I flew back with a six-pack of lewisia — what is this plant even doing for sale in SoCal nurseries!?
Thanks for the comments regarding successfully flying commercially with plants. I do feel even more emboldened!
coastal Oregon garden late April — experience of color and form is so situational and context-driven. In Southern California in March, the shape and color of tulips is a superfluous novelty. After a winter in coastal Oregon, where they thrive, they are a revelation.
With my two little gardens, one in frost-free zone 10 and the other in zone 8b, I feel like I’m tumbling in and out of a multiverse of gardens. This was the scene in the Tillamook garden when I left for a brief trip to Southern California in late April. I’ve since cut the few remaining tulips for vases and cleared most of these pots out. This spring in the PNW is generally acknowledged as unusually cold and wet and is increasingly getting on everyone’s nerves. (Whereas, I will admit that when a couple days go by without rain, I get a little anxious, scarred by drought that I am!)
For the moment I’m indulging in plants that like moisuture, like this Potentilla lineata from Far Reaches Farms
I brought some sonchus seedlings north to play with as foliage plants for summer. Sinopanax formosanus on the left is also from Far Reaches Farms.
Forecasts for May show an increasing amount of dry days at widening intervals until June, when the rain mostly disappears for summer. Growth in the new garden is painfully slow, but little nubbins of green are starting to break ground. Locals say everything rushes into growth after Mother’s Day — and there was a noticeable uptick and surge. The splashiest plants so far for late April are geum and Euphorbia characias wulfenii — and I wished I’d planted more of the euphorbia. But there’s a chance they won’t age gracefully into summer here so some restraint is initially called for. (Cutting down the flowering stems when they’re finished will allow the new basal growth to develop and hopefully last through next winter.) Around town rhodies are in full bloom, with peonies and lilacs just getting started. Japanese maples seem to emerge fully leafed out nearly overnight.
Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ was moved from the zone 10 garden, where it expanded in size but never bloomed, so this is my first look at its citrusy flowers. that float in profusion on slim elegant stems. Cool-season grasses like deschampsia and Euphorbia characias would be good companions.
This watching and waiting and longing for growth is kind of deliciously excruciating — since for me it’s still such a novel experience. My sympathies to the veterans! Understandably, since zone 8 can swing warmer or colder from year to year, experimentation with hardiness is irresistible. It’s a very emotional zone for hard-core gardeners, filled with drama-driven narratives of weather vagaries that don’t exist for zone 10 gardens, where the basic question of rain and the interminable lack of it relentlessly overrides and governs all other concerns.
Los Angeles garden late April. In the left foreground, Sedum dendroideum, grown very lanky in a pot, seemed like unsightly evidence of neglect, all stems with a fritz of rosette at the tips — until I planted it in the garden last fall when I was thinning out potted plants for the caretaker’s benefit. Now I recognize the investment in years it took to make such a freaky 4-foot specimen. I wasn’t sure it would be self-supporting in the garden, but it is, and I love the height it lends.
Conversely, and no surprise, the frost-free Long Beach garden needed some severe discipline. A few plants like anisodontea, sonchus, and salvia needed to be cut back off their neighbors, but the bulk of the work was weeding out seedlings from the dry-laid bricks.
When home I do this absent-mindedly all the time. When allowed to accumulate over a couple months, it’s a real time sink — just me and a butter knife prying out nicotiana, Verbena bonariensis, argemone, sideritis, linaria…
A new addition to the vigorous self-sowing contingent, Silene fabaria ssp. domokina has left dozens of plants after its first year in the garden. I have to borrow Stellata Plants description of “a poor man’s Bukiniczia cabulica” because it perfectly describes this little charmer. The half dozen plants I’m trialing in the Oregon garden look slightly miserable, and if they survive they may behave like biennials with only leaf growth the first summer. It’s doubtful they’d survive the winter as true biennials to bloom the following year, but with this beauty, a summer of staring at these leaves is reward enough. In Long Beach they behave like annuals, flowering their first year from seed.
Salvia ‘Mesa Azure’ after it was trimmed
After staring at bare mulch and checking religiously for signs of life up north, the first hour of a return to the SoCal garden is extremely disorienting. What was I thinking? So many plants! But as I become reacquainted with the garden over a few days, I recognize the old patterns that overpacked the garden. In the coastal zone 10 climate, nothing deters a person inclined to stay outdoors and play with plants every day from doing just that. Restraint increasingly becomes an unfamiliar state of mind, and there can be…issues.
rusty-colored terrestrial bromeliad Orthophytum magalhaesii, lower left, is filling in nicely along the rock spur. A couple clumps of Stipa ichu self-sowed. Silvery Plectranthus argentatus deep in the back was showing water stress when I returned but bounced back after a deep soak. (I brought cuttings of this plectranthus up north, planted them out too early to dodge the April cold snap, but they are leafing out again so survived from the roots.) Also deep in the back but not shown, Trevesia palmata showed some burnt leaves from recent high temps in the 90s, which was really the only damage I could find.
