One of our native irises bloomed just in time for Easter. 

We spent a good chunk of Saturday in the yard. 

I cleared out dead poppies and pulled rusty leaves off the roses.  We've got a few blooms -- all red.  I'm curious to see what color the other bushes are since the Phoenix roses are a mystery.  One of them had a light purple tint before we transplanted it, so that would work well with the sage, rosemary and lavender.

I'll be glad when the rest of our landscaping looks as good as our parkway.

The Parkway Progesses

The poppies are really taking off, as well as the sages from Theodore Payne.

What a difference a year makes...this is what it used to look like.

And Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow

A Step Up

Rob made stepping stones for the parkway out of the bricks from our old fireplace. Hopefully, this will encourage people not to trample the plants!

Parkway, Take 2!

We got some new plants for the Parkway from Theodore Payne to replace the lavender bush and sycamore tree that didn't make it through the first round of planting.

We got two different sages -- the one to the right is my favorite. It has a red stem like a manzanita.

We also got two different kinds of irises, but I can't remember which is which.

I put all the plants in the tomato cages we aren't using right now -- hopefully, that will keep them from being stepped on and damaged.

We Have A Lawn! (Kind of.)

The blue grama grass we planted last March has gone to seed. If you look closely, you can see little flags on the top of the mounds of grass in the front. Rob likes to roll the flags between his fingers to spread the seeds around.

Blue grama is a pretty slow growing, drought-tolerant, native grass. With a little luck, the parkway will fill in with it next year and we won't have to keep digging out that awful Bermuda grass.

I Know We Killed This

This used to be one of the lavender bushes on the parkway. I think the dogs peed on it one too many times.

Bee-utiful!

After all that work, the house looks good from the fence out. We added a native sage to the parkway last week and it added a much-needed bit of height.

It's hard to see the roses because the poppies are so dense, but they're chugging along. I'd be surprised if we see blooms this year, but you never know.














When we went on the native garden tour, we met a specialist who said, "If you build it, they will come." He was talking about frogs, but we wanted birds, butterflies and bees as well and we've got 'em. If you look closely, you'll see a little bee buzzing around in one of the poppies in the close up!

Sick-Amour

On Sundays, we stop by the Theodore Payne Foundation booth at the farmers market and talk to this nice woman about native plants, our yard and the Engelmann Oak we planted.

Yesterday, she surprised us with a gift of a California Sycamore. It is one of the babies propagated from the tree in Pasadena whose rescue was documented in the movie Sick-Amour by Joel Tauber.

We'd been discussing planting a Sycamore on the parkway for a little while, but weren't sure we had enough space. Its roots are pretty invasive and we were concerned about possible interference with the Englemann and the sidewalk. Plus our property is crisscrossed with power lines.

The gift seemed like a sign, however, so we accepted the tree and planted it.

Joel Tauber's site has a map of all the babies that have been planted in Los Angeles. One was in our zip code and, when I put on my Nancy Drew hat, I discovered it was only two blocks from our house. We walked the dogs past it last night and it looks a little sickly. I have to go back during daylight to see for sure. I hope ours fares okay. The Englemann is doing great -- I'll post new pics of it soon.

How We Spent Our Weekend

We dug out the weeds in one half of the parkway. Rob planted lavender and rosemary that we bought at the Hollywood Farmer's Market and also sowed California poppy seeds and blue grama grass. We got the seeds from Theodore Payne. Should be pretty once it's all grown in.

Rob's going to try to do the second half next weekend while I'm away...