We’re getting into bloom season for a whole bunch of native currants.

Ribes “Barrie Coate” is a favorite for the rich deep color of the blooms. The berries are edible of course, but it is grown primarily for the flowers. Because, I mean, look at them.

Ribes “Barrie Coate”

California Native
Deciduous shrub

Sun: Full Sun to Part Shade
Water: Occasional
Size: 6 ft.

Winter blooming hummingbird plant. Very dark pink flower clusters February-March. Woody branches have peeling red bark as they age. Hardy to 25F.

You can see from the photo that the blooms come before the leaves with this species. By spring it will be a gorgeous green shrub and will still have more blooms too!

A tiny Tillandsia attached to a tree amongst the lichens. In Sarasota! (that’s Florida)

Arctostaphylos rudis “Vandenberg” is a very attractive manzanita from the wilds of California. Wild indeed. Found originally on Vandenberg Air Force Base, near San Diego, it is a satisfying 7 foot tall tree with shaggy red bark. Left in its wild state it will be much wider than tall, even over 10ft. wide, but it can be kept pruned for shape to as wide as tall, though I wouldn’t recommend trying to prune this into a vertical tree.

Arctostaphylos “Vandenberg”

California Native
Evergreen shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low, summer-drought
Size: 6t x 10w.

Dense foliage forms a deep green garden backdrop, or perfect as a hedge. Clusters of small pink flowers in spring. Hardy to 15F.

The pretty pink bell shaped flowers are great for attracting hummingbirds.

Eriophyllum lanatum “Siskiyou” just never wants to give up with the blooming. This is a strange time of year to see even one of these cute yellow daisy flowers.

Unusual!

Eriophyllum lanatum “Siskiyou”

Native to California and Oregon
Evergreen Perennial Groundcover

Sun: Full to Partial Sun
Water: Low
Size: 12″h, spreads 3ft. wide

Pretty whitish to grey-green woolly leaves with stunning displays of yellow daisy flowers throughout the spring. Tidy and low-growing groundcover, blooms pop up to 12″h. Cut back after blooming. Hardy to 15F.

Achillea “Red Velvet” has some of the deepest purplish maroony reds around. In the flowers that is, the leaves are still green. You can be sure there will ber a lot more blooms than this measly spray by the time summer rolls around. It’s nice to even have these late blooms this time of year. I appreciate them. Do you too?

Achillea “Red Velvet”

North America; Cultivated variety
Herbaceous Perennial

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: Low, blooms to 3 feet

Green gray foliage. Flowers summer thru fall. Often used for cut or dried flowers. Attracts butterflies and birds. Hardy to below 0F.

Dischidia blooms.

Arctostaphylos densiflora “Howard McMinn” is another California tree. This one is shorter than yesterday’s Catalina Ironwood, topping out at below 10ft., vs. the 40ft. tall Ironwood.

Arctostaphylos densiflora “Howard McMinn”

California Native
Evergreen shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low
Size: 7ft.h. x 10ft.w.

Large evergreen mounding shrub with clusters of small flowers, white to light pink, in winter through spring. Berries are favored by native birds. Dark red trunk.

Also…

A. “Howard McMinn” is a nectar source for the Monarch Butterfly and the California Dogface Butterfly

Teucrium fruticans “Azurea”

Mediterranean
Evergreen Shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low, Good drainage
Size: 4ft. tall x 5ft. wide

This Mediterranean evergreen shrub grows well in the Bay Area. Silvery gray foliage. Deep blue flowers cover the plant most of the year – spring thru fall. Hardy to 20F.

Phlomis lanata is a prolific yellow flowering fuzzy leafed shrub so you would think I could catch it with the yellow flowers in bloom, but not today. Today I wanted to capture the fuzzy leaves.

That’s another shot, which I like better.

Phlomis lanata
Native to Eastern Mediterranean
Semi-deciduous Shrub

Sun: Full Sun
Water: Low to Moderate
Size: 2 to 3 feet

A bold grey shrub for a warm, sunny border. A great Mediterranean climate plant – beautiful pale-yellow flower whorls in summer. Cold tolerant to 20°.

Eremophila maculata “Aurea” is a yellow flowering cultivar from Australia, hence the Emu name.

These are generally a very leafy shrub in the 4 to 6 ft. range, height and width. They’re hardy to the mid-20s. They get covered in the bell-shaped yellow flowers in the spring, but will bloom year-round.

Generally we like full sun close to the coast, but further inland it can handle a lot of shade.

