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Sculpture

Eucalyptus citriodora – lemon gum

Eucalyptus citriodora, lemon gum, is one of several species that I miss from the more southern portion of the Central Coast and Southern California. San Luis Obispo, where Brent and I studied horticulture at Cal Poly, and where I learned to appreciate this particular species, is technically within the same climate zone as Los Gatos. Nonetheless, many species that are popular in Southern California are more popular there than here, perhaps because of the proximity to Southern California. I got this picture on the inland edge of Highway 101 in Carpinteria on the return trip from Los Angeles. It demonstrates how sculptural the elegantly slender, smooth and pallid trunks and limbs of lemon gum are. The airy foliage is delightfully aromatic, but is too high to reach among trees that are sufficiently mature to be so sculptural. A few other eucalypti are similarly but distinctly sculptural. Some develop heftier trunks and limbs. Some develop blotched or uniformly coarse bark. Also, several other genera, such as coast live oak, camphor and ‘Marina’ madrone, develop sculptural form. Such form should be more of a consideration for modern landscape design, as it was until about the late 1970s, when trees like European white birch and the last of the complaisant eucalypti slowly became passe. It is actually gratifying to notice that a few daring horticulturists are experimenting with some of the smaller species of eucalypti that could have become popular years ago, as well as a few that had not yet been introduced. Where lemon gum might eventually grow too large, smaller species, such as Eucalyptus caesia, gungurru, might be more proportionate. Of the more than seven hundred species of Eucalyptus available, more than a few must be appropriate to refined home gardens, and more than a few of such are likely sculptural.

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Six on Saturday: Blooms With a View

Blooms With a View Spring Garden Tour of View Park and Ladera Heights happened to be on the day after I arrived late in Los Angeles. That is why I stayed another day late to help exhibit one of Brent’s three landscapes that were featured in the Tour. I did nothing more than answer a few questions, discuss random horticultural trivia, and share copies of a list of some of the other easily visible neighborhood landscapes that Brent designed.

1. Phoenix canariensis, Canary Island date palm is, as its common name indicates, from the Canary Islands, rather than, as its botanical name suggests, from Phoenix in Arizona that I left only last Saturday. Years ago, it was the second most common palm in the Los Angeles regions. Now, in this garden, it was the second most popular topic of questions.

2. Solandra maxima, cup of gold vine was the third most popular topic of questions as a result of this single bloom. It was about six inches wide. I wanted to get a better picture. Eriobotrya japonica, loquat was the most popular topic of questions. I took no pictures.

3. Aeonium arboreum ‘Albovariegatum’, variegated common houseleek is precisely what it sounds like. Most cultivars of common houseleek are as different in form as in foliage.

4. Salvia longispicata X farinacea ‘Mystic Spires’ is like the heftier version of mealycup sage. It provides splendid blue color, and is more reliably perennial than mealycup sage.

5. Bougainvillea X buttiana ‘Barbara Karst’ frames this arched parlor window colorfully. Anigozanthos rufus ‘Big Red’ kangaroo paw below tries to not obscure the outside view.

6. After all, this view is why this is View Park. Los Angeles has certainly grown up since I first saw it in about 1986, and it has grown much more since the old residence was built.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

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Cosmos

Cosmos has potential to almost naturalize.

For the past few years, I have really been overly indulgent with the seed catalogues from Renee’s Garden. I wanted to try more varieties of classic annual cosmos, Cosmos bipinnatus, than I could fit in my garden. I recently grew ‘White Seashells’ with tubular ray flowers, and colorful ‘Double Click’ with ruffled semi-double and double flowers, and even the ‘Dancing Petticoats’ mix, which includes several varieties! By now, I have probably grown all but a few of the many offerings.

After trying so many though, I still can not tell you which are my favorites. It would not matter much anyway, since I did not deadhead them to deprive them of their abundant seeds. Their self sown progeny are now mixed and beginning to bloom in random shades of pink ranging from pale pink to nearly red to nearly purple, with a few white.

Naturalized cosmos eventually reverts to bloom with more genetically basic single flowers in simpler shades of pink and white, on stems about three or four feet tall. They can even get taller than six feet and wider than two feet. Most of the popular garden varieties that I started out with though stay less than three feet tall. ‘Sonata’ is a popular strain that stays even shorter, so is among the most practical and proportionate for refined gardens.

Seed can be sown or new plants can be planted now to bloom through summer. Naturalized plants are already blooming only because they get an earlier start. Regardless of color or form, all cosmos flowers are about three inches wide, with yellow centers. Their finely textured pale green foliage is quite delicate and airy. 

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Some Exotic Annuals Self Sow

Periwinkle can naturalize a bit too aggressively.

It is impossible to say how long native wildflowers have adorned the natural landscape of California. Various lupines, California poppy and evening primrose had always been the most colorful wildflowers locally until they began to be displaced by exotic (non-native) plants only in the past two centuries or so. Although natives are remarkably resilient to dry summers and occasional wildfires, they are not very competitive with more aggressive and prolific invaders. What the natives and exotics have in common though is that they are so well adapted to local environmental conditions that they are able to perpetuate without much help.

