The Bulb Maven

Spring in the Sierras

 

It is past the time I usually take my annual trip to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Work has been rather intense, and agility trials have also intervened.  Having a trial lined up in Sacramento, I decided to combine it with a trip to Table Mountain in Butte County near the town of Oroville, where I once lived in the hope that I was not too late for the wildflowers.

This is the second or third year of drought for California, and the region around Oroville seemed very dry.  The hills were still green, though, since we were fortunate enough to have some late rain storms.  Rain usually ceases by about mid March, and the best display of annuals is in late March, with the bulbs appearing later up until the end of April.  You can, of course, go higher into the mountains, and as you ascend it is like working backwards as far as seasons are concerned, finding spring at higher elevations when the display in the foothills is over.  Go higher yet, and you come to real winter with deep snow.

Our first day was on Table Mountain, and there were still some flowers, but our hikes had to be curtailed because the little non-native cranesbills were in seed, and the twisty corkscrew-like seeds matted my dogs feet and legs, necessitating frequent stops to pull them out.  We hiked through a beautiful winding canyon, encountering cows along the way.  This must be the best place in the world for a cow, at least during its short life before it becomes you-know-what.  I had wanted to visit the place where I had scattered the ashes of my previous Wire Fox Terrier, Simon, but the dogs were so distressed by the stickers in their feet we had to give up.  Everywhere I look on that mountain I see him, though, dancing along through the flowers and splashing in the creeks.  He is everywhere on Table Mountain.

Our hikes had to be over by noon, for the temperatures reached about 98F by afternoon, more like July than April, and a very sharp reminder of what summer is like in this region.  The unusual heat wave forced a decision to drive to the snow the next day up the beautiful Feather River Canyon.  More to follow. 

The Morning Walkabout

We (the dogs and I) have been away a great deal for the past three weeks at two dog trials, with more coming up.  Here we are on the beautiful Smith River on our way home from Oregon.

Coming home, my first task is to catch up on e-mail and orders, then take care of the bulbs.  I am having a difficult time tearing myself away from my garden these days, since I am trying to renovate parts of my front yard and it is all starting to look the way I would like it.  I had, mistakenly, planted an escallonia hedge along the front of my yard, wanting privacy from the road and wind protection.  My house faces west, and you can almost see the ocean from the upstairs of my house.  You can actually see it during storms when waves can reach 18ft high, and the surf line is visible across the flat fields.  My property is about a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean with nothing to break the force of the wind, so the hedge seemed a good idea.  It wasn't.  I bought what was supposed to be a dwarf form of escallonia, but in eighteen months they had grown from six inches to seven feet, with no sign of stopping.  With one very large and very long hedge to trim already, and with the escallonias suckering into my small flower borders, I decided they had to go, so I have been slowly digging them out.  It is no easy task, but I have half of them removed, and I am replacing them with a loose mixture of better behaved shrubs.

With most of the catch up work behind me, I can now take my customary strolls around the nursery.  The beautiful Arum creticum is in full bloom.   It has a faint sweetish scent, unlike most Arums, although I do have a clone that I grew from seed that is most definitely not sweetly scented.  Nearby are pots of the hybrid Erythronium 'Pagoda', seen here to the left, and I am thinking that if I can solve the gopher problem I must definitely plant these two in my garden.  They look beautiful together, need similar conditions, and bloom at the same time.  Arums don't seem bothered by slugs, snails or deer, so possibly they wouldn't taste good to gophers, but I am sure they would love the Erythroniums.  Another lovely little Erythronium in bloom now is E. howellii, seen here below. 

Zephyra elegans, seen here to the right, is from Chile, where it grows in very dry conditions.   The usual color is blue, but I have a white flowered one grown from seed.  It has taken five years or more to bloom, and has been difficult to keep happy, so I doubt I will ever be able to offer it on the web site. 

Also from Chile are the Leucocorynes, all in bloom now.  I have posted previously on this genus, but here is the beautiful L. macropetalum.  

I have a small collection of native Alliums, and I am becoming more fond of them as time goes on.  I only grow a few in sufficient quantities to list on the web site, but I do have others that are just for my own enjoyment.  Here is Allium yosemitense, in bloom for me for the first time.   

Yesterday, in my Mediterranean greenhouse, I was amazed to find a small swarm of butterflies.  I am not sure if they hatched in there or all flew in through the opened door.  When I moved to this property I was rather dismayed to find that bees and butterflies were scarce here, but since I have planted my garden this has changed considerably.  Before, there was little here for shelter or nourishment.  I felt pretty certain that my greenhouse wasn't a good environment for a butterfly to prosper, so I spent a large part of the morning capturing them and releasing them outside.

Spring is well established.  The swallows are back, and are swirling around the barn.  The first ones back were the tree swallows, with small flocks arriving a good month ago.  Soon after the barn swallows followed, and they are already investigating nesting places on the house and barn.  I am astonished when people tell me that I should knock their nests down because the 'make a mess'.  Not as bad a mess as we humans, I say.  The geese have mostly departed, with a few stragglers still here, although as I write this I am conscious that I can't hear them, so maybe they have gone too.

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