DryStoneGarden

Plants, Stone, California Landscapes

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Meadowfoam Path

MeadowfoamPath

Springtime is Meadowfoam time in our garden. It has been blooming since we got back from Baja. I love this plant. It is such a cheerful yellow to greet me when I get home. This path, leading from the top of our steps to the potting area, is the most convenient place to stash leftover materials from our jobs so it tends to get covered up, but when the Meadowfoam is blooming I make a point of keeping it clear.

MeadowfoamandPoppies

I made the path with leftover stone from several projects. There are four different types of stone; a few pieces are flagstone, but much of it is wall stone and extends quite deep into the ground. The path was dirt, then mulch, then halfway paved for about a year, and finally completed last winter.

MeadowfoamPathDetail4:16

There is beach and woodland strawberry growing with the Meadowfoam, but this is the thickest the Meadowfoam has grown in, and I am curious to see how the other plants have held up beneath it.

MeadowfoamPathDetail

BirdbathMeadowfoam4:16

The Meadowfoam is blooming well around our birdbath also, but not as full or as dramatic as in the front. It gets less sun here and has less space to spread and the plants look a little more leggy, a little more messy, as a result. Judith Larner Lowry at Larner Seeds, where I originally bought the seed, recommends giving it a space at least three feet wide for best effect. The plants are getting pushed out of the raised gray water bed by the Scarlet Monkeyflower and the Juncus, and I think it will only come back at ground level next year unless I actively make space and resow it in the raised bed.

NativeMix4:16

The rest of that planting has filled in pretty well and I don’t think it will need the Meadowfoam next year. These plants are one of my goto combinations, I think of it as ‘green native mix’ or ‘native woodland mix’ and use it fairly often. Iris, Mahonia, Sidalcea, Tellima, Asarum, a few other plants such as Heuchera come and go with essentially the same effect.

I have more photos of the Meadowfoam below.

MeadowfoamwithIris

MeadowfoamandPoppies4:16

MeadowfoamwithPoppies4:16

Babiana4:16

2 Responses to “Meadowfoam Path”

  1. April 14th, 2016 at 9:28 am

    Town Mouse says:

    Wow, amazing! I still remember the meadowfoam you had in the garden at the Garden Show, but this, outside, is so much better. My annuals have also gone a little nuts with the rains – great fun!

  2. May 5th, 2016 at 1:43 pm

    ryan says:

    It has been a good year for annuals. There’s another garden in our neighborhood with lots of meadowfoam too. I grew it for the garden show because it does so well in our garden.

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