Asparagus virgatus

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Denise

There’s not a lot of fern action in my dry, sunny garden, much to my regret, but in the front garden on the north side of the house, planted in the parched gloom at the foundation line, a fern is improbably thriving behind the agaves and astelias. This frothy, arching, clumping-not-running, perfectly harmless member of the asparagus family is Asparagus virgatus.

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What do all these plants have in common besides the letter A? Cast-iron natures as far as tolerating dry soil and shifting sun/shade patterns throughout the year. They probably spend more time overall in shade, which suits even the agave, A. attenuata, famous among agaves for tolerating some shade. (An Aloe marlothii recently perished, unable to handle the winter in part shade.)

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And I can assure you that, although related, it is not the scary monster that most of us have learned to fear in the form of the climbing asparagus, A. scandens.

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With Agave attenuata ‘Kara’s Stripes’ and Astelia nervosa in the background.

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An interesting graphic quality to its stems too. I’ve never seen it look this lush before, and the clue to the improvement in its former straggly growth is that white drainspout. The small amount of rainfall we’ve had so far this winter was funneled via the new gutters and directed into downspouts, and one of the downspouts empties here. San Marcos Growers says “This plant comes from South Eastern Africa, where it typically grows along shaded waterways, so it is surprising how drought tolerant this plant is.” I can now vouch for its love of moisture as well as its drought tolerance. I would love to bulk up a big specimen in a container and see what it can do when not in sheer survival mode, as I’ve been growing it.

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Typical small red berries of the asparagus family follow tiny, almost imperceptible flowers.

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Unlike the ineradicable climbing asparagus, Asparagaus scandens, A. virgatus is your friend.

Plant Delights Nursery lists it in their catalogue to zone 7 and credits it for tolerating a lot more sun than I give it.

(Asparagus virgatus is my entry in Loree’s favorite plant pick for the week and Pam’s Foliage Followup.)

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Bloom Day January 2014

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Denise

Scrounging around the garden for something to report this first Bloom Day of 2014 made me realize that although nothing big and splashy was catching my eye, there’s still plenty to give bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators micro energy drinks throughout the day, especially the acacia and coronilla. But the star attraction for bees is hands down the Agave desmettiana in bloom. This morning Marty and I stood quietly a few inches from the bloom stalk just to listen to the thrum of activity. He was shocked that I had never cupped my hands around my ears to amplify sound before. Just another example of what a sheltered life I’ve led. If like me you haven’t done so, try it. The quiet thrum was instantly transformed into a buzzing, wing-beating roar.


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Helleborus argutifolius, whose fresh seed germinates as soon as it hits the ground, with the big rosettes of Echium simplex in front. I’m dying to see those cool white spikes rise up this summer.

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Bilbergia nutans with lots more blooms to come. How did this free-flowering bromeliad get by me for so many years?

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Nancy Ondra’s nicotiana selection is as charming as ever. Such a good plant for fall, winter and spring here, but dies off when the heat arrives. Seeds profusely.

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Acacia podalyrifolia. Until I decide what shape to prune it, shrub or tree, this acacia will continue to whack everybody in the face as they exit the driver’s side of their car. At least it smells nice.

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Unlike this really skunky plectranthus.

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Echeveria coccinea is managing to bloom in the very dry soil under the tetrapanax.

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I launched a massive plant hunt locally for Geranium ‘Ann Folkard,’ so it could weave through the skirts of Melianthus ‘Purple Haze’ this summer. None was found, but instead of mail ordering ‘Ann Folkard’ I opted to try a magenta brethren, Geranium cinereum ‘Subcaulescens’ found at a nursery in El Segundo. This is one instance I would have preferred the trailing habit of AF, but the clumping G. cinereum has already distinguished itself by continually pumping out scads and scads of shocking magenta flowers. Quite the eye-rubbing sight before the first cup of coffee in the morning.

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I didn’t realize there was such variability with Pelargonium sidoides until I found this one with a larger leaf but smaller, darker flowers at Robin Parer’s booth at a plant show last year. Always has a few blooms on it.

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Coronilla valentina will go supernova, covered in bloom, by the end of the month.

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Budding up. Euphorbias, dyckias, and aloes.

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I was recently talked into a trial subscription to The Wall Street Journal, which has since been arriving dangerously close to Aloe capitata’s developing bloom stalk, its first ever. (Home delivery subscription cancelled today.)

Carol hosts this invaluable monthly record of blooms at her blog May Dreams Gardens.

