Wednesday, January 22, 2014

In the Garden: Early Spring





Here in the Southern California woodland Spring arrives early, even when we've had little to no rain. The first flowers to appear our on the back slope covered with rosemary, these begin to blossom as early as November. Right now the purple sage, botanically known as Salvia leucphylla, is blooming and the girls are all over it in the morning. I've noticed the honey bees tend to prefer plants when they are hit by the sun, at least in the morning at this time of the year. Probably because they are elemental beings of the sunlight.


I patiently observed them this morning, waiting for the perfect moment to capture one of them at work. On Monday while when I was doing this I got a shot in the arm by one of the girls, not quite sure why (!) but I figure little doses of api therapy are always good as it is used in Europe to assist a wide variety of ailments.


The reason this particular salvia does so well in our garden is because it likes clay soil, something of which we have in abundance. Besides being a great plants for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, the native quail love the seeds. Once established it needs no water!

This one is on my list to get more of, in fact, might be good to get a bunch of them!

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