Too warm to linger long

My blood pressure has been running a bit high and, as I don't want to take medication to control it, I've started making it a point to walk each morning.  Earlier this week, instead of walking my own neighborhood, I drove to South Coast Botanic Garden about five miles away to walk there.  I took photos of some of the highlights.

The Japanese Garden doesn't change remarkably from one season to another but it always starts my tours of the garden off on a peaceful note

This area still shows up on the garden map posted online as the Volunteer Garden but I don't know how much involvement the volunteers have with it anymore.  This particular area was packed with Salvias and, as a result, it was also the site of lively hummingbird activity.

There are a variety of Agaves in the mix, one of which was sporting a bloom stalk

Closeup of one noID Salvia and a hummingbird.  I'd considered bringing a telesphoto lens with me to the garden but I didn't want to tote that around so the hummingbird photo was the best I could manage by cropping a photo taken from several feet away.

The area adjacent to the Living Wall has been undergoing changes off and on for some time.  In the past, anyone who wanted to eat at the garden had to use one of the picnic tables set up in the parking lot.  Small tables with seating appeared in 2021.  A refreshment stand was set up near the plant stand for a time, although I don't remember seeing it during my last two visits; however, refreshments are periodically offered in connection with various events.  I understand that the garden has been planning to make more formal arrangements for onsite food service and it looks like they're getting closer there, although I don't remember seeing an announcement about this in their monthly newsletters.

This certainly looks like the entrance to a food service area

Plants on all sides provide the area with a sense of enclosure

The Living Wall provides the backdrop for the area

The sign shown on the upper left is the clearest evidence of an official refreshment stand, although I saw no signs that it was open for business yet.  There's no menu inside that frame but it's obviously intended to hold something.  The lights and roll-up windows are further evidence that something's in the works.

 I checked in on the rose garden next.

The roses could use deadheading but I expect that's true all the time at this point in the season.  As this is a wedding venue, I suspect deadheading happens on a schedule linked to those events.

One vantage point showed a gardener mowing the grass in the meadow below around the flamingo topiaries, moving them as he worked

 

The Banyan Grove was my next stop.  It was closed for a month from mid-June through mid-July for the "pre-construction phase" of an undisclosed project.  It's one of my favorite places in the garden so I was curious to see what evidence of the new project  might be evident.

Everything looked normal on the surface here

But then I noticed that the soil level was higher in one area and that a protective cover had been placed over the surface-level roots of at least 2 trees

Other areas have now been impacted by the ongoing project as evidenced by the broad area now screened off by signs and yellow caution tape.  The lavender field is obviously affected.

My suspicion is that all this marks the start of the development of the new children's garden.  The current children's garden is almost as old as the botanic garden itself.  Built by volunteers around nursery rhymes, it doesn't resonate as well with children today, or at least that was my experience when I conducted tours as a docent.  Even so, I love this vignette of a child-sized house in the distance framed by the massive tree in the foreground.  Whatever they do with the old children's garden, I hope the tree is preserved.

 

By the time I got to the Desert Garden it was warmer and, with humidity also rising as a byproduct of the monsoonal moisture to the east of us, I decided to end my walk after a spin of that area.

View looking at the front of the Desert Garden a short distance from the Rose Garden

A large but well-kept Kalanchoe beharensis (left) and a giant grass tree (Xanthorrhoea sp.) in bloom (right).  What looks like yellow flowers on the grass tree's left flower stalk is actually the flower stalk of an Agave a distance behind it.

This extension to the Desert Garden, focused largely on Aloes, is still relatively bare in terms of plantings but this section looked good

It being August, the garden has fewer flowers than usual but I snapped some photos as I moved from one area to another.

I noticed a smattering of flowers on this very large Barleria obtusa (bush violet).  Mine don't generally have any blooms until late September at best (but I also don't allow my plants to get this big).

Bahinia galpinii (aka red orchid bush) I think

A vigorous noID Fuchsia

Clockwise from the upper left: Amaryllis belladonna, Crinium (I think), Cassia leptophylla (aka gold medallion tree), Drimia maritima, Gomphocarpus physocarpus (aka hairy balls milkweed), Pandorea jasminoides 'Rosea', and Passiflora

 

I spied the most interesting flowers I've seen in a long time as I exited the garden and entered the parking lot.

After a little digging, I discovered that this is Combretum fruticosum, aka orange flame vine.  Via Instagram, landscape designer David Feix let me know that San Marcos Growers, a wholesale nursery, grows this plant.  A comprehensive description of the plant can be found on SMG's site here.

 

That's it for me this week.  There's a very slight chance of a stray thunderstorm here but, as the weather forecasters have teased that possibility for over a week, I consider it highly unlikely.  At least the cloud cover has been keeping our temperatures in the low 80sF/27-28C but it's muggy.  Historically, Southern California has been known for its dry heat but, like many things climate-related, that seems to be changing.  I hope you enjoy a pleasant weekend wherever you are.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party