We are still having cool, springish weather here in Oakland (though, truth to tell, we have coolish weather much of the summer here; only September is reliably hot). At any rate, summer is close at hand, the air is drying out, and the plants are not fooled.
The irises have finished blooming–all but one recent addition called “Musician.” I bought it two years ago from a hardware store’s remainder bin, but when it bloomed last spring, it proved too gaudy for the iris bed in the back garden. So I exiled it to the front garden for the edification of the passing public.

I wonder what kind of music the people who named it had in mind. Glam rock perhaps?

Other things are claiming their spot in the limelight, too. Oscularia, a succulent that forms mounds of gray-green leaves, covers them at this time of year with pink flowers that are, to my eye at least, just this side of garishness. Maybe it’s the gentle tone of the foliage that calms it all down.

Another much larger succulent, an Aeonium brought to us by our friends Robin and Eddie, has sent up a whole tower of delicate yellow flowers.

And my brother Fred’s blue hydrangea still thrives and blooms in the same pot it arrived here in after his death. One of the great things for me about the garden is the way plants recall associations and reconnect us with people who have been part of one’s gardening life.

And here’s a new gardener, grandson Will, who helped shake out the seeds from the withering California poppies as I cut them back last week. He seemed to enjoy it mightily, taking after his mother as well as his granddad.