California : Year One, the second half

After our baby was born, I didn't do a lot other than water occasionally for the garden, but my girls and I took a lot of pictures and watched as it bloomed.

The sunflowers succumbed to powdery mildew, and I made a plan to take them out.

The ranunculus and soon after that tulips started to come up. 

This is after my first clean-out of the sunflowers, I didn't have the heart to take them all at once.

I ended up leaving the tallest one since it was still blooming well and wasn't as affected. It was fun to see it over the fence every day coming back from school. I took pictures of the whole space again that day, to document growth. Mostly there was a lot of small green things.

There is a silver wattle tree behind our house, and it was beautiful and blooming.

We went on a Saturday walk all together because we had a open Saturday and I was feeling better.

Long view of the garden. There were a lot of good blooms for bouquets in January. February started with the first blooms from the ranunculus and the sweet peas finally bloomed too. The strawberries had a few cute flowers as well.

There were a couple of the white Italian sunflowers still coming in, and I loved how they looked with the peach snapdragons and the contrasting deep tones of the anemone and sweet peas I had.

My favorite thing about gardening is that it's something I can share with my kids. There is almost always a task that they can help with and make a real contribution. Rena was really enjoying doing the watering this day. 

It reminded me of some of Renoir's paintings.

I borrowed the reel style lawn mower from our self help store on base. It was nice to get everything looking a little tidier. The tulips were starting to bloom, and I was struggling to keep them watered well, so the stems ended up being extremely short on a few of them. I finally did get a soaker hose out there, but it was a bit too late for the tulips.

We started some seeds. They were from the dollar store, so I didn't know how well they would germinate. We did cucumbers and dianthus, and also some cilantro, basil, and snapdragon seeds I had collected from my Arizona garden.

Rena took these sweet close up shots. Sometimes she gets my phone while we're out gardening and ends up with some fun shots.

February 25th: Everything blooming

I made a bouquet that day.

March 2nd: Anemones going strong, freesias starting to bloom

Something ate the marigold plant my neighbor Heidi gave me, but it had good roots and it came back beautifully. Heidi also gave me a sugar cane, tomato, romaine lettuce, and zucchini all started in her seed starting room.

The sweet peas were getting out of control, but I didn't have it in me to tame them.

March 7th: too many beautiful things, we had a huge butterfly visit today. Claire's class at school had been watching the life cycle of some butterflies, and they released them around this time. I told her one of their butterflies had visited us. Also, this next round of photos were mostly shot by me, but at some point the phone was commandeered from me by my kids. See if you can tell when they took over. 

March 9th: home grown bouquet - a joy

March 12th: here you can see the transplants from Heidi, plus a bunch of blooms because I couldn't resist.

The first lily poked its head out. That was exciting to see.

This is my kids' favorite tree. It is behind our house. Then we went to a park, and I remembered the joy of playing in tall grass and rushes, especially in the fall. I also got a photo of a large hedge shrub that has good color this time of year. I think it's a Rhaphiolepis, but I don't really know.

This was three months after having our baby.

The Dollar Tree cucumbers all sprouted. I was amazed, and I gave a few away because I knew I didn't have the space for all of them. The garden was ready for another trim and I cleared out a triangle shape to go with the four triangles arranged to make a square that I was trying to make at that time. Also, there was an abundance of ladybugs coming in.

End of March. More colorful blooms. The sweet peas really came into their own. I was getting out into the garden a little more, but it had grown a lot while I was not able to do much.

April started with decorating a comfortable fairy home to lure in the sprites, but I'm pretty sure it ended up being a momentary holding pen for ladybugs mostly.

We also saw a large bird on our neighbor's roof. There were a lot of amazing birds around.

The lilies finally came up. I had given up hope, but once they appeared I made a renewed effort to water.

My Heuchera bloomed and I made another bouquet. 

We went to Nut Tree and I considered these shrubs. Also, here is the recovered marigold.

I went to the home of some women in my ward at church, because I had heard they have a beautiful garden. I loved seeing it and visiting them. I took pictures of the plants that spoke to me in some way.

Fully inspired I made a trip to Home Depot to finally plant up the side of the house planting area. I didn't get a picture of the finished area at this time, but it was satisfying.

We went to Santa Cruz to the redwoods at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It was a joy to see plants so big.

Another beautiful day in the garden. My poppy finally bloomed.

We found some elderberries at a park nearby our house. That was fun.

Look closely and you will see our enormous honey bee. 

Then I found a Goldenrod Crab Spider. At least I think that's what it is.