Other than the sunburnt trevesia, everything else seemed to be thriving. I was especially relieved to find Calibanus ‘Lotusland’ gaining size and getting even more shapely as it matures. It is a cross between calibanus and beaucarnia sometimes called ‘Calicarnea’ and not easily replaced.
Euphorbia ‘Blue Wave’ is a little blowsier than I expected.
euphorbia, salvia and helichrysum
I would love to try some Berkheya purpurea in the northern garden. The kangaroo paw stems are gaining height with the blooms probably open by the time I write this (‘Tequila Sunrise’)
Leucospermum ‘Tango’ blooms still showing color. Marty especially asked if the new Euphorbia cotinifolia had leafed out yet, burgundy leaves, left background.
nice bunch of “pinecones” on the Pinecone Bromeliad, Acanthostachys strobilacea
Back in Tillamook, I spotted this beat-up shop stool in an abandoned greenhouse at the high school near where we walk Billie, and upon inquiring…ahem…was told I could have it. Billie is an inveterate plant chewer, so it’s a great solution to get small stuff beyond corgi height. Plus, it’s identical to the shop stools in the Long Beach garden….the multiverse collides!
from the Long Beach garden, clockwise, Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor’ (Billie ate the other one), Mangave ‘Kaleidoscope,’ top right and bottom right. Seedling on bottom left is possibly from my flowering Pseudobombax ellipticum in Long Beach.
Mitch visited a couple weekends ago and took this photo of the daffs on our table. I indulged in armloads of them for the house when I chanced upon a grower a few miles south of Tillamook off highway 101. (I brake for fields of daffodils in bloom.) Multiple varieties in each bunch. The Porter Family runs the farm stand for their operation Farmer Creek Garden on the honor system, $2.50 in the mason jar per bunch.
Mitch went on a bit of a nostalgia tour during his brief visit. Netarts Bay is where it all started. We took the boys here for many August vacations as a break from the Los Angeles heat. Go figure, decades later, Duncan up and decides to move here.
Netarts Bay, Oregon
Interesting small businesses are hiding in plain sight — daffodils, dahlias…salt. Jacobsen’s Salt also makes excellent caramels — I just polished off a box.
First time in a theater since 2020! The little downtown is an easy walk from our house.
Billie and I showed Mitch one of our favorite walks
I made a quick trip to SoCal for doctor visits, squeezed in a little plant shopping, and now have some very important news to share: Yes, it is possible to fly with plants! The Internet says it is permissible but that TSA reactions may vary from airport to airport. I used a soft, mesh-sided pet carrier, so the plants were immediately visible to TSA at LAX. No tricks or subterfuge. I was prepared to abandon the plants if met with any resistance, but it was surprisingly treated as no big deal — noting the carrier, the agent said at least this puppy doesn’t bite! Once on board, the carrier slides under the seat in front of you, just as if you brought your cat with you (instead of plants). Supposedly plants in checked baggage are OK too. Game-changer! As the world continues to devolve in so many ways, mercifully there are still occasional small signs of progress. Like carry-on plants on planes.
We returned to Oregon March 18 and have since finished up removing the remaining sod in the backyard, an additional area approximately 8×20 feet, bounded again in landscape timbers. There is a small area of turf left on the east side of the house for Billie and picnics with Hannah. With the surge of spring grass growth, and being lawn neophytes, we were caught flat-footed and had to methodically ruminate on possible solutions (get it? ruminant, ruminate…hahaha — this is literally a cow town, after all). And it’s true, watching the neighbors tackle their lawns spurred us into action — keeping up with the Mooks, as the residents of Tillamooks call themselves. Ultimately we went with a battery-powered weed-whacker hybrid thingy on a wheeled chassis that works fine on the small amount of turf in the back and the handkerchief-sized portions in the front. Not a jot of work has been done yet to the front of the house, other than whacking the lawn back, and that may be true for some time…
The little video saves us a lot of words and vague descriptions about what is in reality a very small area. Nothing naturalistic about this layout — it mimics the pasture land surrounding the houses
It’s all very flat and vegetable gardenish. I won’t be planting much large woody stuff, trees and big shrubs. All growing surfaces have been mulched with local crushed bark, cheap and plentiful, and the back garden drains freely and is now mudproof. The weather is volatile, changeable, mercurial — one steps outside after a downpour into blinding shafts of sunlight. Planting has tentatively begun in the ground, though a couple of the stock tanks were planted in October. The rubber mulch used by former owners under playground equipment in one-fourth of the yard was ultimately bagged up and sent to the dump. Bags and bags of it. Marty handled this chore. My preference was to keep mostly everything on site, but a clean sweep seemed the best approach for materials made from used tires.
Andy Salter’s garden, Kent, England, photo by Claire Takacs
This image by Claire Takacs of Andy Salter’s garden in Kent, England, gave me some much-needed courage. This is all I want, to be surrounded by a surge of growth in spring and summer. No need for year-round interest because we most likely won’t be here for much of the winter. But I’ll definitely be making a bigger bulb order this July/August.
I could go seriously mad for potted tulips here — in these cool temps they last forever in bloom. Potted plants are tucked under the eaves of the overhang which saved them from hail damge. So much hail!
