Starting with January 2010, what I’ve seen, what I’ve grown, what I’m still growing…
(In making a January scrapbook, I realized there are no photos of the garden from January 2020, since I spent that month at my mom’s house.)
I’ve been following Pacific Northwest gardens and nurseries for decades and often fantasize about having a garden in a modified-mediterranean, 40 inches-of-rain-a-year zone 8. There’s lots of plants I’d be able to grow for the first time, but there’d have to be some sacrifices too, I assumed (agaves!). What would that mythical garden look like? The answer came sometime around 2010, when a blog was launched that chronicled the making of a desert plant lover’s paradise in Portland, Oregon (thedangergarden.com). I was immediately hooked on Loree’s fierce determination to make a garden that conformed to her vision no matter what the conventional horticultural wisdom or her climate seemingly otherwise insisted. This was hugely reassuring news to me, that the architectural plants I loved could thrive in the PNW. My daydream could live on!
Now that her garden has grown into a magazine-worthy success, Loree has written a book that details how she incorporated a mighty lust for spiky plants and a strong design sensibility into her winter-rainy, occasionally snowy Portland garden. And her single-mindedness in the pursuit of growing the plants she loves has resulted in a book that will be an invaluable primer, and not just for growing desert and tropical plants in less-than-ideal climates. The results of Loree’s investigations into soil, drainage, microclimates, cold and wet tolerances are universally applicable to gardens everywhere. And once you absorb these principles, her strong design eye will guide you past the potential pitfalls of being a kid let loose in a candy shop now that your choice of plants and garden style have been blown wide open.
Through Loree’s blog, and now clearly laid out in her book, I learned the trick of scouring genera for its hardiest members, even the most unlikely candidates like the palm family. To wit, the PNW’s beloved “trachys” (Trachycarpus fortunei and T. fortunei var. ‘Wagnerianus’) are palms that will sail through a Portland winter. I discovered that an agave I’ve absent-mindedly grown here in Los Angeles, Agave parryi, is a star on the short list of agaves that can be grown outdoors year-round in the PNW. Through extensive research and visiting local nurseries and gardens, Loree has unearthed hardy alternatives in the spiky genera she loves. And through careful, thoughtful siting, some triumphant successes can be had with the borderline hardy too; a crucial point she emphasizes is the importance of regional experimentation, that traditional garden zone data can be misleading and needlessly inhibiting.
But what of the outright tender agaves I grow here in Los Angeles? I’d have to give those up in my mythical PNW garden, right? Not necessarily. This is where Loree’s contributions on the subject of overwintering frost-tender plants are invaluable. These are the tips knowing gardeners exchange informally, passalong wisdom that rarely makes it into books but that is obtained through hard-won, painful trial and error. One of the big strengths of Fearless Gardening is how it systematically details techniques for overwintering tender and borderline hardy plants, whether in a greenhouse, cold garage, a heated basement, or protectively shrouded in the garden.
The influence of Loree’s photo-rich blog spills over into this wonderfully photo-heavy book. Its dynamic layout strikes me as a gorgeous hybrid of a high-end garden magazine and Loree’s personal, friendly blog, that takes your hand and enthuses, Courage! You can do this!
Loree doesn’t garden for flowers alone but for the entirety of the plant itself, and I know that this preference mystifies some of her garden visitors. Growing what you love won’t please everyone, she warns. This emphasis separates her book from the majority of garden books, with their intricate advice on staking, fertilizing, pinching, pairing heights, timing, and colors of flowering plants, planting in threes (the “garden commandments” as Loree calls them) and keeping the flowers coming all summer through succession planting. And because all gardens depend on regional differences, even if they share the same zone, often this advice only succeeds in a very narrow range of conditions and, as a practical guide, is not worth the paper it’s printed on.
Instead of relying on the often unreliable performance of flowers, Loree builds her garden with the color and texture of leaves, bark, stems, trunks and berries, and deploys dramatic “vignettes” of containers with the same attention to detail that you’d bring to a book shelf or coffee table. (Indeed, Loree’s command of pots and containers deserves a book by itself.) By taking the focus off flowers, there’s no need to apologize to visitors, “Oh, you should have been here last week — the lupines and oriental poppies were fabulous!” And her preference for a clean, grid-like modernism bursting with exuberant planting brings to mind a temperament that combines both Ray Eames and one of her horticultural heroes, Ruth Bancroft.
