Photography, Gardening, Cats, Poetry

My California Early-Spring Garden

Kitties in the garden, daffodils, grape hyacinths, nasturtium, freeway daisies, succulent blooms and “twitterpating” birds

February, fed by winter’s rains and the promise of spring sunshine tends to be a glorious month in Southern California. Every fall I stock up on bulbs, which, with any luck, will peek their little heads out of the warming soil throughout the spring.

I went a little wild this year because I happened to stumble into the garden store on a day when the bulbs were fifty percent off! Wowza! That’s a deal because these things can be a little pricey when you’ve got a cart full.

OK, I have to confess that I actually went back for seconds the next day. It should be a really pretty garden this year. But I felt like we needed a little extra brightness in the garden this spring.

My favorite of all the bulbs is not the showiest of them. Rather it is the tiny little grape hyacinth, which stands at about 2 inches high. They always remind me of a lilliputian world filled with fairies and sprites dancing beneath the flowers.

Imagine my delight the other day when I spied the first of the grape hyacinth making its way towards the sun! It’ll be a week or so before it really opens. But it’s almost here.

The prettiest “flowers” in the garden though are my little “helpers.” Bisou always likes to supervise. He really does have a thing for flowers. He loves to smell bouquets of fresh flowers and has to investigate when I bring home flats of flowering things.

Uma likes to help out too, although she really does prefer to keep an eye on things from just inside the french doors.

After all, it does take her mom a considerable bit of time to brush out that glorious fur every morning (along with a tushie bath and a good tooth-brushing — she’s a little high maintenance).

The stars of the show right now really are the “golden-skirted ladies” — the daffodils. They nod in the slightest breeze, petals fluttering.

I like to plant several varieties of daffodils because they come up at slightly different times. My white ones are just about to open, but for the moment, I have a few different yellow and yellow-orange ones. I’m curious about when the daffodils come up in other parts of the country. I’d love to know in the comments, if you’d like to share.

The nasturtium are always so delightful. They just scream “happy” to me. Don’t they sort of look like they are smiling?

The succulent blooms — so subtle at first that you almost don’t notice what they are doing — begin to explode with unmatched vibrancy about now. Like the daffodils, they all blossom at different times, so the show goes on until mid-summer.

I’ve always grown a lot of succulents in pots but a few years ago I decided to “free” some of them into the main garden to see what they would do. I have been utterly amazed at how much larger they grow in the real earth. I guess we all do better when our feet touch real soil, don’t we?

The goldfinches and robins are “twitterpating” (you can read more about that here if you like). There is new love all over the garden.

The elephant ears and the Australian tree ferns are “greening” right now.

This a poem (published in Scribe) that I wrote about this same time last year:

It begins with light leaking from within each gilded vein, unfurling frond, or sunlit-rimmed fleshy paddle of succulent tongue — the yellowing seeps, almost unseen, into the breathy air of spring.

An explosion of chartreuse. A whisper of warmth. A pebbling of bare skin caressed by the breeze. All reminders that the hours are yet short, the fall of shadows still quickly slipping into night, rather than gliding, long and lean, into the sun’s indrawn breath.

But soon, very soon, the light will overflow the notched bowl of the heart of the agave, and the cradle of the fern, cascading down their limbs and pooling upon the rich and fertile earth.

The tickle of it begins here, in the yellowing, then explodes into being, lighting the dark winter caverns of my heart.

When we first moved into this house, in 1998, let’s just say that both it and the garden were a mess. We, literally, had a swamp in the front yard and the hill out back was peppered with huge Ficus trees. We fixed the pipe leak, ripped out a lot of the inside of the house (a bit at a time) and took the Ficus trees out.

We kept all the pine and eucalyptus trees, some of which are over a hundred feet tall and are home to a myriad of hawks, crows, smaller birds, squirrels, raccoons, and other critters.

At first, gardening here was a huge challenge for me because so much of the yard is in the shade. But the garden tells you what it wants to do and will flourish where it wants to.

It turns out that the hillside is a wonderland for camellias, azaleas and ferns.

We’ve long ago ripped out the grass, or anything else very cultivated, and have dedicated the garden to birds, bees, butterflies, and other critters. You can do this too. You can even get certified by the National Wildlife Federation (we did) as a Backyard Wildlife Refuge. I promise you that you’ll be amazed at the creatures who will show up.

This is just a little “freeway daisy.” They grow just about anywhere, hence the name. But I’ve always thought that they were especially pretty. The detail in the center of the flowers is quite extraordinary.

I always plant a few more primroses each year. They’re not exactly a “wildflower” but I just love them. They light up the garden in the darkest time of the year. And they tend to last for several years here.

And I will end with the prettiest flower of all — Freyja in her new “squash blossom felt cave.” I bought two of these for the “Garden in the Sky,” our “kitty balcony,” which is packed with catnip, oat grass and all sorts of good cat things. It is netted in to keep them safe when I can’t be out with them in the “Big Garden.”

These days, they get about an hour, at lunchtime, to romp around outside, when I can keep my eyes on them. It usually begins with a good roll in the dirt, then “crazy kitty” time running around before a little nap in the sun and some bird-watching. Then, afternoons are for napping in “squash blossoms” on the Garden in the Sky or helping mom with poetry.

Thank you for reading. I hope you are all enjoying your time in your gardens too (getting ready for spring or gearing up for fall if you are on the other side of the planet)! I’d love to hear about what’s happening in your part of the world. If you’d like to share, please tag me. It might be fun to get a little group going from different areas so that we can get a more global perspective throughout the year.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.