Possibly Tulipa ‘Gavota,’ a Triumph tulip
Photo taken in my neighborhood; bulbs grow like crazy here — daffs, muscari, bluebells, to the point of weediness
I brought just a few of the hardier agaves from Long Beach, CA, A. weberi ‘Arizona Star,’ A. lophantha ‘Quadricolor,’ and A. bracteosa ‘Monterrey Frost,’ and tucked them under the eaves, just a few inches out of the rain but still braving the cold, and so far they’ve been fine.
Slightly dodgier odds with Echeveria agavoides — I have tons in Long Beach so was willing to sacrifice a few in a hardiness experiment. They’re also tucked under the eaves of the pergola, coloring up in the cold temps into the 30s but not mushing out, so far.
All the eucomis were brought north from the SoCall garden — the bulbs grow well and thicken down south, but I’m guessing flowers will be much better in the north
This stock tank was planted with the Stachyurus salicifolius from Dancing Oaks in autumn, and the rest of the plants came from the Long Beach garden and nurseries a few months later. Carexes ‘Everillo’ and ‘Feather Falls,’ Corydalis flexuosa ‘Porcelain Blue,’ Dreamland series of armeria, and a runner of Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’ which despite being zoned warmer has had no problem with the snow and hail so far
This stock tank was also planted in autumn, with golden cottonwood, Cassinia fulvida, which I think might be adding extra protection for Euphorbia stygiana. The diascias were found local and planted in the last week, and it was touch-and-go as to whether they’d survive the recent snow event.. The historically anomalous April snow event was not accompanied by low temperatures, which I suspect saved many of the plants
Aloe boylei was brought up from Long Beach and has the “widest leaves of the grass aloes,” hardy to zone 7b
The third stock tank was planted when we returned in March. Brought from the Long Beach garden was this Libertia chilensis, an abutilon, Salvia ‘Amante,’ Verbena bonariensis seedlings, and Metapanax delavayi. Golden deschampsia came via mail order from High Country Gardens
Lots of plants came up from the Long Beach garden, but there are a few mail orders still awaiting delivery and a bit of local shopping. I managed a trip to Hortlandia in early April and had so much fun debating what plants to buy that the camera never left its pouch.
Olearia x mollis ‘Zennorensis’ from Cistus
Senecio munroi also from Cistus
Foreground Bupleurum fruticosum, the Shrubby Hare’s Ear, was brought from the Long Beach garden
Damp-loving Iris ‘Gerald Darby’ from Secret Garden Growers. I first heard of this purply-leaved iris through Nan Ondra at Hayefield. It’s planted under the pergola downspout — I hope it likes lots of water!
Scrophularia aquatica ‘Variegata’ from Secret Garden Growers, I think
Foreground Angelica stricta ‘Purpurea’ from the Long Beach garden, golden saxifrage from Cistus, Lomandra ‘Lucky Stripe’ from Long Beach garden, planted in October
Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii and Phlomis anatolica ‘Lloyd’s Variety’ planted in October
I did visit a nearby independent nursery, Monkey Business 101, that centers its business around growing Monkey Puzzle Trees, Auricaria auracana. There is a large Monkey Puzzle Tree in my neighborhood, and I’ve since found out that Portland has more of these trees outside of its native Chile than anywhere else. Apparently, John Muir was a huge fan and traveled to Chile to see native stands of this relic of the ages, Chile’s national tree. The cool and rainy coastal conditions are apparently to its liking — makes me want to further explore Chilean plant lists!
Monkey Puzzle Tree loving life at Monkey Business 101
Unnamed hosta from Monkey Business 101, which had a fine general selection of plants at great prices. And I had to grow a hosta, right?
Rhododendrons are bursting into bloom around Tillamook
Bulbs and rhodies are coloring up the neighborhood, and the recent snow event hasn’t seemed to slow them down. We are very much strangers in a strange land, but working out how to make a garden seems to me to be a great way to get acquainted. More soon, AGO.
To save some repetitive photos, the aloes are mostly over, the grevilleas, passiflora, and anisodontea continue, and now these shaggy brutes are making their blooming appearance this week, the tree dandelions, Sonchus palmensis. This is a plant with a big presence when its chrome yellow discs flare into bloom like a klieg light.
I forget the age of this mother plant of all the seedlings scattered throughout the garden. Over 6 feet tall, it needed staking even before the three flower heads began to bloom.
Tree dandelions in the distance, coronilla in the foreground. Pink flowers from long-blooming Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’
Salvia ‘Savannah Blue’ was clipped hard, so is dense and bushy and just about to bloom, and there’s three of them massed around that brown jar. I’ll miss seeing that but am trying a few cuttings up north. Teucrium betonicum and Geranium maderense ‘Alba’ will be in bloom next week (edited to add photo from 3/17 at end of post.) There’s no telling if the Giant Fennel will bloom this year, or ever, but it’s pushing out a wedding dress’ worth of lacy leaves. The kangaroo paws will be up late April/May.
leaning over the emerging ferny leaves of the giant fennel, Ferula communis ‘Gigantea’
And the Salvia greggii hybrids are spilling more and more flowers. ‘Mesa Azure’ has a particularly uniform habit of growth, hardy to zone 7.