You don’t need to know Loree’s blog to enjoy her book. In fact, the book gives her the room to really develop and then distill what she’s learned, and it’s a joy to hear her full voice come through in, say, an opera instead of individual songs — to use an analogy from another of her garden heroes, the opera singer Ganna Walska, who created Lotusland in Montecito, California.
But I have to admit it’s a lot of fun to trace the development of issues first explored on her blog and find them now addressed in her confident, authorial voice — like the ethics of whether or not to remove mature plantings you inherited with your house just because you want something different. And though we encourage and are thrilled by their use as habitat for all sorts of creatures, Loree, like Ganna Walska, intuitively understands that all gardens are artifice, fiction not nonfiction, and this grasp frees her to explore whatever direction her heart and mind dare to go. And from her deep admiration of Lotusland and The Ruth Bancroft Garden I sense the notion that if the garden is like any other art form it is the stage — and though her garden is beautiful year-round, I sense for Loree, emotionally, it’s a summer production, Portland’s dry season, with many of its players whisked off stage in October and safely ensconced in warm, dry digs for the rainy winter. This is especially true for her private back garden. And she challenges the reader to likewise be bold in their conception of what a garden can be, drawing on what they love to grow and then fearlessly exploring the often hidden possibilities of where they garden to make it happen.
Before I get into the details of the giveaway, I have one last story to share. In 2014 a group of Portland bloggers, including Loree, hosted a tour of gardens and nurseries for international garden bloggers. The tour is a result of months of planning, with the actual days of the tour itself akin to a marathon of herding butterflies, as bloggers are housed, kept on schedule, fed, entertained, loaded on and off buses. Utter exhaustion would seem to be what would engulf the planners at the tour’s end, but when I looked into Loree’s face as she said goodbye, she was in tears that it was over. From that moment I’ve been in awe of her devotion to the community of gardens and gardeners, which she has now poured into this wonderful book.
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And now the giveaway: Timber Press wants to put Loree’s book in your hands. And not only Loree’s book Fearless Gardening, but a book on one of her cherished mentors, Ruth Bancroft, entitled The Bold Dry Garden by Johanna Silver. (Both books to the same winner.) If you’re interested and living in the contiguous U.S., and unlike me haven’t been given a review copy already, leave a comment to be eligible for both books. I’m also going to include Instagram followers in Timber Press’ generous offer, so while you’re checking my IG feed, be sure to follow Timber Press as well — we’ll make a selection randomly from the comments through the month of January.
Good luck, and happy reading!
Happy New Year news: We’re waitlisted for a corgi puppy with an Oregon breeder! The arrangement seems nebulous at best, but it’s the closest we’ve come to envisioning life with another dog since Ein shared his life with us, our Cowboy Beeboppin’ friend, so I count that as progress. We’re already trying out names, and Max is at the top of the list, which works for both Maxine and Maxwell…
How is everyone? 2020 was one of those rare great leveler years, where no one escaped unscathed, and yet individual experiences and tolerances varied tremendously — from bereft to bankrupt. And despite a long-standing aversion to sharing too many personal details here, 2020 has convinced me that it’s important to make a record of how we all coped. I think Marty and I had it relatively easy with 2020’s isolation, because we needed the quiet to heal, so it didn’t feel like a deprivation. Those of you who have had family in nursing homes and were unable to visit and ease their last months have both our sympathy and heart-sore empathy. The circumstances of a loss like that cut very deep, and it’s taken us a while to process. And then the strangeness of having emergency surgery during a pandemic and seeing firsthand how hospitals are under siege, and this was in May! (TMI warning: weeks after the stitches should have been removed, I had to call and ask the overworked, deeply apologetic staff, Isn’t it time these came out? Due to pandemic pandemonium, I was “lost to followup” — face-to-face visits were not easy to arrange even then, in May. A minor quibble considering their life-saving services, and I mention this only to affirm that pushing hospitals to their breaking point is a very bad idea — and currently in LA we’re past the breaking point.)
