A Visit to Seaside Gardens

One of the very best days I spent on my California trip was an outing to Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria. Seaside GardensWhy?  Because it isn’t often at all that you find a retail nursery that devotes more than three-quarters of its space to a demonstration garden creatively highlighting the plants it sells by their geographic regions!Garden Map

In fact, having seen just the African garden the day before on my way north from LA, I decided to drive back south from Santa Barbara to spend several hours there. African Garden I went back into the African garden and surprised an Anna’s hummingbird nectaring on the Aloe maculata.Female Anna's hummingbird on aloe

The coast coral tree (Erythrina caffra), called kafferboom in South Africa, was in full, glorious bloom. Erythrina caffra-coral tree

Pretty purple and white African daisies (Osteospermum sp.) formed a flowery carpet under the leucadendrons.Leucadendron & Osteospermum

Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’ is an understandably popular cultivar of this member of the Protea family.Leucandendron 'Safari Sunset'

In the Native California garden designed by Tim Doles, California irises look lovely with lilac verbena (V. lilacina).Native irises & Verbena lilacina

And naturally, since it was late March, there were huge drifts of shimmering, orange California poppies everywhere (Eschscholzia californica).

California poppies-Eschscholzia californica

I was entranced by the flowers of the California plane tree (Platanus racemosa) with their dangling, red button flowers. A riparian species, it was sited appropriately along the wetland area.

California sycamore - Platanus racemosa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the Asian garden, a photinia (Photinia x fraseri) was attracting bees to its white flower clusters, and I was struck by how a plant one normally sees pruned into a tight hedge can redeem itself by appearing so beautifully au naturelPhotinia

As I walked on, I passed a woman walking her dog.  “Do you come here often?” I asked. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied with a smile.  “I’m the owner.” I had just bumped into Dr. Linda Wudl.  Both she and her husband Fred are prominent scientists and philanthropists, and Seaside Gardens is her retirement project. I mentioned I was on a self-designed California garden tour and had returned to Seaside to spend more time photographing the plants, which seemed to delight her.  She made sure to praise the staff — “it’s their hard work” — and then resumed her walk, adding over her shoulder:  “Just look at the Chinese fringe tree – isn’t it lovely?”  It certainly was. Chinese fringe tree-Chionanthus retusus

Bees were everywhere, like these honey bees nectaring on the statuesque pride-of-Madeira (Echium candicans) and foraging for pollen in the California poppies.Pride-of-Madeira & California poppy

There was a charming cottage garden, with lots of old-fashioned flowers and some new takes as well, like this pretty combination of Chinese ground orchids (Bletilla striata) and irises alongside white azaleas.

Bletilla & Pacific iris with azalea

I walked through the sunken terrace of the Mediterranean garden, past the splashing fountain and under the arch decked in Lady Banks roses (R. banksiae). Mediterranean Fountain

The path took me past a big ornamental grass collection, the Mediterranean fan palm, Mediterranean fan palm

and a curving path alongside a fragrant rosemary hedge buzzing with bees. Rosmary Hedge

In fact, as a honey bee photographer, I was delighted to see that bees were everywhere at Seaside gardens, on the ‘Marshwood’ Spanish lavender…..Honey bee on Lavender

and all over the pink rock roses (Cistus cv.) too. Honey bee on rock rose

Hours of bliss later, I suddenly realized I was hungry and it was time to drive back to Santa Barbara for a late lunch.  But I wanted to find a gift for my dinner host for that evening.

Would it be a plant from one of the geographically-arranged areas in the nursery? Australian-section

An extravagant creation from Seaside’s own talented designers?  Garden decorThat would have been nice but a little more than I needed.

In the end, I selected four $3 pots of succulents and a pretty aquamarine ceramic dish and assembled my own creation at a handy potting table, using Seaside’s free container Succulentssoil mix. What a great, generous idea, from a great, generous nursery!  And what a wonderful visit I’d had, learning all about the myriad plants that flourish in California’s benign climate.

