In a Year's Time

It's incredible what can happen in a year! We completed the initial planting and mulching at the end of March 2024, so it's been almost exactly a year since this garden was planted. As you may recall from my last blog post, the preliminary planting according to landscape design looked a tad sparse. While it might seem sparse, it was intentional because Troy and I knew how these plants would fill in within no time. Here's a photo from March 26, 2024:

Over the course of the past twelve months, while plants were growing in and gaps filling, my husband Max would visit the church with me after work or on weekends and would add new "plant residents" to the church garden. These surprise additions included: 2x Dioon edule, 2x Brahea 'Super Silver' palms, Scabiosa ochroleuca 'Moon Dance', a Ceroxylon quindiuense palm, Sedum 'Cherry Tart', one Lupinus pilosus (which deserves its own blog post, since it bloomed and self-seeded...you can imagine), Bouteloua 'Blonde Ambition', Verbena lilacina 'De la Mina', Cussonia paniculata (who has a wonderful new flush of growth right now), Senecio mandraliscae (which were just small cuttings from our garden and have taken off like crazy), Amaryllis belladonna (a party favor which is blooming as I write this post), and Aechmea 'Red Dragon'. You could say he's a believer in 'cramscaping' :-) We also planted some White Cupcake Cosmos, which just loved the garden. They grew gargantuan, bloomed, and eventually had to be removed. But they definitely reseeded on their own and now we have cosmos coming up all over the garden. Here's a glimpse of the cosmos in their glory:

Just a reminder, for any of the photos, you can click them to make them full-size ;-)

JUNE 2024:

AUGUST 2024:

JANUARY 2025:

APRIL 2025:

I took this above photo just yesterday. When I scroll back to the beginning of this post and look back at when it was first planted, I am left in awe of what can happen in just one year. And all along the way there have been wonders and dramas happening in the garden. The spreading of the cupcakes and lupines, the amaryllis emerging from its bulb, and recently I've added a half dozen Boophone haemanthoides which will be amazing to watch grow. A friend who volunteers at the Gardens at Lake Merritt has also promised me a half dozen Boophone disticha for the garden. Stay tuned for more! Now that I've caught you up with the big picture, I can do more focused posts on smaller and more specific dramas and wonders in the garden.