But what I do miss is…conversation. Off-screen, rambling, riffing, free-form, grabbing-a-shoulder-in-emphasis conversation.
Back in Los Angeles, aloes are throwing blooms — including in my garden ‘Moonglow,’ ‘Tangerine,’ ‘Jacob’s Ladder.’
Plantings continue to be tweaked, raccoons continue their nocturnal digging, and daylight slowly lengthens again. Wishing you the most dazzling gardens in 2021 and endlessly rambunctious, face-to-face, side-splitting conversation!
I just got my renewed Huntington membership card in the mail. Woohoo! It’s always a relief to have that in my pocket for impromptu visits — or reserved visits, as is the case during the pandemic. (Which is an infectious disease, I might add, addressing the maskless clerk I bought cat food from yesterday in caseload-impacted Los Angeles County. WTF, people?)
So a visit to check out the winter-blooming aloes will be made soon after the New Year. For the holidays, though, it’s no surprise that the Huntington’s gift shop is also a curatorial delight, full of art prints and books and note cards and tasteful tchotchkes. And, of course, everyone can shop online.
But what really blew my mind this year were the plant collections on offer. (How long has this been going on?!) Here’s a quick list of some of the “Huntington Botanical Bundles” that caused a sharp intake of breath, but you really need to peruse the entire list yourself. There’s collections for Adult Beverages, Houseplants, Crassula Starters, Lush Shade Gardens, Soup Flavors, Cool Weather Edibles and on and on — and the selections in each bundle reflect the savvy and plant inventory of this world-class botanical garden.
The Botanical Bundles are restricted to curbside pickup or local shipping.
From your holiday elves at AGO.
In Southern California, the cool-season annuals have arrived at local nurseries, the violas, stocks, snapdragons, sweet williams, nemesias, Iceland poppies, and lots more I’m forgetting at the moment. Some (or none) appeal to different garden temperaments. I’ve indulged in biennial Iceland poppies now and then and maybe some ranunculus a little closer to spring but often skip over this wintertime opportunity due to the flat-earth, “bedding out” vibe of annuals available locally in season. However….with 2020 seeming to constantly require massive amounts of distraction, I did proactively start some calendula and linaria from seed late summer, two cool-season annuals whose color intensity I love to set against all the surrounding leaves of silver, gold, and blue-grey . My seed-grown plants are still tiny and flowerless. The nursery professionals produced these plants that I potted up last week.
The pros’ timing for getting 4-inch pots of flowers to market is always impeccable. Livelihoods depend on it. I know they employ all kinds of growth stimulators/inhibitors and fertilizers and grow lights and climate control that I don’t. My little plants started from seed late summer may flower in March, or I might neglect to water them during this cursed rainless weather, in which case all the effort will be for naught. For now, thanks to the pros, Calendula ‘Touch of Red,’ a strain I’ve long wanted to grow, is blooming in three large clay bowls, maybe eight plants total. Amazingly cheap thrills even if only for a month.
In cool summer climates, calendulas planted in spring will stay with you right through to autumn, or so I’ve read. And that other classic winter annual for zone 10, sweet peas, can also be coaxed to bloom through summer in higher latitudes and cooler summer climates.
Whether these “pot marigolds” last through my winter is uncertain, and three months of bloom is a big ask of any annual in my experience in zone 10. Here near the coast calendulas can be prone to mildew. But for now I’m enjoying this new acquaintance with ‘Touch of Red’ — its richness and complexity of color.
With the ‘Enchantment’ linarias, they are like an ornately jeweled middle finger to the last month of this very fractious year.
