Gardens around town in Berkeley

Here’s my last post from my trip to California back in April and May. I’m sure I totally looked like a tourist while I was in Berkeley. The front yards were gorgeous and they have so many plants that won’t grow here or won’t grow as well here. There were lots of California poppies, one of my all-time favorite plants, here’s a yellow one.

I think this is an erigeron, I don’t really remember, but I it will not grow here. I’ve loved this plant since I was a child and tried growing it many times when I was young, it failed every time. It was all over the place in Berkeley.

Valerian – It does grow in Kansas but it never looks this nice.

The view of the garden out the front window of the house we stayed in. Incidentally, I ran across this blog about yards in Berkeley a few days ago. The pictures are much better than mine. It makes me want to try harder to make my yard beautiful.

Climbing asparagus “fern”

Jasmine was everywhere

Calla lilies too

And then there were the roses. I’m always jealous when I see California garden bloggers’ rose pictures. Roses do not look like this in Kansas. At least I was able to see a few in person.

I’m not an expert in rose cultivars so I say this one’s name is ‘Apricot’.

‘Yellow’

‘Pink and Yellow Bicolor’

That’s all for my trip to California. Hopefully I can post about the trip I took at the end of May soon.

 

Townhouse yard update – May 18 to 24, 2009

New bok choi, Potted up tomato plants

Last week I pulled the dog fertilized spinach and the radishes. The radishes were incredibly disappointing, this is the first time I’ve ever grown a poor crop of radishes. Maybe my green thumb is failing me or maybe I just didn’t water enough cause the soil was incredibly dry and hard. It seemed like decent soil when I dug it up in March. Oh well, I don’t like radishes much anyway. I mainly grow them cause they’re easy and pretty. In place of the spinach and radishes I planted three cultivars of bok choi, broccoli raab, and one chinese cabbage. Perhaps they will fare better than the radishes, I will try harder at the watering which is kind of a pain. I have no outdoor faucet in the back so I have to fill up watering cans in the kitchen.

Surprise! Pretty red roses

One cool surprise was the rose bush. It is very top heavy since I didn’t prune it when I should’ve but the blooms are beautiful. I’ll cut it back once the petals are gone so it will bush out.

Hopefully I have time to plant my cherry tomatoes tonight, I really need to get all of my tomato plants in the ground very soon.

UPDATE – June 1: I planted my cherry tomatoes along with Senecio confusus which is going to need a trellis to climb very soon. I also potted up a bunch of plants into pretty pots.

Most importantly, I DISCOVERED A FAUCET! Yippee! I won’t have to fill up watering cans in the kitchen sink any more. I just need to go buy a hose now . . .