Flowers in Fog

Hello readers!  I am back after a long break, with a virtual tour of Regional Parks Botanic Garden at Tilden Park, near Berkeley California.  Enjoy!

Coast Fawn Lily, Erythonium revolutum, a woodland plant. The name comes from the charming mottled leaves, not shown.

Tilden is always in the fog belt, but with this year's rains, it is practically boggy.

Miner's lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata, loves wet weather.  It is a common short-lived annual with a sweet mild crunch that really works as a salad green.  It was growing inside the garden and in abundance around the parking lot and creek bed outside.  Why haven't I planted Miner's Lettuce?

This mature garden offers lots of shade too, so coastal and woodland plants prosper. 

Iris munzii is found only in southern Sierra foothill woodlands east of Visalia.

This garden is well-labeled, and the labels list the site and county from which the particular plant has been collected.  Oh raptures!  (Yes, I am a plant nerd.)  A plant that grows all over California may have significant regional variations– so interesting!

Dodecatheon clevelandii, Padre's Shooting Star.  Found widely around California, this cultivar comes from Santa Cruz Island.  So many blooms on the same plant!

Then there are those California endemics that won't grow in our garden, unless we have wicked bad soil: serpentine soil.

Tiny Mouse Ears, Diplacus douglasii, was either prospering or planted in abundance in its own special bed– since it grows in serpentine soil. It is a monkeyflower.

I love visiting a garden at different times: I catch plants in bloom that I've never seem properly before.  Like Mule's Ears.

Wyethia helenoides, Mule Ears, was in fine flower.  Its leaves are fuzzy grey and ornamental too.  Claimed to be an allergy remedy.  Timely.

The staple shrubs of California just keep growing year after year.  Some can become trees in established gardens.  None have finer trunks than Manzanitas.  

One of dozens of species and hybrids of Manzanitas that reveal spectacular trunks with age,  Arctostaphylos osoensis is found in the wild only on one ridge near Morro Bay. My manzanitas aspire to this look.

When a variety of a California native shrub is very low growing, you can bet it was found growing at the seashore.  This applies to Sages, Manzanitas, California Lilacs, and even Coyote Bushes.  Being in the fog belt, this garden allows all those ground cover shrubs to shine. (Hint:  Don't bother planting Manzanita or Lilac ground cover variants in Southern California unless you are very close to the coast, or will mist them every evening.)

Bearberry Manzanita, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, and its hybrids, carpeted much of the garden.  This plant never looks happy in Southern California, if it survives at all.

Most of the garden's California Lilacs were not in peak bloom.

This California Lilac was in peak bloom.  Mystery Ceanothus...I couldn't find the label.  There are 83 species and subspecies listed on Calflora, and countless hybrids.  

The garden has some unusual buckwheats.

A red-leafed buckwheat!  Eriogonum umbellatum var. torreyanum does not appear red in the wild -growing photos I've found.  The tiny silvery leaves at bottom are an alpine buckwheat, Wright's buckwheat, Eriogonum wrightii var. subscaposum.  

Some Southern California endemics looked very sad in this wet foggy garden, or were altogether deceased, engraved plastic labels serving as headstones for their final rest.  But some notoriously 'difficult' natives were thriving, including Woolly Blue Curls (not yet in flower) and Flannelbush.  I suspect the secret is to give them fog but entirely dry soil in summer.

I love Flannelbushes!  This one was just starting to flower, and was a manageable size– they're often enormous.  Fremontodendrum californium 'Margo.'  I want one!

Some plants just thrive in a given garden.  And not in mine.  Maybe Pink Flowering Currant needs fog to really shine.

The lacy structure of Pink Flowering Currant, Ribes sanguineum, is hard to capture in a photo.  So just enjoy the flower sprays.

Some plants I don't even want in my garden.  So it's nice of other people to grow them for us.

A particularly lovely Toxicoscordion fremontii, Fremont's Death Camas (!) Or call it Star Lily, but don't eat it.

On my third visit to Regional Parks Botanic Garden, I am in awe at the diversity of California flora, and the dedication of the volunteers who weed all those beds! Now is the time to visit native gardens, whether at your local botanic garden or taking a garden tour.  Orange County's "California In My Garden" tour of 11 home gardens (plus a church, a business and a school) is April 13 (2019) and you must register in advance to be mailed the tour guide with addresses.  Happy garden tours!

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