the case of the disappearing hebes

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I was in San Francisco recently for several days cat-sitting a charming fraidycat in the Mission district named Banksy. It was during this trip that I solved the case of the disappearing hebes, those lovely little shrubs from New Zealand. Because I just can’t seem to acquire a photojournaling habit of anything but plants, I’m borrowing some of Jessica’s wonderfully expressive photos to fill in the cast of characters.

photo from Thread and Bones

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photo from Thread and Bones

This hallway was definitely a character on the trip. Since this photo was taken a couple years ago, it has been covered, and I mean every inch of it, with throw rugs. Because of the rugs, the apartment has taken on the personality of 221B Baker Street. Also because of the rugs, the downstairs neighbors were spared the deafening knowledge that a corgi had taken up temporary residence and was delighting in thundering up and down that hallway. After a quick visit with Mitch and Jessica the night before they left for some lengthy photo work, we had the “railroad” apartment to ourselves for five days. Banksy pretty much kept to his room, the middle bedroom, and we had the front, streetside bedroom.

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So it was the four of us, me, Marty, Ein, and Banksy, and that long hallway, where the curtain billows all day just as in the photo.
Ein emptied out the kibble from the cat bowl only twice, showing amazing self-restraint…for a corgi.

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photo from Thread and Bones

Banksy and Ein, while not exactly enemies, didn’t become best friends either.

We were thrilled to be leaving the stifling heat in Los Angeles for the legendary cool summer environs of San Francisco. Surprising both us and the mostly non-air-conditioned residents of San Francisco, the heat was stifling there as well. The Mission hit 100 degrees the day we arrived.

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While in the city, of course, there was the ritual trip to Flora Grubb Gardens

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and the required visit to Annie’s Annuals & Perennials in Richmond, timed nicely with fall planting.

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I also horned in on a tour of the Reid garden near Sebastopol via my very nice contact at the American Conifer Society, Sara Malone, whose own fabulous garden at Circle Oak Ranch was also on the tour. Unfortunately, I only had time for the early morning visit to the Reid garden and had to get the car back to the city.

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Glimpse of a mature leucadendron on the upper left. I think the garden is likely in zone 9. Penstemons, zauschnerias/epilobiums, ceratostigma and salvias were in bloom, with some roses having a late-summer flush.

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The garden has incredible atmosphere and spatial presence built up over decades of deeply informed selection and placement of beautifully appropriate plants.

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The Reid garden is not at all conifer-centric, but a wonderful mix of dry-adapted trees, shrubs, grasses and perennials.

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I believe the rose on the arbor behind the potted agave is ‘Mme Alfred Carriere,’ a creamy, very fragrant climbing noisette.

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The blue pool on the lower left is Crambe maritima. Mine have done remarkably well all summer on restricted irrigation.

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I’ve wanted to see this garden since learning of it through Pacific Horticulture.

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Back to the case of the disappearing hebes. I confess I hadn’t thought about hebes in years and hadn’t even noted their disappearance from SoCal.

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Along with traipsing through spectacular gardens, there were mundane chores to do in the city as well, like laundry. Needing the services of a Laundromat and finding the one familiar to us in the Mission shuttered, we headed to the Marina district. Which is where I found this majestic stand of Salvia ‘Purple Majesty.’ I dropped off Marty and Ein at a nearby Laundromat and promised to bring back food. But first I needed to examine these enormous clumps of salvia. They were admirably dense and uniform in habit, unlike the rangy specimens I grow. This planting is at the George Moscone Recreation Center.

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The shrubs surrounding the salvias were just as remarkable. Hebes! Beautiful New Zealanders. I haven’t seen hebes for ages.

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Ruddy coprosmas with pale, variegated hebes.

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There used to be hebes in Southern California. Where had they all gone? Is changing fashion ruthless enough to cause complete eradication? Possibly, but even more ruthless is Fusarium oxysporum v. hebei. From the Monterey Bay Nursery website:

[F]ormerly important stalwarts in California landscaping, but now essentially extirpated due to the introduction of Fusarium oxysporum v. hebei. This disease persists in soils and nursery beds for years, and induces systemic, incurable stem infections which ravage landscapes and commercial crops. By the early 1990’s hebes had essentially left the commercial trade in California.”

