Couple things caught my eye in the front garden tonight.
Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ has thickened up nicely over the summer into a sturdy chartreuse bun.
And one of my favorite indicators of the end of summer, the aeoniums coming out of dormancy, deepening in color and plumping up.
It may technically be autumn, but the high temps and torpor of summer persist. I’m feeling a bit muzzled by the heat, but stuff is still getting done.
Agave parrasana ‘Fireball’ was moved to a larger pot this weekend.
As was Agave ‘Dragon Toes’
And this little New Zealand Tree Daisy with the big name of Olearia virgata v. lineata ‘Dartonii’ was potted up too. I’ve already planted an Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’ in the last available spot for a tree, so for now this olearia will have to spend a good part of its young life in a container.
Far Reaches Farm’s description reads: “Intriguing ‘Shrub Daisy’ from the South Island in New Zealand. If you’ve hankered for a willow but lament your dry conditions, then weep no more. All the grace and texture of a small willow with the bonus of small white flowers.”
The black containers are from a pottery wholesaler at the southern end of the Harbor Freeway I visited a month or so ago, and the salvaged iron stand has been kicking around here for years. Its original industrial function remains a mystery. A recent purge moved it to a discard pile in the driveway, where I rescued it once again on Saturday. There’s a constant tug between clearing useless junk out and having it on hand to play with.
The shelves are vents of some kind that I picked up at a hardware store over a year ago that looked like they’d be useful for something.
Wish I’d picked up four.
You’ve gotta get over to Potted’s blog to see their before-and-after photos documenting Potted’s contribution to the California Home+Design showhouse at The Hollywood Lofts.
Follow Potted’s step-by-step photos to find how they arrived at this:
And this:
(Note the debut of Potted’s City Planter in white.)
Annette and Mary mix modern and bohemian like nobody else.
Congratulations on this amazing transformation to an open-air, outdoor room showcase at the Hollywood Lofts for CH+D.
I’ve got until November 18 to see it in person. Reservations can be made here.
Showhouse hours:
September 14 – November 18, 2012; Friday, Saturday & Sunday Only.
Friday: 10am – 2pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10am – 3pm
Running errands in Orange County yesterday, I popped into the new Rolling Greens again to see if their selection of outdoor plants had arrived. Yes, a good range of succulents was in, including this fabulous variegated beaucarnia or Pony Tail Palm.
There were also some striking succulent containers planted up and added to the display.
This has to be a first — I don’t think I’ve seen ocotillo used in containers before. But why not? Just don’t forget the gloves.
The ocotillo’s strong pattern is marvelous when viewed against a backdrop, reflective or otherwise.
Interesting horizontal, topographic effect obtained by mossing up and planting salvaged industrial metal trays and other low-slung containers.
And I just happen to have one of those metal trays hanging around here someplace…
A stupefyingly hot Bloom Day here in Los Angeles. June and July were lovely, August and September the devil’s smithy. This heat wave is having the same effect on the streets as martial law, rendering them eerily quiet and empty. The garden is pretty quiet too.
And Russellia equisetiformis has leapt into bloom, even with having to face down day after day of searing afternoon sun.
Plant Delights described this salvia as making a nondescript, almost grass-like contribution all summer before blooming in fall, which sounded ideal, and this first year that assessment has been borne out. Doesn’t bulk up huge during summer but maintains a slim, barely noticeable presence until it becomes studded in blue flowers in fall. Ultimate size 3-4′ x 15-18.” Salvia reptans West Texas Form.
Passion vine Passiflora sanguinolenta is sailing through the high temps, reliably unfurling its little pink parasols.
Definitely cactus weather. Aporocactus, unfazed by the heat.
Palo verde trees, agaves and grasses scoffing at the heat at a Starbucks in downtown Los Angeles yesterday.
These last two photos taken with my iPhone.
Cor-Ten steel fountain, agaves and hesperaloe. Walking around downtown yesterday, I convinced myself that until I devise a fountain or water garden, it might be helpful in the interim to just print verbs for the movement of water on my east fence, which was just restained an even darker indigo blue. Words like brim, pour, spill, trickle, flow, rush, cascade, plunge, drip, splash, pool, eddy…
Thank you, Carol, (May Dreams Gardens) for this count-your-blessings monthly ritual, along with all the Bloom Day contributors.
20 percent less water usage this past August compared to August 2011. That wasn’t too terribly painful. The back garden is fairly torn up right now, but that’s all me, Edwina Shovelhands, not a result of any water rationing. The Lobelia tupa did perish under the August sun, just crisped away, but not for lack of moisture. A couple of the Canary Island foxglove relatives, isoplexis, are hanging on. I caught one in a severe state of wilt yesterday morning and rushed a hose to its base. By afternoon sun, it was fine. It’d be lovely to see it bloom next summer. Did you know Thompson & Morgan have crossed isoxplexis with Digitalis purpurea? T&M have named their creation Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink.’
We haven’t cooled off yet and the forecast is for more of the same for the next couple weeks at least. The hot, rainless months of August and September are always the winter of my discontent. I’m already planning for next year, and as usual I aim for the garden with the most cake but easy on the resources. Might as well aim big. Depending on how much of the *smoke tree is cut back, the sun/shade equation will change. For sun, there’s some nice honey-colored yarrows like ‘Marmalade’ and ‘Inca Gold’ I’d like to try for next summer. Thinking along these lines had me wondering if Piet Oudolf has done any mediterranean planting. Still on the reading bench for occasional inspiration is his book ‘Landscapes in Landscapes,’ and a quick check confirms, yes, he has done one such garden, in Barcelona.
Photo from the book, taken from the Oudolf website:
Lots of calamint and grasses. I haven’t grown Calamintha nepeta in a very long while, and it’s a good plant here, if a little overenthusiastic as a reseeder. Calamint and yarrow? A definite maybe.
If Orlaya grandiflora seedlings turn up again in spring, it might look something like this Hampton Court garden show exhbit. But no foxtail lilies/eremus in zone 10 of course. A write-up on the blog Flowerona has more photos and identifies some of the plants used.
(RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2012, Catherine MacDonald, awarded Best Summer Garden.)
*So many projects squeezed out blogging time and left posts like this half-finished. Cotinus coggygria x obovatus ‘Grace’ has been removed. Her hybrid vigor translated into a lethal combination of gigantic cutback shrub/tree in my garden (and the neighbors too). 25-feet tall, 40-feet wide, brought down by chainsaw, ropes, and loppers. All fingers and toes accounted for. As Marty summed it up, “We tried to be patient with her, but she just didn’t know when to quit.” Now there is the shock of the new, a garden without ‘Grace,’ the sun/shade areas completely upended. Big sky country here again. It’s been…emotional. My little Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’ is topping the list of trees to follow ‘Grace.’
I’m so very glad that owner Greg Salmeri and creative director Angela Hicks have opened another location where they can express their unique “global nomad” outlook on indoor/outdoor rooms and gardens, bringing the total to three locations in Southern California: The original Rolling Greens Culver City location, the second location on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood, and now Costa Mesa in Orange County, which just might be the easiest one for me to visit. Each location is different enough from the others to merit visiting all three. The new Costa Mesa location continues the global nomad theme but with the accent heavy on French influences.
Maybe it’s the latent dry goods grocer in me, but I’ve always found neatly stacked displays of hand-made goods and curios utterly compelling. Rolling Greens excels at stirring up primal dry goods lust with its wonderful, award-winning displays on salvaged cabinets and trunks.
The last time I saw tablecloth linens by Garnier Thiebaut was at the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville in Paris. I brought stacks of Garnier Thiebaut dish towels home from Paris as gifts — lightweight, easy to pack, beautiful, durable fabric. Nice to see them again at Rolling Greens.
Each new location seems to move more in the direction of garden-inspired home furnishings. I did ask and was told that the Costa Mesa location intends to sell outdoor plants as well. They just hadn’t arrived yet. Although open for business, the official grand opening will take place September 15th, when the Arrangement Bar will be waiting to help customers unleash their botanical creativity.
Lamps I covet hanging over the Arrangement Bar, which will also hold future workshops. All fixtures are for sale.
More lamps to covet.
This sputnik of a plant stand was a real charmer
Terrariums and tillandsia orbs
What I didn’t get photos of was their wide selection of containers, silk flowers and plants.
Even though I asked permission first, I was still slightly embarrassed at the number of photos I was taking.
The very kind sales staff handed me a post card listing special events at the Grand Opening on Saturday, September 15, 2012.
Special Events to include:
fresh flower mart and custom bouquets
custom terrariums and succulent arrangements
learn+grow terrarium workshop (RSVP)*
gourmet tasting with Sasha Hagenlock
*RSVP to events@rg-ca.com
Rolling Greens Costa Mesa is located at 3315-A Hyland Avenue at South Coast Collection. (714) 444-4425
Looking at the front fence, in back of which, planted along the sidewalk, is a row of box hedging, now over 7 feet tall. Height restrictions of course limit privacy options for fences along the sidewalk, but as far as augmenting fence height with hedges, the sky’s the limit. At least that’s my interpretation of city fence height ordinances. Knock wood, no code enforcement complaints so far. Sounds and tantalizing scents of Labor Day festivities wafted over the hedge all weekend. The local Cambodian temple in particular was in full swing. Just the tops of the heads of tall boys on skateboards whizzing by, sometimes being pulled by their dogs, can be seen over the hedges now. If, like Ein, you are inclined to see some street action, the front porch still affords prime views. Ein’s little corgi heart beats fast for boys on skateboards, so imagine the palpitations when dogs are pulling those boys on skateboards.
Looking the other way, the box hedge blocks this view into the back garden. Total privacy has been achieved here, (she said, barely concealing a smug note of triumph). Agave ‘Mr. Ripple’ has sentry duty along the pathway to the east gate, which is in a local shop being repaired at the moment. He’s been repelling the soccer balls that have been sailing over the dwarf olive hedges all summer from the east boundary. Gardens are an awful lot about boundaries, aren’t they?
