Happy Days

I find it nearly impossible to be miserable in spring. No matter how dark the evening hour, morning brings a new bloom.

These days the wildflowers are flouncing, the peas towering, and the bulbs blazing.

Pictured above is the California native Chinese Houses (Collinsia heteropylla). Named for its pagoda-like structure, this wildflower is found in oak woodlands.

Below are a couple hybrid sparaxis. Bulbs from the Cape of South Africa are generally used to a climate similar to ours (albeit not quite as dry) and lean soils. Here they're growing in decomposed granite, amongst California poppies.

When I first planned this garden I had pretty much one thing on my mind--lure birds. Over the years I've become more absorbed in the plants in and of themselves. And I've added plants purely to feed or please me.

But the birds still come and remind me not to stray too far from my original purpose. Below is a white-crowned sparrow, identifiable by the racer strip on his head.

White-crowned sparrow in ceonothus.