Rather than choosing for flowers, my favorites have always been “those with tight, dense, box-like foliage in grey or green, and the whipcord types with minute, scale like leaves and stringy branches…
Some of the smaller leaved types can be more resistant, may be tested in the ground, but don’t come crying to us if they die. You have been forewarned
!”

I have no idea what chances for longevity the hebes at the Moscone Rec Center have, but they appear for now to be in robust good health. I personally have no problem with short-lived plants, say three to five years. I love the changeover. But public landscapes are on different timetables.

Upon returning home, awaiting me was the July issue of Gardens Illustrated with, of all things, an article on hebes by Noel Kingsbury.
Famous for championing the “new naturalism,” comprised of perennials and grasses, Mr. Kingsbury struck me as an unlikely proponent of these tidy shrubs, but the man knows his hebes. He describes the changing fortunes of hebes as falling in and out of favor relative to garden styles, whereas in California the reason for their disappearance is not mercurial tastes but insidious pathogens.

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Hebe ‘Quicksilver,’ photo from 2010

The next time I find a Hebe ‘Quicksilver’ at a nursery, I’ll know its chances for survival face much better odds in a container than in the garden.

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white bougainvillea

There are some rip-roaring stories behind some of the plants on my street. Take bougainvillea, now in bloom all over town, the scarlet wallpaper to my daily travels.
My favorite bougainvillea at the moment, however, is this white one just a few houses down the street, threaded through a Night-Blooming Cereus.

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Named for Louis Antoine de Bougainville, on whose 18th century circumnavigation voyage the vine was discovered in South America, it was more than likely first discovered by a young female stowaway named Jeanne Bare (sometimes Baret), who disguised herself as a sailor boy to join her lover, the naturalist Phillbert Commerson. Commerson is generally accredited with the actual discovery, but his illness during the voyage makes this attribution very unlikely, as it was Bare who was sent ashore to gather specimens. Bare is considered to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, not bad for a girl from a peasant family of Burgundy, whose means of acquiring an education in 18th century France still remains a mystery.

Commerson was officially confined to the ship while his leg healed, but he and Baret nonetheless collected specimens of a flowering vine which he named Bougainvillea.” — Jeanne Bare

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According to some historians, we have Baret alone to thank for one of their most famous discoveries: bougainvillea, a plant prized for its vibrant flowers that now blooms in warm climates around the globe. Suffering from incapacitating leg ulcers in Rio de Janeiro in 1767, Commerson is unlikely to have traipsed through the Brazilian countryside collecting the specimen he ultimately named for the expedition’s commander. Instead, his right-hand “man” might have gathered the seeds that introduced bougainvillea to Europe and germinated a worldwide vogue. In her 2010 book “The Discovery of Jeanne Baret,” British historian Glynis Ridley further posits that Baret’s knowledge of herbal remedies attracted her to the bright blossoms, since colorful leaves and flowers were considered therapeutic at the time.”
“First Woman to Circle the Globe Honored at Last.”

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Jeanne’s true gender was later exposed at some point on the voyage.
It is thought that the Tahitians outed her, instantly sensing that this was not just another sailor boy visiting their island.

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Bougainvillea, named for a French Admiral, but really the botanical love child of a feisty French girl and the naturalist who initially employed her as a housekeeper.

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In one plant’s name there’s enough history, science, and politics to keep these boys busy at school for a week.

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Natural Discourse: Flora & Fauna; A Day at the Natural History Museum 10/17/15

From the Natural Discourse event registration page:

Natural Discourse has been invited to explore the Natural History Museum! The Museum opens its doors for a day-long conversation about gardens, art, science, and collections.


Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications, and site-specific art installations that explores the connections between art, architecture, and science within the framework of botanical gardens and natural history museums.”