Salvia x jamensis ‘Nachtvlinder’ has exceptional depth of coloring and velvety petals, but its habit slightly sprawls despite regular clipping and cutbacks. Could be the crowded conditions at fault, not the plant.
Erodium ‘Maryla,’ planted spring 2021 from Robin Parer’s nursery Geraniaceae
tiny flowers and purple-speckled leaves of Tinantia pringlei, a ferocious spring reseeder from Mexico that dies off in summer if kept too dry
Gerberas flower so strongly here in zone 10 with just a little attentive irrigation. The Garvinea series is hardy to zone 7
Another plant purchased locally for the Oregon garden, that I ended up planting here in Long Beach, Halimium x pauanum would struggle in the rich, moist soil up north. It has better odds with the hot, dry SoCal garden.
Leucospermum ‘Tango’
Soft yellow flowers of Brassica cretica, ssp. aegaea, seed from Liberto Dario — hoping it self-sows around. I have a feeling it will be very obliging on that score. I’ve got two flats of different seedlings to bring up north, including Silene fabaria, Verbena bonariensis, coronilla, Centranthus lecoquii, sideritis, orlaya, erodium, carex, Omphalodes linifolia, etc
Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ backed by elongating blooms of Heuchera maxima
(edited to add Geranium maderense ‘Alba’ opening flowers 3/17/22)
And for some unknown but very irritating reason, I can’t get the link to work to May Dreams Gardens, Carol J. Michel’s host site for all Bloomday reports.
edited to add photo of Long Beach house, photo by MB Maher — we always miss this old creaky boat of a house!
We’re heading back up north the end of this week with a car full of stuff I’ve dug up from the Long Beach garden, the dog, the cat — what a caravan! I hope you find good things to read and see and keep you busy. More soon. Affectionately, AGO
Another atmospheric river is hitting the Oregon coast, but here in coastal Long Beach we’re climbing into the 80’sF. The plants that bloom off and on throughout the winter, like Passiflora vitifolia, know what to do with that warmth. I was trimming back straggly growth on this vine, which sounds fairly straighforward. But vines are tricky and complicated, and it can be difficult to trace what’s actually being cut. One misplaced snip, and before you know it yards of healthy vine have been severed. If this passiflora were a dainty thing, I’d be more angry with myself. But seeing as I’ve already had to cut an exploratory shoot out of the acacia tree quite a distance away, getting heavy handed with the pruners is not much cause for remorse.
Solitary flower of non-clumping Aloe conifera
flowers opening on Aloe marlothii
I’ve been simplifying and streamlining the Long Beach garden, resolving not to add any more plants or containers. And that’s holding true with some minor exceptions, like that enormous pot of Lomandra ‘Lucky Stripe’ on the far right. It was a discounted plant I intended to bring back to the Oregon garden to pair with the one already planted there, but changed my mind when I saw how it transformed this area. (If you’re game for more info on the subject than seems reasonable, possible or necessary, it’s provided at the end of this post.)
I’ve planted countless Lophomyrtus x ralphii here in Long Beach and none of them have “stuck.” Maybe a little too dry, a little too crowded. I grabbed a couple ‘Red Dragon’ to trial in the Oregon zone 8b garden, where they’re very borderline (to 20F), but lost my nerve at the prospect of potentially sacrificing both of these gorgeous New Zealander shrubs, and split the difference by keeping one in Long Beach. And that’s the last of any new planting in Long Beach, I swear!
Monocarpic Agave vilmoriniana ‘Stained Glass’ is making plans to leave this earth, sending forth an end-of-the-line bloom stalk which will hopefully become studded with lots of bulbils for new plants. I’m not expecting most of them to be variegated but hoping for just a few with this coloring…
In determining what Long Beach plants might potentially be candidates for the Oregon garden, I’ve run into the limits of memory — which astelia is this? A handy search of this blog tells me it’s Astelia banksii (20-25F). A small piece of it is being rooted for a northern trial, possibly container only so it can be protected in winter.
In the front garden, Agave titanota ‘Lanky Wanky’ continues its spotless performance
Also in the front garden, the trunk of the triangle palm is being colonized by a fatshedera. If I used netting or some other support it would have better odds of hanging on in heavy wind. For now I’m letting the fatshedera figure it out on its own.
buttery new growth of Fatsia ‘Spider Web’
new developments on the mystery euphorbia
“flowers” forming on mystery euphorbia
Coronilla valentina ssp. glauca — I’m going to trial a seedling of this in the Oregon garden
and the ongoing reshuffling of pots continues — presumably this is a form of Agave americana labeled ‘Northern Lights’ that wants neither full sun nor too much shade
I love all stages of Leucospermum ‘Tango’ in bloom
As promised, more reading on the pot of Lomandra ‘Lucky Stripe,’ the long and short of it:
Seen on T-shirts and protest signs around the world, now multimedia artist Patrick Martinez has worked Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos’ words to electrifying effect in neon (which comes from the Greek word for “new”). A sign of and for the times, right?
