A Growing Obsession

plant hunting late May

Denise — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:01:53 +0000

I’ve been checking out local nurseries the past couple weeks, both independents and chains/franchises, which isn’t news since I do this quite a lot, but bringing a serious intent to change some of the garden late in May is news. I know a lot of gardens are just beginning to send out their personal shoppers (us) in May, but a zone 10 summer garden should ideally be settled by now, planned and planted last fall, which always gives superior results compared to a spring planting, much less a late spring planting. There should be no more fiddling with it after May, because summer will knock most new plantings on their ass. But the Diascia personata really had to go. I think it’s a good plant with great potential, maybe a bit more afternoon shade. (Grace, I think you’d love it if the leaves stay clean for you.) And maybe it’s suited for larger gardens, not because of it’s size but because it’s best seen massed, and from a distance. That pinky-coral color never stopped grating on me, which is odd because I don’t mind it on the smaller diascias. On the whole, I prefer Diascia integerrima.

As a replacement, I was leaning towards something blue/violet, in agastaches maybe, but none were to be found local, and small-sized mail order plants would be of no use this late in the season. I settled on Salvia greggii ‘Salmon Dance,’ a) because, well, there it was in 4-inch pots; b) they’re tough as old boots; c) they’re not pink; and d) as a sloppy-seconds planting, at the very least the hummingbirds will be happy. Although it’s not a conscious plan, pink continues to be purged from the garden and the reign of orange goes on.

This morning I split off some pieces from a large clump of Pennisetum ‘Sky Rocket,’ which is just getting its burgundy plumes, to fill the gap along with the salvia. This pennisetum, planted last year, thickens fast but the blades seem to top out at a relatively modest height of 2 and half feet or so. If it holds to this height, it will prove to be a valuable grass indeed. Grown as an annual in zones below 8.

Image from San Marcos Growers

And though I didn’t find exactly what I needed, as is typical of plant nursery jaunts, I found lots that I wanted. There was a cordyline I haven’t seen before, Cordyline ‘Electric Star,’ the clumping kind with subtle, phormium-like coloration. I’d have been all over this cordyline in a smaller, cheaper size.

Another surprise was Isoplexis canariensis for sale locally, exquisitely in bloom in gallon containers at H&H Nursery, under their label. Always exciting to see a plant make the leap and graduate from rare and desirable to readily available and dependable. It’s still a little early to know just how dependable or long-lived. The photo is from my garden in April, but it’s still in bloom and sending out fresh spikes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes as ubiquitous as that other strong orange, leonotis. Keeping with my orange/warm color fetish, there were a couple kniphofias at H&H I haven’t seen available local before, ‘Alcazar’ and ‘Nancy’s Red.’ Selections like these have previously been found only in Digging Dog’s catalogue.

Also at H&H was an unusual, smooth-skinned Kalanchoe beharensis appropriately named ‘Furless.’ I still can’t decide if smooth leaves are necessarily desirable in a Kalanchoe beharensis. Checking around, I find Glasshouse Works lists something similar called ‘Baby’s Bottom.’ I had no idea there was such variety with this kalanchoe, with some leaves deeply lobed. Mine pictured above was brought home from a plant sale last year, supposedly variegated. It hasn’t shown very strong variegation so far, but the edges do seem a bit more incised and ruffled than the species as I remember growing it.

I ran into this beauty, one of the annual Chilean bellflowers, nolana, at Brita’s nursery in Seal Beach, where it was growing in the ground, possibly from self-sowing.

A big, sprawling thing, with black stems and black splotches on the flower capsules. The nolana commonly available from seed is Nolana paradoxa, but an image search didn’t produce photos showing those sexy black markings.

And I was thrilled to score a couple Digitalis trojana in bloom and hopefully ready to throw some seed around. This is one I don’t mind planting in late spring, because if it’s anything like that other tawny foxglove from Turkey, Digitalis ferruginea, it will hate hanging on sleepless through a mild winter. If it self-sows, it just might find the perfect spot, the one I never seem to find for it.

driveby gardens; more on the disappearing lawn

Denise — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:20:22 +0000

I got a very late start on the self-guided Lawn-to-Garden tour Saturday, thirty gardens from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., just because Friday was an unusually odd workday and I lingered and wallowed far too long in the glory of being home Saturday morning.

