Osmanthus at last (et alia)!

After nearly a year or more of searching I finally managed to get an Osmanthus fragrans! This isn't usually a hard to find plant, but everytime I went to a nursery they saw me coming and hid them all. At least this was the unavoidable conclusion I reached because I've made several trips to local, well-stocked nurseries and nary a leaf of O. fragrans was to be seen! But my months of waiting for this fragrant-flowered lovely reached a dazzling conclusion yesterday. We were winding our way coastward and made our requisite Half Moon Bay Nursery stop. I had the idea after I'd been there a while of looking for the shrub. So I was moving back through the alphabetized rows (sometimes I get a little forgetful about the sequence) when I stopped to admire a particularly fetching cluster of elders. I sniffed their flower clusters and noticed nearby a glossy-leaved shrub sporting a flush of fresh, red tinted growth under the sun - Osmanthus fragrans! So I made John go get a big wagon and made some other lovely botanical purchases, such as Calamintha and Lemongrass. This nursery, by the way, is a fabulous place to visit. It's big, and full of plants - including some unusual stuff - and the prices are very reasonable. It sort of winds around and you can get pleasantly led off in various directions. A wonderful plant experience in a lovely coastal, creekside setting.
After this excitement we went to the Pillar Point harbor and then further south where we scrambled around on rocks, watching purple crabs scuttle about as the tide went out. We saw a few seals cavorting in the water and even a dead sea lion that somehow had ended up on the beach - a part of the great marine cycle of things. Included in this post is a picture from the beach. Also included are a combination of Salvia guarantica and Grindelia and a pink Clarkia.