One of the so-called “toothbrush” grevilleas, I planted ‘Poorinda Blondie’ in November 2020, and its wingspan is now just over 6 feet. Height is roughly 4 feet, approximating a V-shape. (I can’t remember if I bought it in a gallon or 3-gallon.). It’s a big boy, reputed to attain a height of 12 feet but is amenable to pruning.
‘Poorinda Blondie’ with flowers loaded on one side, hence the moniker “toothbrush” grevillea
PB is a seedling of ‘Red Hooks,’ a grevillea I became familiar with at the Manhattan Beach nursery Deep Roots, which has a lovely, tree-like specimen of same. Deep Roots carries a good selection of Australian plants and is most likely where I found this ‘Poorinda Blondie,’ an oldish selection dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. Flowers fully opened this week and are heaviest in winter/spring but do occur year-round (see June report here). PB may prove to be less floriferous than the year-round abundance of my ‘Moonlight’ (which just got a firm pruning), but the graphic, serrated leaves won me over.
full, bottlebrush-like flowers of Grevillea ‘Moonlight’
And though I didn’t know it at the time of purchase, PB is intriguingly hardier than ‘Moonlight,’ reputedly into the mid teens, which almost makes it a candidate for the zone 8b garden, whereas ‘Moonlight’ is pegged at mid 20s. (Of course, one has to take into account the torrential rain in my zone 8b garden as well as cold tolerance.)
ferny leaves of Grevillea ‘King’s Fire’
‘Moonlight’ is a cross between G. whiteana and G. banksii and has the ferny leaves typical of the previous grevilleas I’ve grown like ‘Robyn Gordon’ and ‘King’s Fire,’ so the saw-cut leaves of this “toothbrush” Grevillea ‘Poorinda Blondie’ are a first for me. Welcome to the garden! For dryish gardens in zones 9a-11
A familiar chore I don’t really mind is sweeping up the fringe tree’s leaves from the east patio and moving them to use for paths and mulch. Obviously, it’s much easier done on a daily, incremental basis instead of saving the job up for three months. But I’m actually relieved that no one had an itch to sweep and throw the leaves away.
We arrived last Friday, and other than sleeping, I don’t think a broom has left my hand since.
I missed a couple aloes in bloom like labworana, ‘David Verity’ and capitata var. quartziticola, but was just in time for ‘Moonglow’ on the left and ‘Tangerine’ on the right. A young Aloe lukeana is in the foreground left.
big surprise that my young Aloe marlothii is throwing a bloom truss too
the marigold-colored intensity of Aloe dawei ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ is always a treat in January/February, Towering in the background on the left is the mother Sonchus palmensis that’s been sowing her progeny throughout the garden, and in the far distance Grevillea ‘Moonlight’
The informal team of neighbors and friends who took turns watching over the garden since we left the second week of October did an amazing job. And all this handled by a group with little or no experience (or interest) in plants and gardens. I’m not sure how much deep watering was done, if any, but there was some good rain in January.
Leucadendron ‘Jester’ put on a nice flush of cones. Fernleaf acacia in bloom in background is both a lovely sight as well as the instigator for much of the far-flung debris in the back garden. (The grevillea is a competitor in the category for Most Debris from a Single Plant, and unfortunately under its branches is where most of the bromeliads are massed.) Pink flowers are from a first-year Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty,’ probably the best performance it’s had in my garden after several trials
There’s lots of sweeping and cutting back to do but no devastating plant losses. The succulent rosettes are filled with debris, as are the bromeliads, and the big-leaved plants like trevesia and tetrapanax are absolutely filthy. Miscanthus need cutting back, and the seslerias need cleaning and raking. The prolific but invaluable self-sowers need editing. The tillandsias could use a soak but are otherwise in good shape. The pitcher plants are one of the few outright losses — I left no instructions on using distilled water only. That kind of detailed instruction seemed a bridge too far to ask of volunteers. A young Brassaiopsis hispida and Metapanax delavayi were each marked with a tall stick for attentive watering, and that was about the extent of the instructions given. Both survived. I’m tempted to bring the metapanax back with me to the Tillamook zone 8b garden but am worried about not having a truly protected, wind-free site for it.
Leucadendron ‘Jester’
Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’
Sonchus palmensis seedlings are lending a shaggy quality to the plantings, as is Geranium maderense just behind. The huge, post-flowering (dead) rosette of Alcantera odorata was removed, which was to the right of the Sonchus. No pups formed but I did save some seed. Agave ‘Snow Glow,’ self-sown Carex testacea and aeoniums
various species of kalanchoe mother of thousands are also flowering
Agave kerchovei is growing into quite a beauty and still has some growing to do — reputed to grow as wide as 4-5′
More agaves, helichrysum, and a striking rosette of. Berkheya purpurea
Berkheya purpurea
Sideritis syriaca is looking very handsome for January/February
Sideritis with westringias, Salvia ‘Savannah Blue’ and Billie
Looking east under the pergola. Euphorbia canariensis was moved where it will catch less debris
looking west under the pergola, bricks swept and cleaned
The trunks of the tetrapanax continue to be relied on for support by surrounding plants like Sedum ficoides and Clianthus puniceus — but especially the increasingly vigorous Passiflora vitifolia. Long arms of this vine snaked along the ground under the pergola and contributed to the decadent, overgrown, Grey Gardens ambience that greeted me upon returning Friday.
