Volunteers Show their Stuff

The volunteers are over-performing this year!  It's amazing what a little timely rain and my neighbor's seeds can accomplish.

Everyone knows California Poppies. I dumped a seed packet on my garden two years ago and Nature does the rest.  I am deadheading so they'll last till the garden tour. This photo was during a heat wave... they were a little limp.

I inadvertently designed an excellent garden for volunteers in my front yard.  The bases of my mounds collect both seeds and moisture (from association lawn overspray), making them ideal incubators for wildflowers.  Weeds too, but it's a small area, and once the wildflowers take hold they crowd out the weeds. When they fade away in summer, the bare gravel base of the slope does not seem out of place. The trickiest part was figuring out which were weeds and which were wildflowers.

Seep Monkeyflower (from Tomaz' garden next door) was a surprise. My garden's not wet!

Perennial Blue-eyed Grass was the first colonizer of my garden.  Two plants from Tomaz became a half dozen the next year– but no blooms.  I had wondered if I got duds.  They are blooming copiously their second year, with so many new sprouts I'll be stocking my friends' gardens next year.

Blue-eyed Grass with a background of Red Buckwheat. It disappears in summer, but happily grows in, through and around just about anything, so no bare spots.

Many California wildflowers are annuals.  They sprout in winter, delight in spring, and vanish by summer.  Perhaps this is the reason they are seldom cultivated (aside from poppies).  But their seeds live on.

Life-sized photo of little Beach Primrose (Camissonia cheiranthifolia), also seeded from Tomaz' planting.

Our tallest volunteer by far is Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata), a meadow flower found widely in California.  I got the seeds, gave them to Tomaz, and one of their progeny shot up through my seaside daisies.  His side of the garden has a dozen or so two-foot sprigs. I have one monster.

Elegant Clarkia on steroids: four feet tall.  Also color coordination is out the window.  Totally worth it. 

Another Clarkia that performs well in my garden is Farewell to Spring (Clarkia bottae).  It blooms later than other annual wildflowers, and is not yet at its peak.  The selection I got from Tree of Life (in 4" pots) makes very neat round mounds.

Early blooms from Farewell to Spring.

Lighting up the unirrigated, mowed strip along the campus ring road at UCI: Desert Marigold (Baileya radiata). I hope the one I just planted produces some volunteers too!

Unstoppable native.  This Desert Marigold got mowed and came right back.

A garden is always a collaboration between humans and nature.  I like it when nature takes liberties with design.  I'm glad my garden has room for these stunning volunteers.

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