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.

Pink Spring Flowers - more from UC Botanical Garden

California redbud, Cercus occidentalis. This shrubby tree has gorgeous red buds that look ready to burst into bloom. Here's a picture of one blooming. Great color. I'm thinking this would be a nice addition to the yard.

This beauty is a malva rose or Lavatera assurgentiflora. It is in the mallow family.

These hanging clusters of flowers are pink flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum glutinosum. The link here is to the Yerba Buena Nursery, which is off Skyline Blvd. just south of where Woodside Road crosses it. It's a very cool place to visit and a great place to see and purchase California native plants. The road driving in is narrow and it drops off very steeply, so drive carefully. They're having a tea party there on March 15.

Lastly, here is prickly-phlox or Leptodactylon californicum. It does look like the leaves are prickly.
No pink flowers here, but I thought this was sort of interesting. It's mistletoe (as in kissing under the...) growing out of the trunk of a cedar. It is a parasitic plant.

Field Trip - UC Botanical Garden

Prickly pear cactus with fruit and ceanothus flowers.

Sunday we took a field trip to the East Bay. We had lunch at Sea Salt on San Pablo in Berkeley. They specialize in seafood and were serving the brunch menu. Steve had the BBQ Eel 'Banh Mi' with cabbage slaw and house-made potato chips. It's a Vietnamese style sandwich made with unagi, which is the eel like you get when you order sushi. (This was a pretty bold choice, I thought.) I ordered the Fried Cod Cheeks with crispy potatoes, black olive, parsley and two poached eggs. Seems like "cheeks"of all sorts are very popular these days on trendy menus. Steve's slaw was great. I couldn't put my finger on what the seasoning was, but it tasted unique. My entree was good, although a bit too oily for my taste. The place was pretty nice. They have an outdoor eating area in the back. It was a little cool, but still nice enough to sit outside. Michael Bauer gave the place a pretty good review.

After lunch we headed over to the UC Botanical Garden. It is located in Strawberry Canyon, in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus. What a tranquil spot. We enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere and I practiced using the macro option on our little digital camera to capture some spring blooms. As soon as we stepped into the "California" section, we noticed a garter snake wriggling away under some plants. There were lots of these Coast range fence lizards.

I took pictures of the manzanita, I think it was Arctostaphylos densiflora. There are different varieties there. Here are the pretty delicate white bell-shaped flowers:

Here you see the ripe red berries:

And I was trying to get a shot of the light shining through the peeling red bark of a manzanita bush, and managed to capture a spider's web as well.


It was a good place to go to view some blooming California native plants, since I'm trying to decide what to plant in my backyard. There were quite a few birds: Bushtits, Ruby-crowned kinglets, Chestnut-backed chickadees, Red-shafted flickers, Turkey vultures, and some singing birds whose songs I did not recognize. Also, there were Anna's hummingbirds displaying. I saw this article in the paper recently that two UC Berkeley students recently determined that they make the rather loud sound with their wings, instead of vocally, which I think is really cool.

We had to cut our visit short because they close the gate at 5:00 sharp. It was too bad, because of today being the first day of "springing forward" the clocks, we got an even later than usual start and there was still a lot of daylight left. We hated to leave. Tomorrow I will post the pink wildflower photos.