5/23/09

The blog post of broken momentum.

What happened? I haven't posted anything in a week. Well, I was sworn in as a juror on a long criminal trial in federal court. That kinda sucked the wind out of me. But I'm not sure that that explains everything. I promised another blog post about the early garden, and I intend to get to it soon.

In the meantime, we had a day off from trial yesterday and I used it to visit the Blake Garden in Kensington.

Blake Garden

Some kind of Eryngium, planted to look like volunteers in the path, or actual volunteers?

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden



The garden has a new red bench.

Blake Garden

Blake Garden



The red trim stands out from faraway.

Blake Garden

Would you frame the view with red flowers?

Blake Garden

The flower and vegetable garden was mostly flowers.

Blake Garden

Blake Garden Blake Garden

Blake Garden

With an emphasis on poppies right now--hundreds of them, from 2 to 6 feet tall.

Blake garden

IMG_8260

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

Blake Garden

I was excited to find this plant, Canary Balm or Balm of Gilead, (Cedronella canariensis), that I'm growing from seed right now.

Cedronella canariensis

Botanica says,
The genus name is a diminutive of Cedrus, but there is no connection between these soft herbaceous perennials of the mint family and the large coniferous cedars except for the sweetly aromatic smell of their crushed leaves, which might be likened to that of cedar's aromatic wood. The genus consists of a single species endemic to the Canary Islands. Its distinctive feature is the compound leaves consisting of three leaflets, unusual in the mint family which have mainly simple leaves.
Furthermore (paraphrasing): The leafy, cane-like stems to 4' tall rise from a woody base and terminate in dense, short spikes of flowers with tubular 2-lipped blooms of mauve-pink to white flowers, about 3/4 inches (18 mm) long that are borne in summer.

(Several unrelated plants are commonly named Balm of Gilead.)

Cedronella canariensis

I think I should sow a few more seeds. The plant develops a lax, open habit with the lanky flower stems. I was envisioning something more dense. Seeds came from the CalHort seed exchange. I thought the flowers would be nice in bouquets with roses.

I didn't catch the name of the rose. Suggestions so far include 'Don Juan', 'Black Magic', and 'Valentine'.

Blake Garden

5 comments:

rainymountain said...

Lovely garden, I love gardens where there are benches so that one can sit and really look and take in the atmosphere however I am not sure about the red bench. It will be very difficult to integrate it into the planting scheme without some really creative thinking, which might be rather out of tune with the rest of the garden.
Miss your blog. Hope the trial is not too gruesome.

Jenn said...

i love the tours you take us on.

Christopher C. NC said...

The vegetable flower meadow garden was quite fetching. Soon, very soon, the summer will do its magic here.

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

Very pretty there. I love the poppies, I'm waiting for mine to bloom.
Hope the trial ends soon!

Pam/Digging said...

All those raised, circular water features, which I remember you've posted pics of before, probably inspired my own stock-tank pond-in-the-works. What a great-looking garden. Good luck with the trial.