In the interest of keeping a better garden record…
Seeing red — Passiflora vitifolia ‘Scarlet Flame’ I’ve been counting buds, expecting blooms, but even so a fully open flower is a startling sight around 6:30 a.m.Floating above Sonchus palmensis. The vine is trained up and horizontally across the pergola and may eventually be allowed to grab support from the tetrapanax too. Still on the eastern end of the pergola. A very leggy ‘Zwartkop’ aeonium has been using the tetrapanax for support all winter as well as using the Alcantarea odorata as a silvery foil (Vriesea odorata)Senecio ficoides ‘Mount Everest’ at upwards of 4 feet. A small plant was grown rough, stuck into a large potted Euphorbia ingens and then carefully removed once it was 3 feet high. This could be a sensational addition to succulent gardens, especially if it doesn’t topple over. It’s managed to remain vertical, knock wood. Can’t have too many verticals. The passiflora is background left. (Edited to add that, unfortunately, the senecio branches do become too heavy to remain vertical. 3-4 feet is about as tall as they can manage before toppling — in good garden soil. Maybe if grown full-sun, dry-garden lean, results would be different.)Southwest corner of the house. I’m thinking this plectranthus is P. parviflorus ‘Blue Spires.’ It sent out intensely sky blue, foot-long, salvia-like spires this winter. Agave ‘Rumrunner’ on the table and a flowering schlumbergera cutting, a recent gift. Potted pelargoniums were cleaned up, cut back.Agave ‘Boutin’s Blue’ is finally happy on the north side of the house with shady friends like fatsia and fatshedera and has outgrown all those nasty burnt leaf tips.East patio. A recent gift, the Snowflake Aralia, Trevesia palmata — thank you, Dustin. I’m thinning out potted plants because of the ball and chain they turn into every summer but couldn’t resist this one. I’m hoping to set up areas with timed misters for potted plants this summer (i.e. have asked Marty if this is doable and he seems to think so.)Parahebe perfoliata in the past has been a sprawler that snakes along the ground. I’m hoping growing it in harsh conditions keeps it dense and upright — but doesn’t kill it outright!Against the south wall of the house, site of another pot purge. Some were moved elsewhere or given away. There were dozens of pots under the chairs. Agave ‘Blue Embers’ is on the ground, center, caged. An Aloe pluridens cutting rises tall in the middle — thank you, Carlos, for this cutting along with Aloe nyeriensis aka kedongensis and Aloe fibrosa — gotta keep better records!
We arrived at the Palm Springs V Hotel after dark, around 9 p.m., and left early the next morning, Thursday, for our talk at 9 a.m. “The Backyard; A Biography.” No chaise lounge time for us. Mitch grabbed this photo of the V Palm Springs Hotel on Friday. Thanks to Modernism Week/Paul Ortega for the swank digs! Unless otherwise noted, all photos by MB Maher
Notwithstanding the recent visit to Palm Springs for Modernism Week, I still have yet to visit nearby Sunnylands, the so-called Camp David of the West in its heyday, when it was the private residence of the Annenbergs, Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore — these are Mitch’s photos. He was able to saunter over for a quick look since the condo a friend loaned him for the talk overlooked the Sunnylands golf course. The Annenbergs’ house was designed by MCM architect A. Quincy Jones in 1963, but Sunnylands, to my mind, is all about the fairly new desert garden and its spectacular mass plantings of palo verde trees, succulents and cacti. In 2006 the Annenberg Foundation Trust commissioned the Office of James Burnett landscape architecture firm to create a 9-acre garden on the 200-acre site which was the Annenbergs’ desert retreat. OJB’s work earned the Honor Award in 2012 from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
“This is all about the plants and they are spectacular, adding texture and color to the desert and lawns. This shows a real knowledge of plants. The feeling is lush and the colors are fabulous.” — 2012 Professional Awards Jury, ASLA
I knew the Annenberg name only from seeing it scroll across my tv screen when watching my local PBS station. In reading up on Sunnylands, I impatiently swiped aside accounts of the international summits, diplomatic triumphs, and art collection donated to the Metropolitan to indulge an admittedly crass curiosity: Where did the Annenberg fortune come from? Like Hearst, the source of Annenberg’s wealth was print media, which he later expanded into radio and television. Annenberg grew his father’s publishing acquisitions into the company Triangle Publications, which ultimately included a lucrative roster of publications like TV Guide, Seventeen, the Daily Racing Form. Annenberg’s fortune was also channeled into heroic-scale philanthropy and supported an abiding sense of public service.