So here’s the deal. It’s not the prettiest plant around – after all what do you expect from a plant call Emu? But it’s very hardy and drought-tolerant and heat-tolerant and flexible for sun conditions and it blooms year-round too. So it turns out its a pretty good plant after all.

We plant these succulent wall panels 2 to 3 months in advance. We used succulent cuttings in a bed of moss within the wood frame. These were planted in September.

Then we set them flat for 2 months to make sure they’re fully rooted. Which they are! Then the plants start growing. Which they have! These plants are huge in these frames right now.

Then I photograph them in full color and full sun. Nice!

The final step is to use various and sundry photo filters to get just the right effect to increase your enjoyment to 11. Finally I apply the b/w filter, and… Huzzah! You take the last of the 3 final steps and place your daily succulent enjoyment in my capable hands.

Pretty flowers are on the way, soon enough with this lovely tree Aloe.

Aloe speciosa is also known as the Tilt-head Aloe. It’s from the southern parts of South Africa. It’s generally found in groups, ie Aloe forests. The Red buds will turn pure white when they open. And of course like all aloes the hummingbirds go crazy girl them, checking back every day for more open blooms.

They are a tree Aloe, getting as tall as 20ft. and pretty quick too for a thick trunked succulent.

Aloe africana

Aloe plicatilis

Aloe variegata

And in bloom, Aloe “Yellow Torch”

A healthy Christmas Cactus bloom color.

Yesterday’s stormy rain left us with moist succulents.

Kalanchoe

Crassula

Senecio

It may be a very rainy day today, but we’re here for you. Today and tomorrow we are staying open all the way to 5pm. Because we care.

Only three more days to go.

Here’s the Christmas Cactus last week.

Apparently the town next to Berkeley, Emeryville, is no longer part of California.

Hah, I’m just joking.

Here we see someone at the local mall who thinks that California native plants include spurges. They don’t!

And here we see that the entire garden is filled with non-natives – not a native to be seen. Shall we list them out?

Euphorbia from Europe, Senecio from South Africa, Chondropetalum from South Africa, Aeoniums from the Canary Islands, Sedums from Asia.

Actually, it’s a pretty nice drought-tolerant Mediterranean style garden, so I shouldn’t complain that they put out one or two silly native signs.

Wow! That was a heck of a lot of filtering software to get the image to look that stupid.

Here’s the original photo. Read More…

Everyone loves making the mixed succulent pots.

These are just a few special succulents in hand-made artist pots by Carey Cherney.

That is an unfortunate common name for this lovely little plant from Madagascar that has naturalized itself in many places around the world. It is easy to grow, but frost sensitive. We can grow it, but in years when it gets below about 30F then we lose a bunch of it. What is it? It’s this one:

Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi

That was the highly edited photo to highlight only the best parts of the plant. Here’s an unedited photo:

Actually that was also an edited photo, just a little more lightly edited.

Which photo do you like better?

We have lots of blooming christmas cactuses at the nursery, but this little guy has been at the house a few years now and there are 5 buds, the most it’s had!

Continuing yesterdays theme, here are 2 more terrariums with airplants for your consideration.

Tillandsia fuchsii v. gracilis and I see we have a little bit of Reindeer Moss and some lovely rocks. Plus is that a shell i see? It is!

Tillandsia neglecta in a bit of a washed-out photo. Plus some white gravel as a base. And a couple fancy shells. We love shells! To be honest, we found a really good deal on shells last year but that meant to meet their minimum order we had to buy a LOT of shells. Shells for everyone!

We are really full up with airplants and terrariums of all kinds.

Tillandsia bulbosa

Tillandsia xerographica

Tillandsia xerographica x brachycaulis

Tillandsia tenuifolia “Blue”

Tillandsia stricta “Pink-Bronze”

Tillandsia ionantha “Mex”

Tillandsia butzii

These are the Hylocereus cactus plants that you get the Dragon Fruit from. I hear they’re delicious!

These are some high altitude plants with the hairy thing going on.

Cleistocactus straussii  is from Southern Bolivia, ranging into Northern Argentina. There’s some harsh terrain there. We see these individual branches grow to about 10ft. tall and live for about 10 years.

Espostoa lanata is a tree like cactus from Southern Ecuador and into Peru. The woolly hairs have been used as pillow stuffing traditionally in Peru. We see these get 10ft. tall and some say they can reach 20 feet, but I’ve never seen that.

Our friends had a 50th birthday and the floral bouquets included cut Aeonium rosettes. I have nothing to add.