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Image above from Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium at Houghton Library at Harvard University. Maura C. Flannery, Professor of Biology at St John’s University, will reveal the secret lives of herbarium specimens

Living (and suffering) as we do in a mostly plant-blind world, there are precious few opportunities to further our appreciation of plants as the real engine that drives our world. The Natural Discourse series of lectures has evolved into an invigorating and must-see event for plant lovers since its inception in 2012. Whether the theme is Form & Function, Culture & Cultivation, Light & Image, or 2015’s Flora & Fauna, garden designer and symposium curator Shirley Watts unfailingly assembles a deep bench of artists, designers, writers, and scientists whose work, in surprising and brilliantly idiosyncratic ways, celebrates the primacy of plants. My geek love for plants not only finds a natural echo but is amplified and expanded in undreamt of ways. As well as being located in Southern California again, I appreciate the timing in the month of October as a kind of requiem to Los Angeles’ long summer.

If you haven’t attended a Natural Discourse before, there’s so many reasons to make the event this year your first. The setting in Exposition Park means not only are there a number of other museums to visit and gardens to explore, but the strategic Metro stop at Exposition Park means you can leave the car home. In Los Angeles, that counts as an arms-raised-in-a-V triumph. The vast complex of museums means if a pal would rather ogle dinosaur bones or visit the California Science Center to view the majestic space shuttle Endeavour, you can easily part ways and reunite off and on throughout the day.

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James Griffith, From the Infinite to the Particular 4, tar on panel. Image courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery

Personally, I’m wildly excited to hear the official “tar story.” I’ve blogged several times on James Griffith’s use of local tar as a medium for his current work. Due to Shirley’s formidable persuasive powers, now we can all hear his remarkable account in person. (James’ tar painting theme dovetails nicely with the Keynote Lecture given by Rosamond Purcell at La Brea Tar Pits and Museum on Friday, October 16, at 6:30 p.m.)

Long-standing champion of restoration of the cement-bottomed Los Angeles River, landscape architect Mia Lehrer is another speaker I won’t want to miss. Ms. Lehrer recently converted a four-acre parking lot at Exposition Park into garden:

We created a four-acre garden on what was once the parking lot for both staff and visitors on the side of the museum that faces Exposition Boulevard. There was an ambition to open up the museum to the community, and to the Metro that traverses Exposition Boulevard to become not just a museum of natural history but also become more relevant through its exploration into urban ecology by creating gardens that allow a better way to live in the city.” – L.A. Designer: Mia Lehrer, Shaping The City Through Public Space

Jim Folsom, Director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens, will speak on plant exploration and collections. Another example of Shirley’s curatorial genius, photographer Rosamond Purcell’s resume includes work with comedian/magician/actor Ricky Jay as well as naturalist Stephen Jay Gould. These are not solemn, fidget-in-your-seat lectures but bracing, wide-ranging, wholly engrossing explorations of culture intersecting with plants from myriad vantage points. I promise you, for the price of a dinner for two, your plant-loving soul will be fed and nurtured enough to see you through winter and into spring. I’m going to try to remember to wear a name tag, so please grab my elbow and say hello.

The complete list of speakers:

JoAnne Northrup, Director of Contemporary Art Initiatives at the Nevada Museum of Art, on taxidermy, contemporary art, and 19th century wildlife painting
Maura C. Flannery, Professor of Biology at St John’s University, on the secret lives of herbarium specimens
Jim Folsom, Director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens, on plant exploration and collections
James Griffith, Painter, on using tar from the LaBrea Tar Pits as an artistic medium
Mia Lehrer, Landscape Architect, on the creation of the Nature Gardens at the Natural History Museum
Rosamond Purcell, Photographer, on her images of Natural History collections around the world
Natania Meeker & Antonia Szabari, Associate Professors of French, Italian and Comparative Literature at USC, on animated plants and vegetal cinema.

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Posted in artists, Department of Instruction, garden travel, science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bloom Day September 2015

Since I’m already running a day late for the Bloom Day reports collected by May Dreams Gardens on the 15th of every month, I’ll try to limit the repetition.
September pretty much mirrors August, but here’s a couple oddballs, a roster of irregulars I didn’t include for August.

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This salvia lookalike from the acanthaceae family, Brillantaisia subulugarica, has been blooming all summer. Tall, over 5 feet, with big, coarse leaves.
An interesting plant that defies whole-hearted recommendation. If you like big, coarse, and purple, then this one’s for you. For zone 10.
I do need to point out that it is dripping wet from the 2 inches of hallelujah rain that fell early Tuesday morning.