Barack Obama and Xi Jinping at Sunnylands 2013, photo found here“I believe in social responsibility. A man’s service to others must be at least in ratio to the character of his own success in life. When one is fortunate enough to gain a measure of material well being, however small, service to others should be uppermost in his mind.” – Walter H. Annenberg (1951)OJB’s work has been LEED Gold Certified
The project utilizes just 20% of the water allocation from Coachella Valley Water District.
The project uses 100% on-site stormwater retention.
High-efficiency capillary irrigation zones are independently controlled by soil and moisture censored monitors to reduce water use.
The user experiences stormwater features through garden paths which integrate grading, planting, water capture, and water storage.
Sunnyland’s signature mass plantings of succulents like Euphorbia resinifera and agaves“Working closely with owner, the landscape architect developed a scheme that begins as an orderly, geometric composition adjacent to the Center and becomes progressively more free flowing as it moves to the desert meadows. The landscape architect sculpted the earth and used plants in a painterly fashion across the 15 acre site. Trees were carefully positioned throughout the site to ensure that ample shade was provided and great care was given to the visual composition of understory plantings. Plantings were designed “in mass” much like one experiences a large nursery. Therefore, dozens of aloe, agave and barrel cactus were used to great large sweeps of color and texture.” — ASLAimpressionistic sweeps — photo from Timeout
Still on my must-see list: Sunnylands, Rancho Mirage, California.
where to put all those potted plants? A recurring quandary…
I asked Marty to drill drainage holes in this metal cart yesterday. Without drainage it was fairly useless, accumulating water and leaves and making a slimy brew of them all winter. When I returned home late in the afternoon, Marty was gone, the drainage holes had been drilled, and I was in a mood to tear into something. So I spent the next four hours or so ignoring phone calls, moving tables and chairs, transferring pots to the metal cart, repotting where needed, sweeping and raking until it was too dark to work.
A Biergarten table and benches fit this narrow space perfectly. On the right, the yellow ceramic piece is by Dustin Gimbel — although made to hang, I like it as much on the ground. Wouldn’t it be cool to pull up maybe a 2-foot wide swath of bricks next to the fence and plant Mexican fence post cactus? Something to consider if/when a new fence goes in.
This narrow eastern side of the house has always been problematic. Mostly hardscape, all awkward angles and fences, yet it’s by far the largest, friendliest space for people — if only I didn’t collect so damned many potted plants. And as it is the summer hangout, I need to be careful about cluttering it up. With spring around the corner, and knowing my weakness for pretty new plants, now is the time for a clean sweep and regaining some control.
good thing the ‘Stained Glass’ octopus agave Marty calls Ursula has soft leaves. The dutch door and fences are full of termites and will be replaced with expanded-metal panels. The two galvanized metal tables laid end to end were formerly display tables at Smith & Hawken, bought when they closed. Tall potted plant on the far right against the fence is Cussonia natalensis.
About all that hardscape. Tempted as I am to hide that fence with plants, the space is really too narrow and too root-infested from the neighbor’s plantings. And I have to admit, with the rest of the garden so densely planted, this open area does provide some breathing room. The bricks are laid on sand up to the tree, where beyond is a patio of stained concrete. The leaded glass salvage windows are part of the dutch gate and fencing leading to the front garden. I’m hoping to replace everything soon with expanded-metal panels. Anything but wood again.