At this point I had a new design in mind for the garden in this area. I thought I would make a bed parallel to the window with walking space on either side. Then with the rest of the space, which was basically a square, I would divide into four triangles with an x shaped pathway going through it. I ended up modifying it to be more of a keystone shape, but you can see my attempt to carve out the back triangle here. I planted the sprouted dianthus and snapdragons with a cucumber in the middle.

The self help store on base for housing was giving away these salvias when my husband went there for an air filter replacement, so he also came home with two plants. That was a great day.

I found a strange looking moth on the white sage. I still don’t know what kind it was.

My Clarkia grew from a wildflower mix I grew in Arizona and then harvested seeds from.

I finally broke down and got my own trimmer and it came with a blower too. They have both been useful.

I tried putting the chairs out in the garden where they get afternoon shade. It worked well as a spot to sit, but I didn’t like having them there permanently because there are too many spiders living there.

Foxtail fern, parsley, oregano, white sage all growing well.

An iris by a playground that we found while out on a walk. Also, below is my favorite tree here. It’s good to have a favorite tree nearby.

We went to the Bay Area Discovery Museum for the first time with a friend who was about to move (miss you Shaelie!) and the kid garden was super inspiring. It gave me a lot to think about for layout changes.

We found an interesting insect on our church tree and researched it when we got home. We also had a dragonfly in our backyard. Then there were strange wormy looking casings on a tree behind our house. I never found out what those were.

 

Since I’m the only one who likes them, I had a lot of artichokes to enjoy, until the ground squirrels got to it anyway. It was June and almost a year from when we moved in. The clematis bloomed and the sweet peas were going to seed.

We took a quick trip to Monterey to see the aquarium and 17 mile drive. It was beautiful. We also bought some concrete spheres, and an owl and a hedgehog statue for the garden while we were on the trip.

The layout I wanted was starting take shape, so I took some panos in addition to a few close ups of the Snapdragons, Clarkia, and Clematis. They looked so pretty. I also found a cocoon of some sort on my fence and a coyote skat on my pathway which was unsettling and made me do some research into wildlife cameras. I didn’t get one, but it would be a fun thing to have.

 

Remember how I forgot to take a picture of the side yard after I planted it out. Well, the landscaping services trimmer guy trimmed down two out of three of my rosemary. It was especially upsetting to me because they were an upright variety of rosemary and I didn’t want them to get bushy.

My neighbor gave me their olive tree since they were moving. I put it at the path edge until I decide where to put it. I don’t like having many potted plants, but it gets so big and I’m not allowed to plant trees without an alterations request. Something to figure out later. For now, it looks good in the garden.

Speaking of potted plants, another friend from church who was moving gave me these. One is a Schefflera Arboricola and the other, I regret to say, died from a toddler encounter.

The daylily I planted in the side yard bloomed. I also got a birdhouse for my birthday. A California Scrub Jay visited it almost immediately looking for some poor birds to eat, and so far it is more of a spider home.

I got a couple good shots of the artichoke plant. I loved how it grew.

Here are a few shots from inside on a warm day.

I was surprised by how well the girls’ purple Calibrachoa was doing after the winter. It spread quite a bit, and was blooming well. I also had a pleasant surprise when my yarrow from Morningsun Herb Farm bloomed. It was the most beautiful shade of raspberry I had ever seen.

This eucalyptus sprouted, and I wanted to keep it, but knowing how big they get, and how small my yard is, I pulled it out. I tried to pot it up, but it didn’t take to it. I also bought a dahlia plant after visiting my amazing friend Sarah’s garden with her lovely dahlias. I cut the first bloom in hopes to encourage more, and it was slow to make more after that. It may be more similar to tulips that way.

 

The garden takes a lot of water in the summer. I tried to minimize my water use by watering deeply and infrequently but regularly. Also, watering mostly in the morning with soaker hoses instead of with sprinklers. I also let things get more sparse in the summer so there aren’t as many plants requiring water. I was very happy to finally get out for a family bike ride post baby. We have to wait for her to be able to ride in the bike stroller, and this time we had to wait until our oldest was fully confident on her bike to ride along with us.

  

I moved the birdhouse out garden to be a counterbalance to the concrete spheres from Monterey. I was hoping they would also shade my clematis roots because it was getting warmer.

The tomatoes and zucchinis were producing plentifully and beautifully by this time which feels like a good place to end this post. The zucchini picture was taken the day we moved into our house one year later. The year was full of a lot of effort and the fruit came.