Sprawlers like the parrot’s beak Lotus berthelotii and cotula were pulled out by the armfuls so smaller succulents escape being smothered in the spring surge
After removing the parrot’s beak
Many of the potted succulents were bone dry, but winter is an easy time for them. I’m not sure they could stand this neglect in summer…
Now I’ve been absorbed in gently steering the garden from the state of one packed to the gills for maximal daily stimulation for a single audience (me) to one able to handle more casual observers and require less upkeep. A plan to sublet the house and garden for 30-day intervals is taking shape, preferably to the horticulturally inclined! Long Beach is well-situated for day trips to San Diego and Santa Barbara, with the Huntington and LA Arboretum close by as well as loads of nurseries.
And I’m also considering which plants to bring back north to the PNW, such as some of the zone 8-ish agaves. And what about moving some of the rhipsalis north and attempt to grow them indoors as houseplants? Or thin the herd with a small plant sale? Decisions, decisions. Much more soon!
about the soil: “The Tillamook Series consists of very deep, moderately well drained soils formed in mixed alluvium on stream terraces. Slopes are 0 to 15 percent. The mean annual precipitation is about 90 inches and the mean annual temperature is about 50 degrees F.” (Tillamook soil series)
The two box balls originally flanked the front porch. Planted too close to the steps, they were deforming into asymmetrical shapes. I like them better here in the backyard, trimmed into orbs. The rock area is roughly 8×24 feet, not a considerable size yet it took 2400 pounds of rock to cover and could use some more! The growing areas will be roughly the same size, 8×24 feet, with additional growing space provided by the three stock tanks.
Work has been slow and wet but steady, with the emphasis on making level, mud-free surfaces. Other than grass, there was nothing else growing in the south-facing backyard, and rather than fight the stark rectilinearity enforced by the fence and the house, we chose to roll with it, marking out the growing areas with landscape timbers — as opposed to, say, making curves with that hard plastic edging (yuck!). The backyard is roughly 1200 square feet. I never thought I’d be excited to have the first coffee of the day outdoors in 30-40F weather, but it is surprising how comfortable it can be when bundled up in a warm robe, tucked in dry against the house under the overhang, watching the fences steam in the morning air — or outlined in snow as they were on December 26.
Billie’s first snow late December 2021
A panel of grass at the east fence will most likely be left for Billie. In the gravel is a young Yucca rostrata, one of two brought from Long Beach, along with a Yucca linearifolia
Sourcing materials in this small coastal town has been challenging. The mixed size rock is a little larger than I’d like, but getting rid of the lumpy wet grass in exchange for a level, dry, non-slippery surface has been a godsend. The big box store in Salem agreed to deliver it on pallets of 40-pound bags without charge, which sealed the deal. No weed cloth was laid down, so we’ll see what weed issues come up in spring. All the removed sod and soil was saved to berm up planting areas, because this rich, earthworm-dense alluvial soil is a treasure not to be wasted.
newly planted Phlomis anatolica ‘Lloyd’s Variety’ from Dancing Oaks Nursery
Although the intent was to keep a good bit of the back garden open for dogs and the occasional outdoor fire in the copper bowl I brought with me, I couldn’t resist putting down a few stock tanks on the gravel for more plants. The gravel area gets the most sun.
All the plants in this stock tank were brought with me from Long Beach except for the Euphorbia stygiana, found at Dancing Oaks. Cassinia fulvens is on either side of the euphorbia. Chondropetalum is mid tank, and at the far end is Arctostaphylos ‘Sunset’
The garden got a big boost from a string of dry days a week ago today. Not necessarily from any work I put in, though I did do some more planting, but by an inspirational road trip about 60 miles southeast to Dancing Oaks Nursery and another short road trip to the nearby coastal town of Manzanita, where I found a garden showcasing many of the plants I’ve either contemplated growing or have already planted. I’ve been itching to get to Portland but don’t yet feel up to the challenge of tackling the notorious two-lane highway 6 through the Coast Range in slick and/or icy conditions. We’re starting another string of dry days possibly until next Thursday, when we’ll be heading south again to Long Beach for a brief time.