Splitting costs with the neighbor, we planned on replacing the termite-infested wood fence (stained dark blue) with CMU masonry, but the historical district says no to masonry, keep it wood. With voracious termites working against us, we might as well put the wood fences into a chipper every couple years. This difference of opinion on fencing material and waste of resources is definitely not resolved…
All winter-long I continually sweep the leaf litter into that little square surrounding the trunk of the Chinese fringe tree, then in spring I use most of the leaves for mulch elsewhere. The pile was twice as high up the trunk yesterday. Thankfully, the tree seems to have finally dropped its last leaf, another reason to take on a spring cleanup. This little square of leaf mulch is also a prime grub-digging spot for raccoons and possums, and they’re welcome to it. (At one time I actually contemplated planting under the fringe tree — see here.)
same area prior to cleanup, photo taken last February Small pots were moved to the metal cart.
New spring rules: all small potted plants on the eastern patio must fit on the metal cart with wheels.
the basics — plants, chairs, tables, people. Making it all fit is an absorbing preoccupation
Now I feel ready to tackle those mail-ordered plants which should be arriving any day…
I could describe February as the Month of Tiny Flowers in my garden except, honestly, that pretty much describes it year-round. You’ll have to narrow your focus (and expectations!) just a bit for a gander at the offbeat odds and ends blooming in my zone 10 Southern Californian garden this February.
Pelargonium echinatum
The pot of winter-flowering Cactus Geranium that’s at least as old as the blog keeps company this year with rhipsalis and other trailing succulents and small bromeliads in pots lined up atop the eastern edge of the laundry shed.
trailing habit of the Cactus Geranium Pelargonium echinatumever so tiny air plant flowers — Tillandsia ionantha? The bromeliad Billbergia ‘Hallelujah’ is in bloom too but missed the window for photosBudding up, pot-grown South African bulb Veltheimia bracteata — I’m fairly negligent with this bulb and let it go very dry. But it can take year-round water if provided good drainage. Fabulous leaves The flowers (“branched terminal inflorescences”) of the shrubby Silver Teaspoons, Kalanchoe bracteata, surge upright as well as spill onto the groundPruning Bocconia frutescens down to a 10-foot vase shape earlier this week took off a lot of the older panicles but a few fresh ones remain, always swarmed with bees as the day warms up. It’s about the same size as adjacent Grevillea ‘Moonlight,’ also in bloom Gooseneck flower stalks of Echeveria agavoides. This succulent has spread by both offsetting and seeding in the front garden. Other echeverias and aeoniums are also in bloom.Leucadendron ‘Winter Red’I’m blanking on the name of this weedy, tradescantia relative which is having a good-looking moment this month but otherwise looks mostly miserable, especially in summer. I rip out scads of it the rest of the year — just came to me, Tinantia pringleiOne of the big pennisetums with the darkest leaves, ‘First Knight’ is throwing a few blooms but will need to be cut back to the base by the end of FebruaryArctostaphylos ‘Louis Edmunds’The garden’s newest anigozanthos, a tall, dark red variety that’s supposedly a standout for its exceptionally good leaves – ‘Regal Velvet’Aloe conifera — though not its leaves, which are basal and bluish-red. It hated life in the garden and was moved to a pot. These leaves belong to an arborescens hybrid.
The genera I’m currently relying on most for tall, architectural blooms all happen to begin with the letter A: aloe, agapanthus, anigozanthos. They have similar water needs, with aloes being the most dry-tolerant, and they all appreciate generous spacing with good air flow at their bases. All three generally are low, clumpish growers that won’t obscure other plants when out of bloom — but you have to choose carefully with aloes as many can get quite large and shrublike. All three together can provide blooms year-round in zone 10. (And I’d love to add in another letter A plant, Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ too — somewhere.)
