Irises, Ranunculuses, Statice, Dondo Blue, and More

I know that I keep showcasing my irises and ranunculuses all the time but they are really fantastic flowers!  I just LOVE the vibrant and pastel colors.  My Samsung A32 phone captured all of these wonderful colors.  Having a great camera on my phone is the most important thing and storage space comes in second.  This phone does that and so far, it is my favorite.

Getting back to the flowers, the irises below look like previous irises but this one has a yellow tongue, properly called a sepal. It is truly, wonderfully,  MAGNIFICENT! I took about a thousand pictures and narrowed down to the fab four below. In real life the colors are a dark blue with orange-yellow sepals like the first picture. 

STATICE AND EUPHORBIA

Statice is the lavender flowers below and is one of those plants you can grow and forget. They grow and flower without much watering or fertilizing. They last forever dried and likely months in a vase. I grew them from seeds three years ago and literally forgot about them until I noticed them against these delightful lemony yellow euphorbias. Aren’t they gorgeous together???

RANUNCULUS

These ranunculuses look like delicious lollipops. They are all in my favorite colors. I take pictures of them daily because they change in colors and size. With ranunculus, you can also put in the ground and forget. The bulbs for them are pretty inexpensive for about 10-20 of them. They usually come up a few weeks after planting. And they return each spring. That’s a great investment. These have been in the ground for 2 years. I never dig them up in the winter here in southern California.

ORNAMENTAL KALE

These kales I showed you a few weeks ago have started the re-seeding process. You can see the flower heads are raised and tiny seed heads are popping up. It’s a darn shame it can’t stay a rose-like flower. The colors in the garden is amazing!

TULIP “LITTLE BEAUTY”

This little cutie was buried under my wildly growing nasturtiums. I really had to peek inside to see her nesting low in the ground. These are not tall tulips, probably about 6 inches tall stems. I planted it in a small raised bed all year and it comes up in the spring. Tulips are great little things to add in the garden, they are very low maintenance and quietly return each year.

SALVIA “PINK TEXAS “

Have you seen a more prettier pink salvia?  I love this plant.  I am putting it under a big, blue-purple tree and the soil is pretty bad but so far it is flowering and doing okay.  So if you are looking for plants for difficult soil in your garden, I recommend these. When you first transplant or plant anything, it is best to keep it moist for at least a couple of weeks in the ground before you cut back on watering.  You have to baby them at first until the roots get settled in their new location.

GERBERA DAISIES

These are beautiful daisies but they keep growing squished like this. Their faces are pinched together! I still don’t understand why it keeps looking like this. Other gerbera daisies I have don’t look like this.  I rarely leave my favorite flowers in a pot but gerbera is an exception.  My gerbera do better in the pots than growing in the ground.  These gerbera flower all through the year even in the frosty cold weather of 39 degrees Fahrenheit!

CALIFORNIA POPPY “ALBA”

These California poppies have been mentioned in my blog a lot because it is has the prettiest, buttery yellow in the world and this is as close to the actual color that I can get it.  True artists can appreciate the subtle blending out of colors from dark yellow to  a faded baby yellow.  I’m always so disappointed that my wonderful camera cannot capture the yellow flowers from afar, it always looks white if I zoom out. In real life, it is a tall mass of beautiful, buttery yellow flowers.  They have flowers all year, spring is its finest though.

AGERATUM DONDO BLUE

Dondo blues are a joy to grow.  They have been planted by seeds about 3 years ago and it is growing all year long.  The main flowering period is in spring.  A few posts back I mentioned growing plants that multiply or that never dies, these should have been in that group.  This year is the best that I have seen in that spot.  Pollinators love these because they are attracted to blue.  No idea why, I read it somewhere a million years ago and thought I should grow lots of blue.  That’s why I have so much borage, dondo blue, and chicory growing in the garden.

Now that I’ve shown you the flowers up close, take a look at the garden in whole below.  You’ll see the dondo blues next to the tall blue borage that I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Don’t you just love the colors  in my garden?  I’m in love. 

I love the colors I picked for my house too.  I wanted to pick a blue that stands out from the rest of the boring browns and greys in my neighborhood. That blue is a great background for my garden. 

I will finish off for now.  Next week or sometimes soon I will post pictures of the garden as a whole again.  I really love to show you the colors that are in my garden right now.  It truly is a piece of accidental art that I made.  Everything is grown haphazardly with little design and forethought.