Posted in Bloom Day, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

designing crows

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Denise


“The crows that live in Tokyo use clothes hangers to make nests. In such a large city, there are few trees, so the natural materials that crows need to make their nests are scarce. As a result, the crows occasionally take hangers from the people who live in apartments nearby, and carefully assemble them into nests. The completed nests almost look like works of art based on the theme of recycling,” photographer Yosuke Kashiwakura writes. — Yosuke Kashiwakura / National Geographic Photo Contest, Honorable Mention: Nature

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Posted in creatures, photography | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

it’s that time

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Denise

Time to cut the grasses down and say goodbye to sights like this until next winter. Spring comes early here in Southern California, February/early March, and the old growth needs to be cut down to make way for the new.


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Like a bloom of jellyfish gently floating on air currents, this is Chloris virgata, the grass that Maggie Wych helped me identify last year.

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Of all the plant names I continually learn and then promptly forget, I never draw a blank on this one. Recovering its name was a highlight of 2013.*

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It performed fantastically in full sun and very dry soil last summer, self-sowing more in sun. I need to pot up a few seedlings for a tryout in containers this summer, where I think Chloris will really sparkle.

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There’s not much information available on cold tolerance, and there are references to its potential for weediness.
The online Jepson Manual describes its distribution outside California as “native to warm temperate regions worldwide.”


*(Chloris has lost her name before and zigzags throughout Greek and Roman mythology in different guises. Rechristened the goddess Flora, Botticelli paints Chloris’ portrait in his Primavera, and alludes to the mythological violence behind the name change by depicting her violator, the wind god Zephyr, making a grab for Chloris, after which she becomes known as Flora. Makes you wonder about the botanist who named this grass. Where one sees floating jellyfish and playful interaction with wind, another is reminded of deeds of violence.)

“As she talks, her lips breathe spring roses: I was Chloris, who am now called Flora.” Ovid

Posted in Plant Portraits | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Kalanchoe ‘Oak Leaf’

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Denise

Wonderful architectural bloom trusses on this 5-gallon kalanchoe at Lincoln Avenue Nursery in Pasadena. Was this a Kalanchoe beharensis in flower? The leaves at the base of the plant were difficult to see without disturbing the careful display. The San Marcos Growers tag identified it not as Kalanchoe beharensis but Kalanchoe ‘Oak Leaf’ or the Dwarf Velvet Plant. Thought to be a cross between Kalanchoe beharensis and K. millot, John Greenlee is credited with bringing it to the attention of San Marcos Growers. (Read SMG’s discussion here.) I’m always interested in finding good shrubby landscape succulents, and the genus kalanchoe has been offering some fine examples. This one, with its see-through, aerial scaffolding when in bloom, looks very promising. It’s easy to see the appeal for Greenlee as a textural accompaniment for grasses. With my wallet emptied out after the holidays, I’ll wait to see if smaller sizes turn up at the spring plant sales. The challenge will be in finding as dramatic a backdrop for its pallid stems as those masses of Sticks on Fire, Euphorbia tirucalli.


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Posted in MB Maher, plant crushes, plant nurseries, Plant Portraits, succulents | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

tropical leaf under glass

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Denise

Cleaning up the tropicals for their winter rest in early November, there remained an absolutely perfect leaf on Colocasia ‘Blue Hawaii.’ I cut it for a vase, and when the water had evaporated and the leaf was still in good shape, I laid it on a book shelf. Now I was intrigued that such a soft leaf had endured this long. How much longer could it last? In late December I noticed that the texture of the leaf had turned from brittle to a suede-like feel and was still beautifully intact. The terrarium turned up at a garage sale, and I was drawn to its simplicity. No faux Edwardian flourishes. It was missing one of the rounded footings, but that could be easily fixed. (How fitting that a seedpod from the triangle palm was exactly the right size and shape. That’s the seedpod on the left in the photo.) I admit that out of all the uses I could imagine for the glass case, housing a colocasia leaf was not one of them. But then that’s the attraction of a transparent box — its endless possibilities. Since enclosing the leaf in the glass case, the texture has reverted back to potato-chip brittle. Keeping the case on the warm mantle over the fireplace might not be the best site for it, but it’s where I can see it most often. I moved it into the bright light of the kitchen for the photo. At this angle, doesn’t it resemble a giant tropical butterfly?


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Colocasia ‘Blue Hawaii’

Plant Delights Nursery offers this colocasia via mail order. Mine was found locally. (PDN’s 2014 catalogue arrived in the mail yesterday and lists this colocasia.) If garage sales don’t prove fruitful in sourcing the case, Terrain offers a similarly simple version.

