My Etsy Shop

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Ethereal Beauty of Spring

I've been driving by this gorgeous tree in my neighborhood covered with blossoms day after day and I finally remembered to bring the camera with me today to get a photo of it. Too bad it wasn't sunny this morning. It's completely glorious with the morning sun shining on it. It looks like it's lit from within.

While I was taking the photos, a man I recognized from the neighborhood stopped on his bicycle to comment on this tree. He said he thinks it has retained its blossoms longer this year because the weather has been cooler. According to him, it has been in bloom for almost 2 months. Anyone know what kind of tree this is? Please leave a comment.

This huge ceanothus bush is growing around the corner from my house. I've been admiring it for years. When I walk by it in bloom, the fragrance is heady. It's always buzzing with bees. The common name is wild California lilac. But it doesn't smell anything like the lilacs back east, which I miss so much. The scent is sort of, well, wild.

In keeping with my vow to "go native" with my garden, I planted a couple of what I think is the same variety of ceanothus in my back yard. This one is called Julia Phelps. As you can see, mine have a LONG way to go to get to the size of my neighbor's ceanothus. It might help if I cleared out all the weeds surrounding them.

I made a trip to the Haight Ashbury Recycling Center Native Plant Nursery a couple of weeks ago. One word describes this place...funky! It's smack in the middle of the recycling center, and the place fairly reeks of stale beer and garbage and there are lots of flies buzzing around, along with those folks who steal the recycling from the bins in front of your house. They have a cat who looks like she weighs about 25 lbs., (no lie...check the link...there's a picture.) Greg, who runs it, is so into recycling, that he makes these plant markers out of old aluminum blinds. He's the only one who seems to know where things are there. Greg has a garden a few blocks from our house, which is either an amazing display of native plants, or the abomination of the neighborhood, depending on your point of view. Here are the plants I bought there, yet to be planted in the ground. (Awaiting removal of the aforementioned weeds.)

Speaking of natives, here are a few of my California poppies growing in the front yard. Steve thought that they had volunteered, but I planted seed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi..I think it is a dogwood tree...anyhow...love the every day is earth day canvas bags...April 22nd is my birthday so I have always been an earth Mother..have to have one of those..running off to Amy's house for the week...to babysit the munchkins while they go to Amelia Island on vacation...busy week. talk later,

love the bags.
carol

Dorothy Reinhardt said...

Hiya fellow Earth Day baby! I'm glad you like the totes.

I did an illustration of dogwood flowers once, and those flowers have a different shape. I drove a different way today, and found there are a bunch of those trees in the neighborhood.