Another view of Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ Some of the splashiest blooms here in the garden any month of the year are the aloes — and there’s species and varieties that bloom winter, spring, summer, fall. Oh, for another acre…
Even though a lifelong So. Californian, I’ve only recently become a convert to the agapanthus camp. (Unbearably omnipresent bordering on municipal, I reasoned, why include them in a personal garden? Because (1) they add excitement to that difficult time in summer when new growth in the garden mostly shuts down except for the big grasses; and (2) I want to see if they can mix it up on the drier side with agaves, aloes, kangaroo paws, grasses. I’m betting they can. We’ll see…) I’m hoping the clumps will be big enough to become a presence this summer. But overall, what the garden lacks in traditional floral ambitions it makes up for with fascinating structural intricacies that keep the pollinators satiated and me continually intrigued.
Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’ is a substantial 20-footer now and throwing shade (and debris) on lots of formerly sunny growing space. But trees are so essential in countless ways — heck, even the current administration recognizes the indisputable importance of trees and is vowing to join the One Trillion Trees InitiativeEuphorbia rigida — just one clump this year, but there’s always potential for more from this generous reseederErodium ‘Whitwell Superb’ — I really need a better lens to capture all these tiny, tiny blooms.
(Some garden blogs follow the tradition of showing what’s in bloom on the 15th of every month, established by May Dreams Gardens. Some of us are irregular contributors and/or occasionally a day late — ahem!)
My mother turned 90 yesterday, and we celebrated this momentous occasion at her new living arrangement in a nearby board-and-care. Getting her here took months of medical, legal, financial, and familial wrangling, all while taking care of her as she lost the ability to move and feed herself. So it feels like a huge accomplishment to have found a safe, clean place for her, but she is not well and will not improve, so it is inescapably sad too. A water-exercising lady who lunched and drove around town not more than four months ago, her birthday elicited an outpouring of texts from friends and family and a bagful of birthday cards that I read to her yesterday.
Aloes went in and out of bloom while I was away, but ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ greeted me home in full flower
Immersed in these issues the past few months, the topic of our longer lives and long-term care needs is naturally at the forefront of my thoughts, but I’m finding it also seems to be addressed at least daily in print (now that I’m sensitized to the subject). And when I tuned in briefly to one of the recent Democratic debates, there was Amy Klobuchar discussing the long-term care dilemma she was currently facing with her own father and how she’d address this issue if elected. Of course, a female candidate would be the first to acknowledge and address the care-taking challenges of aging parents.
This is one aloe I hope never blooms — ‘Goliath’ is perfect as is and probably appreciated all the more due to his extremely unattractive, protracted, post-mite phase when he was stripped of most of the mite-infested, deformed leaves
Now that I’m back to sleeping in my own bed and waking up to the garden again every morning, instead of a few stolen-hour visits here and there, I can appreciate some of the small details I added in anticipation of spring, like a windowbox of salvias or Moroccan daisies spilling onto gravel.
In one of my two-hour visits home a windowbox for the porch was planted with Skyrocket salvias in a shade of Millennial pink I normally avoid in plants. I still like it — never say never
This little garden did remarkably well while I was away despite minimal rainfall — and the care it has taken of me on brief visits during these intense few months is beyond calculation.
These Rhodanthemum hosmariense ‘Casablanca’ (Moroccan Daisies) were also bought and planted in a two-hour window sometime in January — foresight I’m appreciating today
I’m hoping Marty’s lower back now has a chance to heal. He started running again, so that’s a good sign — 4 miles yesterday! And I do have to thank Mitch (MB Maher) for taking over the lead on the upcoming Modernism Week lecture, February 20, 2020 (The Backyard: A Biography). Over the weekend he hosted a rehearsal run-through of the talk for some friends, which is the first time I’d heard it. Possibly because my mind had been pressed on practical matters for weeks on end, I was giddily enthusiastic to the point of being slightly interruptive during the presentation. I promise to be better behaved on February 20 at 9 a.m.!
When: Modernism Week extends from February 13, 2020 to February 23, 2020
Where: CAMP Theater, 575 North Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, California
Why: Because…Palm Springs in February! Surrounded by like-minded, design-centric people also winter-starved for gardens, desert landscapes, and some of the best MCM residential design in the country.
