August 3, 2005
mid-summer bloomers
for coastal California, that is. The garden painted a new canvas in recent days, revealing forgotten plantings and the sad state of my memory and garden notes. I had to paw through a yellowing folder full of plastic plant tags, scraps of plant lists, magazine clippings and 5x7 cards with scribbly drawings of odd garden plans to find out the names of the bloomers. Bless the internet for it nameth everything. And a couple of hour's hunting provided me with lost plant names and a few bits of trivia.
This lanky "bluebell" stands about 4 feet high now and is laden with bright blue blossoms not truly represented by a photograph. The leaves and stems are hairy-sticky and bright green. I couldn't find it named on my purchase lists even though there are two campanulas that apparently didn't survive since I don't see them in the garden: Campanula formankiana and C. sarmatica. It seems to be Campanula primulafolia, though you wouldn't know it from the photo at Annie's Annuals. I did find an interesting slide show on the net of wildflowers from the Serra de Monchique, Portugal. Other sites refer to the species as "Spanish bluebell" (well, close) and "Blue Oasis" which appears to be an old garden hybrid from Europe. It apparently reseeds well and this spring I discovered several babies in open dirt and replanted them in the central border, not realizing they were C. primulafolia.
The wily Japanese anemone hides out most of the year under the perennial leaves of the Heucheras until mid- to late summer. I thought I had planted the white-flowered one but, guess what? This one is a sort of bruised lavender.
An odd little plant I picked up because of the unusual mottled leaves. It turns out to be a "hawkweed," Hieracium maculatum. There are many Hieraciums native to the Americas but this one is revealed by the USDA web site to be introduced, and invasive in some northern Michigan county. Another site appears to indicate it is native in England. In my garden it is decidely solitary, putting out a stem or three of cheery yellow dandelion flowers each year.
The only thistle that keeps coming back for me. By the end of the summer the blue bracts metamorphose into metallic silvery blue.
This charming little mint, Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii) is native to the West Coast growing in shady moist places, often in live oak groves. For years I tried starting it in the garden from pinchings I collected in the wild. It never lasted. Then I found a little pot of it at Ace Garden and stuck it in a 5-gallon pot with a rose in it. It flourished, spilling over the sides of the pot and rooting in nearby soil. The leaves have a delicious scent and it is a traditional tea herb of the Californios, as well as the name of the little island in the middle of San Francisco Bay that separates the "Oakland" and the "San Francisco" pieces of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. And it was the early (1849) name of the little port that became the City of San Francisco.
Another mint native to California, this one planted for its wonderful salmon colored flowers. It has intertwined it's light green leaves with silver-green leaves of the Zauschneria californica or wild fuchsia.
