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jakkom

Xmas in Northern CA - lots of photos

jakkom
12 years ago

Well....one week pre-Xmas, LOL. This is our busy season: lots of weeding (winter rains started then petered out, so all the little nasties are everywhere), cleaning up dead leaves (still falling; half are still hanging on), and planting the "holes" - places where something new is needed for replacement or a new focal point.

Here's what's been blooming since Dec. 15th:

I wanted a rose bouquet for the Xmas table, but it ain't gonna happen - Mother Nature decided to bloom this week, not next:

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My heirloom iris are reblooming, and I caught one backlit with some nasturtium and in the upper left, a vivid pelargonium:

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My two 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas hardly flowered at all, the summer was so cool overall. Oddly, this one refuses to give up even though we've had some light frost! There's a little bud trying to form in the bottom center leaves:

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Rhaphiolepsis indica 'Ballerina' struggles through our cold rainy winters, but I have two that have managed to survive, and are now in bloom:

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The first Narcissus has opened, but it will be at least a couple of months before the freesias bloom again:

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J&P's 'Ladies in Waiting' shrub rose is the rare small rose that is very fragrant, but it won't keep in the vase:

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This spot is a real problem area in an otherwise perfect shaded, north-facing bed. At least eight plants have died here since 2003, some of them expensive ones! Let's see if this cheapo variegated pelargonium can fill it in:

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I have two passifloras - one coral and this purple one. The coral is more cold-resistant but the Gulf Fritillary butterflies prefer the purple, which gets rather ratty by January and has to be tediously cleaned up.

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We have three Meyer lemon plants. I've always thought they have the loveliest little flowers, like miniature orchids. And the scent is amazing, although in cold weather flower perfumes virtually disappear:

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Here's the Meyer in our front yard bed. I'll have lots of lemons for Xmas to give away to friends and family:

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Our biggest and oldest Meyer is a bush, as it sprang up from a seedling produced by my neighbor's Meyer. It isn't true that Meyers don't reproduce, but what does seem to be true is that the fertility rate is so poor, you can't count on them. This is why almost all Meyers sold are cloned or grafted. Out of hundreds of lemons dropped by its parent (my neighbor never picks them - go figure!), this is the sole offspring that sprouted. The statue is a Chinese "moon rabbit":

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It's surprisingly difficult to get a decent picture of my lavendar lantana montevidensis, because the flowers are so tiny, even my macro struggles with it. This is about the best it can do:

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Pineapple sage turned out to be a big show-off and a bit of a bully. Instead of 2x2' it jumped to 3x4' and likes to lean on its neighbors, necessitating some ruthless pruning. But the leaf color is amazing, and those flowers absolutely jump out at you:

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A friend gave me this Japanese maple when it was a sad little twig. Five years later it's happily sited in a spot it likes, and I managed to catch it at the perfect time. It's showing four colors at once: green, yellow, orange and red.

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A closeup:

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Here's more of those iris, in a photo I also posted to another thread here:

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Impatiens sodenii is sometimes called the 'poor man's rhododendron'. It gets damaged by frost, but recovers quickly as the ground never freezes here:

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"Intrigue", a floribunda tree rose, with a lovely citrus scent:

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The "Joseph's Coat" climber is managing to hang on for a while longer as well. Roses are actually evergreen out here, but they get less disease if they're pruned back around January:

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Helleborus argutifolius - I don't know why I don't see these in everybody's garden out here. They grow so well here, and take relatively little care. They may not be so fancy in color as the new hybrids, but these flower stalks last 6-7 months, which is amazing.

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Pink cestrum meets Bearss Lime flowers:

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Last but not least, a Buddha for the 21st century - note he is serenely typing away on his laptop! - framed by a Solanum jasminoids vine on an arbor:

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Happy holidays to all!

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