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Ptilotus nobilis, from Australia, much taller than the hybrid ‘Joey’ that was circulating through nurseries recently. From the Amaranthaceae family.
All the info available refers to its touchiness about soil, so I’ve trialed it in a large container with marrubium for a couple months. I’m surprised it’s made it to September.
The ptilotus that have been showing up at nurseries like it hot, dry, perfect drainage and good air circulation. I need to trial this one quick as a cut flower before it expires.

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More rainy day porn with the grass Aristida purpurea, Yucca ‘Blue Boy,’ Agave ‘Snow Glow’

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Agave vilmoriniana and Crithmum maritimum, with both old seedheads and fresh flowers.

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Rain-tossed Glaucium grandiflorum.

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Plectranthus zuluensis

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Bog sage, Salvia uliginosa, with very happy wet feet.

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Abutilon venosum drinking it in.

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The yucca in bloom against the lurid coloring of the cypresses at sundown.

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Lotusland, garden provocateur

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More from that June visit to Lotusland, Ganna Walska’s 37-acre estate near Santa Barbara, California.

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In the comments to this post, Emily kindly provided a link to an English series “Around the World in 80 Gardens,” in which a visit to Lotusland is covered in Episode 5.

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The host’s reaction to Lotusland, where everything is “unfettered, including taste,” is worth the viewing. He had a virulent reaction to the abalone-rimmed pool, deeming it a “monstrous hideosity,” which is not unusual. Many hate the kitschy clam shells. But Walska’s maverick emphasis on climate-appropriate, architectural plants, de-emphasizing flowers, escapes him. Her precocious, early adoption of the dramatic massing of plants goes unnoticed.

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In the same episode, the Huntington Desert Garden also confounds him. Indeed, no context for the influence of climate is offered in the episode I watched. Gardens are seen as nothing but a triumph of style, a groundless expression of taste.

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One of my favorite moments is when our exasperated host quizzes James van Sweden, a pioneer in naturalistic planting, as to why there’s not much garden culture in the U.S. Mr. van Sweden, whose work succeeded in the sweltering heat of Washington, D.C., coolly eyes his theory-hungry British guest before dryly responding, “Because it’s hot.”

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But the provocative garden legacy of Madame Walska may appear more pioneering today than is historically accurate. Lotusland’s originality may be by default, as other estate gardens of that era failed to financially survive. Just about the time Lotusland was taking its present form in the early 1940s, a nearby cactus garden was being dismantled, victim of a fortune lost in the Great Depression. From 1928 to 1942, Ysabel Wright made a garden in Montecito that in its brief lifespan held the world’s largest collection of cactus, with visitors like Albert Einstein. The March-April 2015 Cactus and Succulent Journal has a wonderful piece on this garden by Catherine Phillips entitled “The Lost Cactus Garden of ‘Quien Sabe.’” Both Lotusland and the Huntington Desert Garden procured plants from Quien Sabe as the collection was dispersed.
Ms. Phillips quotes a naturalist’s first impression of the garden after Ms. Wright had abandoned it and left for the East Coast, never to return:

Not all the breadth of the continent had prepared me for anything like this, and I stood lost in it, staring at the rigid architectural beauty of the cacti and at the mountains that reared behind them turning blue with the dusk.” — Donald Culross Peattie

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Ms. Phillips’ article on Quien Sabe describes “a particularly Californian ‘cactus-feminism’…a gendered response to the desert that ‘calls to women.'”

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Wright’s garden was built at the dawn of a gentle resistance to the exotic plant introductions and European garden designs that the city was famous for, inaugurating a move towards an advocacy of local flora (The Santa Barbara botanic Garden began in 1926). Through foreign introductions the cactus craze perpetuated the Santa Barbara tradition for botanical diversity, but at the same time the cactus enthusiasm suited a more ‘modern,’ more spontaneous genre with an affinity to a landscape that was not the Mediterranean but was California. Gardeners were looking to incorporate cactus harmoniously and naturally into design, without the crowded minutiae of the rock garden or the formality and artifice of earlier cactus garden models…” — “The Lost Cactus Garden of ‘Quien Sabe'”

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The Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are filled with the stories, if no longer the extant gardens, of women transformed by the climate into plant obsessives. In his notes on Lotusland, Geoff Stein (aka “palmbob”) alludes to another extraordinary plantswoman, the “Palm Queen,” Pauleen Sullivan, who died in 2012:

(“One of my favorite palm people, Pauleen Sullivan, a leader in her own field of palm collecting and growing in California, was approached by Madame Walska in the late 1970s, offering to buy many of Pauleen’s favorite palms for Lotusland. Pauleen refused, of course (another stubborn plant personality), sending Madame Walska off in disbelief, as she had offered Pauleen a substantial amount of money.”)

