Another backyard visitor

I'm not very knowledgeable about bird identification, but I enjoy seeing many different kinds enjoying our backyard. In addition to hummingbirds, which are always fun to watch, our yard attracts a number of finches and other seed-eating birds. This fellow sat quietly for quite a while on a dead peach tree limb.

Some people like perfectly manicured gardens. They rip out and replace flowers as soon as they begin to show signs of decline and wouldn't think of letting them go to seed. I think they miss out, on birdwatching and on other things. I did cut away the dead peach tree limb today, though.

Artichokes in bloom

We still haven't eaten any. The artichoke is in the thistle family, and produces rather spectacular blossoms when left to its on devices.

The independence of plants

Last year I carefully saved the seeds from a bright red hollyhock that appeared in our yard for the first time. I'm not sure what the genetics of hollyhock color is, but it must be more complex than that of Mendel's pea flowers as i see new color combinations pop up all the time.

None of them came up in the places I scattered seeds. Instead, they came up in the gravel part of the yard where they were lucky not to get sprayed with Roundup in their infancy. Sometimes being a lazy gardener has its advantages.

Hummingbird in the pond!

I've been trying to get a video of a hummingbird for several weeks, and lucked out today. Hummingbirds love water, and this one conveniently decided to enjoy one of the waterfalls in our pond system.

Plumbago and pears

The blue plumbago at the base of our Asian pear tree looks particularly good this year, probably due to the mild winter. There are dozens of ping-pong ball size fruits on the tree, too.

We never know what we'll find in our backyard

I'm not sure what kind of snake this is, but he didn't seem camera-shy.

May 1 Overview

As the peak gardening season begins in other parts of the country, it's winding down here. I removed the last of the broccoli and cilantro yesterday, and planted another melon in their place. I've stopped harvesting asparagus and let the ferns grow to provide food to sustain the plant for next year's crop. Very few lemons remain on the tree, the first flush of rose blooms have come and gone, and nasturtiums and petunias are pretty scraggly looking. In their place, zinnias, marigolds, alyssum, coreopsis, and galliardia are appearing. Hollyhocks are still going strong, and sweet potato vines are spreading into the streambed and the floor of the gazebo,

I harvested the first of the green beans, tomatoes, and eggplant this week, and should be picking yellow squash in another week. I've picked the half-dozen apricots our young tree produced, along with about two dozen smallish peaches. The remaining ones are even smaller, so I think I'll let the birds enjoy them. There are about a half-dozen green plums on our Santa Rosa plum, which is somewhat of an improvement over most years, and dozens of developing Asian pears. The apple tree is, surprisingly, still alive, but unlikely to produce any fruit.

The black metal structure in the upper left is the framework for one of our two portable gazebos that we use to shade the side patio in summer. We have to take down the canopy when the wind kicks up, as it has been doing for the past week. One of our future projects will be to replace these with a permanent pergola, which should be more functional, attractive, and stable.