Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – April 2013

I’m usually not organized enough to participate in Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day with May Dreams Gardens but this month I have a bunch of blooms and I’m ready!

Most of my true annual volunteers are still looking pretty good.

All the plants in the foreground of the above shot are volunteers. Oh how I love free plants!

Zaluzianskya capensis bloomed all winter but the warmer it gets the more abundantly it blooms and the more fragrant it is. I’ve seen others criticize it for not being very exciting but I think the shrubby little plants are quite attractive and when the blooms open in the afternoon it is gorgeous.

Linaria reticulata ‘Flamenco’ is still blooming like crazy. A few at the front (where they receive less water) are starting to peter out.  I’m wondering if I will get any new seedlings and bloom for the season or if I am going to have to fill this big area of the garden with a few summer bloomers.

Urinia anthemoides were a huge success this year and many are still in full bloom.

Geranium maderense has survived the wind storms and has been putting on a show for the past month.

Clianthus puniceus from New Zealand deserves better placement in the garden than I gave it.  It has long stems that get weighted down by the large flowers so they end up hanging down pretty close to the ground.  Closer to the front of a raised bed or large container is my suggestion for anyone growing this neat plant.

Sutherlandia frutescens from South Africa is a similar pea flowered plant but a little more delicate. This one bloomed in just one year from seed despite some rough handling. First it got swamped by some Lotus growing nearby, then it got tromped on and snapped in half by construction workers, I dug it up just in time before they could do more damage and it surprised me with new growth and new blooms in the gallon pot it calls home now.

Echium gentianoides ‘Tajinaste’ is basically a smaller and more airy and delicate Echium candicans.

Most of my succulents are living in containers in the backyard. Awaiting some future garden. My Aloe dorotheae surprised me with a beautiful organe and green inflorescence.

I’m very glad I kept two Craspedia globosa in my mediterranean garden.

Hymenolepis parviflora has become a nice little shrub. It bounced back quickly after an attack by caterpillars last month.

I have tons of ladybugs which is a good thing because I also have tons of aphids.

A few Coreopsis gigantea flowers remain.

I snapped this photo of a Dudleya pulverulenta inflorescence just in time. A few days later my neighbors large dog escaped confinement and went on a rampage through my garden.  She snapped stems and small plants left and right. My future garden will have a fence to keep out neighbors dogs as well as marauding deer.

Euphorbia mauritanica in bloom looks pretty sticky and a bit sinister up close.

I am sure that there are some people who would consider Chrysanthemum paludosum a potentially noxious weed. A six pack of plants last year became thousands this year. But they are very easy to edit out and much more charming and longer blooming than perennial Chrysanthemum hosmariense that I also grow. They have become one of my “must have” plants.

I’ve posted about Thymus juniperifolius a few times.  In full bloom you can’t even see the foliage that gives it its Latin name.

Convolvulus sabatius is a tough and reliable plant for California gardens.

I had no luck with Penstemons last year. I planted many and they all withered and died. I’m trying again this year with various P. heterophyllus cultivars.  This is ‘Margarita BOP’.

Lavandula stoechas ‘Boysenberry Ruffles’ is pretty spectacular despite the fufu name.

Up close the bicolor blooms are pretty intense.

I like the overall form of this Lavandula stoechas ‘Blue Star’ (even though it is a bit floppy).

But up close the flowers are a bit stunted compared to other L. stoechas cultivars. The jury is still out on this one for me.

I’ll have to check my notes but it seems like this Mentzelia lindleyi has been blooming for about two months. Very rewarding since it is a California native and it was also a free volunteer. This winds have battered it a bit but it is still going strong.

I posted this little vignette last week but this week the Euphorbia ‘Blue Haze’ is in full bloom.

The first blooms of Berlandiera lyrata are opening up. It is well worth getting down on the ground to get a whiff of the amazing hot cocoa smell of these flowers.

Last year I was quite disappointed with Eccremocarpus scaber ‘Cherry Red’. It just sort of sat there looking sad all summer.  Since everything in California seems to grow like crazy I forgot that some perennials need a year or two to get established.  Now it is doing just what I wanted it to do. Covering the ugly chain link fence.  And the hummingbirds go crazy for it.

I think that is enough for now! Do go check out the links at May Dreams Gardens to see what is blooming in other garden bloggers parts of the world.

Two Years!