There might have been some extended Saturday morning puttering with hanging tillandsias on maritime salvage.

So I saw precisely two gardens on the tour. Running late, I chose these two gardens because they were close together in the California Heights neighborhood of Long Beach. California Heights is one of those neighborhoods where the homeowners are inventive and daring with their homes and gardens but also very, very attentive to issues of upkeep and neatness, and that can be a fine line to straddle. It’s so interesting how these demographic pockets evolve and neighborhoods develop specific, well-defined personalities. Just a few streets over but outside the California Heights neighborhood, the homes are more conservative, lawn-and-foundation-shrub affairs, which is the default, time-honored approach. Front gardens can be touchy, even politically-charged propositions, and some neighborhoods will push back if any other approach but the traditional is attempted. Yet in increasingly arid Southern California, with every successive below-average rainy season and record high temperature, whose front garden is on the wrong side of history is becoming less and less debatable. Some cowards opt out of the controversy entirely and grow privacy hedges, as I did when I took out the lawn over 20 years ago. Controversy aside, I crave privacy, and kids and pets necessitated protection from our heavily trafficked street, but I admit the rolling, uninterrupted vistas available in neighborhoods without barriers to the view are very appealing. Whether through custom and habit or decreed by their historical society, there are very few front yard boundary hedges or fences in Cal Heights, which makes it wonderful drive-by garden hunting ground.

In Cal Heights the homes are mostly Spanish Revival. Not on the scale of, say, a Diane Keaton Spanish Revival mansion, but similar details in small, single-family homes with the occasional two-story home. Driving around the neighborhood, I spotted these examples:

Agave americana, Dymondia margaretae, Senecio mandraliscae, shrubby Carissa macrocarpa in the foreground on the left

Climbing jasmine and potato vine trained on the arches

One of the best dymondia lawns I’ve seen. Calandrinia in the foreground

And I hadn’t really noticed before this tour, but on a few of the streets the houses sit fairly high, bounded by steepish slopes with or without concrete retaining walls. These sloping front yards, which have got to be frustrating to mow, have amazing garden-making potential.

This garden on the tour really exploits the potential of that slope.

And yet the homeowners wanted to retain a narrow band of lawn as a calming, negative space, which they hand-water, and which loses that bright green and builds up a summer tan later in the season. Though the slope doesn’t appear steep from this photo, it truly is. It was hard to keep steady footing on what’s left of the lawn. The plantings are bark-mulched. The owner I spoke with opted against using decomposed granite as part of this lawn replacement garden. It just didn’t appeal to her. Near the sidewalk a strip of iceplants in brilliant colors acts as a bumper to hold in the mulch, so spillage onto the sidewalk hasn’t been a problem.

The ruffle of iceplants near the sidewalk had just finished their spring bloom.

This is a corner home, which gives the garden lots of scope for repeating certain plants to lend cohesion as you walk its perimeter. This variegated agave was repeated throughout. Is it an angustifolia? Plant names weren’t a concern for the homeowner, who had an amazing eye for good plants, many of which were bought at Mariposa Garden, a small wholesale nursery unknown to me (road trip!)
The garden is about three years old.

I always see strong repetition of key plants as a sign of character and discipline, something to strive for, to put on the new year’s list of resolutions (again and again). The same agave paired with the shrublike Senecio amaniensis, which was also used repeatedly as a foil to knit together the varied shapes and colors. Agave attenuata, far left, was also repeated throughout.

Another look at the agave, the slope, driveway in the distance and adjoining property. Hanging baskets on the privacy fence.

A lot of lawn-replacement gardens divide into two camps; scrubby natives or sleek, semi-minimalist succulents. Both gardens on this tour elected to combine succulents with not necessarily native but drought-tolerant plants, like Salvia leucantha and Helichrysum petiolare in both its silver and chartreuse forms.

Hesperaloe in bloom with big blue Agave americana, aloes, Salvia leucantha, arctotis, lavender, Senecio mandraliscae.

At the other garden I toured, there was much less of a slope. Even so, the homeowner told me he wouldn’t use decomposed granite if he had to do it over again. Even with our light rainfall and the little supplemental irrigation required, the d.g. washes down the slope and onto the sidewalk.

The plantings here were outlined in stacked, sandstone-colored rock surrounded by pathways of decomposed granite.
An exquisite setting for viewing succulent treasures like Agave desmettiana.

