The Larner Seeds demonstration garden

looks fabulous right now. If you like California native gardens, go.











Larner Seeds is located in suburban Bolinas. If your navigation system tells you to turn right on Alder, ignore it and go one more block to Elm and turn right on Elm instead. Elm is paved.



















Inside the store, I bought all my favorites: Eschscholzia californica var. californica, Phacelia tanacetifolia, Nemophila menziesii, Gilia tricolor, Clarkia bottae, and Madia elegans.

Meanwhile, Guy waited in the husband chair.

I've decided that I like this dahlia after all.

This year's sunflowers have the same fade.



Umbels are cool.



I like all these verticals.



I got a bunch of Acer circinatum saplings from Raintree Nursery a few years ago. They are much beloved by leafcutter bees. I wish they loved them a little bit less, frankly.



The Montanoa grandiflora's getting really big. The flowers might be way over my head this winter.



Grow little 'Moonlight' rose, grow!



I have coneflower, just like everybody else.



I went on a little seed-sowing rampage the other day: Agave bracteosa, Agastache 'Heronswood Mist', Asclepias curassavica, Shasta daisy, majoram, Phacelia campanularia, Phacelia tanacetifolia, larkspur, Dahlia 'Bishop's Children', Rudbeckia triloba, Sidalcea malviflora, Lathyrus odoratus 'Cupani', Mentzelia lindleyi, Oenothera hookeri

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Keckiella cordifolia is the result of a seed-sowing rampage that happened a few years ago.



So is this Lepechinia.



And this towering Echium pininana.



I collected some seeds today.



My recent rampage included the sowing of more leeks.



And more Asclepias curassavica



And more dahlias. Because they're fun.



Salvia uliginosa really takes its own sweet time making flowers. Kind of annoying.



Artichoke flower, with syrphid fly.



That's it.

Saturday morning it's going to rain later garden

Some more daffodils have opened.



And I'm still impatiently watching the buckeye leaf out slowly, day by day.



Spring came early for some kind of digging creature/varmint that comes around at night to vex the garden. This is an anti-digging strategy I came up with. People sometimes stick plastic spoons in the ground to deter squirrels and such... I cut up some unused nursery stakes and poked them in the ground around recent additions.



(I'd apply Critter Ridder, but I suspect wet, rainy weather renders it ineffective, and it's expensive.)

These Ipheion uniflorum do not come back for me from year-to-year like they're supposed to. I buy a bag of them from time to time instead. They're okay. Buying a bag of them for $4 once a year is kind of a habit now.



Calif. native geophyte Zigadenus fremontii is new to the g this year. I very much hope this one will come back again next year.



The red-flowered Delphinium cardinale from Southern California sure did! I'm very happy about it. All three of them have come back this year in fact, and I recently added a fourth.



Unfortunately, however, I might be losing Leucospermum. Or at least half of it. This half looks terrible.



This half not so terrible.



I'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Speaking of waiting and seeing, in the seedlings department...

I divided these Rudbeckia triloba today. My first Rudbeckia. I saw this plant with flowers still on it in November in Berkeley and I thought that would be nice for me too.



Echium pininana--these have come a long way since you last saw them on Feb-4. These grow into 10' spikes, straight up. Straight up is the hope anyway. I wouldn't want them to lean. Not sure when I should plant them out, but if this rate of progress continues, I guess that question will answer itself.



Any idea what this could be? I remember throwing some seed here... I hate it when I do that.



These are its seed leaves:



And I planted out all this Symphotrichum chilensis from a pinch of seeds I collected in Big Sur last November. This could very well turn out to be an invasive plant in my garden--both by spreading underground parts, and future seedlings--so I'll have to keep an eye on it.



[Not] texas bluebonnet, from Christopher C.



It was looking very yellow in the pot, so I thought I better plant it out in real soil. It's always possible that Texas bluebonnet would be happier in Texas than San Francisco. I guess we'll find out. [But this is Lupinus polyphyllus, so that theory is meaningless.]

Solanum lypersicum 'Mountain Princess'. This is my furthest-along tomato, a 45-DTM variety from Baker Creek.



Tomatoes I'm also growing this year: '4th of July', 'Gold Nugget', 'Early Cherry', 'Stupice'.

Soon enough, everything will get planted out in the vegetable garden. For now, I still have a few winter snap peas.



I love the emergent chaos in the garden this time of year.