Portland flowers

Don't know what these are called (yet) but they're lovely!

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Cutting edge science of flowers

I always find it delightful to check out the wall art in the school in which I volunteer. The other day I saw this. Kinda-super-cute, huh? You have to love the little bug.

Oakland Garden Tour Highlight reel part 1

Every year in Oakland, there's a wonderful event called the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour (here's another bloggers highlights) whereupon folks grab their hats, lather up on sunscreen (if they're me) and go in the the backyards of complete strangers to admire their gardens. Over 40 gardens open up & owners are on hand kindly offering lemonade, seeds, clippings, and most importantly, garden conversation. There were too many amazing sights to cram them all into one post so the gardens I saw are going to be broken up into multiples.

In this post, I'm going to talk about the whimsical designs I admired at our first stop. The two connected backyards reminded me of the Jade Seahorse in Utila, Honduras, designed by a former Los Angeles Teacher, Neil & his wife Julia. The Seahorse is covered from top to bottom with bold colors and irreverent designs. Sigh.

Back to beautiful Oakland . . . Look at the use of colorful rocks!

The red glass rocks above look buckshot. Nice.

I drooled when I saw this beautiful blue spiral. More to come on this amazing tour later.

Columbines: too pretty to eat?

I recently learned from my friend Serena that Columbines, a pretty perennial which attract hummingbirds, are also edible! I have no idea why someone would eat these beauties. Hopefully they are delicious.

I'm relatively new to gardening & this plant was one that I was sure I'd killed since all of it's leaves withered, but they reappeared a few months ago and just a few weeks ago blooms have appeared.

Horray! I probably won't be eating my columbines..their too pretty!