WordPress just sent me a little note that my blog has just had its two-year anniversary!  Kind of crazy how fast time goes by. Here is a little retrospective.

I had just moved out of my apartment in Santa Monica where I had gardened on a small balcony with a view of the Pacific ocean.

Santa Monica had some really nice gardens but I got bored there and foolishly moved to West Hollywood.

I ended up hating West Hollywood and my balcony there sucked for gardening so I blogged quite a bit about my mesemb seedlings.

I also reminisced about my Clematis collection in my old garden…

And various trips to England…

Where I saw the queen…

and visited Clivedon and many other historic gardens.

I started designing gardens for my friends at Gardens by Gabriel.

And took road trips to Annie’s Annuals where I had to get creative to fit as many plants as I could into my VW Golf!

I went on a trip to Hawaii…

and fell in love with Leucospermum reflexum.

I moved to the Central Coast of California…

and was inspired by the South African Garden at Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria.

I thought about the things I enjoyed about southern California like the California Poppy Preserve…

and Coreopsis gigantea growing in Malibu.

But I was happy to be living in the Central Coast where I designed some new gardens…

Including my own!

Which has come a long way in a year!

Despite some recent drama!

And in case you were wondering Geranium maderense did just fine during the wind storm last night.

So thanks for coming along on my horticultural journey the past two years. Hopefully the next two years will be full of even more beautiful gardens.

What a difference a year makes!

Do you remember last year when I asked you not to laugh at the puny plants in my brand new mediterranean garden? Check out the gardens progress in just one year!

Everything looks so tiny and sad in a newly planted garden.  There is still work to do (look at all those new black pots in the second photo) but the garden is filling in nicely.

Some added good news is after I took the second photo my new landlady gave me permission to remove the little purple-leaved plum. It was throwing off my whole design. A Chamalaucium will go in its place. She has also expressed an interest in removing that horrible chain link fence which will certainly make my garden more photogenic. I’ll be doing some work in the back area behind the fence in the coming months as well.

And some added GREAT news is that I have confirmation finally that they will not be digging up the garden to place sewer pipes! The pipes will go through the street instead!  What a relief. As I suspected one of the things that helped our case is that with the original placing not only would the construction go through both of my driveways and my garden but it would have cut right through my neighbors entire driveway.  I’m sure the construction will still be a nightmare but at least it looks like we minimized the property damage.  Once we have to connect the house to the sewers part of the yard will have to be torn up but since that is done by the homeowner you have a lot more control over the how and the when so you can prepare accordingly.

As you can see from the new black pots I have quite a bit of work ahead of me so look for more updates soon.  And do check out the “Mediterranean Garden Inventory” link up at the top of the page. You should find a link leading to a Google spreadsheet with an updated inventory of the plants in this part of the garden.

Winter Garden

Our weather here on the central coast has been quite cool and rainy since the fall. This past week we warmed up considerably but not before a stretch of night-time temps dipping dangerously low. Luckily in my year old garden I have not amassed much of a tender plant collection (yet).

My self-sown seedlings from last years annuals are doing remarkably well.  In fact I have had blooms already!

Mentzelia lindleyi was grown from seed last year and planted out rather late.  They didn’t bloom until June. Left to their own devices their seedlings have grown to flowering size remarkably quickly.

California native annuals are pretty cool, huh?

Another neat California native is Coreopsis gigantea, native to the southern California coast  down into Baja and on the Channel Islands.  I’ve posted pics of them before, from my trips to see them in bloom along the coast north of Malibu, but now I have one of my own.

 

Can you believe this three-foot tall monster was a little plant in a 4″ pot last March.

I was pretty excited to see that it is starting to form its first buds.  The bright yellow flowers should start opening by March.

Maireana sedifolia is doing  well next to the Coreopsis. It is very important that both of these plants have excellent drainage. They are planted on a raised mound of soil which helps but it makes me a bit nervous that an Artemisia frigida planted right below them completely rotted out.

Salvia africana-lutea has been bulking up and I’m finally getting to see some blooms.  Whatever nasty little caterpillar was eating the flowers last summer doesn’t seem to be active in winter.

