It’s not ideal using the phone camera, but it handles the light much better than I can manage on overcast rainy days like today, the 15th of May, aka Bloom Day.
pink-purple fountain in the distance is hesperis
This lively orange number is Geum ‘Queen of Orange.’ It’s been the earliest geum to bloom, and because the flowers are double it’s not as self-supporting as ‘Totally Tangerine.’ TT has the reputation for the longest period of bloom, and the Queen may not be able to compete in that regard but it is a citrusy blast very early in the season. Chartreuse foam is from Euphorbia ‘Miner’s Merlot,’ so good early in spring that I keeping adding more for a current total of three.
This corner near the potting shed was reworked in fall 2025. The “giants” that were invaluable in a young garden like Persicaria polymorpha have been moved to the east side. A shrub-like Euphorbia stygiana was removed — it’s generous with seedlings so no loss there. Fast-growing Metapanax delavayi was also removed. I might try it again on the more protected east side
Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ is about two weeks later than the Queen
Penstemoon ‘Blackbeard’
Another really good plant early in spring is Penstemon ‘Dark Towers.’ Nothing eats it, the leaves come through winter flawlessly. It is just now beginning to bloom, but really it’s the early rich dark leaves that make it invaluable. ‘Blackbeard’ is another dark-leaved penstemon added last fall, and between the two varieties there are now five clumps.
Polemonium ‘Golden Feathers’
Polemoniums are another group of plants like geum that love these conditions and make a strong early appearance. Another plant worthy of multiples for spring here and I’m trying several varieties.
Cirsium rivulare ‘Trevor’s Blue Wonder’
Another plant I’ve spread into three clumps is this thistle that loves the rich deep moisture-retentive soil. Blooms heavy in spring and continues through summer.
foreground Selinum wallichianum, vine on overhang is Solanum laxum
Solanum laxum is rampant and needs a lot of thinning and cutting back. but it’s evergreen and never out of bloom
Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’ — love it but it’s a little scary now that it’s happy and spreading
Verbascum ‘Letitia’ from High Country Gardens is as charming as the catologue claims. New this spring. It is sterile and I wish it wasn’t. If it doesn’t make it through next winter, that’s the end of it. Vegetative propagation of such a young plant may not be feasible — we’ll see.
First year I’ve grown bunny grass Lagurus ovatus, an annual — what a charmer. Found local at Portland Nursery
Erodium ‘Fran’s Delight’
Allium karataviense
Thalictrum ‘Black Stockings’
Deschampsia ‘Tatra Gold’
Globularia repens ‘Nana’ in a second flush after a cutback — another early one
tall and grass-like Dianthus carthusianorum found at Blooming Junction — I’ve wanted to try this one for a long time
Cistus ‘Jenkyn Place’
Narrow beds against the east side of the house have acted as hodge-podge holding beds. Protected against the house, this Nicotiana mutabilis surprisingly made it through the mild winter and burst into early bloom. It’s a 3×3 arching mass of dainty trumpets and still growing in size.
Best cerinthe self-sowed on the more protected east side
Despite the unplanned approach, there are some good plants to build around on the east side like this Rubus lineatus. Previous owner had planted strawberries and rhubarb, and there really isn’t enough sun for that.
back in the main sunny garden Phlomis ‘La Sud’
Asphodeline lutea had five blooms but the snails took care of three
Bloom Day posts can be deceptive as far as the amount of flowers at one time. There’s a lot of nonflowering evergreens for ballast.
Billie in her element. Lowe right, Parahebe perfoliata tall and in bloom after a spring cutback of old stems
this broad dry path makes me want to tap dance down its length
The east side I’ve been referring to is where the “boardwalk” is under construction, temporarily halted due to rain and mud.
first burlap was laiid down and pinned as a weedcloth
Many years ago Carol at May Dreams Gardens devised the idea of Bloom Day to keep track of what’s blooming when all over the world. It is an invaluable record to keep. Have a great weekend! More soon, AGO
The beschorneria in bloom is a bit of an attention hog. Stepping outside, it’s the first thing that grabs my attention; the wonder of it, the unlikely circumstance of it forming a bloom over winter. I check over and over info on preferred growing conditions to understand how it is thriving in the cool rainy winters on the Oregon coast. Drought tolerant, full sun are the default instructions. But an entry by Plant Delights was very illuminating: “Beschorneria are one of the few “woody lilies” that prefers some shade. It will be happiest if it has less than a half day of sun, or even just very bright shade all day. Very drought tolerant, it also tolerates wet spells if provided with average drainage that would prevent water from puddling around the plant. “
April 2026 — it’s been a long-lasting show
growing in a free-draining stock tank with lots of added pumice. On the one day temps went into the 80s there was some drooping
Another issue that consumes my research is whether or not it is monocarpic. Reliable sources say it is not monocarpic, but still I worry…It’s bloomed once for me in Los Angeles in 2011, but the plant has always been susceptible to scale infestations in zone 10 and either withers away or is removed in exasperation.
