iPhone Photo Friday…

Usually on a Friday, I process my iPhone photos with my current favorite apps, but this week my focus has been on my California native plant garden because it has been bursting forth into glory. I tried processing the photos I took with the camera in my iPhone with lots of different apps, but they could not compete with  the actual flowers in the garden. If you want apps, you will have to look in my other Friday posts. Today, I simplified and I am just using  the iPhone photos without processing except with a little cropping using Crop Suey. This has been the week of the Douglas Iris. It won’t last very long, but while it does it makes my spirit soar.

Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris

Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris (Iris PCH ‘Strybing Yellow’)

Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana ‘Canyon Snow’)

Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana white form)

Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana)

Dwarf PCH Iris (‘Native Warrior’)

iPhone Photo Friday…

The cherry hit its glory yesterday and today with a wind picking up it has started to blow pink petal snow everywhere. The cherry blooms never last long enough in my opinion, but it is consistent each year with its abundance and beauty.

This week I had fun capturing the first blooms in the garden with my iPhone and then processing with PicGrunger app (new update) and Blender app for layering with backgrounds I created.

This lilac is not really part of our native plant garden. It is in the front, under an oak and constricted by junipers. Each year it sends up one or two blossoms which I enjoy smelling and sometimes I cut them to bring inside. They are not abundant so if I cut them there is not much left.

Here are the natives:

Apps for this week: Diptic, Blender, Pic Grunger and Impression.

Bloomin’ loverly…

Iris douglasiana, "Canyon Snow"

Here it is…

Bloomday…

Two weeks until the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour and everyone seems to be cooperating and bringing forth that color right on schedule. We’ve got our plant list up to date and Terry has completed his signs to mark each native. Good thing he took Latin in high school, he has some sense of the botanical names. Me, if someone asks me a question on the day of the tour, I will point and say “See that guy over there, you will have to ask him.” Our biggest hope is that it won’t rain. Last year it did deluge practically all day and still 350 people walked through. Gardeners are hardy souls! It is all part of nature, afterall.

The vista along one of the paths where the complementary colors of orange and violet come into play…

California poppy, sticky monkey flower, and Douglas Iris

The Irises are having a heyday this year, only the Canyon Snow Iris, which is white, has yet to open up a bloom. That should be a couple of more days…

Douglas Iris

Douglas Iris

California poppies are not always orange…

Eschscholzia californica, Purple Gleam

Eschscholzia californica, Purple Gleam

and another wildflower from California…

Layia platyglossa, Tidy Tips

Snow, snow….

Pink snow at my house! Not really, just pink petals everywhere covering the Yerba Buena, Satureja douglassii, the car, and the walk. The wind blows them far and wide! (Yerba Buena is disliked by deer and doesn’t mind shade under a tree.)

The cherry blossoms don't fall far from the tree...

A few Iris are adding their color…

Douglas Iris, Iris douglasiana

I truly do not like those pine tree things, however, cough, cough, sinus, sinus…..Everywhere.

Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris, Strybing Yellow

I was in an Ansel Adams mode with my ferns.

Polyposy fern, Polypodium californicum

Polyposy fern, Polypodium californicum

Rain last night and today. California so needs it…

Spring, spring, spring, spring, spring, sp…

Last Sunday we detected our first Iris starting to peek out into the world:

A day of rain on Monday, and then on Tuesday it burst forth like this:

Not a great specimen, but the thought is what counts.

For weeks the little leaves on the gooseberry have turned more and more green and gotten larger and larger. This is the state they are in:

Not to mention the hydrangeas:

and the daffy daffodils:

Oh, well, I lied about the hydrangeas and the daffodils, I went to Trader Joe’s this morning:

But still, even though there is so much rain, things feel like they are perking up in California. The dulled grey greens of winter are beginning to take on their spring vibrancy. Hope it doesn’t freeze and set things back….Besides, iphone camera aps (not diamonds) are a girl’s best friend. I just want to have fun!

The mail brings presents…

There was a Spoonflower shipment in the mail today, like it was a birthday or something. Fabric came from my own design.
From this photo of Douglas Iris in my garden:

To this fabric (cotton)

this is just too cool for school. When I get the pillow done, I will show you a photo.