{"id":13941,"date":"2013-05-09T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T07:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=13941"},"modified":"2013-05-09T00:01:26","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T07:01:26","slug":"in-the-garden-look-what-happened-in-my-front-yard-when-i-wasnt-looking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/in-the-garden-look-what-happened-in-my-front-yard-when-i-wasnt-looking\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Garden: Look What Happened to My Front Yard Over the Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"San<\/a>
Going crazy in my front yard — geraniums, blue-eyed grass (a California native) and the moss rock, at lower right. Photos by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

I wasn’t looking. I was at the computer all weekend with my back to the world. When I finally took a bleary look out the window on Monday morning, I saw a front yard crazy with life —\u00a0 poppies, <\/p>\n

\"Close<\/a>
The geranium blossom close up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

lupine, pansies, armeria, rhododendron blossoms, tiny patches of hopeful isotoma, you name it.<\/p>\n

Later in the morning, after putting in my time at the gym, I grabbed my camera and took a closer look. There was moss rock in its rugged glory, a bumblebee attending busily to the purple lupine,<\/p>\n

\"White<\/a>
The white blossoms on my bower vine are a little blah. Wish I’d picked one with\u00a0 color.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Deep<\/a>
A deep rose poppy — eschscholzia californica ‘Rose Chiffon.’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

a pair of shameless moths more interested in each other than the pale yellow pansies they lit upon, and a fearless robin studying me from the shade of our now-spent camellias.<\/p>\n

Note to self.<\/em> March might be the springiest, most exuberant month in the San Francisco Bay area, what with daffodils and California poppies blooming all over the place. But May is crazy prolific . . . Next year, don’t turn your back on that front yard of yours for more than a day. You might miss the lupine spiking from a cluster the size of your fist into a stalk the size of a baseball bat. Or the robin looking for earthworms in the rotting camellia blossoms. Or the blue-eyed grass opening its eyes to the morning sun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Bumblebee<\/a>
These lupine buds are about to stretch into stalks of blossoms nearly two feet tall. Don’t miss the attentive bumblebee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of all my plants I think I love the small, modest, tucked-away rock garden plants like the geraniums, armeria and blue-eyed grass the most.<\/p>\n

But are they really my plants? Jillian the gardener planted them and fed them, and then they grew themselves. But I wanted them, and I love them, so I’m claiming them.<\/p>\n

More meditations on nature at “Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder — But What If There’s No Beholder”<\/a> and “Yosemite Rocks — And Sometimes It Rolls.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To get regular updates, click on the Facebook, RSS, Twitter or email icon at the top of the right column.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Are they butterflies or moths? The antennae say butterfly, but the folded wings tell me moth. Notice how they both have their proboscises in the pansy’s throat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fat<\/a>
A good sign for my garden; this robin thinks it can find earthworms here as fat as he is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
The view from our front window. Anybody got any ideas for making the fence look less — unevenly — weathered? Photos by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pink<\/a>
Of all my plants I think I love the small, modest, tucked-away rock garden plants like this armeria the most.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"San<\/a><\/p>\n

I wasn’t looking. I was at the computer all weekend with my back to the world. When I finally took a bleary look out the window Monday morning, I saw a front yard crazy with life — poppies, blue-eyed grass, armeria, pansies and several lascivious stalks of lupine blossoms. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n

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