Escaping to Palm Springs for Modernism Week has long been a February ritual of mine. This year the experience will be a little different — we’ve been invited to give a talk on all our garden design obsessions, to be held on February 20, 2020, at 9 a.m. And we’re just ambitious/foolish enough to attempt to cover a lot of ground. From the Modernism Week website:
Meadows and xeriscapes have overrun the tiki bar in our new midcentury, but does the institution of the yard remain a thousand personal oases separated with cinderblock? Design is aspirational and surveys of the backyard are windows onto the dream life of Americans, our built spaces embedded with our values, reminding us who we would like to be.
Some of the images will be familiar to AGO readers, but we’re also dipping into image archives like the Getty Research Institute — “the focus of this talk will be a visual as well as psychological and cultural treatment of outdoor built spaces.” (Garden of Reuben Munoz)
The backyard is unexpectedly complex, political, rich with history and more American than apple pie, simultaneously built with nostalgia and ready to be the future’s laboratory. Generously illustrated with photo work from MB Maher’s own catalog of landscape projects as well as underseen images from Julius Schulman’s archive at the Getty Research Institute, the focus of this talk will be a visual as well as psychological and cultural treatment of outdoor built spaces.
And just a head’s up that the Modernism Garden Tour sold out early, but more tickets have just been added. Check the website for current availability of all the tours. We’re so excited to catch up with y0u in Palm Springs this February!
The Mediterranean Garden Society is holding its Annual General Meeting in Morocco in October 2020, with the General Assembly held in the Yves Saint Laurent Complex in Marrakech. There will be pre- and post-meeting tours, including a visit to Taroudant, “a walled Berber town lying just south of the High Atlas in the semi-desert Souss Valley. Here waterwise gardens are a necessity and we shall visit several designed by the French architects Eric Ossart and Arnaud Maurières which showcase their unique style and more than 900 different species of plants collected from all over the world – mainly succulents, aloes, palm trees and cacti but also mediterranean-climate plants such as euphorbias, plumbago and bougainvillea, grasses and roses. We shall see other private gardens and a palace garden in and outside the city’s walls.“
sunken garden designed by Ossart and Maurieres, photo by Simon Watson for the NY Times
Architectural, color-soaked, dry gardens that prefer strong spines in the bones of both garden and gardener. Not to add any pressure to your leisurely New Year holiday, but bookings close January 31, 2020.
Moroccan garden of Umberto Pasti, photo by Ngoc Minh Ngo for House & Garden
“A garden should be made with honesty and with love…For me, a garden is all about the plants and the people, more than it is about design and aesthetics. It is real.” Umberto Pasti
This piece in House & Garden on the making of Umberto Pasti’s Moroccan garden got my garden travel juices flowing. Even if the tickets don’t always get purchased, for me January is for travel plans…
The brick-red thunbergia vine that I was training up to the roof eaves was blown off its fishing line support during a Santa Ana wind event and collapsed on itself, losing about 4 feet of height in the bargain. With my original plan laid waste by the winds, I subsequently gave the failed experiment little attention and only recently noted that it now resembles…a Christmas tree. How ’bout that? That about sums up my sideways, crab-walk approach to the holidays.
Hauser & Wirth Holiday Market Sat 14 Dec 2019, 11 am – Sun 15 Dec 2019, 6 pm 901 East 3rd Street Los Angeles CA 90013
As we’ve done off and on in the past, the stand-in for a live tree is a tall, rusty garden tuteur which we call the “obelisk,” and instead of loading it up with lights and all the animal and pirate ornaments I’ve stockpiled since the boys could barely stand, it will have a large white paper snowflake at the top and very little else to blur its iron outline. Endurance will be the theme this year. For a holiday defined by timeless, immutable family traditions, as usual we’re winging it. This year, due to family health issues, geographic distance, and a generalized worrisome frame of mind, this holiday seems more imperiled than most by festive indifference. Lest the Grinch gain too much sway over me, I’m planning on hitting the Hauser & Wirth Holiday Market this weekend — always a pleasure to visit H&W and check on Mia Lehrer’s landscape design handiwork.
