Posts Tagged ‘australian plants’

Laguna Beach — design or happenstance?

Ahhhh, the coast. Most of us live within an hour or less of the ocean, but how often do we go? I grew up in St. Louis, and my favorite song in the 60’s was the Beach Boys Cal­i­for­nia Girls. I have vowed never to take the ocean for granted!

The Sun­set Mag­a­zine West­ern Gar­den Book has 24 cli­mate zones; num­ber 24 is des­ig­nated “Marine influ­ence along the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Coast”. This is the most benev­o­lent of cli­mates. Never too hot or too cold, it is dom­i­nated by the mild Pacific Ocean in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. The nurs­eries along the Coast tend to mir­ror the cli­mate, car­ry­ing ten­der plants as well as suc­cu­lents, Aus­tralians and trop­i­cals. I have been told that toma­toes don’t care for the coast, although there are always excep­tions. And who hasn’t cursed the mildew on their roses dur­ing “June gloom”? After all, it’s only fair that there be some dis­ad­van­tages to liv­ing on the coast! Below is a list of truly coastal nurs­eries (all are listed to the left):

Ven­tura County:

• Island View Nurs­ery (www​.island​viewnurs​ery​.com)
• Rin­con Gar­dens (805−658−1518)
• Sea­side gar­dens (www​.sea​side​-gar​dens​.com)

Mal­ibu:

• Cosentino’s Nurs­ery (310−457−3981)
• Mal­ibu Gar­dens Nurs­ery (310−457−3981)
• Pacific View Nurs­ery (310−457−8356)

Los Ange­les

• Marina del Rey Gar­den Cen­ter (www​.Mari​na​gar​den​cen​ter​.com)
• Mer­ri­hews Sun­set Gar­dens (310−452−1051)

South Bay/​Long Beach

• Deep Roots Gar­den Cen­ter (www​.deep​-roots​.net)
• Per­for­mance Gar­den Nurs­ery (www​.per​for​man​cenurs​ery​.com)
• Peters Gar­den Cen­ter (310−372−2288)

Orange County

• Brita’s Old Town Gar­dens (www​.britas​gar​dens​.com)
• Dana Point Nurs­ery (949−496−5137)
• Laguna Nurs­ery (www​.lagu​na​nurs​ery​.net)
• Laguna Gar­dens Nurs­ery (949−497−4950)
• Rogers Gar­dens (www​.rogers​gar​dens​.com)
• Sea­side Grow­ers (www​.seaside​grow​ers​.com)
• Shore Gar­dens (949−942−3526)

San Diego County

• Cedros Gar­dens (www​.cedros​gar​dens​.com)
• Jun­gle Music (www​.jun​gle​mu​sic​.net)
• Solana Suc­cu­lents (www​.solana​suc​cu​lents​.com)

Bloom­ing in Laguna Beach

Gre­vil­lea synapheae in the back­ground iden­ti­fied by small yel­low blooms

The light bulb went off for me the other day. I was doing a lit­tle prun­ing and wish­ing I could remem­ber the names of some of my plants (among other things!!!). For one of them, I real­ized the only recourse would be to pho­to­graph it and email the photo to pur­veyer Jo O’Connell, owner of the won­der­ful Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery (www​.aus​tralian​plants​.com). The other plant, core­op­sis rosea, was iden­ti­fied after a lot of research. This is one rea­son why I don’t want to be a gar­den designer…can’t remem­ber all those latin names! I had known the names at one time — why not use gar­den mark­ers as a per­ma­nent reminder? I bought these shown in the pho­tos from Berke­ley Hor­ti­cul­tural in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. It’s a fan­tas­tic des­ti­na­tion nurs­ery and worth a trip any time you are in the Bay area. Most upscale nurs­eries will have a choice of gar­den mark­ers, though you might want to call ahead.

Gre­vil­leae Synapheae close up

This infor­ma­tion is taken from the San Mar­cos Grow­ers (www​.smgrow​ers​.com) web­site: The gre­vil­leas are a remark­able and beau­ti­ful group of plants. The vari­abil­ity between species is incred­i­ble but char­ac­ter­is­tic to the Pro­tea fam­ily (Pro­teaceae) of which they belong; the name­sake of the fam­ily, the god Pro­teus was noted for his abil­ity to change his appear­ance and form at will. Among the 270 or more species, almost entirely from Aus­tralia, the habit can be that of a large for­est tree or a diminu­tive crevice plant. The color and struc­ture of the flow­ers and leaf size and shape are so dif­fer­ent in the many species that their rela­tion­ship is often lost to the casual observer. Shared attrib­utes that might be noted as com­mon to the genus are that they are woody ever­green plants that usu­ally have inter­est­ingly intri­cate and beau­ti­ful flow­ers. Gre­vil­leas are planted their flo­ral and foliage dis­play as well as abil­ity to attract nectar-​feeding birds to the garden.

