Posts Tagged ‘nurseries’

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).

Mex­i­can feather grass

Why is it impor­tant to know which plants can be inva­sive? Inva­sive plants are a lead­ing threat to bio­di­ver­sity, sec­ond only to habi­tat destruc­tion. And $80 mil­lion is spent each year to pro­tect Cal­i­for­nia from inva­sive species. A quote from the Cal­i­for­nia Inva­sive Plant Coun­cil (www​.cal​-ipc​.org/): Across Cal­i­for­nia, inva­sive plants dam­age wildlands.….displace native plants and wildlife, increase wild­fire and flood dan­ger, con­sume valu­able water, degrade recre­ational oppor­tu­ni­ties and destroy pro­duc­tive range and tim­ber lands. I was shocked at some of the plants that are listed as severely inva­sive (as opposed to mod­er­ate or lim­ited), such as the Mex­i­can feather grass seen above. This plant is a dar­ling of land­scape pro­fes­sion­als. Other com­monly used severely inva­sive plants include some ice­plants, foun­tain grass, pam­pas grass, French, Span­ish and Scotch brooms, fen­nel, and Eng­lish and Alger­ian ivy.

The inva­sive plant coun­cil pub­lishes an inven­tory of inva­sive plants and alerts on their web­site. The IPC says Cal­i­for­nia is the home to 4,200 native plant species and is con­sid­ered a “bio­di­ver­sity hotspot”. Approx­i­mately 1,800 non-​native plants also grow in the wild in the state. The web­site, www​.plantright​.org, is help­ful and pub­lishes a form let­ter you can send to nurs­ery pro­fes­sion­als ask­ing them to pro­mote alter­na­tives for the prob­lem plants in each region of the state, such as the native deer grass shown below, a good replace­ment for pam­pas grass and Mex­i­can feather grass.

Native deer grass

Good places to buy native plants as listed by area to the left on my web­site: Ven­tura County: Matil­ija Nurs­ery, Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery; East Val­ley: Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion; Los Ange­les: Grow Native Nurs­ery at the VA; Orange County: Tree of Life Nurs­ery; San Diego County: Las Pil­i­tas Nurs­ery. Many gen­eral nurs­eries will carry native plants and they will iden­ti­fied as such.

For SoCal event infor­ma­tion: www​.paci​fi​chor​ti​cul​ture​.org/​c​a​l​e​n​d​a​r​/​s​o​C​al/

This man is Patrick Dougherty in one of his phe­nom­e­nal struc­tures. His work makes me weep. How does he do it? Accord­ing to his web­site, by twist­ing the line between archi­tec­ture, land­scape and art. He has built more than 175 works world­wide over the past 20 years. The piece shown was com­mis­sioned by the Min­nesota Land­scape Arbore­tum, and built over a 17 day period with the help of about 80 vol­un­teers. That seems very fast to me.

Most inter­est­ing are the mate­ri­als he uses: thou­sands of wil­low twigs, branches and saplings woven and twisted together (no nails or pegs are used). “My affin­ity for trees as a mate­r­ial seems to come from a child­hood spent wan­der­ing the forest.…saplings have a nat­ural, inher­ent method of join­ing — that is, sticks entan­gle eas­ily. This snag­ging prop­erty is the key to work­ing this mate­r­ial into a vari­ety of large forms.”

Luck­ily for us in SoCal, Patrick is plan­ning an instal­la­tion in Cal­i­for­nia, around Jan­u­ary 11 in Palo Alto at the Palo Alto Art Cen­ter, accord­ing to his web­site www​.stick​work​.net. To learn more about him and his meth­ods check out the Min­nesota Arbore­tum web­site: www​.arbore​tum​.umn​.edu/​b​i​g​b​u​i​l​d​p​r​o​c​e​s​s​.​a​spx. Patrick lives in, what else, a hand­made house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

On the web:

11/​4/​Thursday: Native Plant Gar­den Design with land­scape designer Susanne Jett @ Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)

11/​4/​Thursday: Nuccio’s Nurs­eries and a Peace­ful Gar­den in Altadena with Lili Singer, fea­tur­ing a self-​drive field trip thru the LA Arbore­tum (www​.arbore​tum​.org)

11/​6/​Saturday: a series on Native plant gar­den­ing at Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery in Ven­tura (www​.nopali​tonurs​ery​.com)

11/​6 – 7/​Saturday and Sun­day: Japan­ese Gar­den Fes­ti­val at Des­canso Gar­dens (www​.des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org)

For more SoCal events: www​.paci​fi​chor​ti​cul​ture​.org/​c​a​l​e​n​d​a​r​/​s​o​C​al/

A morn­ing glory vine invasion

I have been fight­ing a morn­ing glory vine inva­sion in my gar­den for about 10 years now. Can’t say I wasn’t warned…it took about 3 years for my morn­ing glory to take hold. I had almost for­got­ten about it. Then whoosh.….I had a mon­ster on my hands. I’ve been cut­ting back and bat­tling this beast for so long, I’ve lost faith. Then I noticed the hybrid leucadendron/​morning glory in my gar­den today and I’m think­ing, why not? Am I so wrong?

On another front, every­one who knows me can see I’m not an obses­sive gar­dener. I’m a low — no main­te­nance type and my gar­dener of 19 years is a mow-​go-​blow kind of guy (although he’s capa­ble of great­ness — all I have to do is ask.) One of my new favorites is white lan­tana. I have a black hole in my gar­den that has gob­bled up plant after plant. It’s an inde­ci­pher­able area, a lit­tle bit of every­thing: dry, wet, dark, light. That’s where the gar­den work­horse, white lan­tana, has res­cued me. It“s great in dark cor­ners — day and night it attracts the eye. Prob­lem­atic in the wrong place (what isn’t ?), lan­tana is bombproof in the right sit­u­a­tion. Not hard to find in SoCal nurs­eries, once estab­lished it can be very drought tol­er­ant. And hum­ming­birds and but­ter­flies find it delicious.

• Oct 23 & 24, 9 am-​4 pm, Har­vest Fes­ti­val and Plant Sale, Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada Flintridge

See Botan­i­cal gar­dens, foun­da­tions and non­prof­its for more infor­ma­tion on the above organization