Posts Tagged ‘plants’

I love porch swings — this one is in the front yard

I was out rid­ing bikes with my brother Scott in the East Bay area east of San Fran­cisco when I came across Riza’s gar­den. Her gar­den­ing is unique to an area that relies heav­ily on junipers, aga­pan­thas and nandina(my pet peeve). Her gar­den reminds me of sum­mer in the Mid­west, but she pretty much has this abun­dance all year around. She gra­ciously gave me me a tour and allowed me to take pho­tos. I also asked her many ques­tions; the answers are below, in her own words:

“I’ll try to answer your ques­tions as accu­rately as pos­si­ble. I became inter­ested in gar­den­ing in 1991. We had our pre­vi­ous house pro­fes­sion­ally land­scaped and hired the con­trac­tor to do the main­te­nance. We had a falling out with the con­trac­tor and I could not find a gar­dener com­pe­tent enough. The land­scap­ing was really fancy and I wanted to keep the gar­den in good con­di­tion so I did the main­te­nance until I could find a gar­dener. That got me hooked! I’ve been gar­den­ing ever since. When I started I couldn’t even tell the dif­fer­ence between an aga­pan­thus and an oak, now I’m like a walk­ing dic­tio­nary of plants. I make flower arrange­ments, too, from the flow­ers in the gar­den and I like to read. I like most plants. It’s pretty hard to list them since I like most of them so I will just list the ones I don’t like .

• Junipers (my num­ber 1 pet peeve since they are overused in this area because of the drought).
• Ole­an­der — I noticed when I went to Europe they are really liked by Euro­peans and treated like spec­i­men plants.
• Eng­lish Ivy
• Privet — I hate, hate, hate them. My neigh­bor has two trees and they drop their seeds on my yard and mil­lions of seedlings are sprout­ing all the time. I call it the evil tree.
• Mon­terey Pine — ugly and messy. The hap­pi­est day of my life was when another neigh­bor behind me cut the dis­eased Mon­terey pine and I was finally able to keep plants alive on that side of the house.

I get my plants every­where, from the local CVS, Ace Hard­ware, KMart, Home Depot, Costco to the more high-​end nurs­eries. The com­mu­nity col­leges have plant sales 4 times a year and their plants are unique, healthy and rare and they have good prices too. I brought plants from as far as Wis­con­sin, Wash­ing­ton State and Oregon.

I have a “Mow and Blow” gar­dener who comes once a week and that’s all he does — mow and blow. I have another gar­dener who is more spe­cial­ized and prunes every­thing by hand and he comes 4 times a year for gen­eral prun­ing and gen­eral clean­ing. The rest of the time I do most of it.

My guess is I have at least 300 plants — Just the roses alone I have 75 bushes, so when I get a chance and count them I will let you know.

Tip for home gar­den­ers — do not limit your­self to any type of plant or color of the foliage because you might be miss­ing out on some beau­ti­ful com­bi­na­tions. For exam­ple I have a neigh­bor who does not like gray plants and I think she’s miss­ing out a lot because gray is a very uni­fy­ing color. Another friend does not like suc­cu­lents and cac­tus and I think she is miss­ing out because cac­tus has so many inter­est­ing shapes and tex­tures and forms.”

Wow! 75 rose­bushes! I don’t even have one because of the deer!

Suc­cu­lents are another ele­ment of the garden

On the web: Lots of con­certs at botan­i­cal gar­dens, for one:

• Des­canso Gar­dens (Descansogardens.org)…Summer evening jazz con­certs thru August 25
• Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion (theodorepayne.org)…classes include relief print­ing, irri­ga­tion primers, hyper­t­ufa container
• Los Ange­les Arbore­tum (arboretum.org)…Concert on the Green by The Cal­i­for­nia Philharmonic
• South Coast Botanic Gar­den (south​coast​b​otan​ic​gar​den​.org)… 7/​22… ensem­ble Spi­rati wood­wind quin­tet concert
• Fuller­ton Arbore­tum (fullertonarboretum.org)…Nature pho­tog­ra­phy class, Bug safari for adults
• San Diego Botanic Gar­den (sdb​gar​den​.org) Thurs­day Fam­ily Fun Nights
• Sheri­dan Gar­dens, Bur­bank — Sum­mer Sale (sheri​dan​gar​dens​.com)

Casa La Paz at Tree of Life Nursery

Tree of Life Nurs­ery in Orange County has been a leader in encour­ag­ing home­own­ers to lose their lawns. The infor­ma­tion below is taken directly from their web­site. It’s a fan­tas­tic des­ti­na­tion nurs­ery to visit any­way and now they are giv­ing away a ter­rific sem­i­nar, plus a bar­beque lunch on the 18th:

Replace Your Lawn Work­shops this June — Our Four-​Part Series con­densed to Two!

