Yesterday was the winter solstice, so one of the best holiday presents of all, the gift of lengthening days, has already been delivered.
I’ll take that over new socks any day. Huzzah!
I’ve gift-wrapped AGO in some images from 2012, a small attempt to thank the readers and bloggers who’ve made 2012 such a blast.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday.
Don’t laugh, but it was cold, relatively speaking, in Los Angeles yesterday. Last night was down into the low 40’s. Marty and I took the Metro up to the ArcLight in Hollywood to see Hyde Park on Hudson, and the boots, scarves, sweaters, umbrellas and heavy coats were out in full force on train travelers. Which might be why I can’t stop looking at the portfolio of South African garden designer Franchesca Watson, and the light-flooded photos from one some of her gardens found at desiretoinspire.
The dome-shaped plants in the huge gray pots are intriguing and remind me of the bromeliad Abromeitiella brevifolia, (description via plantlust) but they just can’t be, right? Must be something shrubby clipped tight. Wonderful effect, whatever it is.
repeat as often as necessary:
you are here
It’s been chronically drizzly the past few days, perfect weather for thinning and transplanting some broccoli rabe seedlings at my community garden plot. On the drive home I slowed for some interesting front gardens of contrasting character, some shrubby, some sleek and geometric.
Some collector’s gardens, elaborately planted, like this one.
Or spare and simple, like this well-defined study in textures.
The shrub behind the fountain is Phylica pubescens (or possibly Adenanthos sericeus) Agave attenuata, aeonium, maybe ‘Kiwi’ and in the foreground Cotyledon orbiculata. Where lawn is traditionally rolled out from the front porch to the sidewalk, this bungalow has set a gridwork of crisp pavers on a bed of pebbles
The cotyledon and aloes were planted on a severe horizontal line running parallel to the house, perpendicular to the pavers.
There was a third row of aloes planted alongside that I didn’t photograph or even notice until I was leaving, the leaves so charcoal grey they became camouflaged against the pebbles.
Agave attenuata underplanted with what looks like Oscularia deltoides. I’m not sure what the golden-leaved succulent is in the small rock outcropping, but possibly a sedum.
Another front garden had excavated below street grade to lead down into a small amphitheater/anteroom where the front lawn once grew, now surfaced in decomposed granite, bounded by dry-stacked stone retaining walls.
This garden was the opposite of sleek and spare and was very shrubby in character, planted with aromatic and drought-tolerant plants like Salvia apiana, Romneya coulterii, buddleia, westringia, manzanita, pittosporum.
The little amphitheater/courtyard ended in steps leading to the back of the house through a deep cocoa brown door.
Three very different gardens displaying strong, idiosyncratic preferences, all planted for low water needs. Bravo!
I was skimming through the design archives of the Wall Street Journal online yesterday, a wonderful trove of good reading, and recognized the pressed leaves of Macleaya cordata, the plume poppy, used by the shoe designer Christian Louboutin to decorate the walls of his “shoe archive” in France. Mr. Louboutin was mischievously photographed here in his socks.
“The shelving in the archive is decorated with botanicals from his garden that have been pressed by a local artisan.”
Leaves of the plume poppy in my garden
Often articles like this one, “The Collector,” are as worth reading as any written specifically for a particular branch of design, landscape or otherwise, because good designers draw from a wide array of influences.
More quotes from the article:
“A constant source of ideas is his garden in the French countryside.
He learned about botany during the roaming years of his youth, when he
worked as a self-taught freelance landscaper. ‘The garden allowed me
to see colors, blends of colors and materials, juxtapositions of gloss
and matte surfaces—it was highly instructive,’ he says in Christian
Louboutin, a book celebrating his 20th anniversary, published by
Rizzoli. ‘Still today, if I close my eyes I don’t see satin combined
with velvet; I see the thickness of a pansy, which is deep purple
bordered with white, set against the texture of another plant, and
this combination gives me my colors.'”
Image found here
“Louboutin spends spring and fall weekends and the month of August at
his home in the Vendée, puttering about in his garden—it’s become his
haven, a place his mind can wander for design ideas as he pulls weeds.
‘The magnolia leaf is like patent leather,’ he notes, ‘and it always
looks beautiful with a deep purple, like prunus purple. There are few
plants that are ugly. It’s how you use them that may not be pretty.'”
Patent leather sheen of magnolia, image found here
Orlaya grandiflora
Crithmum maritimum, samphire
nicotiana varietes
Erodium pelargoniflorum
Papaver species, P. setigerum being most predominant
Mirabilis jalapa, the Miracle of Peru, in the lime-green leaf variety
Geranium maderense ‘Alba’
Centranthus ruber ‘Alba’
Teucrium hiranicum
Senecio stellata
Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’
Nasturtiums
Solanum pyracantha
Mina lobata
Another favorite winter/spring pursuit is to inspect the garden each day and find the ingredients for spring popping up of their own accord, like having a full pantry ready to support the next feast without having to do the grocery shopping.