Agaves lophantha and vilmoriniana with tall, shrubby Leonotis leonorus. This was a young garden as well.

After touring both gardens I drove around a bit.

And found the house with the flawless dymondia lawn.

A few more views of some front gardens in Cal Heights.

This was a tour very much worth attending, made up of homeowners brimming with design talent and generous with their time for answering questions. Next year, if there is another Lawn-to-Garden tour, there will be less puttering at home and more time spent visiting gardens.

Bloom Day May 2013

Denise — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:29:58 +0000

It’s our blue period again, and not just ours. Jacaranda mimosifolia trees are painting the whole town blue.
Spiky plants in the front garden will fly these pennants until July, when the blue period ends, and the trees in the parkway will be fully leafed out.

In the back garden, two-year-old clumps of Penstemon ‘Enor’ have started to bloom.
I had a big penstemon phase about five years ago, then attention wandered elsewhere.
I like this one’s tall, slim spikes and smallish flowers.

Some of the new plants I’m trying this year, like this umbellifer Cenolophium denudatum, will be encouraged to stay and self-sow.
It fulfills the important requirement of tolerating fairly dry soil, while still keeping lush good looks.
Same deal with the blue-flowered Aristea ecklonii, a South African iris relative.

Diascia personata, tall and pink in the background behind Orlaya grandiflora, is more problematic. Good height and promising growth habit, open and loose, but had a difficult time with recent hot days, not to mention the leaves have been curled and disfigured since active growth started a couple months ago. Looks like thrips damage, a problem I’ve never had in the garden before. And though I love its height and structure, I’m not crazy enough about that color to put up with deformed leaves.
All the lacy white orlaya this year were self-sown volunteers.

I should probably stop experimenting and just grow anigozanthos. These bloom stalks will last into fall.

There’s a couple clumps, one gold and the other a rusty orange. I’d love to add a chartreuse-flowered clump too.

Another experiment was Verbascum ‘Clementine.’ Lovely plant but a bit of a lightweight as far as sun and drought tolerance.
I’ll probably stick to the silver-leaved verbascums in the future.
Silvery Sideritis syriaca on the left, dark green clump in the foreground is Persicaria amplexicaulis.

I’m very glad to be growing nepeta again, a few clumps of ‘Walker’s Low.’ It’s as drought tolerant as ballota, whose white wands are just behind the nepeta.

And it’s nice to have a few of these Senecio stellata self-sowing, though they absolutely must have afternoon shade.

Eryngium planum is blooming this year in a couple spots. Once I stopped crowding them and gave them sun at their bases, they complied.

Pelargoniums continue to work their charm on me and are tough as nails in pots.
This one is Pelargonium caffrum X ‘Diana,’ whose flowers remind me of lewisias.

Just one bloom on a couple plants of Coreopsis tinctoria ‘Mahogany’ opened for Bloom Day.

A few plants of Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’ self-sowed this spring.

There are some amazingly fresh spring gardens to wander through at our host’s site for Bloom Day, Carol at May Dreams Gardens, filled with all sorts of plants and bulbs I can only dream of growing. May dreams indeed!

unidentified fabulous grass/sedge (Chloris virgata)

Denise — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:23:12 +0000

I’ve gone through a couple online plant catalogues this morning and checked out the online index to John Greenlee’s Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses. Nada. Still no ID. I brought this grass home from Western Hills long ago, when Maggie Wych was running the Northern Californian nursery after the original owners bequeathed it to her. The grass has been an afterthought since then, not much more than a memento from Western Hills straggling along in too much shade, placed too close to pathways where it gets a good stomping, never watered. Blades are dark green. I usually forget about it until a few of these sparkly, tassel-like flowers appear.

Like the nursery Western Hills, this grass is a survivor. Last fall I moved it into a full-sun position, just to test its mettle even further. I also wanted to get it away from my clumsy feet trodding on it, breaking those beautiful tassels. It handled with aplomb temps that precipitously climbed into the 90s the past two days. I think it’s proven itself. It deserves a name. Any grassophiles out there, help would be appreciated. About a foot high, topping 2 feet when in bloom. Evergreen here. A small division this fall is offered in exchange for a name. Email me if you don’t want to guess in public.

unknown grass with Orlaya grandiflora and Ursinia sericea

Edited 5/17/13: Thanks to Stacie at Western Hills for contacting Maggie Wych (former owner of Western Hills). The grass is Chloris virgata, the feather windmill grass.

