Tag Archives: Australian plants
some kangaroo paws
Anigozanthos is becoming as common as agapanthus in Southern California, but I’m still a fan. Blooms for months, fine on the dry side, handles full sun, dramatically vertical. You’d think there’d be a huge selection available. But it’s pretty much … Continue reading
waxflowers in bloom at Grand Park
The last time I worked at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse prompted this post on Grand Park*. Yesterday the waxflowers were in bloom, an Australian shrub that most likely passed completely unnoticed at my last visit. The waxflower, or chamelaucium, … Continue reading
the Taft Garden
“Ancient geologic forces shaped the Ojai Valley that modern-day visitors find so attractive. This part of Ventura County lies in a region geologists call the Transverse Range Province. Transverse means “lying across,” and the mountains and valleys in these parts … Continue reading
Australian Native Plants Nursery
For just a two-hour drive up the coast, we ended up covering a lot of continents on Tuesday, botanically speaking, of course. Australia and especially South Africa were well represented. This was a much-anticipated trip to Jo O’Connell’s Australian Native … Continue reading
Hardenbergia violaceae, the Happy Wanderer
This smallish evergreen vine, also known as the Happy Wanderer, is in bloom around town, always a surprising sight for February. It’s a tough little number in the pea family from eastern Australia that lays low all year, unnoticed, in … Continue reading
just another acacia
At plant nurseries, I’m often a hapless Mr. Magoo, peering and squinting at new shapes and wildly filling in the blanks with extravagant theories. For example, the twisted, contorted stems of this mystery tree, or shrub grown on standard, reminded … Continue reading
on the subject of the southern hemisphere…
Remember the old surfing movie The Endless Summer, where summer is chased around the globe? Well, I do. My older brothers took me to all the surfing movies. You can see where I’m going with this…it’s summer in Australia, and … Continue reading
Bernard Trainor’s Landprints
Ages and ages ago (last July in fact) a bunch of us garden bloggers visited gardens in Northern California at last summer’s meetup known as the Fling. For the temperate Bay Area, it was an incredibly hot day, and we … Continue reading
shrub
What occupies my thoughts on the garden for next year this hot Sunday is nothing more earth shakingly consequential than planning the beginning of a smallish spine of shrubs to snake through bays of herbaceous stuff. Ozothamnus ‘Sussex Silver’ moved … Continue reading
Clianthus formosus
I stopped in at the Sherman Gardens recently to check in on the succulent garden, which I visited a couple years ago and wrote about here. Although that garden looks the same as the day I visited, there was a … Continue reading