the fence flower boxes that I just cleaned out...
are now full of leaves and spent oak blossoms again...
thanks to our weekend spring wind/rain storm...
and there appears to be more storm to come today...
inside the back yard, the avocado continues to flourish shamelessly...
next to the nandina that will soon need cutting back, again...
the promising lilac spear has produced blossoms...
although too high up to share their fragrance...
but the Joseph's Coat climber's buds are closer to terra firma...
and are very willing to share fragrance as well as color...
these Black Knight[a deep red rose] buds will open and hold well...
as soon as it's warm & sunny again...
this peach is growing fast...
and there are a lot of them...
I'm really hoping that that threatened hail doesn't develop later today...
it will strip off a lot of set fruit & blossoms...
including these cherries...
and what isn't knocked off or destroyed...
would be scarred, causing possible rot or poor quality...
for me, a loss of a bit of fruit...
but for area farmers, total disaster....
these apple blossoms are just at the setting point...
the grapevine is reaching to the sun...
up through the apple & peach trees...
the pomegranate buds are still very sparse & tightly closed...
they need much more sun & warmth to come out...
the white margarita is flourishing from all the rain...
this would be a good time to plant it...
after the current blooms fade...
and this is just one of the mass of blooms on the Cecil Brunner rose...
such strong memories of my Mom, she loved that rose bush...
I remember, as a kid, searching for the perfect bud to pick for her...
she'd put it in water, in a jelly glass over the sink...
& watch it slowly open...
these wild violets are flourishing in the dampness...
but as yet, haven't produced any blooms...
[they are white...]
and this striped airplane plant container...
has become a perfect nursery for baby Japanese maples...
I've spied a few others in other containers that I'll transplant later too...
if it doesn't get too hot or is too windy this late spring & summer...
so they can survive the transplantation into the shallow bonsai dishes...
I can sometimes keep them going for several years as bonsais...
outside on the patio table...
I also have left an old glass water cooler bottle under the maples...
hoping that nature will encourage some to sprout inside...
for a cool terrarium... one I could never plant on purpose...
but so far, no luck with that...
the dogwood is leafing out...
it had a really hard time last year, I was afraid I'd lose it...
the blossoms,[white], usually come out sometime in April ...
but it's late this year from all the wet, cold weather...
so who knows when, or even if, it will bloom...
these are "oak galls", growing on my volunteer,"valley oak"...
[that large tree in the background that hangs over my garage...]
they are caused when tiny gallwasps, [Andricus californicus]...
bore into the twigs & lay their eggs beneath the bark...
as the larvae hatch & grow, the twig materials swell around them...
forming the oak gall, or oak apple as they are sometimes called...
[oak gall, gallwasp, cross section of a gall with developing pupae & exit hole]
the gallwasp bores a hole on the end of the gall when it is ready to leave...
the abandoned galls sometimes become home to other insects...
they are not a danger to the host oak...
as they do not harm the tree in any way...
here we have a blood orange blossom...
a tangerine blossom...
and lime buds opening...
I included this picture of the Meyer lemon buds...
[even though it's in the front yard...]
because I've never before seen so many buds, [15!]...
clustered so closely together on one branch...
the huge pin oak, which just last week had me sneezing...
itching, coughing & wheezing uncontrollably...
has now, after the most recent wind & rain storms...
deposited spent[thank goodness !] blossoms, EVERYWHERE !
in large nasty piles, which at least the rains have defused...
by washing away the pollen & dust...
here you see from the underside of the umbrella...
what my roof, awning, driveway & any other flat surface looks like...
piled high with the nasty stuff...
in dry years with no storms & wind to blow them down...
they stay all summer, continuing to spread the allergy ugliness...
well into the late summer & fall...
this year, they are so wet & clumped that I'm hoping...
to get them raked, bagged & out of here before they dry out...
dodging that bullet, 'cause last year was a really bad allergy year...
for the first time ever, it lasted ALL year...
the bean seeds I planted are starting to sprout...
today there were several more...
I need to get out there and get this cleaned off...
so I can get the garden in the ground...
though I'm really trying to hold back from last year's excess...
I can't afford $200 a month for water this year...
however, the weather is still nasty...
so I may have to wait a bit on that...
since it's currently raining...
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