Ethan Hawke fondles switchgrass at the High Line

Denise — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:23:52 +0000

There’s an attention grabber. No, that’s not a recent tabloid headline and, yes, I am being facetious, but I find it amazing that the High Line (and switchgrass!) is casually slipped into a bit of puffery about the current goings-on of Ethan Hawke.

From the May 13, 2013, issue of The New Yorker: “Ethan Hawke traipsed the High Line with his hands in his pockets, his blue-gray eyes wide in the strong morning light…Knifing through a bed of switchgrass, he observed…”

No further explanation of what the High Line is, or what switchgrass is for that matter (panicum). It’s just assumed we’ll know — or should know.

In the land of public opinion, the High Line has been an idea in transit, moving relatively swiftly from an impossible feat to a controversial instigator of gentrification, now coasting and settling into a beloved space mentioned in articles about film stars. I’ve been a fan every step of the way. Will the High Line be the impetus for plants and landscapes to begin to share a little space in the collective cultural mind, alongside film stars and cat videos? Wouldn’t that be something? Can headlines like “Autumn crocus now in bloom at the High Line!” be far off?

I’ll always read any piece on Ethan Hawke, because of all the Chekhov plays he’s been doing, because of the Before Sunrise/Sunset movies and Gattaca, and because of the film version he made of Jack London’s White Fang, in which at 21 he costarred with the incomparable Klaus Maria Brandauer and that equally incomparable actor Jed, the wolf mix that played White Fang. The scene where Jed rescues Ethan from a mine collapse is especially riveting, as is the scene when Jed dispatches the bad guys.

But I had no idea Ethan Hawke had narrated a history of the High Line. I suppose his movie Chelsea Walls was a tipoff to his involvement in the neighborhood.

There is something so emotionally satisfying about moving through a landscape — which is why I think there’s something uniquely American about the High Line and its contribution to landscape design. Footfall after footfall expectation builds, scent and sound are stirred, memories too. Memories like walking to and from school on paths through empty fields, an interlude of intense freedom bracketed by responsibility at both departure and arrival. Even in a tiny garden like mine, moving through a landscape is embarking on a journey of discovery. Cutting a little path through the main border and scaling the plants down to knee-high at the path’s edge has been an interesting and rewarding experiment this year.

Where the bricks end is where the new path begins, maybe 8 feet in curved length. It’s really just a dog track in width now that summer growth is spilling onto it, fit for corgi-sized adventures.

Summer gardens and parks, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

the disappearance of summer lawns

Denise — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:39:23 +0000

Lawns are vanishing all over town. The chief ringleader and instigator is the Long Beach Water Department, with their irresistible Lawn-to-Garden Turf Replacement Program. Quite a few of my neighbors have already taken advantage of this program the past couple years, and more applications for the $3K rebate are being accepted now. There will be an upcoming tour May 18 to showcase some of the gardens that have taken up LBWD’s offer. Last evening I snuck a driveby look at one of the houses on the tour.

Close to the house, behind the potted orange tree is a tall, diaphonous Pittosporum tenuifolium. In back of the Tibouchina urvilleana, center, is an olive tree.

Blue Chalk Fingers, Senecio vitalis, Festuca glauca, lavender, and a glimpse of Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’
There were Iceberg roses, gaillardia, aeonium, daylilies — lots of blooms to come for summer.
Lots to interest people, birds, insects.

The parkway has been deturfed too.

And losing the lawn seems to be going viral in this neighborhood. Dark green ceanothus swirls around an aloe and Salvia chamaedryoides

A fountain of the firecracker plant, Russelia equisetiformis

Cylindropuntia and echeverias

When lawn is removed the fun begins, and these garden makers really seem to be enjoying themselves.
I’m guessing this little bulb is a babiana. (Dustin Gimbel confirmed in a comment Triteleia ‘Ruby’)
This lawn is being nibbled away at the margins, but I’m predicting it won’t be long before it vanishes completely too.

Agave potatorum nestled up against verbena.

I noticed this intriguing beauty growing in the parkway a couple houses away.
Not the sago palm, but that foaming, pencil-stemmed wonder with the wax flower-like blooms. The Baja spurge, Euphorbia xanti

Try to imagine it not squished against a telephone pole.
There were three of these euphorbias in the parkway, one around the corner.

