One of the reasons for moving back to northern California was to garden through the winter, and it hasn’t disappointed. This is the first winter with our new, large flowerbed in the front and our raised veggie beds, and we took advantage of those spaces to grow more winter flowers and a few vegetables. We didn’t knock ourselves out with a huge effort, but I’ll share what worked well.
Flowers
The two outstanding performers this winter were paludosum daisies and Iceland poppies. We planted them from store-bought six-packs in early November, and they quickly started growing and flowered consistently the entire winter. In other parts of the country (or world, actually), these might grow fine in the summer, but here they can’t tolerate the heat of 100-degree summers. They’re great for reliable winter color. When the heat starts to make the daisies a bit ragged, I pull them out for the compost bin. But I’m going to try leaving the Iceland poppies in the ground this summer and see if they grow back from their roots in the fall when it cools again.
Here (below) is a fun shrub that’s new to us and was beautiful this winter: waxflower. The first shot of the red berry-like buds was in mid-December. Those flower buds stayed like that for two months! Then in February, they changed color and started to pop open (second pic). By March, the shrub had this beautiful mass of lavender-colored blooms (pics 3 & 4). It still has many of those flowers on it now (May 2nd) — both the buds and the flowers have remarkable longevity!
The Dimorphotheca African daisies also gave some color this winter, although they definitely got fuller as spring arrived in March. We didn’t get enough of them to germinate, but it was nice to have such a great yellow as well as the peach color.
We also have some great camellias that give some wonderful winter color. These often start blooming in December, but this year, probably because of a weirdly cold October, they mostly waited until January.
Veggies
This winter, we just focused on two vegetables: sugar snap peas and spinach. We also planted them in early November as small nursery plants. Next year, I’ll pick a more tender spinach — these were Bloomsdale, and they were pretty tough, thick and crinkly. OK to cook and blend into smoothies, but not that pleasant in salads. The peas were simply awesome.
A few things I would have changed
Back in September, we tried to direct sow seeds for African daisies, snapdragons, iceland poppies, and California poppies. My hope was that they’d get a start before winter temps and then flower all winter. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out — we had too much bark mulch on the beds, which kept the soil underneath too cool and may have kept the seeds from getting down into the soil well (although I did try raking things around to get the seeds to settle).
We only got a couple of the African daisies to sprout (the photo above shows the beautiful yellow bunch), and some of the California poppies did, but they took a long, long time (I think the smallest sprouts appeared in December). Although they didn’t give the intended color in the middle of winter, those California poppies that did germinate have been excellent this spring (they’re also in the pics above).
The snapdragon and Iceland poppy seeds never did germinate. But we bought some in six-packs in November, and they have been great, as described above.
This year, we’ll try sowing seeds in trays in August for September planting, and if they don’t work out, we’ll buy young plants in late September. If we get them in the ground sooner, hopefully the snaps and African daisies will be blooming all winter. I’m not sure the California poppies will bloom in mid-winter, but it’s worth a shot.
And a personal note…
I want to mention that this has been a really difficult season for our family. Our son, who was 20 years old and living with profound disabilities, passed away in January. His health had been in decline for more than a year, and the last several months were particularly hard, with a lot of pain and a constant backdrop of worry. It’s a ridiculous understatement to say it’s hard. But it is. Grief subsides for a while and then unexpectedly washes over us like a wave, knocking us down for a few days. We have many ways we’re remembering and honoring him, and one related to the garden is a peach tree we bought the day before his passing.
I wrote the following a few weeks after:
The oranges, with their fragrant, pulpy juice,
Taste like the memory of summer,
When we used to wheel our boy
Out into the sun,
Warming his perfect, porcelain face
While baby finches called to their parents,
As they found their way up to the treetops
And then the sky.
This year, the oranges are mostly
Dropping from the tree,
Waiting on the dormant grass,
But our hearts are failing,
And the garden may have to tend itself
For a while.
After all this time, he spread his wings,
Left the nest, and said,
“Hey look at me Mom, I can fly!â€
And we looked,
But we couldn’t actually see him,
As hard as we tried.
But we felt his gentle smile,
And we know we’ll see him
In the spring’s new growth,
In the summer’s warmth on our faces,
In the red maple leaves of fall,
And in the winter’s chill
That makes the oranges sweet again.
And now with the whole Covid-19 pandemic going on, this is turning out to be one tough year! We find ourselves spending a lot more time in the garden because work has slowed down dramatically (I’m self employed). This brings some peace, and helps us deal with our grief through the act of creation. It’s been heartening to see so many people across the world turning to gardening this spring, as they can’t spend time and money traveling, eating out, or shopping. I’ll post soon about the projects we’re working on lately.