Plants I'm Growing: Phlomis, Rose "Flutterby" (April 5, 2013)

A lot of flowers coming into bloom in the garden now. The first Phlomis blossom opened on April 3 (pictured). The first flowers on the big climbing rose called "Flutterby" at the front of the house opened yesterday, April 4. Lithodora diffusa, a ground cover with a pretty star-shaped flower started blooming today. Most of the Ceanothus varieties in the garden are in full bloom. The sound around them is amazing; Ceanothus attracts a startling range of insects. Pacific Iris are in bloom, and leaves are just appearing on the smoke tree in front of the house. Both our pink crabapple tree and our "Pink Lady" apple tree are in bloom. The large salvia "Point Sal Spreader" is in bloom as well. The wisteria behind the house looks like it will start blooming soon, which always attracts many large bumblebees. A pretty time of the year.

Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms--(March 25-26, 2012)

A number of plants have come into bloom in the garden in the past few days. First blooms on the 25th on Lithodora diffusa, a ground cover with deep green leaves resembling rosemary but with bright blue, star-shaped flowers. First blooms also on the 25th on the Bosc pear tree in the garden. Yesterday, March 26 saw the first open blooms on the deep pink crabapple on the side of the house and on one of the pink rock rose bushes (photo above)--which has only a single early flower; the main bloom probably won't come for some time still, particularly given the rainy weather we've been having, but it's a start.

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: Lithodora Diffusa, Halimiocistus sahucii

First blooms today (March 18) on Halimiocistus sahucii. When in full bloom, the plant is so profusely covered with flowers that the foliage is barely visible. Today, there is only one pioneering blossom on the plant. It will be at least a week before the flowers really start to take off. Still, it's nice to see even one. Sahucii is a very low grower. It stays within a few inches of the ground. It's excellent for covering bare areas that don't get a lot of water (drought tolerant once established). The sahucii flowers are an almost translucent white. Last year, Halimiocistus sahucii bloomed on April 2 here. A year according to this plant was therefore 350 days.

First blooms yesterday (March 17) on Lithodora diffusa (photo below), a pretty ground cover plant with blue star-shaped flowers. It does fairly well in our dry summers, but appreciates more water than it often gets. As a result, it seems to be happiest in partial shade.

I have no record of the first blooms in 2009, so I can't add this to my botanical calendar, but I record the 2010 first bloom date for use next year.