Everyone’s love affair with Calandrinia spectabilis continues. A couple blocks away, an entire lawn was replaced with this plant.
The landscape cloth used around the crowns of the young plants was too hideous for a photo

An interesting contrast to these personal gardens lies diagonal across the street from them.
Just four months ago, architects Abramson Teiger finished a major renovation of the Temple Israel, including the landscape.
Long sweeps of feather grass, a problematic self-sower, and nepeta anchor the front of the temple.

With the prominence succulents continue to enjoy for their evergreen, year-round good looks, it’s unusual for new landscaping projects to include perennials, even evergreen shrubby ones like Verbena lilacina, a California native. I love the needlepoint detail against the concrete work and their billowing effect. Despite their many attractions, billow is one verb that can’t be used with succulents.

Though succulents are included here too: Senecio mandraliscae, aloes, aeonium. Meyer’s asparagus fern in the back.
What looks like red-dyed mulch are fallen petals from the callistemon bottlebrush trees overhead in the parkway.

Anigozanthos, the kangaroo paws, in the foreground.
I couldn’t get close enough to these trees for an ID, but they had an Australian look to them.

In the fading light, against the building can just be seen the slim outline of more anigozanthos, the shrubby Teucrium azureum to the left.

Feather grass, phlomis, with Teucrium azureum in the rear. All these plants are as drought tolerant as succulents, though their upkeep and cutback needs differ.

A few streets away, a front lawn has been usurped by Achillea ‘Moonshine.’
All over town, whether commercial projects or residential, the hissing of summer lawns during the hot, dry days of summer is becoming a relic of the past.

And another lawn vanishes under succulents, pennisetum, and a cloud of Gomphrena decumbens.

cleaning day

Denise — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:07:11 +0000

Any garden/home tour that incites me to clean out the office is money well spent. Cleaning for me has never been a daily spritz here, a light bit of dusting there, but a long-delayed, ferocious, all-out assault when conditions become unbearable, when the work surfaces disappear under piles of magazines. The house keeps itself going fairly well, but the office, where we spend most of our time, becomes a sty in no time at all. The judgments are always excruciating. Keep the stacks of unread New Yorkers? Look, here’s a piece by Adam Gopnik I missed. They stay.

But cleaning has its rewards. A 20-year-old photo of ~~Pamela~~ Toby,* probably watching my boys playing in the shallow pools on an Oregon beach.
(Every Newf is Nana in Peter Pan.)

Garden magazines are just as hard to toss. And I have to put myself in the mindset of the self that last cleaned the office and gave all this stuff a pass. Why was this Garden Design spared, the September/October 2009 issue? Was it oversight or deliberate choice to keep it? Flipping through I find an interview with landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck and this question: What has inspired you? And her answer: “Brimming bowls, as in Moorish gardens, inspire me by using the least amount of water for the most effect. They suggest that water is abundant, which of course it isn’t in an arid climate.”

As if commanded by unseen forces, I immediately drop the magazine, rise up and head for the copper fire pot that was used a few summers ago as a brimming bowl. It was collecting algae by the hose spigot in the front garden. A quick rinse and it was back in place. Evie and I love a good brimming bowl. I just needed a cleaning day to remind me.

*I was corrected by both boys, on Mother’s Day in fact, that this is not a photo of Pamela after all, but her puppy Toby, who was half-Newf.

notes from the Venice Home & Garden Tour 2013

Denise — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:59:06 +0000

Postcards from Venice Home & Garden Tour 2013

Dragon tree, Dracaena draco, on the tour

We left the car next to a heavily treed parkway, which included the unmistakably Venetian touch of two enormous dragon trees. Doing the tour on bikes worked out fantastically well. So much more was seen than last year. But I was reminded again of my tendency to clock too much time at some houses on the tour at the expense of seeing anything of others when Marty told me I’d spent an hour and a half just at one home (the twin studios of artists Mollie Favour and Bradley Miller.)

Artist Brad Miller
(A video of Brad talking about his “burnt” panels can be found here.)

One of the thousands of “rocks” Brad Miller has created that have fooled geologists.

A shelf in Mollie Favour’s studio with her ceramics.

A wall was covered with Mollie’s botanical-inspired paintings. I spent a lot of time with this wall.

