Ah, Christ­mas in Los Angeles.….….US Cus­toms got a sur­prise when they found 316,000 glass bongs dis­guised as Christ­mas orna­ments at the Los Ange­les har­bor. The cargo had been described as glass fig­ures and Christ­mas orna­ments. But I digress.….

I love red and green, in fab­rics, jew­elry, flow­ers, suc­cu­lents, really every­thing. But the color com­bi­na­tion is so often asso­ci­ated with Christ­mas that I feel like I can’t use it as freely as I would like. I love using red and green over the hol­i­days but in a fresh way. In the arrange­ment in my kitchen I have com­bined red and green glad­i­o­las with a South African plant I grow in my gar­den, leu­ca­den­dron. A mem­ber of the pro­tea fam­ily, this plant is delight­ful with it’s red stems and green foliage and flow­er­like bracts. It’s car­ried exsten­sively at the LA Flower mar­ket for use as a fill in for flo­ral arrange­ments. Leu­ca­den­dron is easy to grow with full sun and mod­er­ate water, and read­ily avail­able at most SoCal nurs­eries right now. Another gor­geous red/​green flower com­bi­na­tion is a vari­ety of kan­ga­roo paw, if you can find it. I got mine at Aus­tralian Plant Nurs­ery in Ojai — you can see a photo in the Ven­tura Nurs­ery category.

I called some nurs­eries on my data­base and the fol­low­ing have a selec­tion of leu­ca­den­drons: Burkard Nurs­ery, San Gabriel Nurs­ery, (East Val­ley), Sper­ling Nurs­ery (West Val­ley), Marina Gar­den Cen­ter (Los Ange­les). And if you are near Ventura/​Ojai, Jo O’Connell of Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery has an unpar­al­leled inven­tory. It’s best to call ahead to be sure.

Grow in Venice and Cosentino’s at Pacific Coast High­way and Los Flo­res in Mal­ibu tell me they have ter­rific wreaths among many hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions. Rolling Green Nurs­ery always has the great­est hol­i­day plants, wreaths, orna­ments — it just goes on and on! They just opened a sec­ond loca­tion: 7505 Bev­erly Blvd @ Gar­dener, Hol­ly­wood, 90036, (323) 934‑4500.

Last but not least, all the employ­ees at the nurs­eries I called while look­ing for leu­ca­den­drons and hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions were so help­ful and some of them called me back - try that at Home Depot! Hope you have happy hol­i­days no mat­ter what you cel­e­brate, even if you just love red and green like me!!!!