In fact it hails from cool misty mountainous regions in northeast Mexico.
You never know what to expect at plant sales run by the horticulturally obsessed. At last Saturday’s Dirty Diggers plant sale in Portland, Anna of the blog Flutter & Hum was a friendly voice shouting my name when I first wandered in. I’m amazed people can do that after long absences. We chatted over her plants for sale, when she mentioned the riveting news that she had a couple gallons of beschorneria for sale too. As young plants, they are nice looking but give no hint of the pyrotechnics they are capable of producing in bloom. I sputtered and stammered and tried to describe the current spectacle in my garden, but just couldn’t do it. Something vague and unhelpful about parrots was all I could manage. Still worrying about monocarpism, I grabbed one of Anna’s beschornerias for sale as a backup. Thank you, Anna!
Kniphofia thomsonii in foreground, beschorneria in middle stock tank
How to describe the false agave in bloom. A cherry red stalk as strong and thick as a broom handle reaching up to 4 feet. From side branches that reach their greatest width about mid stalk, then taper up the stem to its zenith, hang red pendulous tubular flowers rimmed in chartreuse green. The flowers do not open into larger trumpets but remain narrow. (Other than the colors, the bloom has nothing to do with parrots.) Another member of the asparagaceae family, Polygonatum kingianum, is slightly reminiscent in bloom, as far as dangling tubular flowers.
sharing a stock tank with cistus
Thanks to all the Dirty Diggers for a great sale — Anna, Loree, Tamara, Patricia, Heather, Jerry and all the others who attended or manned tables to discuss in depth the wonderful world of their plants. Keep an eye out for their next sale in the fall — you never know who or what might turn up.
Agave americana ‘Mediopicta’ is protected in a greenhouse for winter. I love its new location this spring. With halimium and Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’ in bloom
The Wonder Garden is a volunteer-driven, horticultural branch of the Hoffman Center for the Arts in Manzanita, Oregon. Since I’ve been volunteering the past several years, the Wonder Garden seems to evolve effortlessly from strength to strength. But having participated in an April work party that expanded one of the beds a few feet in circumference, I can attest to the effort required in growing a garden on a former parking lot. Pick axes are involved to break through the substrate to reach…beach sand. (I bet even Beth Chatto’s famous garden made on a former parking lot had soil beneath the rubble.) When not busting up parking lot, routine maintenance includes shoring up the berms, cutting back after winter, and applying mulches every spring to add some organic matter to an incredibly free-draining site that gets no rain all summer. All in addition to the usual division of perennials, weeding, and shuffling of plants as needed.
Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’
Of all the WG plants I crush on, Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’ rates high on the list. It is an electrifyingly acidic tonic in early spring. Last fall it looked like it had finally succumbed to that sparse, woody fate that awaits the short-lived erysimum clan. Except there is no known local source for ‘Apricot Twist,’ and none had been successfully propagated from the mother plant! Volunteers jumped to, and several cuttings were taken in fall and rooted over winter. I have one in my garden, and several others were farmed out for future sources of cuttings of this amazing plant. One other has been planted elsewhere in the WG. I can’t imagine the WG without it. Early and incredibly long blooming all summer. I noted an inferior strain of erysimum seeding around upon moving into my home garden in 2021 — they seem to love life on the rainy coast.
melianthus in bloom after a mild winter. With the hopseed bush Dodonaea viscosa
I took a spin around the garden late afternoon last Friday while waiting for a talk by Neil Bell at the Hoffman across the street. Colors come on strong in spring, on a framework that is predominantly evergreen from the range of choices available in this zone 8-9. Eucalyptus pauciflora, Acacia pravissima, cistus, manzanita, callistemon, azara, halimium, hebes, calluna, Ugni molinae, corokia, Fabiana imbricata, ceanothus, leptospermum, luma, Pittosporum ‘Tall & Tuff,’ even a thriving Leucadendron galpinii. Fabulously shrubby and textural with carefully considered seasonal jolts of gorgeous color from herbaceous plants too. I am such a fan of this garden.
