Inside now and the first plant I'm drawn to is an aristolochia, A. arborea, which has tiny mushroom shapes inside its blooms (thought to attract pollinators).

Anthurium vittariifolium

Pinguicula, aka butterworts, carnivorous plants.

Platycerium andinum

I couldn't find a name on this little epiphyte, orchids of some sort I believe...

Or these next few...

More platycerium/staghorn ferns...

Another NoID epiphyte.

Oh wow...

These are always fun to see, and I love being invited to touch the plants!

Angiopteris evecta

From the signage at the Huntington: "This enormous fern has naturalized in some areas of the tropics, including Hawaii. Species of Angiopteris are the only ferns known to disperse their spores explosively." From the Wiki: "The arching, glossy green fronds, which emerge from the tip of the rhizome, may reach up to 9 m (30 ft) long and 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide"...

One last cool fern I photographed on my way out, Elaphoglossum paleaceum. Not because I was done looking around, but because I was being told to "get out now!" you see the fire alarm was going off, loudly...

There was still a lot to see, but the fire department had arrived and there was no more ignoring the alarm. I did find it quite surreal. I'd been wandering the extremely parched landscape all day, but here I was, finally in an area with humidity so high the plants were practically dripping, and now the fire department was on the scene. A reminder, I was there in November, several weeks before the tragic fires that would decimate the nearby community of Altadena.

*I didn't mention the Chinese Garden or the Japanese Garden. I've never been to either because I can't imagine spending my precious time at the Huntington visiting them when we have award winning gardens of these types up here in the PNW.

**I was wrong about that, turns out on the same visit where I spent time in the Children's Garden I also walked through the conservatory. That was back in 2012 though, and since we enroute to meet up with others I wasn't focused on the plants, much.

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.