In a Vase on Monday: A new color palette to work with

I had a hard time getting excited about my flower choices this week. I'd just about settled on a flashy purple gladiola, when I noticed new blooms on my Grevillea 'Moonlight'. 'Moonlight' hasn't flowered often since the shrub was planted several years ago, and I can't recall ever using it for an 'In a Vase on Monday' post. However, once I settled on that choice, I was off and running with an entirely different color scheme.

Although 'Moonglow' got me started, it was one member of an ensemble cast that included Alstroemeria, Leucadendrons, and even a Leucospermum among other plants

Back view

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left are: Alstroemeria 'Claire', Corokia x virgata 'Sunsplash', noID Leucanthemum superbum, Grevillea 'Moonlight', Leucadendron 'Jubilee Crown', L. 'Wilson's Wonder', Leucospermum 'California Sunshine', and Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'

Arrangement in place

I may make use of the gladiolas next week when there are more of them in full bloom.  Then again, the lilies may be ready to take off by then so there could be a tug of war.  The dahlia tubers are moving forward, but slowly, so there's plenty of time left to enjoy the current season without dashing into summer.

For posts from other IAVOM contributors, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: The blues

It's been an odd spring.  It started off early as usual here in late February.  I posted photos of my first Dutch Iris on March 1st.  Unfortunately, as I ended up in the hospital, most of the Iris were gone by the time I got home later that month.  I only recently got back to doing any gardening.  My dahlia bulbs have gotten started in pots but it'll be a while before I see any flowers from them.  In the meantime, I'm making use of my blue flowers in the form of agapanthus and larkspur.  Here's this week's vase.

Too much?  Most of the noID Agapanthus came with house.  The flowers return reliably each year.

Back view: The larkspur (Consolida ajacis) flowered better this year than last but still not as well as in previous years.

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: 'Abelia 'Hopley's Variegated, noID blue and white Agapanthus, Centranthus ruber 'Alba', noID Consolida ajacis, and Echium 'Star of Madeira'

After an extended heatwave in March, April was comfortable but it's been on the cool side for the past week.  I'm hoping for sunnier skies and warmer temperatures in the low 70s (22C) later this week.

For more IAVOM posts, check in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: Missing in action

I've been missing in action for several weeks due to medical issues but I'm on the road to recovery.  Many thanks for the good wishes and support I've received from the garden blogging community.  My blog posts are likely to remain short and few in number for a time yet but as always I enjoy reading what others have posted.

Here's one simple In a Vase on Monday post I managed to put together yesterday.

My yellow Leucospermums are still relatively abundant

Back view

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Abelia 'Kaleidoscope', Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Alstroemeria 'Indian Summer', Leonotis leonurus, and Leucospermum 'High Gold'

Arrangement in place

I look forward to joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden and the rest of the IAVOM crowd sharing a post now and again.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

IAVOM: Everything Everywhere All at Once

I haven't actually seen anything but clips of the movie, 'Everything Everywhere All at Once', but that was my reaction when I stepped into my own garden yesterday morning.  It'd be easier to list what isn't blooming than what is at the moment.  Even the new species tulip bulbs I planted in December, Tulipa linifolia 'Honky Tonk', have burst into bloom, although I didn't end up including any of them in the two vases I created this week.  However, I did stop myself from putting together more than two arrangements.

This is Tulipa 'Honky Tonk'.  It's cute and, by my count, the majority of the 25 bulbs I planted are already blooming or in bud but the stems are still relatively short for inclusion in a vase.

My first arrangement stars the blue Dutch Irises that appeared last week.  Two other Dutch Iris cultivars are also already in bloom.

The 'Sapphire Beauty' Iris are fewer in number this year, probably because many of the bulbs surrounding our backyard fountain were damaged or consumed by gophers along with the yellow Freesia in the same area

Back view

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt', Ageratina adenophora, Anemone coronaria 'Lord Lieutenant', Iris x hollandica 'Sapphire Beauty', white and yellow Freesias, white Ranunculus, and Leucospermum 'High Gold'

I used another Leucospermum as the centerpiece of my second arrangement.

'Royal Hawaiian Brandi' is the most flamboyant of my Leucospermums

 

Back view

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Leucadendron 'Jester', yellow Freesia, Alstroemeria 'Indian Summer', A. 'Inca Sundance', Gladiolus nanus 'Las Vegas, and Leucospermum 'Royal Hawaiian Brandi'

Our temperatures steadily climbed last week, peaking at 90F/32C on Friday before coming slowly down to the low 80sF/28C yesterday.  I suspect that the warmer conditions may be responsible for the floral explosion.  The marine layer is expected to bring temperatures down a bit further during the next few days before they creep up again as we head into the weekend.  I'm laying odds that my sweet peas will bloom sometime in March this year, as opposed to May, which is when they showed up last year.

