So, it's been a while since I've gone on and on and on and on and on about my emerging garden, but that doesn't mean acts of gardening haven't been committed around here (even though I'm way behind on weeding).
I'm going to cut/paste a bit of text from some of the previous entries, just for speed. It's going to take forever for the pics to load, what with me being a dial-up dinosaur and all. Click on the thumbnails to make them bigger.
The matilija poppy is among my favorite of the California natives. I put a tub of them in the ground last September. I got them at a good discount at Yamaguchi because they were convinced it was ready to up and die due to having been over-watered in the nursery. I think they felt guilty selling me a tub of sticks. Hard to tell in this picture, but the few leaves were yellow and limp. Here's what they looked like then:
Within a week of going in most of the leaves fell off. The sticks sat there, quietly sulking for a while before deciding to make a go of it. Here's what they looked like last October:
My professional adviser, Shane, so codenamed because if you've seen that movie and met my adviser you'd understand how, spiritually, he's just like Preacher except that he's Mexican and a gardener, told me not to get my hopes up too much. *If* it started to bush out, chances are it would do nothing but sit there all leafy for a couple of seasons. I kept that in mind and went about my business papering them. Throughout the fall and winter, this thing grew and grew, just as he said it would, but that's all it did. Two weeks ago, here's what it looked like:
Huge! The branches range from 6- to 8-feet tall. I didn't expect it to be this bushy. That's a bit of a concern, but I haven't figured out what to do about it, yet. I don't want it all in the way of the driveway.
A week ago, when I returned from my sojourn back east, I noticed some of the branches were were a little bendier than before. On closer inspection, I was stunned to find bulbs! TONS of bulbs! Here is an example:
Which of course meant that BGF Central has been on Extreme Poppy Watch since then, checking every day for a bloom or two. And lo! This past Saturday when I left for faire, BLOOMS!!! These Pics were taken this evening, so the light wasn't great. It took a while to get past the LAPD guys who had blocked off the neighborhood (again).
I included one with my hand to give you an idea of the size of these flowers. Most that have opened so far are the size of my hand. Some of the bulbs that have yet to open are even bigger! I got some weird looks dancing around in the driveway at 7 a.m. going HOO-YA, but hey. I got feral Birds of Paradise that had not bloomed in a few decades to make with the flowers, and then I coaxed matilija poppies to transform from zombie to pretty. The Official Mother of BGF Central passed along telephone high-fives! I've been out the door and down the road early since workshops began so I have no idea what Shane thinks, not that he would be all verbal about it as that is not his Style, but the son of one of the neighbors was all "wasn't there dirt there last year?"
I have huge flowers that look like food growing on the side of my house! They started out as sticks on deathwatch, but they went with the living instead. Pretty cool.
Okay, it took one hour, 45 mins for just these pictures to load, so the two missing ones I'll get to in the morning when I'm at a higher speed connection. I have pictures updating the rest of the emerging garden, but as they also provide glaring evidence of my failure to find time to weed I have not decided if I will post them. There's actually evidence of my non-weeding in the pictures used for this post, but I figure the GLORY OF THE FRIED EGG POPPIES will distract you from that..