Posted in cut flowers, plant nurseries, pots and containers | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Coronilla valentina

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Denise

Now that we all have a new phrase in our meteorology lexicon (“polar vortex”)*, it’s time to entertain our cold-blasted friends with talk of plants from warmer climes. Along with the unexpected germination of several triangle palm seeds (Dypsis decaryi), the coronilla also surprised me this year with more than a dozen seedlings. The mother plant was grown from a single cutting taken of the variegated form as it was collapsing in August a few years ago. (Variegated or non-variegated is fine by me.) Coronilla, like lots of plants from the mediterranean climate regions of the world, are not long-lived. Its very lanky form is supposedly limited to 2 to 3 feet. Since I never see this plant locally, I can’t be sure if mine is an outlier, topping as it does the garage roofline. Its sprawling stems were threaded when young through a spiraling tuteur, and now a froth of rue-like, ferny leaves and, beginning in January, scented, clear yellow flowers billows up and over the top of its cinched-in shape. Coronilla blooms on new growth, but hard pruning is to be avoided, so I just clean it up after the major bloom period is over in spring, though it does throw a few flowers all summer. Twiggy tracery, tiny blue leaves, flashes of yellow like sunshine snagged in its stems. Sometimes I think this plant has a fan club of one (me), so it’s nice to find out I’m in good company. English plantswoman Derry Watkins lists it as a favorite too. Coronilla sails through our ever-lengthening dry season. One of those plants damned with the faint praise of having a “subtle beauty.” I’ve gotten so used to this beloved plant being ignored by visitors, that when a gentleman helping us hang gutters on the garage inquired about it, I didn’t know what to say. You’re talking about this plant? I asked him incredulously, grabbing and shaking one of its branches. Indeed he was. He declined my offer of seedlings, but later was seen googling “coronilla” on his smart phone. Proving again there’s a first time for everything.


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The crown-like flowers

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Lanky stems cinched in by the iron tuteur

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Absorbing patterns and scented bloom for mid-winter. For zone 8 or cool greenhouse. I’m including coronilla in Loree’s discussion of favorite plants at her blog Danger Garden.

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*”Polar Vortex Causes Hundreds of Injuries As People Making Snide Remarks about Climate Change are Punched in Face.” (It’s humor.)

Posted in Occasional Daily Weather Report, Plant Portraits | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

glass floral frog

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Denise

There was some good-natured bartering done among ourselves at the end of the recent flea market/bloggers’ pop-up shop in December. I swapped Dustin one of Marty’s sailor knot creations for this glass floral frog. Floral frogs have an old-fashioned, tight-laced whiff about them — they are, after all, essentially a girdle for flower stems — and are not something I’ve ever worked with before, being more a proponent of the plop-it-in-a-vase school of flower arranging. But I was drawn to this glass frog as a beautiful object in its own right.

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But it would be silly to ignore its intended function. I thought it might be useful in supporting stems in vessels not necessarily meant as vases, like all the pottery I’ve accumulated that is either too wide or too low to hold stems upright effectively. And in winter particularly, a low bowl shape is ideal for holding seasonal, short-stemmed cut flowers like Helleborus argutifolius and all the other interesting odds and ends that lack long stems and need a little help standing up straight.

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Typically, the frog would be hidden deep in the container.

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After playing around with different containers, I don’t see why it can’t also be completely exposed, sitting on the rim of smaller pots.

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The shrub-like Corsican hellebore is the only one I grow, and it happens to be the longest lasting in vases. I’ve always been reluctant to rob the garden of flowers, but I really think it’s time I get over it. There’s really no better way to appreciate the intricacies of their structure. I followed conventional wisdom and dipped the freshly cut stems in boiling water for 20-30 seconds.

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Posted in cut flowers, pots and containers | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

garden rooms year-round

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Denise

With one main living area to work with, to accommodate the holidays here, it’s an inescapable fact that furniture must be shoved around and rearranged. Things are just now slipping back into their former places.


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Around late November, the everyday, eat-read-and-work table is pulled out and centered on the rug and becomes transformed into the dining table, pinkies raised.
Chairs from the garden were brought in for extra seating. Bringing stuff in from the garden was the 2013 holidays’ theme, and I’m not talking just plants either.

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By the first days of January, the everyday configuration of furniture is restored, the table resumes its Swiss army knife, multipurpose identity, and my reading corner is back in business. But something we did for the holidays has left its mark on the room. Or, rather, something we didn’t do for the holidays. We did not buy a holiday tree this year. Once I admitted this heresy as a possibility, a multitude of practical reasons could be easily found as justification. But, chiefly, there was simply no room. Yes, there had been sufficient room for decades in this same house with this same furniture, but for whatever reasons, this year was different. The emotional circuitry linking the winter holidays with live trees had been rerouted, but not broken. What I was very interested in trying out was the iron tuteur from the garden. Tall and slim, it was no longer needed as support for the passionflower vine, which did not appreciate being cut back hard. (It died.) More importantly, no furniture needed to be rearranged again to accommodate the girth of a tree.