For more 'In a Vase on Monday' posts, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

A little progress and a few lost causes

Given that the feeling of spring has been in the air for some time now, I've done remarkably little plant shopping and not a lot of planting either.  My focus has been on maintenance and weeding, more weeding and still more weeding.  However, earlier this week I finally hunkered down and transplanted a few agave pups that have been waiting for their forever home for months.

This is a wide shot of my northeast side garden area taken in early January.  The pots have been sitting there for months.

I ended up planting just the 2 'Blue Glow' Agave pups I harvested from their bloomed-out parent last September, and one still tiny Agave colorata pup I'd potted up in 2024.  I plan to add filler plants, Pelargoniums perhaps, to soften the look there.

Closeup of the 3 agaves.  The shape of the 'Blue Glow' in the middle concerns me a little but I'm hoping it loosens up now that it's in the ground.

I relocated the Agave geminiflora in a pot but it may not stay there

I'd planned to plant the large Agave 'Mateo' in the ground but it was badly root-bound and infested with ants so I gave up on that once I broke it out of its pot.  I saved 2 good-sized pups for placement elsewhere.

I've continued to my pruning efforts, although I'm by no means done there.  It's been my number two maintenance project after weeding.

Pruning the 'Wilson Wonder's Leucadendrons is a biannual task.  The photo on the left was taken in early January.  Its colorful bracts had faded and the stems were above the roofline before I trimmed it back, as shown on the right.  Bringing down its height and girth also required cutting back the Pittosporum tobira hedge next to it to allow me to reach the back of the Leucadendron.

I pruned the Senna bicapsularis back by a third and I was surprised how quickly and how well it's bounced back

Working on the ivy that takes off whenever I so much as blink feels pointless at times but things would be worse if I sloughed off that task entirely.  The back slope provides the biggest challenge as I'm not in control of the mass of ivy that spreads across the property line on our southeast side - there's no fence or other barrier there and the property line itself isn't clear.  In addition, the ground drops off sharply in some places, which isn't readily apparent because they're buried under ivy.

I didn't take a "before" photo of this area.  This photo was taken an hour or more after I cut back the ivy and grass weeds that covered the area in the foreground.  There's still a lot of work to be done to push the ivy back another foot or more closer to the property line, which I need to tackle before warmer temperatures bring out the fire ants.

The mass of ivy to the left of the area shown in the earlier photo (shown on the left in this collage) included woody branches I initially thought were leftovers of the dead Ceanothus I had removed in November.  As it turns out, those are trunks of ivy plants that have grown several feet tall.  I cut those back as shown in the photo on the right but, once again, more work is required. 

I recently spent hours working on another project that could very well be a lost cause too: the removal of a massive clump of Boston fern (Nephrolepsis exaltata) that's crept under the fence between us and our neighbor on our north side.  I made two runs at it before I was even partially satisfied.

The "before" photo is on the left and the "after" photo is on the right.  The bulbous roots of the Boston ferns are everywhere but I dug up as much of them out as I could.  Routine scrutiny will be required. 

The list of what may be other lost causes is growing too.

The lime tree is still producing fruit but it nonetheless looks sad - and I haven't even tried to remove the Boston ferns at its base.  I'm leaning in the direction of removing the tree next fall, in which case the ferns will come out with the tree.

It made no good sense planting this Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' between a fence and the narrow path that leads down our back slope in the first place back in 2011.  Although it's flowered well, it's become woody and rangy with lots of dead branches.  Grevilleas don't like being pruned to bare wood but I may give that a try to see if there's any hope of rejuvenating it.

This Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl'  looked awkward here even when it was backed by a fence.  Its trunk now leans like the Tower of Pisa (as a result of that fence), although it's blooming better than it did before.  I'll try reducing it by a foot in height but I suspect there are plants that would fit better into this spot.

This dwarf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum 'Mikawa Yatsubusa') isn't looking so good now that it's no longer protected from the sun and wind by the former fence.  I'll wait awhile to see how it looks a month or two from now.

I'm not the only one working on my garden either.  I watched two major projects in the works over the past week.

Our neighbors across the street had their back slope cleared of rosemary shrubs and replanted with other shrubs.  I think there's Coleonema 'Sunset Gold', Salvia leucantha and another shrub I can't identify in the mix but I haven't had the opportunity to ask them what they included.  The work took most of 2 weeks, interrupted at times by rain.

Work restarted across the canyon after a lengthy pause (since my September post) but it's still focused on that neighbor's sprawling patio.  The contractors resurfaced the stairs to match the adjacent walls and pillars.  It looks as though they may be installing a water feature too, as well as adding more metal pieces to the guardrails along the elevated walkway.  There's no evidence of new plant installations, though.  

That's in for me this week.  I plan to make another pass at the ivy on the back slope this weekend and hopefully prune my other 'Wilson's Wonder' Leucadendron, with more weeding thrown in of course.  Enjoy your weekend!