Such is the rhythm of the self-guided tour. Engrossing, generous artists, docents and homeowners at every stop, then it’s off to another portal of wonder. Lingering too long will not get you through 30 houses between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Maybe I need to bring the kitchen timer next year. (I missed many of the homes on this photo gallery by The Los Angeles Times.) I twisted Marty’s arm almost to the point of dislocation to convince him to spend the Saturday attending with me this year, and he ended up loving it. He’d just returned from knee-deep snowdrifts encountered at 12,000 feet during his annual climb up Mt. Whitney and was inclined to skip the tour. As he told me when we were comparing notes, and I couldn’t remember at all what he was referring to, he sees hardscape, I see softscape. Along with ceramics and plants, I also see a fair amount of chairs and lamps apparently.

Nice lime-green update on Victorian ironwork chairs

Because the crowds were even larger this year, to get a photo without elbows or feet was a triumph, never mind focus and composition.

The small gardens on the tour tend towards thoughtfully designed outdoor spaces that gesture to, rather than fervently embrace, the botanical world. And no doubt a lot of this restraint has to do with being mindful of our semi-arid climate. But they are always compelling for their innovative use of readily available materials. HardieBacker board is gaining widespread use for outdoor fencing and screens, painted or left natural, and it was everywhere on the tour this year, deployed frameless or utilizing framing and screws for repetitive patterns.

Lots of custom-built outdoor seating

An outdoor fireplace in a linear configuration like a fire “rill”

Small pools and fountains were a theme throughout the gardens

This fabricator’s garden was very reminiscent of what I call the “Rancho Reubidoux” style

In the workshop/home, lighting experiments over the stove

There’s a few of us that appreciate the versatility of concrete test cores.

No. 26 on the tour, described as “lush established garden compound with regional natives, Mediterranean and Australian plants,” was undeniably the garden of plant fanatics. I felt right at home amid the Euphorbia ammak and Aloe marlothii

Incredibly generous plant fanatics. When I asked about this bulb, its ferny tendrils spuming upwards through a tomato cage, the homeowner pulled away an offset and gave it to me. Later ID’d by Dustin Gimbel, who I bumped into several times on the tour, as Bowiea volubilis

Lepismium cruciforme

Leaving the 2013 tour with some random photos.

The tour celebrates Venice and Venetians for their sybaritic ways, ingenuity, creativity and industriousness.
To walk like a Venetian, here’s a tip I found, a gentle admonishment displayed in front of the tv screen.

weekend garden tours May 4 & 5, 2013

Denise — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:45:41 +0000

Today in Los Angeles temperatures downtown hit the 90s, with red-flag fires burning in nearby Ventura and Riverside Counties. Fire season has arrived, hot, heavy, and early, after a disappointing rainfall only 40 percent of average this past winter.

The landscaping at the Lewis Brisbois building, 221 North Figueroa, where I worked today, was ready for anything the weather gods had up their sleeves.

May days are also hot and heavy with garden tours, two this weekend, the Venice Home & Garden Tour on Saturday, May 4, and the Garden Conservancy Open Days for Los Angeles on Sunday, May 5. Both days are well worth ditching any previous plans for, and my ambition is to do both, especially since “A Potted Garden,” will be on the Sunday GC Open Days tour. This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to visit the home of one of the co-owners of Los Angeles’ best-curated outdoor living shop Potted. You can read Annette’s blog post on preparing for the tour here.

And who better to give some perspective on Venice, California, than Jay Griffith, landscape architect and one of the original founders of the Venice Garden and Home Tour. I still maintain he’s Derek Jacobi’s lost twin brother. Video by KCET.

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If you get blasted by a bike bell in Venice on Saturday, it’s probably me navigating the crowds on wheels instead of feet, a new strategy I’m trying this year so I don’t miss a single garden. The temperatures forecast for the weekend will be much cooler, perfect garden touring weather.

tricks for the plant collector

Denise — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:07:58 +0000

A garden book among the many I’ve read that I’m reminded of almost daily is Pamela Harper’s “Color Echoes.” My synopsis goes like this:
The eye is lonely and craves relationships, and will wander around restlessly to seek them out, but is easily satisfied even if you provide only the barest of excuses for associations, like echoes in form and color. I can’t remember whether Ms. Harper intended to offer comfort to plant collectors, but to my way of thinking she did.