one of the growing houses at Dancing Oaks Nursery near Monmouth, Oregon
Romeo, one of two greyhounds who worked tirelessly as the welcoming committee
Tree dandelion! Sonchus palmensis has started to reseed in my zone 10 garden
From reading PNW blogs and nursery catalogues, I came armed with a shopping list: Solidago ‘Fireworks,’ Eriophyllum lanatum, Stachyurus salicifolia, Lobelia tupa (which doesn’t like my zone 10 garden). Impulse buys included dierama and Euphorbia stygiana (both failed in zone 10), Phlomis anatolica ‘Lloyd’s Variety,’ Watsonia pillansii and Eupatorium caplillifolium. Jody bore up cheerfully under my barrage of questions and whipsaw changes in attention as I wandered the grounds with her, escorted by rambunctious greyhounds Romeo and Heidi. Not having visited a nursery since leaving Long Beach, I’m sure I was more than a handful as a customer. Jody remained serenely unflustered and had lots of good advice and plant recommendations. The nursery will be open to the public again without reservations in March.
tall sentinels of driftwood strung with lights are dotted throughout the garden — an appropriately regional vertical element that doubles as lighting for evening strolls
The next day was also predicted to be dry, so I headed north up 101 about 25 miles to Manzanita. All the little coastal towns between Tillamook and Manzanita on Highway 101 each have unique characteristics but one overriding feature in common: 101 runs straight through their main downtowns. Manzanita is the rare exception, requiring a turnoff from 101 to enter the town, and that short separation from the highway gives the town a cloistered, pedestrian-friendly vibe. On foot I noticed this sign just as you enter the main drag.
Euphorbia stygiana, cistus and Feijoa sellowiana
On the corner lot next to the library someone had created a strolling garden filed with plants on raised berms that I’ve either contemplated growing or have already planted in my little garden. Hebes, cistus, arctostaphylos, restios, Eucalyptus pauciflora, carex, Stipa gigantea, Fabiana imbricata — all given botanical garden-quality plant labels. Generous sitting areas, paths surfaced in small black rock. After staring at the same handful of species on walks in my neighborhood for months, I was flabbergasted by the unexpected plant choices in this fascinating public garden. It looked like an outpost of Cistus Nursery or Xera Plants, and later research confirmed that many of the plants were sourced from these Portland nurseries. But by who?
The town of Manzanita is a warmer zone 9a than mine on the Tillamook Bay, which is zone 8b. Yet I note our temps show identical highs and lows for the snowy week of December 27 through January 1 — the plant palette should be nearly interchangeable.
Arctostaphylos auriculata ‘Diablo’s Blush’
The streetside bed holding the Wonder Garden sign is filled with manzanitas. (Trialing many of these native shrubs inspired a garden talk by the Program Lead entitled “How to Kill A Manzanita and other Dark Tales from the Wonder Garden.”)
Arctostaphylos x media ‘Xera’s Pacific’
Arctostaphylos ‘Big Sur’ in particular was having a lovely flush of bloom
Arctostaphylos ‘Sunset’ — I planted this arcto from a gallon size in one of my stock tanks, though I’ve heard reports that they doh’t appreciate container life
Two nice specimens of Parahebe perfoliata in this bed
Fabiana imbricata has an ozothamnus-like quality
Silvery shrub in foreground is Lavandula ‘Silver Anouk’ — an immense variety of plants are grown in the Wonder Garden, including pittosporum, callistemon, the Chilean myrtle Luma apiculata, coprosma, grasses, sedges, and I noticed labels for dormant perennials like veronicastrum interspersed as well
Shrub on far left looked like an acacia, maybe A. cultriformis, the knife-leaf wattle. The root was exposed and it seemed slightly off balance. The watsonia on the right is an angusta hybrid
Billie waiting near the clay towers of the Kathleen Ryan Memorial
Reading the signage and following up at home with some quick research, I learned the garden is properly named The Hoffman Wonder Garden. Started in 2014, it is attached to the Hoffman Center for the Arts directly across the street, a “place for artists, writers, horticultural enthusiasts and creators of all kinds.” And its Program Lead is none other than Ketzel Levine, former broadcast journalist for NPR and renowned plants and garden enthusiast. I found some local information about the Wonder Garden here:
““We are creating a small botanic garden that is showcasing all of the different plants from around the world that thrive on the northwest coast,” Levine said. “All of our plants are labeled with beautiful arboretum-quality labels. We give weekly talks and walks through the garden and we are constantly raising money, and people have been responsive. During COVID, the garden has become the No. 1 gathering place for people who wanted to get together with masks.” — Pulling Back the Curtain on Manzanita’s Wonder Garden
View across the street of Hoffman Center for the Arts
the tall restio is Elegia capensis
Hebe buchanii ‘Fenwickii’ — some of the hebes make nice santolina-like orbs but will be much longer lasting than lavender cotton
Hebe cupressoides ‘Boughton Dome’
Hebe ‘Western Hills’ — having just planted a 4″ pot of this in the new garden, I was stoked to find a mature specimen here. The name alone was reason enough to order it from Joy Creek Nursery, knowing that it’s been admired and passed and propagated from hand to hand from the legendary Western Hills Nursery near Occidental, California. The eucalyptus is E. pauciflora aka the Snow Gum
Calluna vulgaris ‘Wickwar Flame’ — I do see a lot of Scottish heather, some in full bloom now, on my neighborhood walks
After touring Wonder Garden I walked Billie down to the beach at the end of town for a romp. One of the perks of Oregon beaches is that they all welcome dogs, unlike SoCal beaches. Watching dogs enjoy this liberty never gets old.
