Friday, April 15, 2011

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - April 2011

The tax day addition.  Fortunately for my procrastinating self, taxes aren't due till Monday, and my first appt was a no-show, so I have time to blog a bit.

On my little patio/potted garden I have a couple things blooming, the first four Ca natives.  The biggest surprise were my western bleeding hearts (Dicentra formosa).  They die back completely in the dry season, and I mean completely.  I was a little afraid they wouldn't come back, but a couple of weeks ago they started leafing out and today, blooming beautifully.

My redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana) has been green continuously, but just started flowering for the first time in almost a year.  I like the second pic.  I looks like the one flower is incredibly shy.
The columbine (Aquilegia formosa) has also just started to flower.  It's also covered in these monstrous giant bugs.  Well they look that way with my macro lens.  Way to go macro lens.  Boo to the bugs.  They were actually pretty small, and have now met their doom.

The last of the Ribes sanguineum glutinosum.  It was actual beautiful last bloom day, but I wasn't around to blog about it.

And this volunteer oxalis in one of my pots.
Happy bloom day, and thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting bloom day.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Hiking in Redwood Regional Park - 1 New, 1 Old

So my blog is now 2 years old, as of a couple days ago.  I'm mildly proud of that, even though I haven't been blogging as much as I would like to.  Completely unrelated, this year I've been trying to see parts of the Bay Area that I haven't seen before.  This can be exploring a new park, new hot springs, a new restaurant, or something as simple as hiking unfamiliar trails in a familiar park. This post is a conglomeration of photos from  hikes I did about in Redwood Park about 3 weeks ago.  The first, hiking out of the serpentine prairie (new) and the second leaving from Skyline Gate(old).
For the first hike I went up to the Serpentine Prairie (see my previous post about this area here) and then went out the Dunn trail and back on the Golden Spike trail for a short loop.

The first blue dicks were out, as were some tiny insects.  Are they flies, tiny bees?
A field of common star lilies (Zigadenus fremontii).
 And does anyone know what this is?  It looks like red asparagus.  It was growing in some shade under oaks I believe.
 Find the other hike after the jump.