cats

a week ago: columbines

Here are just a couple of the columbines - I have many variations on purple, and also some pretty two-tone pink and whites. They're kind of weeds, but I like them.

two weeks ago

Here are some pics I took at the same time I photographed the ceanothus, a couple of weeks ago. These things have already moved on. Well, the daisies are still going strong, but the weigela and daylillies and lupins have pretty much finished.

Ceanothus

Whooooooeeeeee! This is a bumper year for the ceanothus. I've never seen it bloom so intensely as this. The view out the kitchen door is blue, blue blue.

I guess, like the rosemary, it is especially thankful to be alive this year. There were a lot of casualties - the hebes all pretty much snuffed it. And, sadly, it looks as though the rose on the back deck got just a little too frozen. 

I thought it was just being slow to bud, but all the other roses have leafed out and are blooming up a storm (post to come). It's kind of macabre. Wonder if I should go ahead and cut it down, or give it another year to think about it?

Meanwhile, we're all just drinking in the ceanothus (in this closeup, you can see why it gets called "California lilac") and the sunshine.