One plant that was very unhappy with our 30 degree weather is Trichodesma scottii.  It is a borage relative from the island of Socotra. All of its buds and the ends of its leaves turned to mush. I hope it will bounce back and bloom this summer. At least now I know it isn’t cold hardy and can throw a sheet over it on freezing nights. Other plants that suffered some damage were Lotus berthelotii, Iochroma cyanea, and Pycnostachys urticifolia but they should all bounce back.

I was just looking at pictures of this garden from last spring when all the plants were brand new and it is exciting to see how much everything has filled in.

I am still not sure exactly what is going to happen with the sewers. I know the original plan was for the pipes to go right down the center of the left hand bed in the photo above.  My landlady made an appointment with someone from the town and spoke to them about it and apparently she can fill out an amendment requesting that they go through the street instead.  Unfortunately I had an appointment on the day the guy came out so I couldn’t be there and I only got to speak to her about it briefly.  So for now I am cautiously optimistic and I have decided to do a bit of work on the garden.

The garden looked OK last summer but I was not completely happy with it.  I kept adding to it bit by bit as interesting plants became available and the overall plan was a bit off.  So I dug up all the Santolinas, Scabiosa, and some of the Festuca and rearranged them. I moved my Eryngiums to the other side of the bed and replaced them with some Phlomis leucophracta that I grew from seed. I’ll be adding some inexpensive plants to empty spaces and across the front of the garden I’ve moved around some of the seedlings that are coming up.

I’m just going to move forward hoping that this garden won’t be harmed and if worse comes to worse and I have to dig everything out again at least I got some exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been here before…

If I see more annoyed than distraught about my gardens impending doom it is because I have dealt with this before. The first garden I created was back in the early 90′s when I was living with my aunt in Ringwood, New Jersey. Initially we got rid of the lawn and covered it with wood chips (we were lawn haters back before it was cool and trendy) and put in two rows of rose bushes.  I learned about gardening and plants by visiting the New Jersey Botanical Garden at Skylands and reading lots of gardening books.  Bit by bit the garden grew.

As you can see above the garden had very humble beginnings. I didn’t really know what I was doing so I would just carve out beds and add plants that I liked.  The house was at the bottom of a small hill.

It wasn’t perfect but I think it was pretty good for a self-taught first time gardener. This garden lasted about seven years and then disaster struck. In the winter of 1998 we started having septic tank problems.  Because the property was situated on a large wooded slope the only place to put a new septic field was the front yard. Because it was winter we weren’t able to dig up and rescue any plants. I think I was also in denial at the amount of destruction that was about to take place. I remember being shocked one morning and seeing a gigantic back hoe and a six foot deep hole where my Peony collection had been the day before.

By the time the work was completed our front yard looked like the above photo. Everything was gone. Our house was no longer at the bottom of a hill. We were now level with the street.  We used to walk up steps to get to the front door but not any more. Of course I was distraught at the loss of all those plants, but on the other hand at this point I knew a lot more about gardening.  I had started taking continuing education classes at the New York Botanical Garden and I had learned so much from building my first garden. It would be kind of fun to start with a blank slate and use my new knowledge to build something smarter and better. We also had the crew use their back hoe to dig a big hole for a new pond. Something I wouldn’t have been able to do by hand. We had them make us a beautiful brick path with lighting.

In just two years my new garden was already much nicer than the old one.

Of course this garden didn’t really have a happy ending for too long. In the fall of 1999 I moved to Manhattan and my aunt sold the house and moved to Key Largo. The new home owners ripped out almost every single plant and put in a lawn. The only thing that survived were some Dicentra and Alliums that they missed because they were dormant when the lawn went in. Oh well. Lesson learned. If you leave behind a garden don’t go back. Never go back.

But I went to school and worked at some great botanical gardens. I became a horticulturist and created many more gardens, some my own, and some at the places I was working. I had already learned one important lesson though. Gardens are ephemeral. They change from one season to the next and if you move away it is unlikely the new home owners will keep everything the way you loved it. And sometimes, frustratingly, big construction projects will be necessary. In my first garden it was a new septic field, in my current garden it is the town converting from septic to sewers.

I still don’t know for sure when the work will begin but I am starting to make a mental catalog of what needs to be saved. Some things will go to the safety of my backyard and some may be potted up and saved or planted in clients gardens. But even when all the work is done I won’t get too attached to whatever garden I create because some day I will move again and start a new garden. Hopefully in a home that I own that I will live in for a long time.

 

 

 

 

Mulch!