I edit, thin, and prune the steady accumulation of curbside and flea market finds constantly, but there’s a few stalwarts that consistently defy the purges. This Los Angeles street lamp shade has been kicking around the garden for years and was recently brought into use again for the outdoor Thanksgiving dinner, lit from within by a camping lantern, the glass rim sitting directly on the gravel. One early morning not long after that dinner I lay awake in bed and had one of those drowsy, half-awake epiphanies, making the connection that an iron base, also in my collection of oddities, found years apart from the glass shade but also formerly part of an old Los Angeles streetlight, should fit like a glove as a proper pedestal. I bought the iron base at the local flea market from a gentleman who helped source Chris Burden’s Urban Light installation at LACMA and proceeded to use it decoratively to encircle potted agaves. It all had the magical feeling of inevitability that morning as I rushed outdoors at first light to tip out the potted agave and slip the glass shade into the iron boot, Cinderella style, but in truth the shade and base aren’t a true fit. The shade is more or less stable on the base but not sitting in the groove, so it is technically prone to toppling. But wouldn’t that have been fun if it worked out? Ultimately I’d love to make a mold of the base and cast it in concrete for a series of pots.
Fooling around with flea market stuff is a breeze compared to the drama and stress of moving established plants. I finally decided to move the young Yucca rostrata in the front garden that is subjected to less than full sun during the short days of winter to the now sunnier back garden. With the soil falling away from the roots, the transplanting attempt effectively devolved into a bare-root operation which may not be optimal for success. The yucca was planted high and water temporarily withheld while it settles and acclimates (and hopefully doesn’t rot) but even so may not survive the move.
But doesn’t it look grand here? In the front garden it had to contend with crowding from Agave ‘Jaws,’ which is as voracious for garden space as its namesake was for moonlight skinny-dippers. Fingers crossed and best of luck, little yucca! I’m fairly certain that this yucca is ‘Sapphire Skies’ unlike the straight species just a few feet away.
I’ve never grown Aloe marlothii, a bucket-list plant for sure. And with all the new planting space that opened up recently, I became consumed with the idea of growing it against the east fence. Happily, it was found locally at Green Touch Nursery, an excellent source for succulents and cactus. In the end, though, the yucca won the spot and the aloe was given the hottest spot in the garden near the back porch, in all-day sun and reflected heat from the house and pavement, to keep those spines the deepest red.
Another standby, what looks like a foundry basket, a gift from artist Reuben Munoz, has been used in the past as a bench, with cushions, as well as put to use like here, as a table. A potted Agave americana var. striata elevated on a makeshift pedestal had its terminal spines corked for safety. Always plenty of corks around for just such an occasion!
An assortment of concrete cores and odds and ends is indispensable for container displays — and easy to break down when the displays become tiresome or in the way.
My only other americana is the incredibly slow growing, nonoffsetting Agave americana var. medio-picta ‘Aurea’ — at least I think that’s what this is! The variegated shrub behind the agave is another garden standby grown off and on — Corokia virgata ‘Sunsplash.’ Very lightweight and graceful in its shrubby architecture, takes to pruning, and is always a bright spot for the dry garden.
I picked up the corokia and this Rhodocoma capensis at Roger’s Gardens, possibly the only person shopping for plants now that the nursery is geared toward winter holidays, when santa visits, gifts, and ornament shopping become most shoppers’ priorities. I’m just not there yet this year. I’ve never grown this restio or seen it available locally so had to give it a try. It will eventually have to be moved from this snug little spot because it’s one of the bigger restios.
Now I’d like some nice drizzly rain to gently water in the yucca — unfortunately, coping with lack of rain in December is an old standby too. Getting out cards, cookies, and gifts are next on the list (but, honestly, I’d rather be digging…)
Such a cheery thought, right? Desire to Inspire recently profiled Melbourne landscape design firm King’s Landscaping in a post on KL’s Point Lonsdale “Tree House” which prompted a deeper dive into KL’s website. The Tree House in question is nestled under the canopy of native “Moonah” trees (Melaleuca lanceolata). If like me your Australian geography is a bit dim, Point Lonsdale is in southern Australia near Melbourne, at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay. Rainiest month on average is November at 1.65 inches, with average annual rainfall approximately 25 inches. A charming claim to fame is the 100-year-old Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) known as ‘The Christmas Tree” that is lit up on the first Saturday in December, which “can be seen for miles out to sea.”
The lack of green and predominance of buff-gold in this project might seem stark, but coming from the similar climate of SoCal I’d feel right at home here.
The central courtyard at Spray Farm reminds me of our local historical ranchos.