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, climate, garden travel, garden visit, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

bug report & EOMV

None of the ants previously seen by man were more than an inch in length – most considerably under that size. But even the most minute of them have an instinct and talent for industry, social organization, and savagery that makes man look feeble by comparison.” — Them! (1954 movie on gigantic, killer, atomic-radiated ants)

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End of month view down the pergola looking east.
Possibly the best thing about my summer garden 2015 is Eucalyptus ‘Moon Lagoon’

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In late summer it’s putting out this chartreuse, willowy new growth, which is mesmerizing against the backdrop of its own tangled-up-in-blue leaves. (Speaking of color, where’s your famous fiery red response to strong sun, Aloe cameronii? Not hot enough for you? It’s been plenty hot for me, thanks.)

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A very telescoped view from the west gate to show the wash of blue that’s taken over the garden. ‘Moon Lagoon’ in the foreground, Acacia baileyana ‘Purpurea’ in the background (and blue apartment building in the distance). Just looking at the froth of blue cools me down.

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The three that I was possibly most anxious to see make it through summer are just outside the office. Columnar Cussonia gamtoosensis is almost fence height now. The Coast Woolybush to the right, Adenanthos sericeus, has been a peach all summer.*

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And Grevillea ‘Moonlight’ seems safely established here too.

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Impromptu birdbath, which looks an awful lot like a headstone monument to a fallen aloe.

That’s an abbreviated EOMV so we can get to the bug report. Possibly the worst thing about my summer garden 2015 has been the ants. Apparently, if Southern California had a resident population of feisty fire ants, we wouldn’t be experiencing a scourge of Argentine ants, but we don’t, so we are. Linepithema humile stowed away on ships bound for our ports sometime in the 1980s, and life just hasn’t been the same since. Native ants were pushovers, no contest at all. I don’t like to dwell on this fact for long or I’d probably run away from home, but scientists tell us that the Argentine ants all belong to one giant SUPER COLONY. Which in practical terms means, because they’re all bros, they don’t fight. They amiably cooperate in a tireless, jack-booted bid for world domination. They are the Uruk-hai of ants. They seek out the same conditions we do, not too hot or cold, not too wet or dry, just nicely warmish and humid.
So when it’s too dry they line up around the shower with their tiny towels, circle the sinks with itty-bitty tooth brushes. They’re everywhere. Them!

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I put together this little birdbath to take the place of an Aloe capitata that fell victim to the ants. All summer our insect overlords have relegated us to squatter status on our own property. This summer it seems like they’ve really stepped up their association (“mutualism”) with their nasty symbiotic playmates, scale insects and mealybugs. Ants offer safe transit and escort the pests into the crevices and crowns of some plants. Not all, just mostly my favorites, it seems. The stemless aloes have been hit hard this summer. A perky Aloe capitata var. quartzicola went flaccid seemingly overnight. Upon investigation, the lower crown was stuffed with scale. Them! For weeks I enraged the ants by scraping off scale from the aloe’s leaves, pouring cinnamon onto the crown, digging in coffee around the base. The ants supposedly hate strong smells. The aloe seemed to partially recover but lost so many leaves that I dug it up to nurse along in a pot. Aloe cryptoflora has also succumbed, and a large fan aloe was weakened and killed by ants, though it wasn’t in great shape when I bought it.

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Aloe ‘Rooikappie’ is now taking its chances after A. capitata var. quartzicola was dragged off the battlefield.

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Aloe capitata var. quartzicola in better days. If I find one again it will live in a container.

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The ants favorite victims are stemless aloes planted close to hardscape, but they also favor beschornerias. The hardscape of bricks laid dry, without mortar, on a layer of sand has provided perfect Ant Farm conditions. Agave ‘Cornelius’ seems impervious so far, but ants are herding scale on some agaves like the desmettianas.