A rare plant nursery off the highway up a 2-mile track, a small public garden, and the blogs of my colleagues have all shone a bright light on the way forward in making a small garden here on this stunning part of the Oregon Coast. That you all continue to share what you know and discover is an incredible blessing — I’d be lost without you! Starting a little garden is as essential to me as getting the house furnished — probably more so! More soon. Affectionately, AGO
Tillamook, Oregon, population roughly 5,000 — in the neighborhoods, all grass, all the time. With 80-plus inches of annual rainfall, to peel off the sod and dig is something only an obsessed gardener would do. I couldn’t wait to get started. The neighborhoods eschew parkway trees — I’m guessing it’s to allow as much sun in as possible. Just a few miles west is the ocean, and a few miles east the forest picks up again, blanketing the coast range. The Douglas fir and Sitka spruce were removed from this five-river valley for agriculture, to grow grass to feed the dairy cows — one of the few crops that thrived in the heavy rainfall. In this 1940s-ish subdivision, possibly built to house WWII soldiers from the nearby naval base, the soil is amazing.
all photos by MB Maher taken the week before Thanksgiving
My new mantra, apparently borrowed from an old Swedish proverb, loosely translated: There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. To put it in gardener’s speak, we left frostless, drought-ridden zone 10b in early October and are attempting to become acclimated to an extremely wet zone 8b in the temperate rain forest of coastal Oregon. And though the contrast in growing conditions couldn’t be more stark, I’m consumed with getting a small garden started, which means muddy boots, muddy paws, dodging cloudbursts, piles of excavated sod to deal with — once I found the right boots at the farmer’s co-op, it’s been a muddy adventure I can’t get enough of. (The house came equipped with a very large bath tub.) The air and sky are on a perpetual rinse cycle, so different from the port air of the house in Southern California. Marty has returned briefly to Long Beach to handle some stuff and tells me the garden is covered in the grime I try to rinse off daily, but otherwise seems to be hanging on.
Munson Falls, where we foraged for chanterelles, mushrooms that peak when the rains return, approximately late August to late November
For the house, hand-me-downs and second-hand furniture works. The dirty secret about gardens is the cost of getting started. Plants are the very least of the expense. Without dry paths and a relatively level, weed-free canvas, the future will be problematic. And that means getting the hardscape right. The materials category of craigslist is my new favorite haunt. I’d love to build up a free-draining berm with all this dug-up sod and use broken reclaimed concrete aka urbanite for a low retaining wall — but that’s the thing about urbanite. It’s plentiful in cities, rare as hen’s teeth in the country. Pressure-treated landscape timbers are available, relatively cheap, and will have to suffice.
JAndy’s Oysters where I sourced the shells to be crushed for garden paths
Now when I look at gardens online or in books, for the first time I’m consumed with identifying what besides plants is covering the ground — and even for this very small garden most examples are way beyond my budget. Finding an affordable, local supply of a material for paths to use in place of chronically wet grass has been a challenge in a town where’s there’s no demand for it. My first idea was oyster shells — no problem sourcing those. Tillamook Bay is full of them. But the shells need to be finely crushed, and with just a hammer I was not doing the job nearly fast nor thorough enough. With the right machinery, it’d be a great little business. But as usual, I overestimate the garden desires of the general public, and judging by local appearances, there would seem to be very little demand. Lawn appears to be working just fine for the neighbors, front yards and back, whose free time is filled year-round with hunting, fishing, clamming, hiking, etc.
Oceanside Beach, a great dog beach for Billie, but under the epic king’s tide mid November the broad stretches of sand had completely disappeared. Such tides can be treacherous, and even billy-goating around on the rocks is to be avoided. Sneaker waves are a stealthy, fearsome enemy. The local dog park is another favorite of Billie’s.
After weeks of searching for local materials, it came down to a big-box store delivery of crushed granite very much like what I used in the Long Beach garden. The custom-built concrete planters I wanted to bookend the patio morphed into stock tanks — again, the price tag for the concrete was way out of my budget. Maybe in summer I can DIY some concrete pavers. Trying to get this all done in the brief windows of dry weather means speed and quick decisions are of the essence — because I’m dying to get planting! And we will most likely return to Long Beach after the New Year for a few months before returning here. I am purposely avoiding being a bore and mentioning our new granddaughter, the most marvelous being to ever grace the planet — but then we all start out so promising, right?
on the hunt for the elusive chanterelles — and not one of these photos is of chanterelles!
Daydreaming now about two gardens, I feel a bit like a polygamist. Marty worries that I won’t be happy with this new rainy garden, but I remind him that every garden book I read in my 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s described gardens filled with plants from zones colder than zone 10. This is not a climate to suit everyone, thank goodness, for the locals very much want to keep it to themselves. But after 30-plus years in the same house, and with the pummeling we’ve all had the last couple years, it’s just the sort of adventure we needed.
I’m hoping to write again before the holidays, but in case I don’t — wishing you the very best!