The dwarf olives on the east boundary, ‘Little Ollie’s, are over 5 feet in height now, growing much faster than I hoped for, but the height is most welcome. Growth of hedges is easy to handle, and the dwarf olives should max out at around 6 feet. As far as the other plants, growth can be a bit more problematic. Mr. Ripple, for instance, grabbed the hem of my neighbor’s dress yesterday. And now I’m clipping and shaping the olives around him. ‘Mr. Ripple’ seems to have had a fair-sized growth spurt this summer. He hopefully has achieved his maximum height at about 4 feet but may still grow wider. The Agave potatorum to his left is about a foot in diameter.
August was a month of cutting back, moving, thinning, all the predictable outcome of a zeal for plants that knows no bounds. The agave ‘Jaws’ was moved last week too, which was terrifying, like defusing a bomb, but it did go smoothly.
But what a thorny dilemma: Save Mr. Ripple or the dwarf olive privacy hedge? I’ll defer that decision for now. I’d rather think about my lovely new variegated (thornless) beschornaria, predicted height and width between 4 to 6 feet. I wonder how big it will really get?
Some interesting Sunday reading to be found in another nuanced, contrarian view of the High Line Park in New York City. I know, not another post on the High Line! I can’t help it, I’m utterly fascinated by this subject. So many twists and turns down those old railway tracks. Jeremiah Moss, who blogs at Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, had his Op-Ed on the High Line, “Disney World on the Hudson,” published in the New York Times on August 21, 2012.
Some sample paragraphs:
“Not yet four years old, the High Line has already become another stop on the must-see list for out-of-towners, another chapter in the story of New York City’s transformation into Disney World. According to the park’s Web site, 3.7 million people visited the High Line in 2011, only half of them New Yorkers. It’s this overcrowding, not just of the High Line, but of the streets around it, that’s beginning to turn the tide of sentiment.”
“Originally meant for running freight trains, the High Line now runs people, except where those people jam together like spawning salmon crammed in a bottleneck. The park is narrow, and there are few escape routes. I’ve gotten close to a panic attack, stuck in a pool of stagnant tourists at the park’s most congested points.”
Gain a park, lose a neighborhood?
Unintended or otherwise, one of the consequences of the repurposing of the abandoned elevated railway trestle into the High Line Park has been to spur a juggernaut of gentrification, a fate the city of Los Angeles has long been praying will be visited upon its downtown. We’re finally getting a park, too, the 12-acre, much-delayed Grand Park, scaled back from pre-recession ambitions.
Image from LA Times
“Mostly what we’ve had is a collection of thousands upon thousands of privately owned and miniature Central Parks, one for every suburban backyard. Grand Park represents something else: an attempt, imperfect but encouraging, to chip away at the rigid infrastructure of the car-dominated city and make a private city a little more public.”
Like the newly gentrified Chelsea neighborhood surrounding the High Line, Los Angeles developers originally had big plans for the area surrounding the Grand Park:
“Under the original plan, which backers said would help create a “Champs Elysees” for Los Angeles, a dramatic Frank Gehry-designed complex of high-rise towers, shops, upscale condos and a five-star hotel should have been completed by now.”
Unlike the grass-roots efforts that got the High Line Park rolling, big-money developers have always been in charge of Grand Park, and developers will always aim for the Beverly Hills jackpot.
“During the height of the real estate boom, developers unveiled numerous luxury projects, believing the downtown revitalization was so strong that it could support Beverly Hills-level retailers and residences.”
Then there was that pesky 2008 recession. At least New York got the High Line out of their devil’s bargain. We did get some nice hot-pink chairs though.
Dear Chair, oh, how I love thee! I scored a couple garden chairs on sale recently, which pitched my low simmer of constant chair love back into a full boil. These are mostly photos of chairs and benches previously posted from garden shows, garden tours. Where the designer and/or setting is unknown, no attribution is given, making this a chair tear sheet. At the end of August, with temperatures hopefully cooling, some of the best chair weather is still ahead.
Fermob at Dunn Gardens, Seattle, Washington
Recliners on the High Line, New York City
Venice Home and Garden Tour 2012
Maarten Baas plastic chair in wood
Emeco Broom chair by Philip Starck
Venice Home and Garden Tour
From Damian Velasquez’s Half13 collection, Dwell on Design, Los Angeles 2012
Chairs at Villa Mundo Nuevo, by Jarrod Baumann of Zeterre Landscape Architecture
Chaise at Villa Mundo Nuevo, by Jarrod Baumann of Zeterre Landscape Architecture
Loll Designs, 100% recycled plastic
Fermob, South Coast Plaza Spring Garden Show 2012, garden designer Dustin Gimbel
South Coast Plaza Spring Garden Show 2012
San Francisco Flower and Garden Show 2012
Battery Park, New York City
Battery Park, New York City
Garden of Katherine Spitz and Daniel Rhodes, Mar Vista, California
Sue Dadd and James Griffith’s “Folly Bowl,” Altadena, California
Venice Home and Garden Tour 2012
private garden
private garden
private garden
private garden
private garden
San Francisco Flower and Garden Show
private garden
private garden
San Francisco Flower and Garden Show 2012
Venice Home and Garden Tour 2012
Rancho Los Alamitos, California