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Beschorneria ‘Flamingo Glow’ has had its lower leaves stripped away frequently due to infestations. B. albiflora is under attack too.

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This former wine stopper holding the birdbath together sums it up: we’re barely treading water against the ants. A vinegar spray solution stops attacks indoors, and cinnamon spread on window sills has been an effective barrier. (The glass shade was in the house when we bought it, and the concrete base was part of the chimney flue.)

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I can’t remember ever having mealybug problems with agaves. I’ve been frequently knocking them off ‘Dragon Toes.’

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Agave vilmoriniana ‘Stained Glass’ still seems clean.

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Since the yucca has bloomed and become multi-headed, it seems to be attracting ants and scale too.

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The furcraea is clean and has mostly outgrown damage from hail earlier in the year.

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Aloe elgonica still looks clean from scale.

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Potted plants have to be watched too. This boophane is clean, but pots of cyrtanthus are targets for scale.

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I admit to indulging in some self-pity shopping. I’ve been wanting to try Artemisia ‘David’s Choice.’ The ants helped clear the perfect spot to try three.

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Euphorbia ‘Lime Wall.’ I’ve yet to have scale on euphorbias, but you never know.

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No more talk of bugs. Xanthosoma ‘Lime Zinger’ loves August, so I love xanthosoma.

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I was this close to composting these begonias but gave them a reprieve, daring them to grow in a very shallow container. I thought I wanted some hot color in August, but turns out, nope, not really. I had a bunch of rooted cuttings of Senecio medley-woodii which grow lanky in very little soil, so stuck them in with some rhipsalis to chill this begonia the hell out.

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Happy plants grouped under the light shade of the fringe tree on the east side of the house.

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This succulent is very confusing. With alba in the name, I’m thinking white flowers. No, Crassula alba var. parvisepala reportedly has stunning trusses of deep red flowers. This is mine in bloom. I guess we’re both confused.

I have to say that there’s been a splendid show of butterflies all summer. The June bugs fizzled out, which is fine by me. (So weird that image searches of the June bug bring up what I know as the fig beetle. My June bug is, I think, Phyllophaga crinita.) It’s also been a banner year for the flying fig beetles, Cotinis mutabilis. The grasshoppers surprisingly haven’t been too bad.

End of month views are collected by The Patient Gardener, with or without bug reports.

*But was dead when I returned after a week’s absence, the soil bone-dry. Another has already been installed elsewhere in the garden.

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, creatures, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Wanda Mallen & Gary Vincent’s Fallbrook garden

The CSSA’s tour of private gardens for their 2015 Biennial Convention in June also included the 2-acre garden of Wanda Mallen and Gary Vincent in Fallbrook, Calif. This superb collector’s garden, started from scratch in approximately 1999-2000, is occasionally open for tours through local garden societies. Areas of interest include cactus and succulents, tropicals, palms, conifers, and Australian plants. I know very little about the garden other than what I learned on foot, but I can provide some scant information on Fallbrook.

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Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden visit, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Wednesday clippings 8/26/15

So what’s shakin’ this muggy end of August? As little as possible, you say? There’s been all manner of weird stuff going on, including a recurring problem with street-parked neighborhood cars getting their gas siphoned. This on the heels of the rash of catalytic converter thefts a couple months ago. And then there’s that wobble and/or meltdown in the stock market that’s got Marty cursing like the sailor he is. Lots of plant losses, of course. I could go on, but instead I’ll just paraphrase Annie Hall, that summer is full of misery and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.

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For vigor so unstoppable all summer it borders on downright rudeness, you can’t beat a yucca.

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Yucca ‘Margaritaville’ has two bloom spikes, just this one showing for now, but there’s another spear gaining size.

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Proof that it’s not just a pleasure garden, but a working garden. With some reading and occasional napping too on muggy days…

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Knock wood, Grevillea ‘Moonlight’ seems to have survived its first summer. I am basically a gadget-free gardener, but this summer has sparked an interest in researching soil moisture sensors like they use in viticulture. There’s a lot of root competition from neighboring gardens, trees, hedges, and just when I think things are well-watered for a couple weeks, there’s signs of stress. Unlike all the stuff I’m asked to review that I’m either (a) uninterested in or (b) unqualified to comment upon, a moisture gauge would get my thoughtful appraisal.