Lupines, poppies and evening primrose, as well as native yarrow, godetia, and fleabane, may unfortunately need a bit of help if exotics want to move into their territory. In areas that are regularly or even only sometimes watered, weeding to remove more aggressive exotic plants helps the natives stay in control. They should otherwise do well on their own. Although without irrigation their growing season is much shorter, natives are slower to be displaced, since so many of the otherwise competitive exotics are not adapted to dry summers.

Many exotic flowering annuals are prolific enough to almost become naturalized, but are not quite aggressive or adaptable enough to get very far from cultivated landscapes. Cosmos, nasturtium, alyssum, catchfly (silene), four o’clock, gaura and foxglove self sow so readily that they are considered by some to be invasive. Some of us instead consider them to be ‘reliable’. They can be useful for unrefined parts of the garden that we do not mind watering, but otherwise do not want to put much effort into.

However, foxglove and even nasturtium can actually become noxious weeds in coastal areas not too far from here. I think that forget-me-not, feverfew, baby tears and English daisy can be problematic anywhere that they get enough water. Also, most annuals eventually revert to more genetically stable forms; which is why all varieties of dwarf nasturtium eventually bloom with the same yellow or orange single flowers. Yet, if we can distinguish between the plants that we can appreciate for their reliability and those that can be too invasive, native and exotic wildflowers and not so wild flowers can make gardening a bit easier.

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Timeout

A moment before sunrise over Phoenix.

Apologies for my absence.

Perhaps no one noticed. Most of my posts were automated prior to my departure, and I managed to compose a few brief articles for what was not automated; so ultimately, there was no lapse of posting. I may have only been negligent with response to comments for the last two weeks.

Realistically though, I have been intending to discontinue blogging and recycling old articles, and to post only my weekly gardening column, in two parts, on Mondays and Tuesdays. I merely have not done so yet.

Anyway, my trip, although very different from how it was planned, was totally excellent! Just a short distance from the turnoff for the southbound San Diego Freeway towards my primary destination in Los Angeles, I was diverted to my secondary destination northwest of Phoenix. I missed the desert scenery as I drove all night to arrive shortly before four in the morning, and began my vacation exhausted. Although I missed out on some of my plans in Los Angeles, I got more time in Arizona. The weather was weirdly excellent, with a weirdly torrential thunderstorm right in the middle of it. It was too early in the year to collect the seed that I wanted, but I really was not expecting to find any anyway. I did happen to procure a hedgehog cactus of some sort. I decided that, since my return was already delayed by a day, that I may as well delay it for two days. (I had brought some of my work with me, so was able to tend to it prior to my return rather than after.) Therefore, I came to my original primary destination in Los Angeles secondarily, stayed to help Brent with the View Park Garden Tour on Sunday, and returned home on Monday.

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New Zealand Flax

New Zealand flax provides colorful foliage.

Old fashioned New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax, is becoming increasingly uncommon. It is simply too big for compact modern gardens. Even without upright stems, its vertical and olive drab leaves can reach ten feet tall. They can flare outwardly as wide as fifteen feet. One cultivar is bronzed. Another is variegated. Both are somewhat more compact.

Most modern cultivars are either Phormium colensoi or hybrids of the two species. They are more compact and more colorful. ‘Jack Spratt’ grows only about a foot and a half tall, with chocolaty bronze foliage. ‘Yellow Wave’ gets about three or four feet tall with arching foliage with yellow stripes. Others are bronzed or striped with yellow, brown, red or pink.

New Zealand flax is remarkably resilient. The evergreen foliage is so very fibrous that it can be difficult to cut. Tough rhizomes that migrate where they are not wanted propagate easily by division. Some cultivars can revert by generating less colorful mutant growth. Since it is greener, such growth is more vigorous. It can overwhelm and displace more colorful foliage.

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Mediterranean Climate Is Quite Californian

New Zealand natives perform well here.

“Mediterranean” translates from Latin to “middle of land”. The Mediterranean Sea is in the middle of the land of those who named it. Other regions were either unimportant or unknown to them until the Sixteenth Century. Nowadays, most people of the World are aware of many other regions. A few of such regions also enjoy a Mediterranean climate.

Such climates are obviously not confined to the regions of the Mediterranean Sea. They merely resemble such climates. Some extend eastward into Western Asia. Others are in eastern and southern Africa, southwestern South America and Columbia. Larger regions of such climate are in southern Australia. The closest are here in western North America.

Even these limiting regional designations are debatable. Many horticulturists consider climates of New Zealand to be typical Mediterranean. Such climates are mostly between thirty and forty five degrees north and south. However, some might exist within northern India and southern China. Ultimately, climate is meteorological rather than geographical.

Mediterranean climates receive almost all of their rain during winter. Rain is very minimal through summer. Even if it is twice as abundant in other similar climates, it conforms to a similar schedule. Although winter chill is adequate for many species that need it, frost is mostly minor. Locally, summer weather does not often become too uncomfortably warm.

Native species know what to expect from local climate. So do exotic species from similar climates. Some may prefer more or less winter rain, summer heat or winter chill. Almost all can tolerate warm summers without rain, though. Such weather conditions are normal for them. Therefore, the most adaptable exotic species locally are from similar climates.

