I apologize for the scarcity of blog posts recently, but I've been distracted by non-garden stuff. I'm not as tweeting much either.

The garden really slows down this year and it's tempting to think "nothing is happening". Also, the light is mediocre most of the time. There's a very narrow time interval when you can take pictures.

You can see what I mean from the deck.

But things
are happning; there's no confusion about that.

I learned about the crimson-flowering fava beans from
Michelle.

I forgot the name of this tiny Gladiolus

Echium pininana may be the closest thing this garden will ever get to a "structural plant". I have five of them in the ground, and sixth one on the way. The first batch grew vigorously from fresh seed, but seed sown later seems less so.

Anyway, they grow straight up and become towering spikes of blue flowers in the spring and summer. I'm not sure if that will happen in 2010 or not, so I have a wait-and-see approach.
Lots of things are sprouting from the ground, besides mushrooms.



And some trees have flowers.

And some of the trees that don't have flowers will have flowers later, like this Ceanothus with Rosa 'Moonlight' climbing up into it,

an idea that occurred to me while I was writing a note to Frances about what I should do with Rosa 'Moonlight'.