Spring colors in the San Francisco Bay Area

A few years ago I began what turned out to be an occasional series of seasonal colors posts (see, for example here).  One recent day during my nearly-daily walk in my neighborhood, I rather literally stopped to smell some roses in someone’s front yard, and I decided on the spot that it would be a good time to write a post about spring colors in the Bay Area.

As has been the case for other “seasons” posts, this one does not describe a single walk, but rather is a collection of observations from several walks.  In this case the walks were all in my neighborhood, in the time since the local shelter-in-place took effect in mid-March.  Most of the sightings I want to share are garden flowers and trees, but there are also several others that are colorful and/or just plain fun.

First I want to describe spring in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Meteorologically, spring typically begins sometime in February, when the earliest wildflowers begin to bloom.  In fact, this year I participated in the fourth consecutive year of a program sponsored by Santa Clara County Parks, called PixInParks.  I completed the ADA version of all seven hikes during the month of February – see here for example – and observed several types of wildflower on most of the hikes.  Because of travel restrictions I haven’t gone on a hike during the shelter-in-place, just walks in my neighborhood.

In the more urban parts of the Bay Area, spring is marked by flowering trees and shrubs as well as numerous garden flowers.  Since the inspiration for this post was stopping during a walk to smell and enjoy some roses, I thought I would start with a picture of a rose in someone’s front yard, right next to the sidewalk.  This one was an especially beautiful color, but I have observed quite a rainbow, from white to pink to red to peach to yellow.  This one was fragrant, too!

Beautiful rose in a neighborhood front yard

Not far from my house there is a relatively new subdivision, and the landscaping in front of many of the houses includes this pretty lily, whose name I don’t know.  I discovered that, if you look directly at a fully open blossom from the right viewing angle, it looks a lot like a face.  I think this impression is supported by the position of an inner layer of flower parts that happen to obscure some of the dots near the darker spots on the lower petals (actually, probably sepals).  To me the face looks a little surprised.

Lily whose open blossom resembles a face

Some landscaping includes juxtapositions of different-colored flowers, such as this pretty purple-yellow combination.  In this picture, the green foliage is yet something else, with the main flower stem possibly cut or eaten.

Purple-yellow-green combination

A spectacular cultivated flower found in landscapes throughout the Bay Area is bird of paradise (Strelitzia reginae), which is a native of South Africa.

Spectacular bird of paradise

I also found some honeysuckle that I presume to be Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), a native vine of East Asia that has been introduced in many areas of the US as an ornamental plant.  It is considered by some botanists as invasive, since it grows quickly enough to choke out native plants.  That’s too bad, since it is so pretty.  Note that the blossoms tend to occur in pairs.

Japanese honeysuckle

Finally I’ll note an attractive shrub that I found in a few yards in my neighborhood.  It certainly reminds me of bottlebrush (Callistemon sp), a genus of shrubs endemic to Australia but with some ornamental types in the US, specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Upon further research, I think it is a cultivar with a common name of “little john”, or dwarf bottlebrush.  The ones I saw were about 1 meter high and wide, though presumably pruned to maintain that size and shape.

Dwarf bottlebrush

About a half mile from my house there is an access point to the Stevens Creek Trail, a paved multi-use trail that currently extends continuously from the edge of San Francisco Bay for approximately 4.9 miles along Stevens Creek, currently passing through Mountain View.  An additional trail section (see here for more information) is in Cupertino, with plans to connect them.

Along the section between El Camino and Dale/Heatherstone there is a nice variety of mostly native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees, many with identifying signage.  One of my favorites is hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea), a shrub with distinct nearly-spherical flower heads dispersed along the main stems and with beautiful red blossoms.

Hummingbird sage along Stevens Creek Trail

These are just a few examples of flowering plants that I particularly appreciated seeing in my neighborhood.  Of course there were many more, including shrubs such as star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides, native to eastern and southeastern Asia) and bougainvillea (a genus of familiar ornamental vines native to South America), shown in the banner photo for this post, lantana, day lilies, and native California poppies (Eschscholzia californica).

I have been somewhat surprised to notice more bird activity than I have previously been aware of in the midst of Bay Area suburbia.  Though I rarely stop long enough to investigate the songs or calls, sometimes the avian residents emerge from the vegetation long enough for clear viewing.  That was the case for a pair of dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), on the West coast also known as Oregon juncos.  These pretty sparrows are found all across the US, though in different color variations, and are distinguished by their narrow, pink bills and white outer tail feathers that flash when they flit from place to place.

Dark-eyed junco

In addition to flora and fauna I encountered several human-made artifacts during my spring walks, and these also provided visual pleasure during my walks.  Of course some yards contain different types of play structures for children: swing sets, tree swings, tree houses, and so on.  A somewhat unusual structure was a climbing wall that seemed to be just the right size for perhaps a 5 or 6 year old.

Colorful climbing wall

In another yard, in a corner between the sidewalk and driveway, I found a carefully arranged display of colorfully painted river rocks, so called because they have been worn and rounded by the action of moving water, most often in stream beds or on beaches.  The rocks in the display had evidently been selected to have similar sizes and had been painted with a variety of nature-related images.

Display of painted river rocks

There are several yards in the neighborhood with what I usually call pinwheels.  More precisely they are whirligigs, a form of kinetic garden ornament.  Any breeze causes them to spin, and they typically can rotate on the stake to face the wind.  This one caught my attention because it was particularly colorful, and I liked that it had three layers.  Note that the components of each layer overlap in the opposite sense to the neighboring layer.  This meant that the middle layer spun in the opposite direction to the front and back layers.  It was fun to pause and just watch it spin!

Colorful whirligig

There are several Little Free Libraries (LFL) in my neighborhood.  A motto associated with LFLs is “take a book, leave a book”.  The motto and the name pretty much tell the story.  Since I had my first encounter with a LFL I have been charmed by them, and I appreciate each and every one I discover.  That first one was in an unexpected place, along a paved multi-use trail outside Madison, Wisconsin, and had a park bench for sitting as well as several potted plants.  This one is more typical.

Little Free Library in my neighborhood

I certainly appreciate discovering colorful sights in my neighborhood that I can enjoy in different seasons.  Who knows what I’ll find next?