And with the Modern Native Garden, I love the “scruffiness” of the plants against the sleek chairs.
Summer in December sounds like the right idea to me (as long as we still get Christmas cookies too).
I’m always a miser when cutting flowers from my small garden and prefer to enjoy the much longer performance flowers give when they remain in the garden instead of severed for a vase. But this Thanksgiving seems special, doesn’t it? I’m betting it’s not just my family that feels profound gratitude for having made it to November 2020. So I foraged for a small vase of flowers for tomorrow because garden flowers seem especially suitable for outside dining. Grevillea ‘Moonlight,’ Celosia ‘Cramer’s Amazon,’ silver contributions from Acacia podalyrifolia and Glaucium flavum, which also brings its horned seedheads, tropical chartreuse leaves are Xanthosoma ‘Lime Zinger,’ begonia leaves, and a couple tulbaghia blooms.
For the post-feast torpor, I’d recommend snuggling into the wonderful documentary “Birders: The Central Park Effect.” Released in 2012, somehow I missed this lovely paean to birds and the people who see them as astonishing, magical creatures. Which of course they are, and if you feel the same, this is your tribe. My already acute envy of Central Park was even more inflamed by this four-season look at Olmstead’s urban masterpiece and how much joy it gives the people of New York.
Have a wonderful feast, whether alone nibbling a PBJ sandwich or with your carefully selected “bubble,” because gratitude is truly what’s on the menu this year. Much love, AGO.
Mina lobata is late too. The Spanish Flag vine was sown at least by June — okay, I just checked the seed packet and it was sown 6/25/20. So what’s up with waiting to bloom until November? The questions never go away, do they? Why are you behaving like this? Why couldn’t you think about blooming in September so we could have a few autumnal months together? You don’t look particularly happy about choosing to bloom in November, so who wins? Questions, questions. And yet, on the other hand, I’m thrilled that there will always be mysteries to keep me in the game…and blooms in November.
My biggest clump of Lady’s Slipper (Pedilanthus bracteatus) did a face plant due to high winds last weekend. Completely fell over and splayed onto the bricks. But what a rubbery, resilient beast. Marty and I wrestled it upright again, minding the sap (euphorbia family!), propping it up with a wrought iron bird bath stand that is never used for bird baths but is excellent for staking plants. We nervously hovered, expecting it to stubbornly pitch forward again, as most plants do once they’ve lost the habit of verticality. But it has remained upright, although some of its branches now lean into the walkway and graze my hair as I pass by. I should cut the offenders off at the base and probably will after it’s done blooming.
Veering slightly away from bloom day reports to other news…
Recently Marty and I were discussing eastern screening options again, and he said Why don’t you bring in a smoke tree…? I don’t think I let him finish the sentence before objecting I was done with smoke trees forever. The species aren’t happy at all in zone 10, whereas the hybrid vigor of ‘Grace’ was terrifying. No, no, he protested, that one we used to grow by the office. Oh, Euphorbia cotinifolia, the Caribbean Copper Tree!? Interesting suggestion. But it’s very short-lived and brittle, I reminded him. Remember how its trunk snapped in high winds? As I elucidated its shortcomings, I realized these were actually strengths that argued in its favor. Nobody would inherit a problematic house-eater, and we’d get a temporary screen of 12-15 feet. Sold!
I cleaned out the mess of squid agave, Agave bracteosa, remnants of the succulent garden next to the driveway that was thriving before I planted a Pearl Acacia smack in the middle. Predictably, the debris and shade from the tree proceeded to smother out the succulents, yet the squid agave never gave up, the tips of its flailing arms increasingly less and less visible under the onslaught of tree debris. A drowning squid agave. After removal and cleaned of debris, I had to admire the undulating carcasses but wondered if there was a way to grow a squid agave that really showcased its peculiar, writhing ways, because in the ground that form is lost. I bet it’s a cliff-dweller. (Yes! San Marcos Growers: “Comes from the Coahuilan Desert where it grows on limestone cliffs between 3,000 and 5,500 feet.”) There’s usually a spare clay pipe around here somewhere for just such an experiment, and so it was found and planted. Although not as optimal as cliff dwelling, a little height was gained for dramatic spillage. And now it can writhe and twist and furiously pup to its heart’s content in the pipe, because plants exploding out of a pipe is always a good look, imho.
