Hot and Smoky

It's been some time since my last posting, I think because of the excitement of my birthday followed by the trauma of the heat. And of course the air is full of smoke from all these fires - everything has a faint yellow-orange cast of light. The native plants are of course adapted to cope with all this and the exceptional heat and warm nights has encouraged my plumeria to put out a burst of fresh growth. Since the 30th of June was the day of my birth John and I celebrated by visiting the San Francisco Botanical Garden (on the 1st of July) Their Montanoas were quite impressive. My M. grandiflora only gets to be about 15 ft, and is presently grown to about 5ft. But there were some Montanoas there that must of been about 30ft! I think they were mostly M. hexagona. And there were plenty of fuchsias and Salvias there in the Meso-american Cloud Forest section. I've included two pictures of this area, including an Abutilon close up. I'm presently lusting after this quite lovely Abutilon with its striking Malvaceaous (is that a word?) flowers and soft leaves. I believe the little placard said it was from Guatemala. There was also an extensive California section with a very cute quail family including some fluffy little baby quails. After a long, meandering walk and failed attempt at the Conversatory of Flowers (line too long) we returned via Highway 1, thereby avoiding the horrendousness of cross-town traffic. As lovely as the Garden is, I don't like big, noisy cities and was relieved to see the big, noisy ocean. The ocean smells much better that the city. So we made our way Half Moon Bay -ward and on the way I saw some really nice orange monkey flower (Diplacus aurantiacus) blooms and poofy sprays of creambush flowers (Holodiscus discolor).
So I guess that's about all for now. When it cools off I'll be able to go out into my garden and give a full report. Already early this morning I saw scarlet delphiniums open to the smoky light and Madia elegans on the verge sending its lovely yellow-ness outward - More petals to come!