So let’s turn our attention to gifts for friends and family, shall we? Because that’s where, I feel, the emphasis rightly falls during the winter holidays — little treats for our friends and family, homemade or otherwise. And here’s an undeniable treat: The CobraHead Mini Weeder pictured above is an unassuming-looking tool that will change your life. The CobraHead company has long been loyal supporters of garden bloggers (which is how I acquired mine), but I admit I took this little tool for granted until we decided to clear devil’s grass out of the parkway mid summer, always a thoroughly demoralizing task. I’ve never acquired a fetish for collecting garden tools. The CobraHead was still in its original packing when it was cynically recruited for the most difficult assignment imaginable of clearing hell strip weeds — which it handled with aplomb. It fits easily in the hand and bites into hard ground and recalcitrant weeds without mercy. Marty and I were both floored at its efficacy. Highly recommended.
the X3 watering can by Kontextur as seen on Gardenista
What I really need is a small, long-necked watering can for reaching hanging plants like rhipsalis without throwing out a shoulder as I’m nearly doing every time I lift my vintage Haws. Maybe you know someone who needs one as well. Gardenista featured this one recently that I wouldn’t mind finding under the Christmas tree.
And what gardeners do during winter is of course talk, dream and read about plants and gardens, and there’s lots of great new books to pile in stacks around your favorite armchair. Jeff Moore’s Spiny Succulents is at the top of my list — you can read Gerhard’s thorough review here.
Read Pam Penick’s review here — and Pam’s opinion of garden photography is one worth listening to.
Claire Takacs is one of the best garden photographers working today, as her new book Dreamscapes amply proves.
Jimi Blake has made a name for himself as an insatiably curious and inventive plantsman at his Irish garden Hunting Brook, documented in his new book A Beautiful Obsession.
For greenhouse porn, it doesn’t get any better than Haarkon’s Glasshouse Greenhouse.
stocking stuffer for hikers, botanizers Native Plants for Southern California Gardens Flashcards
I picked up these Native Plants for Southern California Gardens Flashcards at the APLD Plant Fair last fall and love their lightweight, waterproof portability, something compact enough to keep handy in the glove box for spontaneous hikes, botanizing, and plant shopping: “Theodore Payne is proud to announce the arrival of our Native Plants for Southern California Gardens flashcards, produced in partnership with Tree of Life Nursery, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, California Native Plant Society, and National Park Service Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program. Boxed set of 75, 3″ x 6″, two-sided, bilingual (English/Spanish) cards in full color on UV-varnish coated stock with a screw cable loop. Price: $17.00“
If you’re still stumped as to presents for garden friends, Alta Tingle’s impeccable curatorial taste infuses all the offerings at her store The Gardener.
And for your favorite aficionado of cacti and other spiky plants, hemostats are de rigueur for cleaning debris from plants without harming plant or person.
a scene from November 2013 that easily stands in for November 2019Berkheya purpurea in June 2018 also sends out a flower spike in November
My rapturous opinion of November hasn’t changed much over the years (the cooler days, the slanted light, the chance of rain!), but certain patterns in the garden do escape my notice. Perusing past November entries, I find that Berkheya purpurea sends out the odd flower bud in November, as it’s doing now. The tetrapanax is sending out blooms right on schedule, which was anticipated, but I didn’t remember that berkheya felt comfortable blooming in November as well. Something else I’ve noted: reseeding clumps of Ruby Grass, Melinus nerviglumis, only begin to flower in November in my garden and not before. Maybe I will stop being surprised by this fact next November.
Ruby grass August 2017 — but the clumps that have reseeded are only starting to bloom nowAlso predictable for November, the flowering of Bocconia frutescens November 2016
And these posts (here and here), talking about the effect of sooty smoke on leaves and the palapable relief garden and gardener experience post another hot, dry summer, could easily have been written this November as well. So some things remain consistently the same — and like all Novembers, I indulge in quite a bit of plant shopping.
