Delicate looking, but tough as nails.

These 3 plants; pacific coast iris, bleeding heart and columbine are plants that remind me of spring.  They usually have pastel colored blooms and look fragile, but surprise! they're not.  Water will help them look lush and improve their overall health, but its surprising how little they need to survive.

Euphorbia Cyparissias

This is one of my favorite Euphorbias:  Euphorbia cyparissias

It dies back every year and before I know it, it's back and looking lush and beautiful.  It blooms all through summer and at some point, I'm not even sure when, I cut it back with no trepidation.  I know it will be back again soon.  With it's fine leafed foliage, it meanders through other plants perfectly, never smothering and the chartreuse blooms make any color next to it pop. 

With the complimentary purple from the spanish lavender, it's exceptionally sweet.
As Barb always says, "Spring in the Bay Area is beautiful".

Ground covers make me happy.

Whenever we install a garden path that won't be subjected to heavy foot traffic, we almost always plant ground covers in between and around the pavers.  It softens the look, suppresses weeds and, in general, gives a clean and lush feel.  The groundcovers that are most toleratant to light, strolling through a garden type of foot traffic are: dymondia and chamomile.  Thyme is a bit less tolerant, as is isotoma but planted along the outside of the path they look great.
They say even dogs can't hurt chamomile, but that's debatable.  Dymondia is the strongest with its weaving growth habit.  They are all easy to keep in check, and need little to no maintenance.  A good sheering a couple of times per year is about all they require and keeping them from swallowing up pavers is an easy to prevent with garden scissors.

Some of my favorite succulents

 

The Black Acacia Tree problem.

Over the last 10 years I've noticed Acacia Mearnsii, or black acacia trees coming up all over the east bay and in my back yard.  This tree grows extremely fast and is very hard to eliminate once it's roots are established.  The roots on this tree grow laterally, and sprout aggressively especially when the tree feels threatened. 

 There are 800 different cultivars of Acacia.  They have a short life span of 15-30 years which explains their fast growth habit and are messy buggers.  Two extremely large and well established black acacias have fallen over in my back yard, perhaps it was their old age I really don't know why.  Within 2 weeks of falling, 10's of small sprouts pop up all down the length of the roots.  If left alone, these small sprouts will be small trees in a matter of months and a grove in a couple of years.

Another issue with this tree, is growing anything under their canopy, really within the whole back yard is not easy.  Even the most tolerant of plants simply don't thrive.  The tree takes up water with it's tremendous web of shallow lateral roots, so other plants can't access it.  It also binds the nitrogen in the soil making it unavailable to plants.  Plants always struggle to live. 

The soil also has a distinctive smell.  A smell I only notice when black Acacia trees are present.  The soil is arid, lacking in organic matter and cannot uptake water easily no matter how much I amend it. 

The small leaves and seed pods are a mess and a fire hazard.  If a black acacia catches on fire, the wood is so dense, the fire would be an extremely hot and dangerous one.

I'm not normally so anti-tree of any type.  So here are a couple of positives; 

~The wood of the black acacia is desirable for furniture, flooring, musical instruments, etc.

~In the savannah of Africa, they're a lovely shade tree for animals.

~Some consider the flowers beautiful.  If you have allergies, that's debatable. 

I find this tree to be a nuisance, and at the moment, its my own personal quest to demolish.  People don't realize the problems it can cause until the tree is enormous and by this time, it's a huge expense to deal with.  I believe the tree is native to Australia, not here. 

I'm thankful that the city of Berkeley has labeled the black acacia a problem and is working to remove it from the hills over time.  Its not surprising how the citizens of Berkeley are putting up a fight, I mean it is a tree and it's growing well, but come on, it's not even a pretty tree!  Protecting the black acacia is a disappointing opinion considering all the above mentioned issues, plus the acacia is also highly flammable.
The organization cal-IPC, California Invasive Plant Council have this cultivar on their list of invasive plants.  A. mearnsii is regarded as an environmental weed in many parts of the world. It has been nominated as among 100 of the "World's Worst" invaders by the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group and it has been listed as a noxious weed in Hawaii and as a Category 2 invader in South Africa (invaders with certain qualities, e.g. commercial use or for woodlots, animal fodder, soil stabilization, etc. These plants are allowed in certain areas under controlled conditions).

If you have a black acacia sprouts on your property, please pull it asap.  The next time you turn around to check up on it, it will already be a problem.

Interesting hibiscus

I found this at Ace Hardware on Grand Ave.  It's a hibiscus and one I've never seen before.  I bought it in a 4" container, and the plant itself was one stem standing about 1' high.  I'll be so curious to see what it does now.  

Its called:  Comfortroot (Hibiscus aculeatus)

Succulent and Cactus inspiration

An amazing garden for an amazing woman.  It survived the days of freezing temperatures because Esther draped sheets held up with bamboo sticks. Whew!  

We removed some old sod lawn, a few ornamental grasses and some old woody lavender and rosemary to make room for cactus and succulents.  The 2 manzanita shrubs had died, but we kept them intact, stripped the dead leaves and planted them showing off the deep maroon bark.   We did use landscape fabric underneath the rock for weed control, and so far the only oxalis sprouting up is at the base of the plants.  This garden is only a few months old, and it's settling in and growing nicely. 

This is a tribute garden to Esther's dear friend and neighbor, Gus.