generous ADA paths — hedge belongs to the business across the street
foreground bed is planted with succulents brought out from a local greenhouse in spring. This berm includes dry tolerant shrubs like manzanita and Hebe ‘Quicksilver. Mid distance is the bed whose perimeter was extended. The WG is a much sunnier, hotter site than my garden about 26 miles south in Tillamook
Kniphofia thomsonii with corokia, restio and cistus
Cistus ‘Bennett’s White’ with flowers the size and purity of a matillija poppy
Euphorbia stygiana and ceanothus, Hoffman CFA in the distance across the street
On the left is the restio Chondropetalum elephantium, one of a row of multiples that creates an eastern streetside boundary for the WG which sits on the corner of a busy intersection . One of the most asked about plants in the garden. No local source available.
The Wonder Garden’s wealth of interesting and diverse evergreens paired with seasonal dynamism makes it worth checking out all season. There’s some seriously good planting happening in the little beach town of Manzanita.
Thuja plicata, approx 154 feet tall, 49 feet wide, over 800 years old, known locally as the Big Cedar
Even as a part-time local, it took me a couple passes to find the tight entrance off 101 to the Cedar Wetlands Nature Preserve just outside Rockaway Beach. (I think there’s a small sign if you’re heading south on 101; northward, the reverse of the sign says Welcome to Rockaway Beach.) I wanted to catch the skunk cabbage in bloom again.
Turns out I was late for the bloom — late March/early April is when the bog lights up with the swamp lanterns. Still I made the mile-long walk down the boardwalk to see the old cedar again.
That narrow entrance off Highway 101 leads to a mighty sight, to this old cedar that has seen it all, from the first sailing ship to anchor in Tillamook Bay in 1788, to the beginning of commercial logging in the 1850s, to the last of the sea otters by 1900.
A champion tree, a witness tree to life on the Oregon coast for maybe the past thousand years or more. Middle-aged in 1700, it shuddered and swayed to the largest earthquake in North American history., a 9.0 that took out many of its compatriots and caused some parts of the coastline to drop several feet, leaving “ghost forests” that can still be seen at low tide.
from Wikimedia Commons
Total coincidence, but my visit coincided with Earth Day, April 22, so some context is appropriate in the spirit of the occasion. This rare patch of cedar bog is itself part of the rarity that is the Pacific temperate rainforest, the largest temperate rainforest in the world. Temperate rainforests comprise a meager 3% of the earth’s surface. They excel as carbon sinks due to slow decomposition rates.
boardwalk makes it ADA accessible
The main bloom of the skunk cabbage may have been over, but their massive leaves are a sight in their own right. The largest leaves of any native plant in the PNW.
a few Lysichiton americanus were throwing blooms but nothing like the carpet of gold I had seen a previous March
we’ve been playing around with the idea of a “boardwalk” for the muddy/grassy east side of the house, and I think we’re committed. Gravel, pavers, bark always first come to mind for paths, but I’m liking more and more a simple raised boardwalk without digging out the turf underneath. Drawbacks are a bit of slipperiness during the rainy season.
respect
This 50-acre old growth cedar bog was donated by a lumber company. Managed by the Nature Conservancy, it’s now been deeded to the City of Rockaway Beach. It is a hauntingly ancient place, a primordial experience sandwiched between the small towns of this stretch of the Oregon coast. Actually, I kind of like that it’s hard to find.
view over leucospermums in bloom of the Golden Gate Bridge from Tunnel Tops/MB Maher
I first heard of what has come to be known as the Presidio Tunnel Tops in 2015, when visiting landscape architect Rania Reyes mentioned her involvement in a new Presidio Parklands Project in San Francisco. Rania was being given a personal tour of the garden at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles by its landscape architect Mia Lehrer. We were all there for an installment of Shirley Watts’ Natural Discourse symposium “Flora & Fauna,” at which Mia Lehrer was a speaker, and I sort of tagged along for Mia’s after-hours tour of the garden.