I’m really starting to appreciate small agaves like Agave potatorum ‘Ikari Raijin Nishiki‘ I found this one local and thought the colored tag meant it was on sale like other nearby sale plants — which didn’t mean that at all when I inquired — but I was offered it half price anyway because of my “confusion.” Confusion never paid off so well!Like this ‘Royal Spine,’ the small agaves just hang out in their pot, increasing in stunning good looks if not size, requiring no intervention for years. (Although they do occasionally burst through their pots, as ‘Royal Spine’ did in 2017.)Helenium puberulum from the Huntington’s fall sale seems to think November is a good time for flowering. Fall planting and winter rains may make the difference for this helenium, getting it firmly established before having to endure the rigors of summerOrthophytum magalhaesii Bought this bromeliad in summer already in flower, which lasts forever, and now a couple new pups are forming — chartreuse flowers and bronze-flecked leaves is a delectable pairingSenecio dendroideum is a weirdo of a succulent that I always see for sale at the summer succulent shows. Mine is multibranched and over 3 feet tall now. Now top-heavy, the 6-inch pot will topple over if not secured. More from the tall and strange succulent aisle — Senecio ficoides’Mt. Everest’ is reaching 4 feet. I moved it out of a large pot to see what it can do in the open garden. A Blue Chalksticks with legs… The brownish shrub in the background is Berzelia lanuginosa, moved back to a pot because it really craves more lush growing conditions. ‘Blue Hobbit’ eryngium have replaced the berzelia.Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’ Alcantarea imperialis, another good deal I couldn’t pass up. This Brazilian bromeliad is one of the biggest and will take years, maybe a decade, to gain mature size (over 4 feet wide!) before blooming and dying, leaving some pups
The buzz is we’re going to get some rain for Thanksgiving — thank heavens! Have a great holiday yourself.
Mitch has been tagging along with Josh Rosen (the airplantman) to check out some of his custom installation work to get a sense of how Josh’s tillandsia-specific designs work in situ. In this home in the Pacific Palisades, the classic powder-coated Air Plant Frame has been stacked four high in narrow floor-to-ceiling windows — a sleek, “airy,” translucent take on a green wall without the complicated irrigation system. The frames can be removed for once-a-week drenching or are easily handsprayed. And after talking with Josh about tillandsias’ cultural requirements (here), I know these windows either face north or east, their preferred light exposure indoors.
The ongoing renaissance in indoor plants comes with a design savvy that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there in the groovy, heavily macramed ’70s. Figuring out where and how to stage plants has become as much a design imperative as a horticultural one. (And I’m so glad that “black thumb” nonsense is getting less traction as more and more of us just dive in and see what works — see, as in pay attention. That’s really all it takes.)
Other stuff tends to accumulate to support our green habit — tables, hangers, shelves, trays to collect water. A space can easily tip from warm and eclectic into a direction that minimalists just don’t want to go. For those who love plants and sleek interior spaces too, the airplantman has an answer. Actually, lots of answers.
And of course the airplantman’s answer to living with plants indoors involves tillandsias, the epiphytic, tree-hugging bromeliads numbering over 600 species that he fell in love with over a decade ago. For Josh, their rootless, soil-less ways are an inexhaustible source of design inspiration.
En masse the spikes and tufts literally hang together thematically, but up close each tillandsia has its own unique personality, leaves and flowers.More options — Air Plant Vessels come in travertine, wood, steel, ceramic Felt kokedamas are some of the newest designsEpiphytic plants like rhipsalis, unlike tillandsias, need a small amount of soil to thrive and are great candidates for kokedamaheading outdoors, the Air Plant Lantern is “perfect for courtyards, terraces, and hanging from trees.”the Air Plant Lantern at an outdoor summer concert at UCLA’s Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Gardenworking with tillandsias, the sky’s the limit
As a landscape architect, by necessity Josh works from the ground up. Now, with his design work and fabrications inspired by tillandsias, I’d say he’s pretty happy that’s no longer always the case.