Carpinteria

The first actual stop on my California coastal garden tour was the little oceanside town of Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara.  A friend spends several weeks there each winter and I wanted to have a look at it.  Let me see, shovel snow in Toronto the entire month of February, or read books and gaze out on the ocean from one of these balconies?  Hmmmm… tough choice. Carpinteria

Carpinteria has a population of around 13,000.  It hosts the California Avocado Festival on the first weekend of every October.  There’s a lovely beach for walking and whale-watching, but the naturally occurring surface asphalt in this petroleum-rich area sometimes presents a sticky hazard for beachcombers. That asphalt, incidentally, is how the town got its name, for in 1769 Spanish soldiers found the native Chumash Indians building and repairing their canoes around “some springs of pitch”.  So they called the area La Carpinteria, meaning “carpenter shop”. Tar Pits Park celebrates the designation of Carpinteria as one of five natural asphalt lake areas in the world.  During the winter, whales can often be spotted offshore here. The weather in late March was a little chilly for beach picnicking, but it didn’t stop these intrepid women.   Carpinteria Beach

At the far end of the beach was the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Preserve, a series of coastal estuaries between the Santa Ynez Mountains, the creeks that drain them, and the sea.Carpinteria Salt Marsh

A favourite spot for birdwatchers, the salt marsh was quiet the Monday morning I walked its path and read its interesting interpretive signs.Salt Marsh Sign

Driving through town, I had my first look at the kinds of colourful shrubs and flowers that grace this part of the state in early spring. In an effort to adapt to California’s three-year drought, many gardeners are turning to the state’s own drought-resistant native flora, but the message didn’t seem to resonate with gardeners here. Almost all the landscaping consisted of plants native to somewhere else in the world, South Africa, the Mediterranean or Australia.  But they are beautiful and were balm for this winter-weary soul.

Bird-of-Paradise

Bird-of paradise (Strelitzia reginae) from South Africa and bougainvillea from South America.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus (A. africanus) (A. praecox — thank you David Feix!)

Cistus purpureus
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Purple rock rose (Cistus x purpureus) from the Mediterranean.

Limonium perezii

Sea lavender (Limonium perezii) from the Canary Islands.

Echium & Euryops

Tall purple pride-of-Madeira (Echium candicans) from the Portugese island of the same name and yellow daisy bush (Euryops pectinatus) from South Africa.

Polygala 'Bibi-Pink' & Tecoma stans

‘Bibi Pink’ sweetpea shrub (Polygala myrtifolia) and cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis) against a saltwater-sprayed iron fence at the beach. Distictnis buccanitoria

The spectacular blossoms of the gorgeous red trumpet vine (Distictis buccinatoria) from Mexico were blanketing walls and fences in town.

In an upcoming blog, I’ll introduce you to one of my favourite stops on the entire trip: a charming garden-centre-cum-display-garden in Carpinteria called Seaside Gardens.

Got Milkweed?

Last weekend I attended a fundraiser film that, rather shockingly, released hundreds of monarch butterflies into the theatre.  There were orange-and-black monarchs flying at me, through me and fluttering all around me. Little kids in the audience stood up, their arms upraised to grab the beautiful butterflies. Film Poster

But if we took our 3D glasses off, the butterflies behaved themselves and stayed inside the IMAX screen, where they were starring in a wonderful film called Flight of the Butterflies 3D.  Written and produced by SK Films and its principals Jonathan Barker and Wendy MacKeigan, it’s an engrossing, award-winning story filmed in Canada and Mexico.

I received my ticket in exchange for a modest donation to the David Suzuki Foundation’s Got Milkweed project, which is in turn part of their Homegrown National Park project.  The idea is to crowd-source the planting of native milkweed seeds and plants to make a milkweed corridor through Toronto.  Monarchs, as we know, lay their eggs on all Book by Carol Pasternakspecies of milkweed (Asclepias spp), where the eggs develop into caterpillars, then chrysalids, then the iconic black and orange butterfly that’s become the poster insect for sustainability and our own relationship with nature.  It’s also the topic of a book written by my Facebook friend and monarch butterfly specialist Carol Pasternak.

By increasing the amount of milkweed available, it’s hoped that there will be abundant larval habitat for the monarchs that use the city as the departure point for their long flight over Lake Ontario and points south to the overwintering grounds in Mexico. There they roost by the tens of millions in the Oyamel firs of the cool, fog-shrouded Transvolcanic Mountains outside Mexico City – now the UNESCO-designated Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Preserve.  (Populations west of the Rockies have other overwintering sites, including one at Pacific Grove in Monterey, California.) The project will enlist the help of residents, children and “homegrown park rangers”, who will supervise community planting projects to foster mass populations of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

The common milkweed that grows by the highway or in old fields is a gorgeous thing, with nectar-rich flowers held in umbellate cymes. When bees nectar, however, milkweed pollinia often become detached and hang like golden chains from the bee's feet, sometimes trapping them on the flower.