It’s always a surprise who settles in and gets really happy in the garden. Teucrium hircanicum has been in the garden just two years, but is already popping up everywhere, including between the bricks in the pathways. The pottery shards are used as cat baffles, to prevent disturbance from digging while the seedlings are small. Note the little poppy seedlings close by.
The first leaves of Geranium maderense are as recognizable small as they are large
I can only use a few of each kind, so once the seedlings look strong enough to survive disturbance from cats and grub-seeking possums, it becomes a matter of thinning the multitudes. Some reseed in minute amounts, and the seedlings are found unexpectedly, while absent-mindedly admiring something or other, only to notice nearby two tiny leaves pushing up from the cold brown earth. I’ve found a total of two Solanum pyracantha this way recently, but no more, so these are carefully looked for and potted up. And then there’s the exuberant procreators, like poppies and castor bean, that would prefer to have the garden just to themselves. The only self-sowers not welcomed are morning glories; the seductively dark purple variety ‘Grandpa Otts’ was planted just one season, and I’ve regretted it ever since. The seeds reputedly stay viable for 100 years. I’m told colder zones don’t have this problem with them.
I do have some fresh Mina lobata seeds right now. Annie’s Annuals & Perennials is a source for some of the self-sowers mentioned above.
Some seeds currently on sale at Thompson & Morgan.
The last Bloom Day in 2012 — I’m keeping this one short, but if interested you can use the search function on the blog for more information/photos on any of these.
Helleborus argutifolius
Perlargonium echinatum
Gerbera ‘Drakensberg Carmine’
Senecio medley-woodii, shrubby, grey-leaved succulent, its yellow daisies beginning to bloom this month
Oenothera macrocarpa ssp. incana’s blindingly yellow blooms an unexpected December surprise
Can you string together three other words that conjure as much bliss as those? Perhaps you can. But having been obsessed with some garden or other most of my life, and having lived with a boat captain most of my life as well, I’ve had more than a few daydreams about living on a houseboat — where there must be plants too, of course. I’m using the word “garden” liberally here — that irresistible impulse to keep the plant world close at hand, responsible for it, bound to it.
Calm down…surely not the houseboat of that Piet. Remember, it’s a very common name in The Netherlands.
MB Maher left Iceland and has been roaming the canals of Amsterdam the past week. He sent these photos along with a little note:
there seems to be some unspoken agreement that houseboat decks will function as the city’s metaphor of green space. all dutch houses have extensive gardens but all are hidden by the inner-courtyard structure of the city blocks…there are also certain visual
jokes like papering the portholes and skylights with plant-themed wallpaper to maintain an illusion that the entire houseboat is filled
with greenery. not sure if the weber grill and garden gnomes are in earnest or jest as well.
Agave titanota hybrid ‘Lanky Wanky’
A silly, last-round-at-the-pub name for a sideways-leaning hybrid of an elusive agave, an agave I’ve unknowingly owned for some years.
Here’s the real thing, Agave titanota.
This agave is famous for it’s pale white leaves, though I would argue that Agave celsii var. albicans ‘UCB’ may now hold that honor.
Agave celsii var. albicans ‘UCB’
Agave titanota has been one of my long-standing mystery agaves. While it gained size, growing nameless, anonymous, and let’s face it unloved, I occasionally pursued the legendary Agave titanota elsewhere, on eBay for example, where I was saddled with an impostor (who is now the new mystery agave). I didn’t know what my old mystery agave was, but it didn’t strike me as anything special. It took a long time to become smitten with Agave titanota, because it doesn’t form that tight, breathtaking, world-within-world form that I expect to admire in agaves. The sharkskin-like leaves jut out at odd angles, and I mistook its pale coloring for bleached-out sunburn. Its famous natural qualities I attributed to grower error. (Someone needs more reference books.)
Agave titanota — still not a favorite, but no longer a mystery.
(Yeah, life is strange.)
Another weekend misspent ostensibly holiday shopping (why pretend?), but in actuality just enjoying plants and landscapes, these courtesy of The OC Mart Mix. Although The OC Mart Mix was patterned after the Ferry Building gourmet marketplace in San Francisco, it’s starting to remind me more and more of Cornerstone in Sonoma, Northern California, written about here and here, which hosted The Late Show in 2009, a much-loved garden show that hasn’t made a reappearance yet. Like that garden travel destination, The OC Mart Mix would also be a great location for a garden show. Rolling Greens’ new location is here, there’s more garden-themed retail signing on like Inside Out 365, and the landscaping is a low-irrigation inspiration. Plus it’s 20 minutes away from me, all worthy and compelling reasons for The OC Mart Mix to take my advice to heart.
One of the courtyards
Agave vilmoriniana and Mexican feather grass
succulents in a crenellated-rimmed pot
Tall glazed pots at the entrances to shops were planted with succulents, like these aeoniums. Senecio mandraliscae is the blue dust ruffle planted in the soil around the base of the pots.
