GARDEN BLOGGERS' BLOOM DAY, MARCH 2012

It's the beginning of spring in the sunken garden. The unseasonably warm winter and spring means that everything is bursting into bloom. I hear that northern gardens have also experienced a milder winter. To find out what is blooming in everyone's garden join Carol at Maydreams for our March Madness in the garden.

The California poppies have been truly magnificent this year. They even surprised me with a yellow form that seeded at the foot of the steps in the herb garden.

Most, however are the more common orange color.

The Iceland poppy, Papaver nudicaule, 'champagne bubbles' A rescue plant from a big box store.

My faithful little blue gilia, Gilia rigidula.

The false garlic, Nothoscordum bivalve. Better appreciated in close up. I think it makes pretty clumps of flowers.

And the first red corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas, appeared. There are going to be plenty of those this year.

The wine cup, Callirhoe involucrata, against the paler purple alyssum.

Yellow columbines, Aquilegia chrysantha, var. Hinkleyana.

The Lady Bank's rose in the front courtyard is almost in full bloom. The only thing I have to do to this rose is to cut back its rampant growth.

You can see in this shot that pruning is something at which I do not excel.

In this same garden the four nerve daisies and the blackfoot daisies are in full bloom.

Bluebonnets have even found their way into the rockery. In fact they are everywhere.

Species tulips nested in beside the Agave parryi.

Bluebonnets and blanket flowers in the herb garden.

Blooms of the cross vine, Bignonia capreolata, on the wrought iron gate in the English Garden.

Gazanias galore. They are magnificent this year, the plants having survived the mild winter.

The chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata,is as old as the garden itself. It grows in a crack between the pavers in the sunken garden.

A new plant in the garden this year is this desert mallow, Sphaerlacea ambigua 'red' It really is more pink than red. I also have an orange one.

And finally the iris. All passalongs, and none of which I know the name except for the white cemetery iris, Iris albicans.
I hope all my gardening friends are having a happy bloom day.