Our neighbor's Palo Verde has been blooming for awhile now. The bees are growing tired of our sages and are flocking to it's yellow flowers. There's also a massive Jacaranda a few doors down that is in full bloom.
The last of the casement windows are being installed today and we had to chop away a lot of the side vegetation so Luis could access the windows. We put a huge chunk of sage in the bathroom. Best air freshener there is......
We have several varieties of Cleveland salvias on the side of the house and drive but the showiest is Winnifred Gilman variety. Darker folliage, a deep red stem and violet flowers makes this a stand out. The driveway looks a little rough but it's never smelt better.
Recently a small mom and pop garden store had to leave Echo Park and it's relocated close by on York blvd. Echo Garden has a great selection of plants, trees, succulents,etc. I was taken by these red puffs. I don't know what the name is but they will be adding a little color between the black sage and flax plants out front.
As the Spring flowers begin to fade, there are a few notable exceptions. The purple mystic spires salvia and the lion's tale are starting their cyclical blooming.
It's a great time to be in LA now with all the Jacaranda trees in bloom. I think ours has finally sorted itself out after 3 years in the ground and is now blooming big. And the Tipu next to it is roaring back after a severe hit from this winter's frost.
The world's largest rubber ducky has been temporarily deflated. The 50'+ sculpture by Dutch artist Florentjn Hofman was flattened over night for repairs but promises to be back soon in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor.
We ripped up some of the ice plants and placed a Rock Purslane in the mix underneath the Tipu tree. A succulent that is currently in bloom with tall stalks that sprout pink flowers. Ours should double in size within a year to about 24"X36".
The ailing kangaroo paw was removed and a drought tolerant Wooly Blue Curls replaced it. The folks at Theodore Payne have given us a 50/50 chance it will survive being planted so late in the season. Seems some California natives hate being watered so much, they'd rather die of summer heat than take a drink of water. Hopefully our suicidal plant will want to stick around.
WL thinks it looks like a satellite dish in the front yard. The thing is 8' tall and who knows how wide. We are debating whether it is too large for our little garden..... If we want it to overpower everything else for 2 months a year.