The common milkweed that grows by the highway or in old fields is a gorgeous thing, with nectar-rich flowers held in umbellate cymes. When bees nectar, however, milkweed pollinia often become detached and hang like golden chains from the bee’s feet, sometimes trapping them on the flower.

We all know by now that the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is in trouble.  They have only been studied in situ for 40 years, so it is possible that this is a temporary blip in their evolutionary history, but their population numbers in Mexico are down drastically this winter, much more than the severe decline of the previous winter.  There are many possible reasons. Summer 2012 featured a historic drought that devastated crops and native plants in the American Midwest.  I lost some of my own orange butterfly milkweed plants at the cottage that summer, along with the eggs and larva that were on them.

The female monarch laying a tiny egg (ovipositing) on butterfly milkweed leaves.

The female monarch laying a tiny egg (ovipositing) on butterfly milkweed leaves.

My plants were simply too far away to water, so imagine what happened to the milkweeds on the highway edges and in the fields of Illinois, Kansas and Nebraska – those that aren’t now planted with corn and soybeans, at any rate.  Second, the spring of 2013 was wet and cool, with poor flying conditions for monarchs migrating north through the Texas hill country for their first mating, before the next generation flies up into the Midwest and southern Canada.  Then there were rare, but devastating, freezes in the Mexican wintering grounds. Combine weather factors with the loss of vast tracts of wildflower and milkweed habitat to farming and the widespread planting of Roundup-ready crops (with milkweed being one of the intended target ‘weeds’) and you have a perfect storm of adversity.

A tiny monarch egg on a butterfly milkweed leaf. After mating, the female monarch can lay up to hundreds of eggs. Where milkweed is plentiful, she will lay one egg per plant to ensure lots of food; where not, several eggs might be laid on a single plant. The egg will hatch in 4 days, producing the first, small, worm-like caterpillar.

A tiny monarch egg on a butterfly milkweed leaf. After mating, the female monarch can lay up to hundreds of eggs. Where milkweed is plentiful, she will lay one egg per plant to ensure lots of food; where not, several eggs might be laid on a single plant. The egg will hatch in 4 days, producing the first, small, worm-like caterpillar.

Flight of the Butterflies chronicles the monarch migration, beginning with a single Toronto butterfly called Dana (after her Latin name), through her daughter (third generation), granddaughter (the fourth generation – the super butterfly that makes the arduous flight to Mexico, overwinters there, then flies up to Texas to mate) and her great-granddaughter (first generation, which flies back to Toronto and other points north in early summer).

The monarch caterpillar is an eating machine, going through several larval stages or 'instars' while consuming milkweed leaves and even flowers.

The monarch caterpillar is an eating machine, going through several larval stages or ‘instars’ while consuming milkweed leaves and even flowers.

But the film recounts a second, parallel story: that of the late University of Toronto professor Dr. Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah, who spent their entire professional life uncovering the mystery of the monarch migration.  Even as a child, Dr. Urquhart had known that they flew by the millions south over Lake Ontario in late summer – where were they going?

Norah and Fred Urquhart working on their monarch research. Photo source: biology-forums.com

Norah and Fred Urquhart working on their monarch research. Photo source: biology-forums.com

With the help of thousands of citizen butterfly-taggers (today we’d call them crowdsourcers) all over North America, and later with the efforts of Mexican research partners, the thrilling discovery was made on January 2, 1975.  It’s a wonderful tale of dogged scientific work, with Urquhart being played in the film by esteemed Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent.  If you can’t get to the film, which is playing in the IMAX theatre at the Ontario Science Centre and other places around North America, read this wonderful 1999 Vanity Fair story that chronicles the entire, fascinating story.

As to milkweed, the seeds and plants being distributed are common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).  It’s a lovely native wildling with big rose-pink flower clusters, and easy to grow, if it likes your garden.  But my own favourite, the one I grow at my Lake Muskoka cottage, is the tallgrass prairie denizen butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).

Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is not just a beautiful, tallgrass prairie native perennial, it is both an excellent nectar and larval food plant for the monarch butterfly. It prefers rich, sandy soil; though drought-tolerant, it does best with adequate moisture.

Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is not just a beautiful, tallgrass prairie native perennial, it is both an excellent nectar and larval food plant for the monarch butterfly. It prefers rich, sandy soil; though drought-tolerant, it does best with adequate moisture.

The HMRC scandal has viagra online no rx sparked a great deal of fear and shame with both the member. Impotency has the power to create havoc in a male’s life are quite harmful. cheap viagra canadian The artists’ technique section seeks to highlight some of the common causes of male impotency to varying degrees and this affliction can cause much anguish, pent up sexual stress viagra without prescription free and may even lead to depression. Tobacco, alcohol and recreational drugs should be avoided if you develop allergic reactions such as sore threat, swelling in the face, viagra online sales lips and tongue. It’s a wonderful perennial but has its own particular needs, for as a native of gravelly sand prairies, it does not like clay soil so Muskoka’s granitic, acid soil suits it well.  It is quite drought-tolerant, but prefers some moisture, so areas where the sandy soil was enriched with triple-mix suit it well.  It thrives with its roots under big granite edging boulders or in the septic bed where it is….regularly fertilized. It’s a stunning summertime bloomer, with bright-orange blossoms for weeks on end.  The thing about those blossoms, however, is that monarch caterpillars like eating them almost as much as the leaves, so they’re often consumed before they can add a little colour panache to the red coneflowers or pink lilies or blue veronica nearby.

This was a rather bright combination at my cottage several summers ago: Echinacea 'Firebird' and butterfly milkweed. Can you tell I like bright colours?

This was a rather bright combination at my cottage several summers ago: Echinacea ‘Firebird’ and butterfly milkweed. Can you tell I like bright colours?

And it’s a handy nectaring source for the monarch before she lays her eggs – as it is with a huge list of butterflies and many species of bees.

Butterfly milkweed attracts numerous insects, but bees love it. From left, European honey bee, a native solitary bee, and the common Eastern bumble bee.

Butterfly milkweed attracts numerous insects, but bees love it. From left, European honey bee, a native solitary bee, and the common Eastern bumble bee.

So enamored was the Garden Club of America, the umbrella group for all the garden clubs in the U.S., that they made butterfly milkweed their 2014 Freeman Medal winner.  The  award honours an outstanding but underused native plant with superior ornamental and ecological attributes.  I was pleased to donate my photos to them for their publicity efforts.

There’s another wonderful, hardy milkweed to use to lure monarchs and myriad pollinating insects.  It’s the beautiful, pink-flowered, moisture-loving swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and its pretty white-flowered cultivar ‘Ice Ballet’.

Swamp milkweed, both the pink and white forms, are beautiful, pollinator-attracting perennials for an irrigated garden or a naturally-damp spot.

Swamp milkweed, both the pink and white forms, are beautiful, pollinator-attracting perennials for an irrigated garden or a naturally-damp spot.

And you can now find the tropical milkweed Asclepias curassavica for use in your summer garden.  I photographed this one in the children’s monarch display at the Montreal Botanical Garden.

Tropical milkweed or 'bloodflower' is becoming popular as an annual plant to support monarch caterpillars. This is a cultivar called 'Silky Mix'.

Tropical milkweed or ‘bloodflower’ is becoming popular as an annual plant to support monarch caterpillars. This is a cultivar called ‘Silky Mix’.

Grow your milkweeds with other nectar-rich, butterfly-attracting plants like purple coneflower and tall Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp)….

Tall Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp.) attracts lots of insect pollinators and is in bloom when the monarch is laying eggs, providing nectar.

Tall Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp.) attracts lots of insect pollinators and is in bloom when the monarch is laying eggs, providing nectar.

…and annual zinnias like the glamorous new Z. elegans ‘Queen Red Lime’.

Single and semi-double zinnias with their true central flowers exposed are the best choice to lure nectaring insects, including monarchs.

Single and semi-double zinnias with their true central flowers exposed are the best choice to lure nectaring insects, including monarchs.

Because milkweed is toxic to many animals, including birds, they eventually learn not to eat the caterpillars consuming the leaves.  Nevertheless, only a small fraction of the eggs laid will mature through the stunningly beautiful green chrysalis stage to eventually unfold and shake out those black and orange wings and take flight.   Speaking of the chrysalis, I was lucky to photograph both caterpillars and chrysalids on California’s native Asclepias fascicularis at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden in March.

