Plant Talk

Palm Trees, Jasmine and Succulents in Hotter Than Hot California

It was a heat wave when we were in Los Angeles last week....we were there to visit my 96 year old Dad, but took time to go to the beach in Santa Monica and ride bikes to Venice Beach. There's a bike trail that runs for miles between the white sand beach and homes, streets and storefronts. It's an amazingly diverse people watching scene, including beach volleyball, surfers, fancy Europeans, al fresco yoga classes on the grass, tourists from Nebraska, California girls, and street people, plus the contrast of head shops next to some of the more expensive real estate in the country..

Here are a few horticultural highlights from the ride...

This dark-leafed Aeonium 'Schwarzkopf' is blooming away in an untended bit of sand next to the bike trail. I realized I'd never seen it flower before - I'm nursing a sad 'Schwarzkopf' through the winter in the house; after seeing this happily blooming beauty I feel like a plant torturer. Obviously they prefer heat and growing in sand to Whidbey Island chill and heavier soil....

Palm trees never look so good as juxtaposed against the very cool and often colorful houses of Venice Beach - and you get to ride right past on your bikes, looking into the gardens, seeing the real estate close up.

Casual, funky gardens are the norm; this one on a side street has a well-lived in feel.

The heady scent of jasmine was everywhere; every fence seemed draped in starry, fragrant flowers, from the impenetrable walls around the mansions to the openwork fence around the huge community garden on Main Street in Santa Monica.

Just inhale....

Stay tuned for the next installment, including a Joshua Tree in bloom and the most beautiful canyon/waterfall hike in broiling Palm Springs...

 

 

An Orange Aloe? Here's a Non-Hardy Succulent Worth the Trouble to Grow It

When you don't have a greenhouse,  indoor windowsill space becomes premium real estate in winter. So I try to stay away from tender plants. After the last couple of seriously cold winters, the list of plants that need protection grows longer.

But this beautiful aloe  (A. dorotheae) earns its wintertime windowsill space with its spiny, fleshy leaves in an unusual color of bronze. Like all aloes, it has that beguilingly swirling rosette shape. It has virtually no stem and grows, slowly, to only a foot or two high. 

While "fleshy and spiny" doesn't sound all that pretty, believe me, this succulent is a stunner....I found it at Swanson's Nursery in Ballard....grow in full sun with sharp drainage and water only occasionally...it's probably best to plant Dorothea (a.k.a.'Sunset') in a pot, because you'll be carting her inside before first frost, as she's only hardy to zone 10-11....

2011 Gardening Trends - What Do You Think Is New/Noteworthy?

I've been thinking about garden trends ever since a reporter from a local magazine called me last week to ask about what's new in gardening. I was tempted to say "Who cares? Just get out there and dig..." Gardening is such an age-old practice it's weird to think about trends. Yet environmental pressures, new products, changing weather patterns and our own evolving tastes and interests keep gardening fresh.

Each generation discovers for themselves what appeals about gardening, whether that be hunting down cool new perennials from remote countries, or raising radishes in the back yard.

So before the list appears in...I think it was Seattle Magazine...here it is on "Plant Talk" in the hopes you'll join the discussion about what you see going on in gardening this spring:

1. Growing your own groceries - vegetables, herbs and fruit. Most of us don't have room, time or inclination for a separate vegetable patch so we're mixing edibles in with ornamentals...the trend is spurred on by multi-tasking plants like blueberries, strawberries, artichokes, sage, and lettuces that look great in the garden, are easy to grow and delicious.

2. Bringing the garden indoors - cutting flowers, branches and leaves for simple, handmade bouquets. Fashioning arrangements from your own garden is satisfyingly fun and expressive, and you can be sure the flowers on your nightstand or dining room table are organic, fresh and local. The bouquet above is in a vase called "carrot top" from Whidbey artist Johanna Marquis, the fowers are a spring assortment from my garden.

3. Easy-care small shrubs like spireas and daphnes that look good year round, and don't need pruning or dividing. Ditto with small grasses like hakonechloa and carexes.

4. Gardening to attract and nurture wildlife - plants for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds

5. Succulents are drought-tolerant, low-maintenance, tough and handsome - surely succulents are the most modern of 21st century plants. Nurseries now stock an exciting selection of hardy succulents in a wide range of colors and textures. 

So what am I missing? Please comment below and let me know what you think is driving gardening these days...

A Few Nursery Catalogs are Still In Print and Such a Pleasure....

  I keep leafing through a few special nursery catalogs, contemplating a purple cauliflower here and green kniphofia there. I get nearly as much pleasure from the plants on the page as from the plants growing in my garden...perhaps more so because the plants in the catalogs are pure potential.

Just as with magazines and newspapers, it's so satisfying to hold a paper nursery catalog in hand. I admit I search out plants online all the time, but turning pages, marking favorites, and flipping back and forth between possibilities is much easier and more fun than clicking around. I get so much better sense of the plants, the nursery and the people behind both with a catalog in hand than on a computer screen.

So here's what is in the pile right here on my coffee table:

Annie's Annuals and Perennials offers such a tantalizing selection of unusual plants...Annie gives lots of commentary ("How to Have a Fabby Garden....") and the catalog is packed with color photos...from a ruffly pink double cosmos called 'Prom Dress' to the fragrant heirloom orange sweet pea 'Henry Eckford', Annie's offerings are irresistible... be sure and check out the poppies, like 'Black Swan' (left) which is dark purple and so double it's positively shaggy, or Papaver 'Drama Queen' with ruby red flowers that look like mini-petal-explosions....

Also free and in print: White Flower Farm, B&D Lilies, and the full-time-job of a fabulous catalog from Plant Delights Nursery. I don't know about you, but I may as well just endorse my paycheck over to this nursery, for it has the best assortment of hostas and the coolest hardy succulents you'll find anywhere...