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This bocconia in particular has been a problem child in that regard. Supposedly drought tolerant when established, it’s a few years old now and still shouldn’t be getting the vapors if it misses a drink now and then.

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Well, here’s something cheerful. Max Parker kindly sent this photo to verify my Agave desmettiana ‘Joe Hoak’ had arrived safely at his new home. The trade was this agave for a couple passifloras, ‘Sunburst’ and ‘Flying V.’ What a deal! Both of these passifloras are smaller vines, not house-eaters. I’ve tentatively placed the potted ‘Sunburst’ at the base of one of the lemon cypresses, which will provide a good amount of sun but hopefully not too strong. The theory is the vine will seek out the shade/sun exposure it prefers as it threads through the cypress. There’s nothing to photograph yet. Maybe in a couple weeks.

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I got the idea to use the cypresses because it seems to be working for Mina lobata, self-sown from last year. No blooms yet but, unlike last summer, the leaves stay in good shape all day. I’m trying to find that sweet spot, where there’s enough sun for blooming but not too much that the vines are wilted by the end of the day.

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I’ll close with this nice planting of Agave ‘Cornelius’ I spotted recently in Downtown Los Angeles. Gotta go put some clothes in the dryer.

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Bloom Day August 2015

There’s not much difference between July and August, or even June Bloom Day posts, but I suppose it’s useful to see what has survived, who’s stalwart and who’s a wimp. And I have been dropping some new stuff into the garden all summer.

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New to me is this Begonia ‘Unstoppable Upright Big Fire.’ Sounds like the title to a U2 album. I was looking local for Begonia boliviensis but it was unavailable. This UUBF hybrid has dark leaves and large, non-pendulous flowers. I’m not convinced that’s an improvement over boliviensis, which has such an elegant, cascading habit.

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Begonia ‘Unbelievable Lucky Strike,’ another boliviensis hybrid. I guess we’re way beyond the peaches-and-cream kind of names now.

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In light bloom all summer and now having a good bloom flush is Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon,’ an old cultivar dating back to 1968, from Grevillea banksii and G. bipinnatifida.

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Obviously crushing on Agave ‘Blue Flame.’ Me too.

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The potted Abutilon venosum is enjoying dappled morning sun after emergency transport to this more protected spot due to the current protracted heat wave.

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Lotus jacobaeus is a lot tougher than it looks, very long blooming. It seems to prefer container life to the garden.

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Here it rests against an adjacent potted agave.

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Crassula ovata, probably ‘Hummel’s Sunset,’ in a low bowl on a table, where it makes this great draping effect.

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I dropped these Bulbine ‘Athena Compact Orange’ into the garden sometime in July.

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Bog sage, Salvia uliginosa, is never too venturesome in my heavy clay, dryish soil. The rugose, crinkly leaves are always clean from disease or insect damage. These are mid-summer additions from gallon sizes.

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Crocosmia ‘Solfatare’ is about as shy a spreader as a crocosmia can be. Slow to build into a sizeable clump.

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Not a bloom but Tradescantia ‘Greenlee,’ new this summer. It already seems destined to be one of those plants that knits together beautifully with its neighbors. Shown here with Plectranthus zuluensis. I have a bloom to show of that.

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Plectranthus zuluensis loves the dappled sun under the tetrapanax. By July I usually cut back Melianthus ‘Purple Haze,’ in full sun just behind, and the plectranthus does a nice job of filling the gap while the melianthus bulks up again.

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Not a flower but one of my favorite colors in the garden, Euphorbia ammak. It’s almost doubled in size this summer. Behind the row of pots are two clumps of Pennisetum ‘Sky Rocket,’ the mother plants of the other, bigger clumps in the garden. These are much smaller, having to deal with competing roots from the lemon cypresses. Everything else in front of the grasses is in containers, including the Leycesteria “Jealousy’ and some taros out of frame at the far end.

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Glaucium grandiflorum is still sending up bloom trusses.

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Eryngium pandanifolium has never attained the height it did the first season in the garden. This one was grown from seed of the original plant from Plant Delights.