A caterpillar and two chrysalids preparing to metamorphose into monarch butterflies on California native narrowleaf milkweed in a special monarch display at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

A caterpillar and two chrysalids preparing to metamorphose into monarch butterflies on California native narrowleaf milkweed in a special monarch display at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

It’s a struggle for survival for monarch butterflies!  Why not give them a hand?  Get milkweed!

Reinventing a Meadow at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

When I visited the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in late March (on a special tour with my Facebook friend Frédérique Lavoipierre), the main event for visitors was the iconic meadow that greets them as they enter the gates.  ‘Spectacle’ is an understatement, for this flowery expanse stretches back towards a shrubby border in the near-distance, live oaks in the mid-distance and the rimmed Santa Ynez mountains on the far horizon.  It’s an impressionist masterpiece painted in sunshiny California spring hues.

The meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden in March 2014, halfway through its renovation.

The meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden in March 2014, halfway through its renovation.

So perfect is the composition, the vertical brushstrokes of blue succulent lupines (Lupinus succulentus), yellow tidytips (Layia platyglossa) and orange California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) rising from the brilliant background wash of goldfields (Lasthenia californica), that it surprised me a little to learn that the meadow is actually just halfway through a major renovation.  Or perhaps that should be a return to its historic roots.  

A classic blue-and-yellow spring combination of succulent or Arroyo lupines (Lupinus succulentus) in a darpet of goldfields (Lasthenia californica).

A classic blue-and-yellow spring combination of succulent or Arroyo lupines (Lupinus succulentus) in a carpet of goldfields (Lasthenia californica).

Meadows are relatively easy to make and impossibly difficult to maintain.  Ecologically (that is, with no human interference and excluding stable alpine meadows), a meadow is usually just a pretty way-station on the evolutionary path to climax, meaning every native shrub and tree is itching to shoulder aside all those charming annuals and perennials and transform the sunny painting into shady woodland.  Then there is the more immediate problem of exotic invasives, weeds that fling themselves into the sunny space and soon outcompete the natives, ruining the show and causing a headache for public gardens hoping (or mandated) to treat pests and weeds organically. Drought is an issue, especially in a place like Santa Barbara, where an official multi-year drought makes irrigation of the meadow necessary. Finally, a meadow in a public garden can suffer over time from the conflicting objectives of the people who oversee it.  

Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa), an annual flower native to Western N. America.

Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa), an annual flower native to Western N. America.

Historically, the meadow began in 1929 as Bermuda grass – “a grassy space across which one looked at the mountains – an interval of green silence amid chords of color.”  In the 1940s it alternated between beach strawberries (Fragaria chiloense) and annual wildflowers; it spent the 80s as a mix of grasses and wildflowers; then in the past decade, took a strange left turn into patches of mown lawn that undermined the integrity of its early design.

Unlike most native bees, honey bees are flower-faithful, meaning they seek nectar and pollen from one flower species at a time. The millions of tiny blossoms of goldfields (Lasthenia californica) in the meadow offer a rich food source for them and the native pollinators.

Unlike most native bees, honey bees are flower-faithful, meaning they seek nectar and pollen from one flower species at a time. The millions of tiny blossoms of goldfields (Lasthenia californica) in the meadow offer a rich food source for them and the native pollinators.

Recognizing all that, SBBG developed a new plan for the meadow, an approach designed to provide a “homogenous mix of species that provides seasonal color, year-round interest, educational opportunities, and reduced maintenance.”  However, wrote Betsy Collins, Director of Horticulture, in the garden’s Summer 2013 newsletter, “it is important to try a new approach if we hope to avoid the weedy outcome that has resulted from so many previous efforts.”

A California bluebell (Phacelia campanularia) in the meadow gets a visit from a nectaring honey bee.

A California bluebell (Phacelia campanularia) in the meadow gets a visit from a nectaring honey bee.

She went on: “Drawing on the expertise of our Executive Director, Dr. Steve Windhager, a grassland ecologist, and Conservation Manager, Denise Knapp, a restoration ecologist, we intend to develop a comprehensive weed abatement plan that uses the principles of habitat restoration.”  Weed-abatement methods to eradicate bindweed, Bermuda grass, oxalis, etc. include solarization (plastic sheeting to heat and kill weeds, seeds and pests) and grow-till-kill cycles where weeds are encouraged, then tilled, the process repeated until the weeds are gone.

