Tag Archives: Papaver setigerum

The Porch Steps Up

As garden space shrinks, the focus becomes ever more minute, with no strip of soil too narrow to remain unexploited. For example, I’m really starting to work the back porch. Every inch, as in the crevice between porch and brick … Continue reading

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Bloom Day March 2011

Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts this exciting monthly event, inspired by garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence’s urging that “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” Some days are so bleak, it seems astonishing that flowers could bloom … Continue reading

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Poppies Unbound

My first poppy of spring, P. setigerum, self-sown Dwarf Breadseed Poppy or Poppy of Troy. Nothing unfurls like a poppy. Sure, roses and peonies have more petals, so the process is more complicated and, therefore, some might say more thrilling. … Continue reading

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Agave ‘Cornelius’

When I got home last night, Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element was streaming from Netflix. (Sidebar: TV is amazingly complicated these days.) First thing this morning, I was of course snapping photos of the Agave ‘Cornelius.’ Or “Corneeleyoos,” as Mila … Continue reading

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Poppies of Spring

Visual kief, intoxicating to the eye, O’Keefian, the ephemeral poppies of spring. These are not the flamboyant Oriental poppies immortalized by the painter Georgia O’Keefe. The Orientals won’t grow in Southern California, requiring more winter chill hours than we have … Continue reading

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