Hibiscus adds a tropical flair to your Sunnyvale garden. It is a bushy, evergreen shrub or small tree growing 8 to 16 ft tall and 5 to 10 ft wide, with glossy leaves and solitary, brilliant red flowers in summer and autumn. The 5-petaled flowers are 4 inch in diameter, with prominent orange-tipped red anthers. Provide the plants with at …

Floriferous, fast and easy it’s amazing this South African annual isn’t more popular in the trade and with garden designers. Quickly growing to 15” tall and wide, it explodes into a mass of sunny, golden blooms that last for months. With a rich, shiny maroon ring encircling the central golden eye, the 2.5” flowers are eye-fetching held atop the rich …

Streptosolen jamesonii (Marmalade Bush) – An evergreen rambling, shrub that without support will grow 4-6 feet tall and wide; with support it can reach 15 feet. It has oval-shaped 1 inch long leaves with a wrinkled appearance that densely clothe the sprawling branches and a bountiful display of large 5-inch orange, bell-shaped flowers bloom at the terminal ends of the …

Water Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis scorpiodes) is a perennial with delicate sprays of sky-blue, tiny flowers adorned with yellow centers in late-spring/early-summer in Sunnyvale (USDA zone 9). The sprays (cymes), up to 12 inches tall, resemble a coiled scorpion’s tail, hence the name. The flowers rise on a semi-evergreen foliage of shiny, oblong, bright green leaves. Easy care, resilient to most pests, …

Is this Pickwick Crocus white with delicate lilac-blue stripes, or lilac with white stripes? In pursuit of the answer, it’s fun to force a pot and examine the flowers closely. Plant between clumps of Jeanne d’Arc and Flower Record for a lovely composition in white and purple. Heirloom, 1925. This variety is one of the familiar, and welcome, giant spring …

Wisteria is a beautiful spring vine. Because of my visits to the California Spanish missions, I cannot think of Wisteria without thinking of California. Back in 2014, I planted my wisteria in probably the worst spot for it in my garden: a spot nestled in an east-facing corner that only gets a few hours of sunlight per day. All of …

A perennial, aromatic, succulent herb, which grows as a ground-hugging wide spreading mat under 1 foot tall (a little taller in shade or when well watered) with rounded slightly scalloped gray-green foliage and deep blue and purple flowers that rise 3 to 6 inches above the foliage from spring through late fall (some say they bloom year-round). This plant makes …

Crabapple. Crabapples trees are typically 4–12 m (13–39 ft) tall at maturity, with a dense, twiggy crown. The leaves are 3–10 cm (1.2–3.9 in) long, alternate, simple, with a serrated margin. The flowers are borne in corymbs, and have five petals, which may be white, pink or red, and are perfect, with usually red stamens that produce copious pollen, and a …

Night Phlox (Zaluzianskya capensis, “Midnight Candy”) fills the evening air with a sweet fragrance that will give you joy from May to November. The flowers open towards the evening and remain open until early in the morning. As the light intensity increases, they slowly start to close and are completely closed from midday until evening. I purchased my plant from …

Visiting my Sunnyvale garden are a variety of bees: Honey bees, small Mason bees, and big fat Bumble bees (that turn out to be Carpenter bees). Then, this fine early March day, I spot an enormous yellow bumble bee in the air around one of our apricot trees. It hovers near the blossoms,  but meanders in three dimensions, never once …