Appropriately, a hummingbird nectars on hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) in the border at the back of the meadow.

Appropriately, a hummingbird nectars on hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) in the border at the back of the meadow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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What I saw in March at SBBG was the brief glory of the spring wildflower show – a brilliant extravaganza pleasing visitors and pollinators alike – before the designers get back to work on their mission.  The new meadow will feature lots of new plants, says Collins: “We anticipate growing upwards of 70,000 grass and perennial plugs for planting in the fall of 2014. Any remaining weeds that appear will be removed by hand while the plugs are established. A blanket of annual wildflowers will be seeded in early winter for a spectacular show in the spring of 2015!”

During my visit to SBBG, the sun shone so brightly most of the day that the plants were difficult to capture in a good photo.  But I made lots of images anyway, and found they lend themselves to the art filters that can transform so-so pictures into colourful impressionism.

California poppies, given the impressionist watercolour treatment.

California poppies, given the impressionist watercolour treatment.

 

A technologically-assisted 'impressionist' version of the meadow. Fun with art filters!

A technologically-assisted ‘impressionist’ version of the meadow. Fun with art filters!

Special thanks to SBBG Education Program Manager Frédérique Lavoipierre for giving me the grand tour.

Santa Barbara Botanical Garden is open daily. Check their website www.sbbg.org for information.

California Poppies

You can’t visit California in spring without encountering Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz’s little orange poppy, the one he collected from the meadows of a pre-Gold Rush California in 1818 and carried home aboard the Russian expeditionary ship Rurik.  A newly-minted physician, he was only 25 when he undertook the role of naturalist on the ship’s circumnavigation, also collecting specimens in the Pacific Islands, Brazil, Chile, Kamchatka and the Aleutian islands.  Perhaps his surname is why so many confuse the spelling of California poppy’s botanical name, adding an errant “t” to Eschscholzia californica.

California poppies have silky petals that seem to glow.

California poppies have silky petals that seem to glow.

But Eschscholtz, of course, wasn’t the first European to notice California’s famous orange hillsides; the Spanish and Mexicans called the little poppy copa de oro, or cup of gold, when they owned the place.  And long before then, native California Indians had used it medicinally.  California poppies are highly variable, with two subspecies, one of which has four forms. But it is the annual form that most northerners long to grow – never, alas, as prolifically as the cheerful wildlings that carpet the Mojave Desert or line the grassy road edges throughout the state in spring. While they provide necessary pollen (no nectar) for beetles and bees, honey bees are especially fond of them.

Though they offer no nectar, California poppies are an important source of pollen for insect pollinators, including honey bees.

Though they offer no nectar, California poppies are an important source of pollen for insect pollinators, including honey bees.

If seeing masses of California poppies arrayed across hillsides is thrilling, seeing them paired with other California plants is equally satisfying, for someone interested in colour.  And as everyone knows, there’s nothing like orange-and-blue or orange-and-purple for creating a little ‘zing’! So I loved finding them with cobalt-blue foothill penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus) at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden……

At the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, foothills penstemon (P. heterophyllus) offers the perfect azure-blue complementary contrast to the orange California poppies.

At the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, foothills penstemon (P. heterophyllus) offers the perfect azure-blue complementary contrast to the orange California poppies.

and also with blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) there……

Though not exactly "blue", blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) contrasts nicely with California poppies.

Though not exactly “blue”, blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) contrasts nicely with California poppies.

not to mention the delightfully-perfumed lilac verbena (Verbena lilacina)….

Fragrant lilac verbena (V. lilacina) makes a pretty companion for California poppies.

and with a Pacific Hybrid iris in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park…..

Both the native Iris douglasiana and the Pacific Coast Hybrids, like this one, are lovely with California poppies.

Both the native Iris douglasiana and the Pacific Coast Hybrids, like this one, are lovely with California poppies.

And they were no more beautifully arrayed anywhere than in their golden glory along with other wildlings on the grassy roadsides flanking the vineyards of the Napa Valley.

California poppies light up a roadside near St. Helena in the Napa Valley.

California poppies light up a roadside near St. Helena in the Napa Valley.