Spring Flowering Perennials – Early Bloomers

The First Spring Flowering Perennials

We had a power cut on Monday!

Whilst Southern Africa is synonymous with power cuts, we weren’t expecting it in California! But we were called and told it would last a few hours so decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and head to the beach and see how many different early spring flowering perennials we could find on the road to Bodega Bay.

I was struck by the number of garden escapees there were on the roadside for starters. They are all spring flowering perennials, most of them bulbs, and all doing very well without any love and attention.

I felt all poetic when I spied a host of golden daffodils along a farm fence line. Daffodils and Narcissus obviously love this area of the world and I see them everywhere in big clumps.

I love yellow Oxalis which is in full flower right now. Reminds me of the donkey weeds we used to guzzle as children but the flowers are so much feistier. I met someone the other day who thinks these spring flowering perennials are weeds but I don’t agree. They make a wonderful addition to fields, verges and gardens. There is a smaller variety called Yellow Wood Sorrel which can take over lawns in summer but these beauties only last until mid spring and really add a kick to the late winter color scheme.

Amidst the lemon yellow carpet I found some purple Douglas Irises which are true natives of California. I can’t wait for the cultivated ones to come to the native nursery down the road because they come in the most unbelievable color mixes.

Arum Lilies are real escapees, coming all the way from South Africa. They have taken over the roadways in these parts, not to mention the coastal gardens. It’s weird because in my Zimbabwe garden I could not get these spring flowering perennials to bloom for me, no matter how much I coddled them and moved them around but here they thrive on neglect and come up bigger and better each year. They do the same in my mum’s coastal garden in South Africa so their proximity to the sea air must have something to do with it.

Once we got to the beach, the cliffs were also covered in yellow Oxalis and Sour Figs which are really starting to come into their own now.

I also found some Wild Spinach which I didn’t quite trust so I looked it up and there it was under Edible Wild Flowers. It was growing in wild abandon although I believe it is endangered due to too much foot traffic. It was interspersed with what looks like Angelica to me but I couldn’t find it in my wildflower book.

This is just the beginning of spring flowering perennials in the wild as California has the most incredible wild flowers that are starting now and will carry on well into the dry summer. I’ll keep you posted. Plant your own wild flower mix. Both Burpee and American Meadows have a good range of seed mixes.

By the way, here is a link to a list of plants which are gopher resistant: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants. and you can find plants that deer probably won’t eat here.

Happy gardening and don’t forget the sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.