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Dark brown nicotiana seeded into a pot of yellow Russelia equisetiformis

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Gomphrena ‘Balboa’ in its first summer here. It lets you know when it’s thirsty so you have to keep an eye on it, but still a fairly tough plant for full sun.

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I’m already a big fan of Peruvian Feather Grass, Stipa ichu, after just one season in the garden. Nicely upright, columnar habit.

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The Bloom Day summer mainstay, Gomphrena ‘Fireworks,’ with Pennisetum ‘Sky Rocket.’ Not surprisingly, this grass grows into a much bigger clump than the two in front of the cypresses.

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The Desert Mallow, Sphaeralcea ‘Newleaze Coral, has also won me over in its first summer in the garden.

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A nameless gift aloe.

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Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ always wakes up in the heat of August. I’ve pulled out handfuls but a few roots always remain.

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I’m assuming this is Asarina scandens, a self-sown seedling of the mother plant grown in 2011.

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The furry leaves are always in good shape, and nothing seems to bother it or chew on it. From Mexico. I’m not in love with the light pink flowers, but it’s healthy and robust, and all that counts heavily in a drought. Excitement is building as the predictions of a wet El Nino winter look more and more solid. Visit May Dreams Gardens for more August Bloom Day reports.

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DIY therapy

One of my boys is experiencing some painful romantic complications, which is frustrating for both of us because in grappling with the problem I necessarily have to accept the fact that my boys are now men. But he hurts, therefore I hurt, which in my case involves wanting to fix it, talk us through it and out of it, when what’s needed is for me to back the hell off. Backing off is such a difficult maneuver to master. To practice backing off, and still being fairly new at it, all I could think of was there needed to be some plants involved. Am I right? But it’s 7 o’clock at night. The only plants not locked up for the night would be found at the local big box store. That’ll do. Because of the late hour, there’s nobody else in the nursery department. Perfect. I slowly browse the aisles, marveling at the big banner declaring “Palms are drought tolerant! (when established).” That’s exactly the clear kind of communication that’s needed in the drought. And then I inspect the palms, hoping to discover a variegated Caryota mitis perhaps. No such luck tonight. Yucca ‘Bright Star’ in gallon sizes? Dream on. Still not ready to go home, I head into the building supplies section and meander my way over to the lighting. There it is on the shelf, still $15, a price I had previously deemed a little high for an experiment with a very uncertain outcome. I hovered, hand outstretched then snatched back a couple times, until in one quick move I made the grab for the light shade, paid for it, and headed home.

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Before heading off to work this morning, Marty helped me rig the chain. This squid agave pup needed to be repotted anyway, so I found a black plastic pot that looked roughly the right size and slipped it in. If only all our troubles could be fixed this easily. I may need to go back and get another one or two before things quiet down.

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And while we’re at the pergola, I might as well take a portrait of the cool plant lurking just outside the brick patio while it’s still alive. Dustin Gimbel brought Strobilanthes gossypinus back from a visit to Windcliff. It’s got an unusual copper overlay to its furry, silvery leaves. So far it’s weathering the 90+ degree temps beautifully, knock wood, with some shade from the hottest afternoon sun. Like bamboo, it’s a “mast” plant, which basically means they are on timers set to flower and die out simultaneously wherever they exist in the world.

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More cheerful stuff, found at The Style-Files.

Now I’m out of cheerful. Oh, wait! This is totally digressing, but it made me laugh, so I’ll share. Maybe because of the heat, Ein threw up this morning, poor pup. I know that’s not funny, just hear me out. Marty immediately recited “Headache, fever, upset stomach, diarrhea,” and I laughed, as he knew I would. Let me explain. We both knew that was the tersely worded contents of the sick-day note his mom routinely sent whenever he missed a day of school. Absences that were usually the result of sheer orneriness, not sickness. His mom liked to cover all the bases. I’ve no doubt the school was wise to the situation, but who would dare argue with those symptoms? What Marty remembers about his mom truly scares me sometimes. I can’t imagine what stories mine will tell about me. I suspect there will be plants involved, though.

Have a great weekend. May I suggest some DIY therapy perhaps?

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, design, pots and containers, succulents | Tagged , | 13 Comments