Las Pilitas

Nothing going on in the studio (enforced sabbatical) so we drove about 20 miles out of town, into a fairly bucolic part of the county.

Las Pilitas is the top native plant nursery in California; they have locations in several parts of the state, so no matter what your microclimate, they've got something that will be happy there. With little or no irrigation after their first few months in the ground.

We saw countless wildflowers along the road, but at the nursery I could get closer and there is less wind inside the wonderfully fragrant greenhouses...

From top, don't know, ceanothus, fremontodendron, no idea (maybe monkey flower?). The nursery was selling that first one in pots; if I'd had a trowel I might have considered transplanting it myself!