Mia Lehrer, Rania Reyes, Senior Project Manager for the construction of the Presidio Tunnel Tops Project, and me standing a discreet distance away
As far as what I could discern about the Presidio project, as a tag-along not wanting to be too intrusive with endless questions, I had a vague sense that there was to be some heroic geoengineering involved. And then over the next seven years I completely lost track of the project. In defense of my inattention, this was a long, winding, extremely complicated project with a lot of moving parts and overlapping administrative jurisdictions*.
roadway opened in 2015, Tunnel Tops 14-acre park opened 2022 (via SF Chronicle)
The year of Rania’s visit to LA’s Natural History Museum, 2015, marked completion of the Presidio Parkway. This new roadway, comprising two tunnels, seven lanes, replaced the earthquake-damaged, bottleneck-prone elevated road (Doyle Drive) that had led motorists in and out of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge since 1937. It would be another seven years before the planting of the tunnels over the parkway would be finished and the mostly privately funded Tunnel Tops opened to the public.
proteas!
(*Agencies that Built the Presidio Parkway California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) Metropolitan Transportation Commission San Francisco County Transportation Authority The Presidio Trust Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District The National Park Service — from the website)
stunning surprise to find Tunnel Tops filled with blooming members of the proteaceae family in early April
The Presidio and I go way back, to when this former Spanish military fort dating to 1776 was a quiet, uncrowded destination to walk when I lived in my 20s in the Marina district of SF. After moving away, the Presidio was always a beloved place to revisit on yearly trips north to plant nurseries (e.g. Western Hills). Over the years, I think every family dog has romped through the Presidio. San Francisco’s embarrassment of riches in parks and open space has always been a source of envy to this Angelino. (Yeah, I know, in LA we have the beaches as our parks/open space, but I stubbornly prefer parks/botanical gardens.). And now with completion of Tunnel Tops, a project on a creative, technical par with the High Line, my envy is going to require frequent visits to assuage.
for all ages/MB Maher
Unlike the High Line, there’s not a lot of media coverage on Tunnel Tops, even though James Corner’s firm Field Operations had a hand in both projects. Tunnel Tops’ salient evolutionary points, to me, are that in the year 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake made the main conduit to Golden Gate Bridge, Doyle Drive, unsafe. Also in that year, the military gave up the site as a military post. What followed were years of inter-agency debate over use and access. The favored solution was building a freeway to modern standards that would continue the tradition of bisecting the Presidio, sequestering it from a view of the bay and adjacent jewel of the city Crissy Field. Ultimately, a landscape architect’s vision that prioritized this incredible setting of natural beauty as an opportunity for recreational space for people thankfully won the day.
an adventureland for kids and families
During the long inter-agency period discussing a new roadway, somehow amidst the gravitational pull of conventional traffic solutions, landscape architect Michael Painter’s improbable proposal to build a park atop tunnels slowly gained traction. From SPUR (San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, a nonprofit): “For infrastructure projects like roads, landscape architects are at the bottom of the professional pile. A common attitude is, We’ll build it, then give you a little money to pretty it up. The focus is on objects, while landscape architects focus on spaces.”
I watched a family accept a Door Dash delivery for a picnic
“Presidio Tunnel Tops reimagines a once-elevated highway into a vibrant, ecologically rich 14-acres of public space. Built atop 7 lanes of Presidio Parkway tunnels, the new landscape stitches together historic parklands with the San Francisco Bay and transforms infrastructure into an immersive experience, choreographing movement, topography, and ecology to create an open, accessible pedestrian connection across 40 feet of grade change.” American Society of Landscape Architects — read more about the project from ASLA here.
For my first visit, to find the park ablaze with flowering leucospermums was pretty special. (I especially noted the coastal woollybush from Australia, Adenanthos sericeus, because I just planted another one in my SoCal garden.) Leucadendrons and other proteaceae, succulents, California natives, grasses, it’s a gorgeous mix that’s maturing beautifully in the propitious climate of the Bay Area.
leucospermum and on the left coastal woollybush Adenanthos sericeus
former military fort turned into park — one-third of the buildings are residential
This April the current administration fired all the board members of the Presidio Trust, the federal arm that manages the Presidio along with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. For now it’s uncertain how this will affect the park’s future operation. But it’s all the more reason to experience Tunnel Tops now in all its glory.
(“Oregon Route 6, known as the Wilson River Highway, is a scenic but treacherous 52-mile route connecting Tillamook (U.S. 101) to the Portland metro area (U.S. 26) through the Tillamook State Forest. Completed in 1941, this critical coastal artery is notorious for steep grades, heavy winter rain/snow, and constant slope erosion causing hazardous conditions.”)
Corsican hellebores line a path in Christine Weaver’s garden
The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon helpfully arranged a “mini-tour” of gardens on Sunday April 19, a bright warmish day. For someone still grappling with issues of dormancy and spring emergence in this climate, I was determined to attend. The big obstacle as always is Highway 6, the essential highway to Portland from the coast. On a good day the two-lane highway is a challenge to drive. With road crews working on portions of the highway washed out over winter, the anticipated lengthy delays totaled maybe five minutes — great job, ODOT! The road conditions are very reminiscent of the continuous land movement issues of the Palos Verdes Peninsula’s coastal road in Southern California.
Weaver’s garden. Podophyllums were in every garden toured
Weaver garden
buttery tulips line a path in Weaver’s garden, possibly a form of Tulipa sylvestris
A perennial spring-flowering sweet pea, possibly Lathhyrus vernus ‘Flaccidus’ with atypical narrow leaves. Grown in a container which it filled wall to wall — Weaver’s garden
Arbor and borders surround a small central lawn in Weaver’s garden
peonies in Lisa Brauckmiller’s garden (Itoh?)
Brauckmiller’s garden
a sweet rock-garden type daphne in the sidewalk raised planters of the Brauckmiller garden
Broad swathe of Dicentra formosa in the Emel & Welch garden. Leaves appear in March. Summer dormant, Ms. Emel says she elevates pots of annuals over the area for summer
A hardy fuchsia in the Emel & Welch garden that didn’t miss a beat over the mild winter
These were all smallish urban gardens showing decades of experience in plant selection to absorb — just the kind of gardens I want to see. The major distinction to my full-sun garden is that the majority of plantings were with woodland plants that cover the ground early in spring. Big thanks to the generous garden hosts — so glad I braved Highway 6 for the tour!
the gate to Granada Coffee opening to the mature pomegranate tree
In spring 2025, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson was published, a nonfiction work examining why we can’t seem to get things built for the common good anymore and the bureaucratic difficulties facing small businesses. Using examples like California’s high-speed rail project, 30 years and counting in development, the book arrived amid a maelstrom of DOGE’s chainsaw destruction to the federal workforce and wanton deregulation. Abundance was championed by both the right and left, and the contentious, pro-and-con criticisms of the book’s stated desire for a “liberalism that builds” made for engrossing reading that dismally chaotic spring.
With these issues front of mind, over the 2026 winter it was exciting to discover a low-key but encouraging instance of innovative growth exemplified by a Los Angeles neighborhood coffee shop that opened January 2026. Granada (Spanish for pomegranate) was built in the downstairs space of the home of Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters, musicians, film set designers, and parents of a 3 year-old. Their dream of a community gathering space, borne out of the isolation of Covid, blossomed under an expedited regulatory umbrella known as a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO).
Located in the quiet historic neighborhood of Angelino Heights, where most patrons arrive on foot
Under MEHKO, a California state program subject to local county health & safety rules, a commercial food service business can be opened in a private residence in as short a period of time as six months, with snarls of red tape quickly slashed and trimmed into festive opening day bunting. Up-front costs for permits can run as low as $500. Abundance!
I’d heard the buzz about Granada before knowing about its origins in the MEHKO program. On my first visit, it was the outdoor space that grabbed my attention, planted with pearl and cutleaf acacias and leucadendrons. There are a lot of coffee shops to compete for our business, some with sidewalk bump-outs, but how many can boast a tranquil garden in which to sip your first cup at 9 a.m.? I’m not reading a lot of emphasis on the garden’s contribution to this little business’ runaway success, but for me this outdoor setting is truly what sets it apart as a unique experience. And I freely admit to bias where gardens and outdoor spaces are concerned.
around 9 a.m., right before opening
On my first visit, all the outdoor seating was taken. People lounge and chat and bring laptops for extended visits. I’ve heard it described as a WeWork space that actually works. The owners are very interested in exploring hosting small concerts and other community cultural events.
