With just one week until we depart for Oregon, the Long Beach garden has finally taken a shape that feels horticulturally logical to me, according to my tastes and the slim resources it will have available in my absence. A neighbor has promised to look in and water containers in exchange for use of our driveway for parking. (Many of the houses in this early 1900 neighborhood do not have driveways. The situation is so dire, police have stopped ticketing red-zone parking). Thanks to the spring surge in growth, the ground is covered where intended and winter-ascendant weeds are at last in remission. Paths are clear and weeded…for now. The bare minimum. All my more-is-more garden energy will be absorbed by the Oregon garden, where the colder rainy winter won’t give in to spring until at least mid-May. The Long Beach garden will roughly hold this shape all year; the Oregon garden dramatically shape-shifts, going from bust to boom in a span of 5-6 months, an exhilarating spectacle.
Neither garden is large, and the Long Beach garden strikes me as having more in common with a spacious greenhouse — if only I could transport it in its entirety north!
Familiar reseeders like orlaya won’t be in bloom for a couple. more weeks. (There may be some orlaya reseeding in Oregon too, but bloom time will be closer to summer.) I wasn’t sure if I’d catch the Poppy of Troy in flower before we left, but the first bloom opened today — very bland words to describe that transfixing moment of seasonal excitement.
There’s lots of grassy bulb foliage popping up. Instinctively I want to simplify and pull it out. Which is when I remind myself: When did I ever plant anything I wasn’t intensely curious about or infatuated with — like, currently, Verbascum roripifolium, whose seeds I’ve been shuttling up and down the West Coast? If it’s in the garden, I planted it for a reason, even if I’ve forgotten the where and when, and I should trust that initial impulse. So I leave the grassy blades alone and wait…and am rewarded with the flowers of the Byzantine Gladiolus. (See note on bulb strain here.) There’s also a lot of ixia in the garden, a deep pink ‘Venus’ and a creamy yellow variety ‘Buttercup.’
Also in bloom are pieces of the Cotyledon oblongota moved from the front garden. I was hoping it would prove robust enough to compete with bromeliads and sedges, and so far that appears to be the case.
My no-new-plants rule seems to have some flexibility — a few leucadendrons and a pincushion/leucospermum. A few hesperaloe, tulbaghia. Couple of ‘Pacific Night’ coprosma, dark as the ‘Ebony’ leucadendron but better able to handle my absence.
So many constraints on gardens: soil, climate, size, resources; adding absence to that list shouldn’t be a big deal…I’m hoping to shuttle between gardens every few months this go-round.
Happy spring!
Years ago I remember saying the garden would not prevent me from doing things and going away. Fast forward to the present and it’s a huge issue to go away at any time of year due to houseplants, vegetables, outside containers, etc. You have designed your garden perfectly so you can leave and be assured the whole thing won’t be toast when you get back. Well done!
That five or six week burst of growth in your OR garden sounds amazing.
Curiosity brings a garden–and a gardener–truly to the best of life.
It’s so much fun following your adventures. You’ve created two distinct gardens that still share a common language, if you will.
Are you hauling any plants north?
@Elaine, a lot of that work and painful decisionmaking were done in 2021 when this all started. So much stuff to sort through, plants to give away, etc, so that was a huge effort. But you’re right, I’d have never thought 20 years ago I’d be able to leave the garden for a month, heck two weeks was a stretch! It was seeing how the garden responded to being left on its own that really showed the way forward as far as which plants can handle it. Weeds and overgrowth happens but overall it knocks back into shape — we’ll see how it goes this time!
@Hoov, yes, the surge of growth (months!) is astonishing.
@Gerhard, I don’t think I’ll bring anything up this trip. I brought a rare cussonia up that got nipped by an early frost last October. It’s rehabbing and resprouting but safer in LA. I do shuttle seedlings between the gardens.
I hope the deal with your neighbor helps keep your LB garden in shape in your absence. It looks great. Having 2 gardens in very different climates sounds fun and exciting but I’d probably have separation anxiety!
@Kris, oh I get that too!