Summer Seasonal Interest

Spring is generally the season when landscapes in the Bay Area look the most beautiful. The hills are green with new growth. Wildflowers and gardens are alive with vibrant colors having taken advantage of any winter rains and the longer days to put on their best for display. In summer, with its normally higher temperatures and lack of rain, our hills turn gold and many spring blooming flowers begin to fade. (Of course with irrigation and a smart controller, you can keep your own garden green and colorful.) 

One of the joys of hiking the same trails through all the seasons is watching the succession of wildflowers and grasses – which ones bloom the earliest signaling the beginning of spring and which ones bloom the latest in the fall before going dormant in the winter. You can also invite this natural succession of seasonal interest into your landscape by paying attention to plants’ bloom cycles and intentionally planting ones that bloom at different times. And, some flowers and grasses dry beautifully and add texture to a garden or a dried flower arrangement.

Here are some of the summer bloomers we saw on a recent hike in the East Bay Hills: