Posts Tagged ‘roses’

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)

Xray of a rose

Isn’t this spec­tac­u­lar? I saw this arti­cle in my Gar­den Design Mag­a­zine online newslet­ter. A bril­liant idea, med­ical xray tech­ni­cian Steven N Mey­ers xrays botanic spec­i­mans such as amaryl­lis, ferns, pop­pies, plume­ria and of course roses. I love Gar­den Design mag­a­zine (www​.gar​den​de​sign​.com). If you go to their web­site you can sub­scribe to their newslet­ter for free. To see the arti­cle on Steven’s art go to: http://www​.gar​den​de​sign​.com/​i​d​e​a​s​/​a​r​t​-​b​o​t​a​n​y​-​x​-​r​a​y​-​p​h​o​t​o​g​r​a​p​h​y​?​c​m​p​i​d​=​e​n​e​w​s​0​6​2​111

By the way…If you can tear your­self away from the trial (you know what train wreck of a trial I’m talk­ing about!) a series on National Geo­graphic Chan­nel called Amish at the Altar is worth check­ing out. These peo­ple are really in touch with the earth, and many scenes resem­ble a still life.

Upcom­ing SoCal events:

• Ongo­ing at the San Diego County Fair: some great talks thru 7/​4 for the sched­ule go to www​.sdfair​.com and check out the Flower and Gar­den Show.
• June 25: free classes @ Wal­ter Ander­sen: 9am Trop­i­cal fruit trees and vines @ Point Loma and 9:30 am Con­tainer color for sum­mer @ Poway — details at www​.wal​teran​der​sen​.com
• June 25: 3 part native plant design and Show­ers to flow­ers at www​.Theodor​e​payne​.org
• They are hav­ing a lot of music and Shake­speare for kids @ Des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org
• Daylilly Hill Nurs­ery (Escon­dido) is now Water­wise Botan­i­cals (760) 728‑2641 /​www​.water​wise​b​otan​i​cals​.com

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

Patrick in motion.

My last post was meant to be a mys­tery, but I’m sure a lot of read­ers fig­ured it out any­way. Learn­ing that sculp­tor Patrick Dougherty was going to be a mere 300 miles away in Feb­ru­ary installing a piece at the Palo Alto Art Cen­ter, nat­u­rally I high­tailed it up there to meet my idol in per­son and expe­ri­ence his art first­hand. How do I describe the expe­ri­ence? By talk­ing about the 200+ sculp­tures he has installed all over the world? Or by address­ing his cre­ative process, in which he weaves saplings into small enchanted cities…teapots, teepees, tow­ers, hives and nests,” as Jen­nifer Thomp­son says in the for­ward to his mono­graph Stick­work. Patrick, who attrib­utes his inspi­ra­tion to grow­ing up in the pine forests of North Car­olina, uses only sticks and his abil­ity to work with oth­ers to weave his cre­ations. Patrick com­pares it to “birds weav­ing nests”. Most impor­tantly, Patrick is as won­der­ful and acces­si­ble as his art­work. He typ­i­cally works with a new crew on every instal­la­tion, and is able to put together a large project like this one in Palo Alto in 15 work­ing days with com­plete strangers!!!! I won­der if he would con­sider run­ning for President??

To learn more on Patrick, his process and see more on his won­der­ful art, go to his web­site, www​.stick​work​.net or check out his book Stick­work.

The almost fin­ished artwork

On the web:

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 3:

• Build a bet­ter rose gar­den with Steve Gerischer, 9:30 — noon, LA Arbore­tum, $20.00 at door, (626) 821‑4623 or jill.berry@arboretum.org/
• Free bird­ing walk with Ken Gilliland at Theodore Payne on the first Thurs­day of every month, 8am — 10pm, Theodor​e​payne​.org/

Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 5: