Making the most of Sheltering

Every man - or woman - needs a hobby, isn't that what they say? If so, gardening seems like a damn fine one. With many of us at home due to the pandemic, having a garden to get involved with has been a real life saver. That's especially true for those of us with big gardens or with ambitious garden plans that we'd been putting off. The nursery I work at has been incredibly busy, as people pour in to buy not only plants but mulch, bark for ground cover, fertilizers etc. It is a blessing too to be able to share my garden with an even wider group of neighbors, now that they have time to walk their dogs or very young children in strollers. If our gardens are the canvas that we create, it certainly is a pleasure to share this 'art' with those around us.
And now here are some of the fruits of my labors.

Lily Double Sensation. One last photo of one of my favorite lilies.

One of three new lilies I added to a new wooden planter this spring, this Lily Playtime proved to be one of the most fantastic. Huge flowers and very fragrant!

Lisianthus hybrid. These flowers are called Silk Roses cuz, well, they do kind of look like roses.

There are an endless number of California native flowers, only a portion of which are easily found in the nursery trade. One that's a bit hard to find is Wooly Blue Curls (Trichostema lanatum). Much beloved by bees and sporting small fuzzy purple flowers on sloping branches, it's a summer delight.

Helenium Mardi Gras. I think of Heleniums, Echinaceas and Rudbeckias as one group, all having nectar rich flowers that bees love.

Paradise lane. Okay, just shady lane as I call it but as you can see, it's densely planted, despite only narrow beds lining the walkway and a raised cement ledge on the right.

This is my Sun King bed. Yes, yet again another Beatles reference. It gets lots of sun so I can - and have over the years - plant pretty much anything there and it flourishes.

Although the flowers are small and the foliage wispy, those red and yellow flowers are Coreopsis radiata Tigrina. 

Here's another of those 3 varieties of lily in the square wooden planter, in this case L. Tiger Moon. Like most tiger type lilies, the flowers are nodding. Although I didn't plan it, it just so happened that these 3 lily varieties all are predominantly white. That's made for quite the show!

Speak of the devil, here are those three lilies. The third one, The Edge, is white with a pink border and is also intensely fragrant.

Bouvardia ternifolia. Red, red, red. 

Succulents bed. I'm gradually made over the front of my driveways bed - which mostly houses Australian shrubs - into a succulent garden. 

As I've mentioned, I've been on a bit of a bromeliads tear. Here's the main collection.

Oops, another shot of my Lisianthus somehow snuck in here.

Dianthus variety. Though pinks, reds and whites dominate for Dianthus (carnations), there are a host of other colors, including this salmon-colored variety.

Lily Scheherazade. Yes, from the Arabian Nights. Love the rich colors on this reliable bloomer.

On the other hand, a few lilies are more delicate, like this L. Lankongense. Very delicate, pale lavender and with fully recurved petals, it's a beauty.

Lily Portland. This variety, a new one for 2020, is supposed to be more heavily spotted. We'll see what the flowers on stems two and three look like.

White lilies seem to be a theme this year. Here's another one called Solution. They came out perfect.

Lily Conca d'Or. An oldie but goodie.

Lily Montego Bay. This variety is in year 4 or 5 and is still producing, though not in the numbers of previous years.

Begonia odorata White. This guy is having its best year yet and it's just getting started.