As the plants are a diverse group, there are a wide range of con­di­tions that they will grow under. The fol­low­ing gen­er­al­ized state­ments regard­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of gre­vil­leas would apply to a major­ity of the plants in cul­ti­va­tion. Gre­vil­leas flower best in sunny, dry loca­tions although they will also grow in light shade. Plant in well-​draining soil and be very care­ful of any fer­til­iz­ers applied to these plants; many Gre­vil­lea, espe­cially West­ern Aus­tralian species, are highly sen­si­tive to phos­pho­rus and the use of fer­til­iz­ers high in this ele­ment can be fatal to these plants. They also do not like exces­sive water­ing and gar­den water tol­er­ance or abil­ity to grow near lawns will be excep­tions rather than the rule. Reg­u­lar prun­ing after flow­er­ing is rec­om­mended to enhance and reju­ve­nate flow­er­ing and plant growth. Most vari­eties are drought tol­er­ant, as well as frost hardy down to 20 º F.

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Core­op­sis is an all-​around great plant in the garden

The Core­op­sis ‘Pink’, Core­op­sis rosea, with a yel­low cen­ter, is a flow­er­ing vari­ety of the Core­op­sis fam­ily. In the Tick­seed fam­ily, the dai­sy­like blooms flower from June through Octo­ber with a plant height of 10−12” and a min­i­mum spread of 14 – 18”(mine has hap­pily spread to about 5′). The dark green fern­like foliage makes a great con­trast with the flower color. ‘Pink’ Core­op­sis should be planted in full sun. Pink Core­op­sis is drought-​tolerant and tough but does need well-​drained soil. It should be cut back early and late sum­mer to extend the bloom period. ‘Pink’ Core­op­sis looks great with any type of grass, in bor­ders or mass plant­i­ngs in sunny gar­dens. This plant likes to vol­un­teer all over the place and blooms all year where I live (near Santa Monica).

Altadena gar­den tour, 2009

More web­sites worth click­ing on, con­tin­ued from the pre­vi­ous post…

San Diego:

• www​.daylily​hill​.com: a sec­tion show­cas­ing “real gar­dens”, book reviews, recipes
• www​.Cedros​gar​dens​.com: They offer a vari­ety of classes, notes from past classes, offer a sharp­en­ing service.
• www​.Laspili​tas​.com: Chock full of plant­ing, design and main­te­nance infor­ma­tion for native plants; Cal­i­for­nia cli­mate info.
• www​.Mis​sion​hill​snurs​ery​.com: Really nice blog
• www​.Simp​son​snurs​ery​.com: If you like to com­bine gar­den­ing with vin­tage cars, this is your website!
• www​.wal​teran​der​son​.com: classes, events, newsletter
• www​.MBnurs​ery​.com: A fun web­site to expe­ri­ence and see what is possible.

Ven­tura County:

• www​.Aus​tralian​plants​.com: in depth infor­ma­tion on Aus­tralian plants, pho­tos of design projects using Aus­tralian plants, resources for Aus­tralian plants, cus­tom plant lists
• www​.nopali​tonurs​ery​.com: classes offered on Cal­i­for­nia native and drought tol­er­ant plants
• www​.ottoand​sons​.com: for all things rose!

On the Web: Thurs­day, Sept. 16, 9:30am — noon: Great plants for fall plant­ing with Matthew Roberts. Los Ange­les County Arbore­tum in Arca­dia, call (626) 821‑4623.

A mossy foun­tain at Laguna Nursery

This is a dif­fi­cult post to write because most nurs­eries are spe­cial in some way. Every com­mu­nity needs and deserves a gen­er­al­ized “gar­den cen­ter” for obvi­ous rea­sons (espe­cially since Tar­get has closed all of theirs — yea!). So I’m not nec­es­sar­ily talk­ing about ser­vice, selec­tion or price. With des­ti­na­tion nurs­eries some­thing more inde­fin­able is usu­ally in play, start­ing with the pas­sion of the owner. Most of the nurs­ery men and women I’ve met love what they do — which is lucky for us in this harsh eco­nomic cli­mate. But it is much harder to spe­cial­ize because it cuts down on clien­tele. So, need Aus­tralian plants? Go to Jo O’Connell’s Aus­tralian Native Plants Nurs­ery in Ojai. Jo pro­vides Aus­tralian plants to the Hunt­ing­ton Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, among many oth­ers. Want your roses grown locally and accli­ma­tized — Otto and Sons in Fill­more has an enor­mous selec­tion. How about a cus­tom top­i­ary spelling out your name? Get it at Eden Nurs­ery in Orange County. Two nurs­eries that spe­cial­ize in jaw drop­ping foun­tains, planter arrange­ments, orchids, gar­den fur­ni­ture and acces­sories: Laguna Nurs­ery in Orange County and Rolling Greens Nurs­ery in Cul­ver City. Upland Nurs­ery in Orange County has 350 vari­eties of plume­ria. Does your spouse want to see a phe­nom­e­nal car col­lec­tion while you shop for petu­nias? The only place for that is Simpson’S Gar­den Nurs­ery in San Diego County. Also in San Diego County: Botan­i­cal Part­ners with every bam­boo imag­in­able, and Jun­gle Music for collector’s palms. The own­ers of these nurs­eries (Ralph Evans and Phil Bergman, respec­tively) will give you help in decid­ing what will do best in your gar­den — they want you to suc­ceed and come back for more. Of course, that is true of all nurs­eries, large and small, gen­eral or specialized.

I have a “Des­ti­na­tion Nurs­ery” list­ing at the bot­tom of my cat­e­gories on Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com. For more infor­ma­tion on each nurs­ery, go to the cat­e­gory for that nursery.