It’s been a while since my last post!  I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to read other people’s blogs never mind posting on my own.  But things are slowly getting back to normal.

I did finally apply mulch to the mediterranean garden.

Obviously mulch is something that really should be done shortly after a garden has been planted.  But time and expense has delayed me in putting down drip irrigation on the garden so I have been holding off putting down mulch too and I just water by hand.

I decided that I am not going to bother putting down drip in the mediterranean bed as my eventual goal is to create a garden that needs very little supplemental water (and when I do need to water I can just continue to hand water).  Technically this garden was doing just fine without mulch but the soil was very uneven in appearance.  The mulch helps to make it look more uniform and the plants really pop against the dark color.

Gravel would be a better choice for this garden since mulch breaks down and makes the soil richer which I don’t really want. Nice gravel is quite a bit more expensive but I may switch to it in the future when the garden is more mature and the plants have filled in a bit.

Mulch here on the west coast is generally shredded fir bark.  Compared to cedar mulch back on the east coast this is miserable stuff.  I can’t touch it without getting tons of little splinters and even gloves don’t help.  It does look nice though.

There is a part of me that is really looking forward to fall so I can make some changes to the overall design of this part of the garden but there is no sense wishing your life away.  Fall will get here soon enough and when it does I’ll probably be wishing it was spring!

 

 

The Ugly Phase

There comes a time in a young gardens life when it goes through an ugly phase.  Usually in late spring or early summer you can tell what worked and what didn’t and the “what didn’ts” can be a bit disheartening. Something part of your design might not work or you may have a string of plant deaths that make you question whether you really know what the hell you are doing. Maybe you actually have one of those black thumbs that none gardeners are always talking about.

There have definitely been some disappointments in my garden. I usually notice them when I am crawling around the garden grouchily pulling out the stupid kikuyu grass that keeps coming back. Some perennials are growing slower than I thought they would, of course there are plants that I was really excited about that dropped dead for no discernible reason even though everything around them is thriving, entire areas where I added that new soil are dying or not thriving (I should have added compost instead of just planting mix – that can always be fixed), and of course a few plants that are new to me aren’t quite as impressive as I thought they would be or didn’t bloom as long as I thought they would.

Before you let your failures get you down it is important to step back and look at the garden as a whole to see what did work and make notes about what can be improved for next year.  The garden as a whole doesn’t look so bad.

Looks nice enough from a distance, right? In the medit garden the Santolinas are blooming, and the Gaura and Nepeta have been pretty successful. I absolutely love the silvery white Calocephalus and the Salvia ‘Aromas’ has been pretty awesome. The California poppies were amazing and I have cut most of them back all the way to the ground in the hopes that they will leaf out again this fall and come back even stronger next year.

The new annuals to the left of the mailbox are filling in and I think they will be really nice when they bloom.

Next year the garden will be even better!  But I think it is off to a good start (just don’t look too close).

 

Cambria Nursery

Cambria Nursery and Florist is one of the better all purpose nurseries in our part of the central coast. A destination type nursery with display gardens, a great selection of plants, a florist, gift shop, and events.  A few weeks ago Gabe was offered the opportunity to advertise our services by designing one of their display gardens.

The garden area he chose was a large circular amphitheater where events are held.

It was in dire need of help.  It had lots of empty space and a mix of old overgrown plants. But the hardscaping was nice and it is an interestingly shaped space so it was fun to design.

Since it is sort of a half circle shape I suggested that it be planted in a rainbow pattern.  Gabe’s response was that I had better not design it that way and I had to agree that it was sort of a corny idea.  But then I accidentally, sort of designed it that way anyway.  Not exactly.  It isn’t a perfect prism or anything.  But there is a color theme thing going on.  Blue and Gold to the left leads into orange and red and then fuchsia and purple. Oops.

Gabe and the crew removing the old plants.  The only thing I kept were some shrubs and small trees and a big clump of what I thought was Lysimachia ciliata but now looking that plant up the leaves aren’t right.  Well…it will be a surprise then. This is why as a designer I like just pulling everything out and working with a clean slate.  It is easy to misidentify plants when they are not in bloom.

Everything is in place and Victor is hard at work getting them all in the ground. I’m pretty happy with the blue and gold mediterranean theme going on in the left hand side of this garden. That is Stachys byzantina ‘Primrose Heron’ in front of Victor and the large gold shrubs to the left are Caryopteris X clandonensis ‘Worcester Gold’.