Wonderful to see mature specimens of so many familiar succulents like Kalanchoe thyrsiflora, the flapjack plant, its towering inflorescence resembling a leaning pagoda
Blooming aloes were some of the nicest holiday decorations I saw all weekend.
OCMM, think of the garden show idea as my holiday gift to you. You’re welcome.
The tulips are planted, and now the vegetable bin in the fridge is once again restored to its rightful purpose of chilling vegetables. I went beyond the required six weeks of prechilling this year, but overchilling is not the problem that underchilling is. I think this year is a new record, 12 pots in total, not all of them in this photo.
Waiting for the tulips to bloom, I’m noticing how the silver-leaved plants really stand out in December when so much of the garden is a subdued brown. I’ve been binging on them again, especially since there’s so many new ones available to try, like the sideritis from the Canary Islands.
I’m getting these from Annie’s Annuals & Perennials when available.
I think this one with the larger leaf is Sideritis oroteneriffae.
Judging from its blooms over the summer, I think this is Sideritis syriaca.
Glaucium is another one whose rich, silvery leaves are so appreciated this time of year.
You can bank on silver-leaved plants being tough as well as beautiful, insisting on minimal irrigation.
I was glad to find Senecio viravira again at a plant sale last spring. I grew it in the garden for years, renewing it when needed from cuttings, then became exasperated with having to continually trim it back. It is easily capable of covering 5 feet of ground in no time. It wasn’t long before I missed growing it; of course, then I couldn’t find it anywhere. Such a good plant for containers too. Incredibly easy from cuttings.
A silver new to me, found just today, Othonna cheirifolia, a South African succulent from Native Sons.
I’ve been reading about this one for years, but sometimes in print they sound too good to be true and just have to be seen in the leaf to be believed.
In person, this little one doesn’t disappoint.
Far Reaches Farm lists it to zone 7a and say they grow it outdoors unprotected:
“A favorite of ours from South Africa. We have this growing in front of our greenhouse and the first winter we mulched it and covered with a tarp. No damage. The second winter we just threw a tarp over it and no damage. Then finally we didn’t protect it at all and there was no damage at 17F – even the flower buds were unscathed. Yellow daisy flowers are lovely over the glaucous succulent foliage.”
Gertrude Jekyll admired it as well, quoted from my beat-up “Gertrude Jekyll on Gardening”:
“A striking and handsome plant in the upper part of the rockery is Othonna cheirifolia; its aspect is unusual and interestig, with its bunches of thick, blunt-edged leaves of blue-grey colouring and large yellow daisy flowers.”
It’s possible to overdo silver, I suppose, but it always arrives on the most tempting leaves, like puya.
Silver sliding into blue in the attenuata hybrid Agave ‘Blue Flame.’ Sometimes the plant namers really nail it.
Backlit by Libertia peregrinans.
Speaking of agaves, Lincoln Avenue Nursery in Pasadena has a 20 percent sale ongoing, and their range of succulents is very good, including
4-inch pots of the spiral aloe, Aloe polyphylla. Best to try this heartbreaker in a small, inexpensive size.
They even had gallons of one of my big agave crushes, Agave parrasana ‘Fireball,’ which I’ve never seen offered for sale outside of plant shows.
As well as another agave crush, Agave lophantha ‘Quadricolor.’
I’ll have to separate these two soon (“He’s touching me!!”)
Some of the stock at Lincoln Avenue Nursery.
I was tempted by some variegated Euphorbia ammak in small sizes, but not small enough to drive home with me.
And I suppose by now all the plant geeks have heard the sad news that the source for extraordinary agastaches and all things xeric, High Country Gardens, has closed. The wonderful blog prairie break has more on HCG’s closure.
I’m still puzzling over the winter exuberance of the nicotiana I sowed from seed early last spring.
Now over 5 feet tall, the seed came from ‘Ondra’s Brown Mix,’ a selection made by Nan Ondra from her garden Hayefield. Annie’s Annuals sells something similar called ‘Hot Chocolate,’ which she feels has some Nicotiana langsdorfii blood in the mix. It also looks a bit like the strain sold as ‘Tinkerbelle.’
Because I’d like to duplicate this success again, it only makes sense that I understand the reasons for that success. At this point, I haven’t a clue. These nicotianas are grown as annuals but can be perennial here in zone 10, albeit short-lived perennials, so that could account for it persisting into winter. But persisting versus thriving are poles apart. Yesterday I tried googling short-day length properties of nicotiana, also known as photoperiodism. A classic example of photoperiodism in plants is the chrysanthemum, which blooms as the days shorten in autumn. Some plants are indifferent to day length, some require long days, other short days to bloom. I found that tobacco is included in lists of short-day plants.
These four plants of ‘Ondra’s Brown Mix’ were planted in part shade, and the two most robust were shielded from the summer sun under the dappled shade of a tetrapanax most of the summer. One plant in particular has the darkest coloring and is also the tallest.
It’s possible that this could just be the fluky year that I had nicotiana in bloom for the winter solstice. Since they reseed so profusely, I’ll have plenty more plants to experiment with next year.
