Front yard in mid-April 2025 (with video)

April is getting away from me. Before we know it, summer will be here. I’m not kidding – we’ve already had a few days with daytime highs in the upper 80s. Before temperatures ramp up even more, which will speed the demise of the spring flowers, I want to show you some highlights from the front garden. This is a great time of year because everything still looks fresh and perky.

Below is a favorite vignette of mine at the moment. The light is particularly good in the late afternoon.

Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ on the left, living up to its promise of a long flowering season, and Persian stonecress (Aethionema grandiflorum) on the right

These Mexican tulip poppies (Hunnemannia fumariifolia) are volunteer seedlings, and more than welcome

Even when they’re not in flower, the bluish green leaves of Hunnemannia fumariifolia look great

Backlit silver torch cactus (Cleistocactus strausii) and variegated Bromelia pinguin ‘Qué será’, beautiful but wickedly armed

Myriopteris lanosa, one of several dryland ferns in the garden. They may look out of place in a succulent garden, but they make great companion plants. And in places like Arizona and Texas, dryland ferns grow side by side with cacti, agaves, and yuccas.

Agave ×romanii ‘Gypsy Queen’ on the front porch

Agave vivipara ‘Woodrowii’

A strikingly white dudleya hybrid by Stephen McCabe. Sometimes I just stare at it, incredulous that any plant could be this white.

This clump of Echeveria ‘Love’s Fire’ started out as one individual plant. Now there are 20+ of them.

I trimmed up my Boojum tree (Fouquieria columnaris) recently. It’s slow as molasses, but it’s finally getting a bit of a trunk. It’s still about 50 years away from this.

Moving on to the L-shaped sidewalk bed outside the front yard fence:

Arctotis ‘Pink Sugar’

×Mangave ‘Foxy Lady’

Malephora crocea (left) has flowers year round; Sphaeralcea philippiana, a trailing globemallow from Argentina on the right

Nice bicolor flower from an Aloe laeta hybrid created by Brian Kemble

Left to right: Purrsian Blue catmint (Nepeta faassenii ‘Purrsian Blue’ ), white California poppies (Eschscholzia californica ‘White Linen’), solar fire (Ursinia anthemoides)

Solar fire (Ursinia anthemoides) is a fast-growing annual from South Africa that has reseeded in different spots

I love these dense clumps of bright orange flowers. It’ll go to seed soon and I plan on scattering the seeds in multiple places.

Masses of white poppies. They’ve exploded into flower and are going gangbusters right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these poppies, otherwise I wouldn’t scatter 2000+ seeds every fall. But they are bullies, steamrolling everything in their path. Look at the red flowers in the two photos above. They belong to aloes that are somewhere under all those leaves.

Aloe distans getting swallowed up

Canary giant mountain carrot (Todaroa montana) took five years (bought in May 2020 from Annie’s Annuals), but it’s finally flowering

That’s Todaroa montana on the left, but notice that tall flower spike top right?

At first glance you might think it’s from an agave, but it actually is a giant fennel (Ferula communis). Here is a separate post about it.

At the far end of the sidewalk bed, the white poppies bump into profusely flowering Moroccan daisies (Rhodanthemum hosmariense)

The plant reaching into the sidewalk is a Cyprus ironwort (Sideritis cypria).

I’ve had several people comment on the green flowers. They’re actually not flowers, but bracts. The real flowers are inside the cups, and they’re tiny. They haven’t opened yet.

Speaking of flowers, this tiny Delosperma ‘Jewel of Desert Amethyst’ has been flowering like crazy since I first blogged about it last month

Echinocereus triglochidiatus has burst into bloom. These flowers last for almost a week.

Echinocereus triglochidiatus

I posted about Echinopsis ‘Flying Saucer’ a couple of weeks ago when it had seven (!) flowers open at the same time. This in #8, and it seems even larger because it’s the only one. It’s close to 9" in diameter.

And ‘Flying Saucer’ isn’t done yet. There are many more buds.

Echinopsis ‘First Light’ has smaller flowers than ‘Flying Saucer’, but it’s hard to beat when it comes to sheer beauty

Complementing the photos above, here’s a video of the sidewalk bed. It shows the big picture, not just closeups of the plants. Please overlook any technical issues – I’m still learning how to do this properly. I also mangle the name Malephora crocea a couple of times. In my defense, it isn’t the easiest name to memorize.

I recommend you click “Watch on YouTube” and select the highest resolution your bandwidth supports.

© Gerhard Bock, 2025. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.