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I always find that these tradition-breaking experiments are best done in secrecy. Telling no one, I dragged in the tuteur, tucking it in closer to the fireplace than any tree could safely tolerate, wrapped it in lights and garlands of stars and whatnot, and hung just a few of the ornaments. At this point I was discovered, so I stopped and awaited judgment. I was pretty sure I would be accused of having strayed completely out of the bounds of holiday decency, and where was the real tree anyway with its familiar piney scent? It must have been the year for upending tradition, because the tuteur was proclaimed the best holiday obelisk ever, and the rest of its decoration was taken over by other enthusiastic hands. The robots, pirates, elephants, giraffes — the entire holiday menagerie took to the metal armature like festive trapeze artists. (A photo would be nice at this point, but I was mostly out of blog mode and didn’t think to take any of our eccentric experiment.) The lights were plugged in and lit the obelisk nonstop, day and night, until it was taken down. And even then I wasn’t ready to move the obelisk back into the garden.

I became mesmerized by the tuteur’s potential. It had supported a passionflower vine and done duty as the holiday obelisk. What else could it do? Being see-through was a big part of its appeal. Like an allium, it drew an elegant line and took up little space. And if the tuteur could stay indoors, then bringing inside the orange metal side table made perfect sense too.


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More stuff from the garden became part of this eccentric experiment, like my industrial metal baskets. Plants and shelves were added, a reading light was clipped on.
I guess my point is that the garden can be a source of inspiration for the holidays and even afterward, and not just strictly for the plants.
And if we can have outdoor garden rooms for summer, why not indoor garden rooms for winter?

Posted in design, garden ornament | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

garden notes 12/30/13

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Denise

Over the holidays, daytime temps have been hovering around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Considering my sister-in-law’s flight into Los Angeles from Cody, Wyoming, was delayed by storms for four days, it seems churlish to complain about the warm weather. I’ll just say that it was intensely exciting to see wisps of fog begin to blow in from the ocean Saturday afternoon, starting out thin, like faint smoke signals, then quickly bulking up into billows large enough to trigger the foghorns. At this dessicated point mid winter, I gladly welcome moisture in whatever form it chooses to come.

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Cussonia gamtoosensis as fog-catcher

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Still young, crooked, and gawky, the canopy should broaden substantially by next winter.


I transplanted both of my South African cussonias, C. paniculata and gamtoosensis, into the garden over the summer. These evergreen mountain cabbage trees are stunning in containers and are worth the trouble of hauling in for the winter where not hardy. Odd that they are seen more often as conservatory plants in colder climates than they are here in Los Angeles, where they need no protection during winter. I’ve become less inclined to water containers all year, so the cussonias were planted in the garden when each had attained enough size and height so as not to appear absurdly puny in the landscape. The paniculata inexplicably declined almost overnight, with the caudex collapsing and turning to mush. Full sun too strong? Clay soil too heavy? Because of its caudiciform ways (swollen base of main stem for water storage), I may have mistakenly assumed it preferred dryish soil after transplanting it into the garden, because now I’m finding lots of references that say otherwise. Not that I’m shirking blame, but the paniculata was a weak grower even when pampered in a pot. The gamtoosensis has been much easier, steadily gorgeous every inch of its growth, whether in container or garden, and now is almost 5 feet tall. (Please, please don’t try anything inexplicable now, okay?) Mine was found in a remaindered section at a local nursery but was grown by Annie’s Annuals & Perennials.

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Something else new for pots, a dwarf, very blue form of Agave guadalarajana with burgundy teeth and spines named ‘Leon.’ Monterey Bay Nursery’s label says ultimate size 2X2 for this “Maguey Chato.” From tissue culture by the wizards at Rancho Soledad. Cyrus Pringle collected this agave near Guadalajara for the Smithsonian in 1893. A devout Quaker, Mr. Pringle is one of the “top five historical botanists for quantity of new species discovered,” with quite a lot of his collecting done in Mexico. Winter is the perfect time to read about Tintin-like botanist adventurers. Which reminds me that finding a comfortable pair of hiking boots is resolution No. 1 for the new year.

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Also from Mexico, Echeveria agavoides is unsnaking bloom stalks to dangle its tiny flower rattles. When a group is in bloom, the various twisting, goose-neck stalks are charming contrast to their solid, ground-hugging attributes. This echeveria was given the RHS Award of Garden Merit in 1993 as “suitable for growing under glass.”

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In the last week of December, Agave desmettiana opened its pollen pop-up shop for the bees. The bloom stalk is approx 15 feet tall. Not at all sure what to plant here, if anything, when it dies after flowering. I’m leaning toward a low and silvery carpet of Dymondia margaretae to show off the acacia that will take over here.

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And there’s been lots of puttering with odds and ends collected from plant shows over the summer.

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And experiments with catching the amazingly luminous, low-angled light these last days of 2013.

Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden visit, journal, Occasional Daily Weather Report | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments