This is where I’ll be spending my weekend.
This weekend is the Coronado Flower Show – April 20 and 21. The show hours are Saturday from 1:00pm-5:00pm and Sunday from 10:00am-4:00pm. There is something for everyone including: Floral Design, Horticulture, our great Youth section, plus music on the bandstand throughout the show, a plant sale, food and a beer tent, and interesting, educational displays. This is Coronado’s longest running tradition so, come to the show and enjoy a great community event. It’s a great show!
If you are entering plants, you need to bring them this afternoon (Friday) from 4:00pm-6:00pm or tomorrow morning (Sat) from 7:00am-9:15am. It’s going to be a beautiful weekend!!!
I planted this bronzed fennel months ago and it has been a beautiful addition to my garden. I love the wispy flow of this plant in the breeze, and I like to crush sprigs to release the fresh scent of anise. I’ve also chopped up sprigs into my salads which has been yummy, but this variety hasn’t produced bulbs at the bottom like the regular variety, so I haven’t cooked with it like I typically would with fennel. I’m not sure if it’s a difference of variety or just my growing abilities this year, but that was a bit of a disappointment. Now this fennel plant is topping out at 10 feet tall and it’s taking over the garden, so this past weekend I pulled Feisty Fennel out the garden. Sorry, Fennel, you’ve been fun, but I need the gardening space!
I was out for a Sunday morning bike ride around town yesterday with Mi Esposo and we passed a drought tolerant garden, with artichokes being the focal point. I love the silver and grey-green colors of the plants. I’m going to have to remember to go by when they are blooming. They will bloom as giant thistles, worth it for not harvesting!
Drought tolerant garden
Beautiful artichokes will become gigantic thistle if not harvested
I don’t have the room in my garden for growing something this size, but maybe in the future as I rearrange the garden. They are quite the show stopper.
My blueberries are starting to ripen up and I’m harvesting a small handful every day!
Last week was Coronado’s famous Home Front Judging. The objective is to get the community into a collective effort to spruce up the town. Residents take this event very seriously, and yard work goes into overdrive to get gardens get spruced up. Volunteer judges fan out all over town, judging with a set criteria, but it’s a volunteer squad and can be subjective, so some people aren’t always happy with the final results. It’s a tradition that livens up conversation around town the week before our beloved Flower Show.
I spent Saturday driving around Coronado, looking at beautiful homefronts. Seven judges narrowed down the field of top homefronts to the top winner, runner-up and the Top 10. It was a long day, and probably the hardest day of judging I’ve done in the last few years due to the profusion of blooms this year. It’s been a weird year of weather, but flowers are blooming like crazy! We drove all over town, grading and admiring. We awarded the last Top Ten award to a sweet little house on Orange Avenue. The owner was so touched she got tears in her eyes. A nice finish to a fun day.
I didn’t get pictures of all the homes we looked at but here’s a selection of top homes we looked at on Saturday.
I have Hairy Balls…
…in my garden. Actually, more precisely, it’s milkweed – Asclepias Physocarpus to be exact.
I was shopping at the Navy Exchange garden shop and saw this plants but I recognized them for their white flowers. I had one of these in my garden last year, having purchased it at the Master Gardener Spring Seminar,where I was told that it was called “Family Jewels” which I thought was because of the dainty white flowers. Between getting eaten down by the caterpillars, and the aphids that took over, the poor plant finally died. I liked the plant for it’s white flowers but didn’t understand why it was named “Family Jewels.” Mystery solved!
Native to Southeast Africa, Hairy Balls Milkweed grows 48″-60″ high. Plant in full sun and treat as an annual. Asclepias physocarpa, aka Gomphocarpus physocarpus, goes by many common names: Swan Plant, Balloon Plant, Cotton-bush, Oscar, Family Jewels, Devil’s Balls, and of course, Hairy Balls, my personal favorite and soooo unlady-like.
Here is another succulent putting on a great show now. This is in my neighbor’s front yard and it’s been a work in progress for a few months. It looked like a giant asparagus when the spike started reaching for the sky.
This is what the flowers look like before they bloom. This clump is known as a cyme.
Here’s the agave in all its glory. Like other succulent blooms, the flowers start opening at the bottom and work their way up. Bees were buzzing all over the flowers. These are soooo cool!
This bloom spike is about 12 feet tall. The plant will die back when the stalk is done blooming, but it will send shoots out from the base and repopulate itself.