Often — okay, almost always in plant collectors’ gardens the associations are not planned outright, like this variegated anthericum echoing the variegated pampas grass in the tank, a stripey echo that only became apparent when some tall nicotiana were pulled out. But the restless eye picked it up in a heartbeat.

I love this little Anthericum saundersiae ‘Variegata,’ aka, per Tony Avent of Plant Delights, Chlorophytum saundersiae ‘Agristripes.’ (Pausing for breath.)
And it loves the dry shade under the tetrapanax/rice paper plant.

Wonderfully subtle, nubby texture when in flower, as it is now.

And then this figwort (Scrophularia aquatica ‘Variegata’) I stuck in the corner of the tank because it wants constant moisture did me the amazing favor of actually enjoying the spot I selected for it. Another unplanned echo, this time with a twist on leaf shape. I think it qualifies.

The eye seems to like a narration, a good story, a punchline, as much as the brain does, but there’s so many competing interests to consider. Within minutes after pulling out the flowering tobacco, an irate hummingbird skidded into the now empty air space and hovered there emphatically, cycling through a half minute’s worth of blurry, angry beats of his wings.

Just calm down, pal. There’s plenty more where that came from.

I needed the space for my new mangave from Dustin.

Apart from hurting a hummingbird’s feelings, it’s incredibly painful to pull out a gorgeous, flourishing plant, especially one performing without complaint in dry soil. (Shockingly dry soil, I found out when I slipped the shovel into it, which is probably best. I hate to imagine what a well-watered tetrapanax might be capable of.)
But when I saw that beautiful mangave snug in its new home, I got over it.

The Yucca recurvifolia, planted years ago, now echoes the ‘Golden Chain’ Arundo donax, a young plant just beginning to hit its stride.
My eye predictably ricochets from one to the other and sighs happily.

And the plant collector in me sighs happily too, because I didn’t have to resort to using the same plant over and over to strengthen intention and association.
(Hummingbirds visited the green nicotiana last evening after the photo was taken. They seem to prefer the dark red strain but will settle for green in a pinch.)

I’m also counting the Eryngium padanifolium as an echo for the shape of the yucca. A photo from March.

It’s twice as high now, with lots of offshoots from the base. Reputed to be the biggest eryngo.

The Princess Caroline pennisetum moved to this spot last fall now echoes the burgundy phormium just about equidistant on the other side of the footpath.*

This pennisetum was over 6 feet tall by the end of last summer, which well passes the phormium in height.
But we’re not talking mirror image in the plant collector’s garden.
Plant collectors feel the eye is easily led and becomes satisfied with the smallest gesture, quickly making the connection.

Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’
Vavavvoom, what a leaf. (I’m warning you not to google-check my spelling on that. There will be silicone implants involved.)

Bought last fall, the albizia in its pot on the small patio near the fence echoes the full-grown Euphorbia cotinifolia tree, a self-sown seedling on the opposite side of the garden closer to the office. It’s been warm enough the past week to trigger that familiar sound of euphorbia seed explosions as they hurl themselves into space like little astronauts, hopefully to land on suitable ground. With the onset of mid-summer heat in a couple months, it’ll sound like I’m making Jiffy Pop in the garden. Euphorbia rigida does this too. I can’t remember if E. characias does it or not. The Euphorbia cotinifolia, like the other tropicals, is late to leaf out, so no photo.

I think shape echoes work on the same principle. That I subscribe to this principle has nothing to do with my insatiable appetite for agaves.

Big green rosettes, little green rosettes. The eye sighs.

This one didn’t last long, since the kniphofia’s blooms were finished in a few weeks, but it was a twofer, hitting both shape and color.
Kniphofia with Isoplexis canariensis in the background.

A handy trick for plant collectors. Just stuff I’ve been thinking about during this dangerous season of spring plant sales.

*(The footpath was added last fall too, just about slicing through the exact spot where a gigantic 7X7 Salvia canariensis grew. I added a couple of its cuttings to the verge area at the community garden, where I just learned last night that, yes! there is a pipe leak under my garden plot. All last summer I was Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, pointing out that never having to water a garden during a Los Angeles summer is unusual, and it being assumed these were the rantings of a novice with a compulsion to surreptitiously overwater. If anything, I’m incredibly lazy about watering.)