While friends and family are digging themselves out from under a foot of snow in the northeast, the Tuesday crew enjoyed the sunshine and warm temperatures of SoCal in the Botanical Garden this morning.  Due to the storms last week, we hadn’t surveyed the garden in a couple of weeks, so we took a tour around most of the garden to note any storm related damage and collect downed limbs.
After surveying the front of the garden, Monica Barton, Daryl Stutley, Nancy Taylor Walker, Janet Wall and I zigzagged up the hill starting at the first 4 corners.Â
During the survey we noted several plants of note.  I had never seen the coast silk tassel shrub in bloom in the several years I’ve been at the garden.  Below is this remarkable plant:
Garrya elliptica is native to coastal ranges from Oregon to southern CA. There are separate male and female plants; from the description in CalScape I suspect this is a male plant. This can be found in the native section just in from the original Garden Entrance from the park.
Just up from the first 4 corners is the cotoneaster which is covered with red berries.
A little further up is a drift of yellow bulbine:
At the 2nd four corners, at the entrance of the S. African section are the yellow golden shrub daisy (Euryops pectinatus ‘Viridis’) and the African flag (Chasmanthe floribunda) below:
The Tranquility Garden is often overlooked. It is home to a charming mallow. Not sure of the species, but it resembles those found on the Channel Islands. Below is a closeup bloom almost 2 inches across.
Another aspect of the Tranquility Garden that I love is the landscape of cairns that some enterprising person or persons have created.
So we actually did some work today as well. Â Weeding at the top of the hill was the main focus, and within that we took out mainly more horehound and blooming and/or large mustard from the north side. Â Nancy captured us hard at work in the images below:
Monica and Janet
Daryl
…and me and Janet.
Hopefully the garden will be open for visitors soon. The main garden trails were OK. The problem is always the Nature Trail which because it is shady takes longer to dry out. But when you can, enjoy the garden! KMM