This should have been done earlier. While most who participate in Six on Saturday have been posting pictures of early spring bloom, I have been posting less colorful pictures of dormant corms, their barely visible new spring growth, some windmill palm foliage and a sliced weirdly yellow beet. Some of the few flowers that I posted pictures of were oddly pallid, which was sort of why I thought they might be interesting. Now that I am posting floral pictures, early spring flowers are beginning to deteriorate. The first two are rather shabby. The third has not been quite right for a few months. I should have found fresher flowers.

1. Eucalyptus cinerea or pulverulenta, florist silver dollar got an identity crisis. I learned it as cinerea. I am now told that it is pulverulenta. Regardless of its name, bees enjoy it. We thought we added another tree of the same species nearby, but it is the other species.

2. Tecomaria capensis, cape honeysuckle really was prettier earlier. Its bloom is not too profuse, but it is distinctly orange. Goodness, I really should have taken a better picture.

3. Rosmarinus officinalis, rosemary is badly infested with mites, but blooms regardless. It is right across the road from the silver dollar, and just as popular with the honeybees.

4. Lavandula stoechas, Spanish lavender is the only lavender that self sows here. It does not become invasive though. Its bloom may be blue, pink, white or, obviously, lavender.

5. Tulbaghia violacea, society garlic is one of my least favorite of perennials. It stinks! It is not so much to look at either. It has been here for many years though, and will not die.

6. Grevillea rosmarinifolia, rosemary grevillea seems as popular with hummingbirds as rosemary and silver dollar is with bees. Hummingbirds are prettier than this odd bloom.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

14 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: Shabby Spring”

    1. Lavandula stoechas is the species, which blooms with a variety of colors. Now that you mention it though, I am not aware of any named cultivars. The only specimens that I remember from nurseries bloom with lavender color. Those that grow from seed may be lavender, blue, pink or white. I suspect that colors other than lavender are available from nurseries, but I have not seen it, and I have not seen any named cultivars. Now you have me wondering.

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  2. It is always so interesting that your flowers and foliage in California are so different than ours in Virginia. But we both have rosemary in bloom, and my L. stoechas, which is my favorite of the lavandulas, will bloom by early April. The Grevillea is so unusual to my eye. Is that a California species or is it from elsewhere? It looks like your pollinators are well-fed and happy this spring with this beautiful selection for early March.

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    1. Grevilleas are mostly Australian, although a few are from New Guinea, New Caledonia and Sulawesi. (I have no idea where those places are.) What is so appealing about Spanish lavender? It happens to be my favorite, but so-called ‘landscapers’ do not use it. English lavender cultivars are the only popular sorts.

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      1. Spanish lavender is the species which survives the best through our hot, humid summers and occasionally heavy rain. We have predominantly clay soil, so any Lavandula is a challenge in these conditions- did I mention partial shade? But the Spanish lavender is more forgiving and persists much longer than the others. I have tried some of the new cultivars- like Phenomenal- and I had good success with them in a raised bed with perfect, imported soil and gravel mulch at the botanical garden. There I could grow and display a variety of Lavandulas. But here at home, I prefer the Spanish because it also blooms early and long and needs little maintenance or special treatment. And, I like its flower. It’s foliage is always neat and healthy. You have a much better climate for growing Lavandulas than we do here.

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      2. Yes, but the neatly rounded English lavenders rot if irrigated too generously. I suppose we should be more careful about irrigating them generously only when new, and then decreasing their irrigation and moving their emitters a bit farther away as they mature. I do like their neat form, since Spanish lavender is so irregular. I just can not argue with Spanish lavender though. Some of it appears where not much else grows, and it needs nothing from us.

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    1. Rosemary grevillea does well within the chaparral climates here, likely because it is native to a similar chaparral climate. I dislike it only because I am allergic to the foliage (almost like poison oak), but it works well within landscapes that I do not need to work in.

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      2. They are not much of a sight because they move so fast. However, I work for arborists who are quite fearless. They work in backyards with fierce dogs, and climb trees that are inhabited by coons, possums, skunks, hawks and all sorts of potentially intimidating wildlife. It is quite a sight to see one of them fleeing an attacking hummingbird. Arborists respect hummingbirds, and will delay work within a tree that hummingbirds are actively nesting in. The problem is that such nests are so dinky and so well camouflaged that arborists often get too close before seeing them.

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