Hope your week is calm and holiday plans coming together, in whatever size, shape or form.
(Bloom Day is hosted by May Dreams Gardens on the 15th of every month.)
And so the lemon cypresses (Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Citriodora’ or Golden Monterey Cypress) came down last Sunday, November 1st. I couldn’t bear to watch the removal of the last two and hid out in the office. They were excellent privacy screens but ultimately too much of a good thing for this small garden and closely neighboring properties. Before they were deemed a nuisance, I treasured their scent and how they gleamed and majestically swayed in the wind, and how the birds found refuge in their boughs and a lookout from their topmost branches.
The east fence construction had been halted for a week while we waited for the dreaded appointment on Sunday, then the fence was completed Monday, November 2nd.
After the fence was finished Monday afternoon, I removed the small square of bricks, leaving the three-inch bed of sand on which the bricks were dry laid. As the light faded, I played around with raking and grading the area, which has slowly been transformed over years into something of a berm that slopes toward the house, built up from having the compost pile in the southeast corner and then all the shredded hedge clippings left to sheet compost in this far corner as well. Not to mention the accumulated tree litter, both from when the trees shed their leaves and the residue of their remains when they were gone. Two eucalyptus trees we inherited with the house, planted to screen this southeast corner, each blew down at various times. The smoke tree ‘Grace’ grew as large as a magnolia, exuberantly flinging her branches across the three neighboring back gardens, and was ultimately removed around the time I started the blog (2010ish). You could say this southeast corner has been vexatious as far as screening out the three properties that meet up with ours here. The properties are small and the screening strategies always prove problematic in one way or another, for one neighbor or another.
Sounds like a sad story so far, right? Not exactly. Along with the neighbors’ rooflines and satellite dishes, sun and sky have also poured in again. All that recovered sky is especially a revelation when filled with brilliant stars, as it was 5 a.m. this morning.
Monday night, Nov. 2nd, with the fence up, the area raked, and twilight approaching, I decided to address the berm somewhat with a spine of rocks. Not a path exactly, though it can be walked on, and not a rock garden exactly, though it has been planted. A spur? We’re calling it a cobb (after the famous one we visited in Lyme Regis, England) or a jetty, because it’s been built from rocks quarried on Catalina Island to build the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater. Piles of the rocks were always staged at the LA Pilot Station in case repairs were needed to the breakwater, and when he worked there Marty couldn’t resist bringing a few home from time to time. We call it Catalina ironstone, but I have no idea as far as its true geologic composition (what the heck is schist?). Like an Easter egg hunt, we prowled the front and back garden in the dimming light to collect the rocks, and I laid them until twilight faded and it was too dark to see. I expected to hate the rock experiment Tuesday morning, but didn’t. All day Tuesday, Election Day, I planted and found homes for all the displaced plants, many of which were bromeliads that had been massed near the base of the cypresses and in a stock tank.
The enormous astelia in the stock tank was moved under Grevillea ‘Moonlight’ near the office, in the spot recently vacated by Salvia mexicana. A variegated fatshedera was also moved out of the stock tank and planted at the base of the grevillea, along with a blue bear’s paw fern that surprised me by flourishing and sending out enormous fronds.
Tuesday night we watched season 4 of the sci-fi epic The Expanse. After the last four years, I was saving myself the needless trauma of a political horse race. You can’t choose the time you’re born in — some get the Enlightenment, some get the Visigoths storming the gates. At least we will always have heroes like RBG, who died as we all will, not knowing how the fight ends, to show us how to make the most of our time and wring as much truth and justice out of it while we’re here, whatever the outcome.
On Wednesday, November 4th, I brought in and spread 10 bags of crushed granite (3/8″) for mulch. More sci-fi viewing at night and remainder of the weeknights.
Today, November 7, it’s raining in Los Angeles. How perfect is that? And the election has finally been called today, November 7. What a week!
Have a blissful weekend.