Our Replace Your Lawn Series designed to help you learn how to replace your lawn with beau­ti­ful and sus­tain­able Cal­i­for­nia native plants will be pre­sented in its entirety this June on two Sat­ur­days, June 11 and June 18th, 9:30 – 11 am. Each Sat­ur­day will cover two parts of our pop­u­lar Replace Your Lawn Work­shops. Please join us and get twice as much infor­ma­tion in almost the same amount of time. Longer-​distance cus­tomers, these work­shops are for you! Sat­ur­day June 11, 2011 — Replace Your Lawn I and II — 9:30 am — 11:00 am

9:30 am — 10:10 am — Kill the Grass!
Learn the basics of how to kill your lawn. We’ll cover the basic steps of iden­ti­fy­ing the grass and plants you have, fol­lowed by appro­pri­ate mea­sures for removal of the exist­ing land­scape to make way for a sus­tain­able native plant gar­den.

10:10 am — 11:00 am — Design Ele­ments.
Guest speaker and land­scape designer Rob Moore will return to Tree of Life to lead the Design Ele­ments ses­sion. This will be struc­tured as a dis­cus­sion for­mat address­ing var­i­ous issues you may have with your prop­erty (come ready to dis­cuss!). Rob will address some design para­me­ters and cri­te­ria by pro­vid­ing ideas on plant selec­tion, hard­scape, and how to orga­nize your thoughts around a theme!

Sat­ur­day June 18, 2011 — Replace Your Lawn III and IV — 9:30 am — 11:00 am

9:30 am — 10:10 am — Cre­at­ing and Car­ing
Come learn more about how to ini­tially install and care for your plants and how to plan for the long term well-​being of your native gar­den. We will intro­duce plant selec­tion by dis­cussing the impor­tance of struc­ture and bal­ance using our “Thirty Plants” plant list as the pal­lette.

10:10 am — 11:00 am — Plant Selec­tion: Thirty Plants
We’ll dis­cuss foun­da­tion plants, trees, shrubs, flow­er­ing peren­ni­als, accents, and ground­cov­ers with plenty of plant com­bi­na­tion ideas. There is a lot to con­sider when pick­ing out your plants, but we’ll keep it sim­ple and help you break it down to what you need to know! Join us!

Sat­ur­day June 18, 2011

12:00 noon — Stick around for our Cus­tomer Appre­ci­a­tion BBQ also known as, “Yes Vir­ginia, there IS a Free Lunch (just not very often)!”

Tree of Life web­site: www​.cal​i​for​ni​a​na​tive​plants​.com or go to Tree of Life Nurs­ery under Orange County Nurs­eries to the left of this post.

Esmer­alda and new­born baby Gnat

What can one say about moth­er­ing and nur­tur­ing? Moth­ers aren’t always nur­tur­ers and nur­tur­ers aren’t always moth­ers. How­ever I find that gar­den­ers are always nur­tur­ing their plants and often the envi­ron­ment. Moth­er­ing a plant? Why not? My suc­cu­lents are like my kids. They seem almost human to me because the dif­fer­ent kinds have so much personality..brash, prick­ley, shy, cun­ning, gre­gar­i­ous, intro­verted and totally frustrating!

But get­ting back to Esmer­alda and Gnat, they are moth­ered by Susan of www​.far​m​girl​fare​.com. This wise and witty blog fol­lows Susan’s unique per­spec­tive of going from city to farm. Go on and if you like what you see, subscribe…you will not be disappointed!

I lost my mom in June of 2005 but I’m blessed with my won­der­ful mother-​in-​law Ruth. I never thought I would be a mom but I lucked out with my won­der­ful daugh­ter Holly.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who nurture!!

My suc­cu­lent babies

On the Web:

Ander­sons La Costa Nurs­ery, Encini­tas: 20% off on all fruit trees thru May 12 /​ander​son​sla​costa​nurs​ery​.com

May 7:

Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion, Sun Val­ley: 8 am: A birds eye view of native plants /​10 am: 3 part Native plant design /​theodor​e​payne​.org

Venice Gar­den and Home Tour, Los Ange­les /​Venice​gar​den​tour​.org

City Farm­ers, San Diego: Rais­ing Tilapia as sim­ply as pos­si­ble, 1:30 — city​farm​er​snurs​ery​.com

Des­canso Gar­dens, La Canada: Iris Walk and Talk 11 am.…..Flower Mart Tour 7am — 2pm.…..May 8 Var­i­ous Mother’s Day events includ­ing brunch/descansogardens.org

May 7 & 8: Gera­nium Show at the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum –arbore​tum​.org

May 9: San Diego Hor­ti­cul­tural Soci­ety meet­ing: The Alchemy of Plants and Gar­dens: Source of Life and Inspi­ra­tion — sdhort​soc​.org

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.

p

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).