This includes species of Eucalyptus, Pittosporum and Callistemon from Australia. Aloe, Agapanthus and Morea are from South Africa. Phormium and Leptospermum are from New Zealand. Oleander and the various species of Lavandula are truly Mediterranean. In the past, a few exotic species adapted too efficiently to become invasively naturalized. Horticulturists are now careful to not import such potentially aggressive species.

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Simple Species

Unidentified cultivar of Tecoma stans

Tecoma stans is somewhat popular within the neighborhood where I stayed while in Arizona. It is available in nurseries also. I suppose that I could have purchased one or more for my garden. I had wanted to grow it for a long time. I refrained. I can explain.

The Tecoma stans that I can get from nurseries is an improved cultivar, or actually, about three cultivars. They are not the simple species, as it would be found growing wild. I realize that improved cultivars are known as ‘improved’ for a reason, but ultimately, I want to grow the simple species.

Crazy Green Thumbs sent me the seed for the simple species of Tecoma stans that I want to grow. That is all I need. Other colleagues have sent me seed, seedlings or cuttings for simple species of American beautyberry, American holly, American persimmon, pawpaw, red mulberry, red elderberry and perhaps too many other species to list briefly. In the future, I suppose that I could try cultivars of some of these species. I would like to get acquainted with them first though.

For most species, I suppose that I prefer cultivars. I want to grow the same ‘Moorpark’ and ‘Blenheim’ apricots that I grew up with. Eventually, I want to grow ‘John F. Kennedy’ rose. Cultivars serve a purpose also.

There are a few reasons why I want simple species rather than cultivars of some species. For American beautyberry, American holly and red elderberry, I want to grow what most other garden enthusiasts within the native ranges of these species grow merely because such species appear uninvited in their gardens. For American persimmon, pawpaw and red mulberry, I want to grow a few of the fruits that people enjoyed for culinary application prior to the development of relatively modern cultivars.

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Weird Tree

Sequoiadendron giganteum ‘Pendulum’

Giant redwood, Sequoiadendron giganteum, is famously the largest tree in the World. Although not quite as tall as the coastal redwood, Sequoiadendron sempervirens, it is bulkier. It grows taller than three hundred feet, with trunks wider than thirty feet, to weigh more than six hundred thirty tons.

Yet, like many species, it has at least one cultivar. ‘Pendulum’, which is the weeping giant redwood, is nothing like the simple species. It might grow forty feet tall, if it is able to support itself at such a height. It’s canopy might grow a few feet wide, but it really cascades more than it reaches outward. It really is weird. It looks more like a relative of Mr. Snuffleupagus of Sesame Street than like a relative of giant redwood.

Of course, its weirdness is what makes it so appealing. It is sculptural. It is bold. It really makes one wonder what planet it is from.

I got this picture in Kitsap County in Washington, hundreds of miles from the native range of the simple species within the Sierra Nevada. Actually, I see more of this cultivar in the Pacific Northwest than here. It likely performs better there because of the colder winter weather. Furthermore, this weird cultivar is more popular than the simple species, partly because it is so distinctive, and partly because it is more proportionate to home gardens. Simple giant redwoods only fit into very spacious landscapes.

Weeping giant redwood may not be good for anything more than its weirdness, but at least it excels at that. Otherwise, it provides no significant shade. It does not bloom conspicuously. It provides no fruit. It does not even make good firewood. Fortunately, weirdness has certain appeal. Within our home gardens, we can grow what we like, even if merely for its weirdness.

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Six on Saturday: Arizona

Arizona will be in the rear view mirror shortly after this episode of Six on Saturday posts at midnight on Saturday morning. I got a few pictures this time though. They are not too colorful only because I found the diverse cacti to be more compelling than the abundant desert bloom. Palo verde, esperanza, ocotillo, caliandra, oleander, bougainvillea, lantana and a few other flowers that I did not identify were all in bloom. A few others will bloom soon. We should be in Los Angeles by about noon, and at the View Park Garden Tour on Sunday. This is not how I planned this excursion, but it is working out rather splendidly.

1. Wile E. Coyote, of whom I posted a picture last week, may have been requesting a ride to visit his old colleague, the Road Runner, here in Arizona. I neglected to consider that.

2. Cacti are obviously popular in Arizona, likely because they perform so reliably and are so striking. This and the next two are field grown nursery stock. I can not identify them.

3. This cactus developed a rather wide colony. Many impressively big cacti get relocated. However, I doubt that this entire colony can be relocated intact. It will likely be divided.

4. This unidentified lumpy cactus seems to be quite tame. The few that I have noticed in my neighborhood grow less than three feet high. They grow almost twenty feet tall here.

5. Hesperaloe parviflora, red yucca is difficult to get a good picture of. Its grassy texture and grayish color can look shabby. Its pink bloom is nice against a clear blue sky though.

6. Carnegiea gigantea, saguaro is the State Flower of Arizona, and what tourists like me expect to see in Arizona. I pulled over outside of town to take this picture from the road.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/