One of the great things about designing in a garden center is if a plant you ordered was not available you can just go pillage from the nursery stocks!

The area around the fountain became a succulent garden.  Normally we wouldn’t plant so close together but we wanted instant results for this garden. The main specimens in this garden are Agave ‘Blue Glow, Yucca ‘Bright Star’, and Agave ‘Shark Skin’ surrounded by a bed of Echeverias and Aloes.

I’ll go back to take more photos once the garden has grown in a bit.  Or if you are visiting the central coast go check out Cambria Nursery and you can do some shopping and see one of my gardens in person!

Garden Bed Expansion Project

As I’ve mentioned before I ran out of soil from my original delivery. For some reason it didn’t occur to me right away that I didn’t really need that much and it wouldn’t be very expensive to just get enough to finish up the beds.  I’m kind of dumb sometimes.

So on Tuesday I had eight cubic yards of planting mix delivered and I’ve been spreading it around ever since.

This is all that is left.  Don’t worry I’ve been finding little spots to fill in with the extra.

The vegetable garden is all prepared.  This morning I planted most of it up.  Two rows of four different types of strawberries, three different tomatoes, borage that I grew from seed and some marigolds and I put down straw mulch.  Next I’ll work on making everything look a little less sloppy (devise a better way to hold up the bird netting over my seedlings so I can get rid of those ugly bricks, that sort of thing).

The mediterranean bed on the left had soil added to it, the little satellite mediterranean bed on the right is expanded, the bed along the fence was topped off, and a bed was created on the other side of the fence.  The outside of the fence will be mostly lavenders and Artemisia.

I could have left things as they were but frankly they looked silly and unfinished.  It was sort of driving me crazy.  Plus now I have room for more plants!

I also decided to fill in the weird little path between the annual garden and the mediterranean garden.  It was just odd-looking and I really didn’t need the access.  I’ll probably fill it in with more annuals.

I added more soil to all the existing beds to make them more uniform and to straighten the path out a bit.  I’m probably going to just use decomposed granite to finish the path.  Try to  ignore my landlady’s fifth wheel trailer in the driveway.  I really only notice it now when I take photos.  She wants to sell it but hasn’t had the time to really make a serious effort.  It will be nice when its gone.

So much planting ahead of me and some finishing touches as soon as I have the time/money to do so and then I can sit back and enjoy the flowers!  Now that I have added yet another type of soil the need for mulch is even greater because the beds look like some sort of weird multi-colored layer cake.  Soon.

Varian Ranch Finale!

A few weeks I posted an update as work progressed on a garden I designed last summer: Varian Ranch.  Well today was the last day of work on the garden so I stopped by to see how it turned out.

Here is that mediterranean border all planted and mulched.

Look how nice the new decomposed granite path looks!  Hmm…maybe I want one of these in my yard.

As we move down the path toward the front entrance the plants change from mediterranean style to natives.

Now that the mulch is down those sycamores stand out even more!

I thought this was Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’ but Gabe says it is ‘Concha’.  It was originally supposed to be C. ‘Joyce Coulter’.  One of the problems with installing a garden eight months after you design it is some of the plants you specced are no longer available so you have to adapt.  Which is fine but when the project is finished I am always confused as to what we ended up finally using.  C. ‘Dark Star’ has darker flowers and foliage.

A group of four Ribes sanguineum ‘King Edward VII’ flank the front door.  They were just bare twigs a week and a half ago when they were planted but they suddenly burst into bloom.

I wanted running water in the garden to attract more birds so we got this little fountain.

Over the winter a large oak died in the backyard and really opened up the view and the space.  The back garden around the lawn needed some sprucing up so I drew up a quick plan.  Some plants were removed, some were divided, some were spread out, and of course we added a bunch of new ones to compliment the original design.  I’ve added lavender to replace some old ones, Santolina chamaecyparissus ‘Grey Tuft’, Verbena bonariensis and V. lilacina, Geum ‘Mango Lassi’, Gaillardia ‘Oranges & Lemons’, Cistus, and Halimium to name a few.

Four raised beds for vegetables were also added as well as some fruit trees.

One last view of those Sycamores and my work here is complete!  I look forward to visiting in six months or a year to see how the garden has filled in.