Yellow lupine and Bodega Bay from Doran Beach campground

The weather in Sonoma and Mendocino counties in mid July can be surprisingly chilly and grey, with morning fog and howling north winds. You also won’t find as many colorful blooms as in the springtime — but there are still plenty of eyecatching beauties to be seen. These are just a very small sample of the ones I’ve spotted, including garden plants as well as wildflowers.

Common yarrow, Doran Beach campground

I wasn’t very interested in the flowers seen above (I believe they are geraniums) growing beside our house until I started having trouble getting good photos of them. The coral color came out a bit too pink, the focus was off, and my composition was terrible. Part of the trouble was that they were surrounded by bright red bottle brush and fuchsia flowers, making them — to me, at least — the plain jane of the group. So I kept going back and trying different things until I finally got something I could live with. Getting closer was the answer in this case.

Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha)

Red Hot Poker

Rock lily

Foxglove on the bluffs above Point Arena Pier

I had to shoot the foxglove from far away since they were off the trail and near the edge of a steep cliff. Getting to them meant tramping through dried weeds and thick undergrowth where I couldn’t see the ground. I love these flowers, but not enough to take that risk!

Bluff lettuce with Quaking-grass; Greenwood Beach State Park