The French ancestry of one of the owners may account for the European/Luxembourg Garden feel to Granada. Indoors and out, the space is welcoming, refreshingly noninstitutional, carefully thought out but not fussy. The owners’ long-standing experience in design fields is felt everywhere.
stairs lead to upstairs living quarters. After closing at 2:30 p.m., the downstairs reverts to living space too. Under MEHKO rules, the owners’ toddler must not be present during operation hours.
joining forces with fruit and vegetable growers and a bakery as well
For more information on the MEHKO program and the making of Granada, check out this article in the Los Angeles Times. The program was introduced in California in 2019 and authorized in LA County in 2024. Just this April 2026, Long Beach, Calif., also passed an ordinance allowing MEHKOs to operate under their local guidelines. Oregon has a similar program under Home (Domestic) Kitchen Licensing. If you can include a garden with your MEHKO, count me in.
growing in a stock tank situated slightly under the patio overhang, keeping it somewhat drier than the main garden
It’s raining. There’s tons to do. Five minutes home and we’re already chopping up the neighbor’s downed tree limb and beginning cleanup. Absent since November, there’s that burning question immediately upon arrival in spring: How did the garden fare over winter? A singular event answered that question in a kind of visual shorthand. Not only did the beschorneria (aka False Agave) keep all its leaves relatively presentable over the winter, it greeted me with something wholly unexpected.
labeled Beschorneria septentrionalis. Beschornerias are generally considered for USDA zone 8 and warmer, to zone 7 with protection
Whether the north or south garden, beschornerias just do not easily jump into bloom for me. Off to a good start! More soon, AGO.
The Long Beach garden is throwing a low-key sendoff, mainly with the blooming of Geranium maderense ‘Alba.’ It is almost distracting enough to take my mind off the delayed cutback urgently needed right now in the Oregon garden — possibly needed weeks ago. Neighbors blithely emailed that a large branch from their tree fell into our garden, oops! and another section of fence is failing, so any distraction is welcome. I can’t help contrasting this drowsy, relaxed spring in Long Beach with the time-sensitive rush of things to do in Oregon when we return mid-April — can’t wait to get started!
This biennial has been reseeding in the garden since its introduction here in 2011.
Marty getting irrigation sorted off the pergola
A new experiment involves rigging sprinklers on timers for 20 minutes every four days.
Between the upcoming move and the devastating news cycle…yikes, I’ll say no more. Hope you’re managing as well as possible too. Take care, more soon. AGO
With the heat wave mostly over, yesterday I drove south to Newport Beach for some garden time. Bathed in the cool coastal conditions at the Pacific Ocean, the Sherman Gardens & Library are a genteel lunch and garden destination that always has something worth looking at. The succulent and cactus garden, for instance. The first clue that this was not going to be a relaxing wander through the lath houses and brick pathways was the free admission. Didn’t I used to have to pay to get in? The entrance had been changed as well. The newly improvised entrance led straight into the succulent garden.
The path out of the succulent garden led into what used to be the central planting area that opened up as you entered from the old entrance. These beds were mass-planted with ranunculus. The rest of the gardens, estimating maybe 75 percent, was under renovation, blocked with fencing. So head’s up: Call before you go. The renovations look to be extensive.
From the website I should have checked before visiting:
“Pardon Our Dust!
From March 9–27, enjoy free admission to the gardens. Please enter on Dahlia Avenue and follow the signage marked “Enter Here.”
We are laying important pipes and will close the pathway that leads to the central garden until March 21. You can still enjoy our adobe courtyard, train display, pepper tree, and succulent garden.”
peeking through the construction fencefrom a visit in 2020, the central path between the lath houses, looking roughly toward where the construction fence is now to the rightUnless I’ve got my orientation completely wrong, this is the central area in 2020, this year planted with ranunculusThis planting in 2020 would be just beyond the construction fence
There was, however, an indoor clivia show and sale. Not growing clivia and not particularly interested in doing so, I spun around the entrance a few times before plunging through the doorway and into an unfamiliar horticultural world.
clivia are dappled shade plants for the greenhouse or zones 9-11 that require dry and cool resting periods in winter to bloom well
It’s not often I’m surrounded by plants with which I have no point of connection. But what I could connect with was the hybridizer’s zeal and enthusiasm that was evident in the varied shapes and colors of the clivia blooms. They were identified only with numbers, no names.
similar colors and flowers shapes with Vireya rhododendrons
in vases I was reminded of freesias but without the strong scent
The clivia show and sale continues on Sunday, March 22, 2026.
We were given pencil and paper to vote for our favorite, and I chose No. 7, which reminded me of Alstroemeria isabellana
After leaving the Sherman, and starved for lunch, I grabbed some sushi and headed for the Newport Beach Civic Center, where I lunched with agaves, dyckias, dragon trees and cactus.
A pink-flowered puya in bloom, possibly Puya spathacea
lots of spineless dyckias were massed near the path, possibly the cultivar ‘Naked Lady’
Dragon tree underplanted with Euphorbia resinifera
It was a day of contrasts, for sure. More soon, AGO
