Double Spike Spaceship

My trusty first orchid. The one that started it all. Every year another bulbous thing grows and a spike grows and flowers. This year something weird happened...two bulbs! Which means two spikes!!


I really love the weird shape of this flowers.


One of this years bulbs has a new little growth. I don't know if the other one will grow, but either way, after this bloom it will be repotted. There's nowhere else for them to grow!

Free plants!

I've been very good about not buying plants. Sticking to my budget and all. So I was very excited to get some free, extra plants from friends.

The chive was starting to flower so I took a photo of the gorgeous bloom before I trimmed it all back


This pot ended up with a red dahlia and two gazania that look lovely in the blue pot.


I also ended up with two rudbeckia that will be red and a yarrow that's not pictured. I'm very excited to fill some empty pots with flowering plants.

Lavendar at the Lamm Farm

Twitter is a wonderful thing. One quick post from Amy (@citad) about planting 990 lavender plants and I'm on my way to the Lamm Farm! Here are about 700 plants. The rest were kept back since they were grown especially for the Lamm Farm and some of the varieties weren't quite big enough to travel.

Here are the resident bees that will help these plants produce their best. It will take two years for the plants to grow full sized and then they will harvest. Until then, they will be pruned back so all their effort ends up in the roots.

They had tilled and prepped a who area with weed cloth before we got there. Then irrigation lines were put in and an orange dot where each plant should go. You cut an X in the cloth, push the dirt out of the way and plant the little guys.

The first row was a little less than straight but the we got the hang of it. The Folgate was healthy and large (as seen below) but the Grosso, which will be even larger were shipped out a little bit small. Not all of them survived.

Being fabulous farm hosts, they even fed us a barbecue lunch which after planting all morning, tasted fabulous!

There were about 8 friends and family that come out for the planting party. It was a lovely day spent in gorgeous weather chatting to wonderful plant lovers. There's @tikikristi & @betweenthelimes.

Do I look happy? Living in a condo doesn't let me have much dirt time so this was a wonderful day. We even got to put our names on a row. So proud!

We figured about 575 plants were put in the ground that day. And after a round of Popsicles, we all went home tired and happy. Frequent guest blogger The Jenny (@the_Jenny) also came out for the fun. I would do it again anytime.

June Rain

It's June in Sacramento and usually it is in the 90s and I'm desperately trying to make the transition to watering my porch plants every other day. Since I water by filling a bucket in my kitchen sink and then lug it over the carpet to the porch door...it's sort of annoying.

This year, the weather is just plain wacky. 60s & raining. I'm sure my plants will be confused soon, but for right now they are blooming, getting some fresh rain water and enjoying the cool weather. And I'm enjoying not lugging the water.