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

It's raining cats and dogs!

No, it's not raining now.  Our most recent rain was last Thursday.  By late Thursday morning, all the clouds had left to offer were light sprinkles.  However, our rooftop weather station nonetheless suddenly went berserk.

When I looked to see if the weather gauge had recorded anything more than 0.05/inch for the day, I saw the numbers for both the daily rain and the rain year were rapidly increasing despite no evidence there was any rain outdoors.  Note the byline shown at the bottom of the screen, which actually said "It's raining cats and dogs,"  something I'd never seen before even during real downpours.

As the light sprinkles clearly didn't produce twenty-two inches of rain within minutes, my husband went up on the roof to take a look at our weather station.  He removed some debris and changed the battery in the unit.  We reset the data to the the last setting we knew to be correct, only to have the readings almost immediately jump again (without any noticeable rainfall).  At some point, the measure of the rain also somehow changed from inches to millimeters.  The next morning, this is what I found:

The system was no longer reporting any daily rain but look at the rain year total: 1,715.3 millimeters.  That's almost 68 inches!

My husband contacted the man who'd sold the weather station to him to see if he could account for the problem.  He offered one suggestion but my husband questioned it as, if that were the problem, it should've also affected the temperature and humidity readings, which it hadn't.  The seller agreed with my husband at that point.  They concluded that the sensor that tracks current rain may have been damaged somehow.  For the time being, we've reset the rain gauge again and will wait to see if the next rainstorm causes a repeat of the problem.

The weather station was a Christmas gift to me from my husband several years ago.  When I asked whether we should simply replace the unit, I was surprised to learn that a replacement would cost about $600!  So, if it happens again, he'll look into the possibility of replacing just the sensor.  For now, I have a backup plan.

I bought a simple plastic rain gauge, which I set out in my cutting garden

To the best of our knowledge, our current rain total for the 2026 "water year" (counted from October 1, 2025) is 10.64 inches in our location.  The nearby valleys, foothills, and mountain areas got much more.  We may have gotten a bit more at our location than we recorded in November as our gauge was temporarily clogged.  I found a monthly count for my zip code yesterday, which shows a total of 13.13 inches.  If correct, that isn't horrible, even if it turns out to be all we get for the current water year.

We've left our last recorded data as is for now as we can't definitively say that our total replicates that for the area defined by our zip code

There seems to be little chance of rain in the foreseeable future.  Our rainy season generally comes to an end by mid-April, which could mean that 10.64 (or 13.13) inches may be all we'll get until the next water year begins in October.  Last year's total was worse, though, at only 7.03 inches.  At least my rain storage tanks are full for the time being.

Meanwhile, there's snow in the nearby mountains again.

Until the stretch of rainstorms in February, snow totals statewide had been running low

And there are California poppies already blooming in my garden.

I had just a few poppies in total last year

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: The calla lilies show up

My friend Hoover Boo (the handle she goes by on her blog, Piece of Eden) often says "rain is magic" and that seems to be the case this year.  Our largely unirrigated back slope came with a plethora of calla lily bulbs, something I discovered our first spring living here.  The plants go underground as soon as summer arrives, only to reappear with the rain.  However, I had fewer plants and very few flowers last year.  They seem committed to making a comeback this year.

I pulled 7 of the tall lily stems but cut them down to better fit with the other materials I collected

Back view: the Lotus berthelotii (aka parrot's beak) is attempting to steal the show

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Antirrhinum majus, Freesia, Grevillea 'Poorinda Leane', Lotus berthelotii, and Zantedeschia aethiopica

I changed my mind a few times about a second arrangement, both about having one and what flowers I'd use if I did.  In the end, I leaned into the blues, primarily because they're so readily available at present.  The anemones and sea squill won't last long once the temperatures soar so I decided I'd best use them while I can. 

I added a touch of yellow to break up the blues a bit

Back view: I filled in with stems of Ageratina adenophora (aka Crofton weed), a plant native to Mexico and considered invasive in California, which I believe planted itself here a couple of years ago.  I cut it back hard last year but decided not to pull it out.  It hasn't spread (yet) but it has grown back to its former size.

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Ageratina adenophora, Narcissus papyraceus, Osteospermum '4D Pink', Anemone coronaria 'Azzurro', A. c. 'Lord Lieutenant', Hebe 'Grace Kelly' (which is gradually losing its variegated foliage), and Scilla peruviana

We got over two inches of rain last week, which was great.  Unfortunately, the additional rain originally forecast for later this week has all but completely evaporated.  AccuWeather's longer-term forecasts show the possibility of more rain in mid-to-late March but the chances they've floated are nothing to lay bets on.  Meanwhile, I'm all too aware that our rainy season typically comes to an end in April.

For more IAVOM creations, check in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party