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Andromeda

Andromeda can be somewhat shade tolerant.

Andromeda might be more familiar by its Latin name of Pieris. A few of its seven species, and a few of their hybrids, are popular for home gardens. All are evergreen shrubs. A few do not grow much taller and wider than three feet. Few can grow a bit more than ten feet tall and wide. In the wild, some might grow as small trees that are almost twenty feet tall.

Andromeda has glossy evergreen foliage. Individual leaves are lanceolate, perhaps with serrated margins. They are between one and three inches long, and half to an inch wide. New growth of most cultivars is as rich cinnamony red as that of photinia. A few cultivars have more pinkish or simple green new growth. A few cultivars are variegated with white.

Andromeda blooms with somewhat pendulous racemes of tiny pendulous flowers. Floral racemes are between two and four inches long. Individual flowers are between a quarter and half an inch long. Most are white. Some are pink. Most have green rachi. Some have pink rachi. Bloom is abundant for the middle of spring. Andromeda prefers partial shade.

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Flowering Cherry

Flowering cherry is the fruitless counterpart of fruiting cherry.

Like camellias and chrysanthemums, the many different varieties of flowering cherries, Prunus spp., have been developed by horticulturists in Japan for centuries. There are now almost too many to choose from. Most stay less than about twenty feet tall and broad, so are proportionate to compact gardens. A few stay even smaller. The classic Yoshino flowering cherry can get somewhat larger. Weeping cherries have pendulous branches. Columnar types are noticeably taller than wide, at least while young. Some flowering cherries have remarkable fall color.

Despite my preference for cherry trees that produce cherries, I can not deny that the spring bloom of the innately non-fruiting flowering cherries is spectacular! Most bloom before any foliage develops. Their flowers can be single, semidouble or double, in various shades of white or pink, including rich rosy pink. They can not be very messy without fruit. Unfortunately though, flowering cherry trees are susceptible to rot in the endemically dense soil, so should not be watered too much.

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Saskatoon

Saskatoon prefers significant chill during winter.

Of eighteen species that are native to North America, only two are native to California. Of these two, only one is native locally. However, some of the few nurseries that sell various saskatoons market them as native. Obviously, most are not. A few are hybrids. All of them are species of Amelanchier, and are still rare here. Their common names are numerous.

Serviceberry, sarvisberry or sarvis may be some of the more common of common names. Shadbush, shadwood or shadblow may be less common. Juneberry, chuckley pear, wild plum and sugarplum are likely regional names. They are more familiar where winters are cooler. Some sorts do not perform well locally because they prefer a bit more winter chill.

Saskatoons are locally popular primarily for their fruit, and only among a few enthusiasts. They are more available online than in nurseries. The fruits are pommes like tiny apples, but are only the size of blueberries. They ripen to blackish purple for summer. Their early spring flowers are like wispy apple flowers. Most Saskatoons grow less than ten feet tall. Some rarer types can grow thirty feet tall in favorable climates.

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Sky Lupine

Sky lupine grows wild here. (This may actually be arroyo lupine.)

If California poppy were not the State Flower of California, sky lupine, Lupinus nanus, might be. Even though the perfect blue of sky lupine is the opposite of the perfect orange of California poppy, both of these brightly colorful flowers have several similarities, and are often sown together in autumn or winter for their early spring bloom. Both are native to western North America, but are very commonly displaced by exotic (non native) plants. As natives, they can easily self sow if competing specie are controlled. Both are satisfied with annual rainfall. As long as they are not watered too much in poorly draining soils, they are not too discriminating about soil. They do want full sun though.

Sky lupine is an annual that does not get very large, no more than two feet high and half as wide. It seems to be more colorful where it is kept less than a foot high by good sun exposure and wind. The finely textured, palmately compound foliage (divided into smaller leaflets that are arranged in a palmate pattern) gives it width, but only the lower half of its height. The upper half is its narrow spikes of small, neatly arranged ‘pea-shaped’ flowers.

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Bearded Iris

Bearded iris blooms after spring bulbs.

There may be no other flowers that exhibit such a diverse range of floral colors. Bearded iris, Iris X germanica, classifies as a hybrid of Iris pallida and Iris variegata. The genus of Iris derives its name from the Greek word for rainbow. As the name implies, it includes all colors of the spectrum. Floral form, height and, for some, fragrance is also quite variable.

About sixty thousand cultivars of bearded iris are supposedly documentable. It is difficult to estimate how many lack documentation. The smaller miniature cultivars are only a few inches tall. The tallest cultivars may grow four feet tall. Although they classify as summer bulbs, they are fleshy rhizomes that bloom for spring. Some will bloom again for autumn.

Bearded iris multiply whether or not anyone wants them to. Their rhizomes branch in two directions after bloom. Besides that, side shoots develop randomly from plump rhizomes. Congested rhizomes may bloom less. Division during summer promotes bloom. Division may happen annually or every few years. Bearded iris prefer sunny and warm exposure.

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Blue Eyed Grass

It is more like an iris (of the floral sort, not the ocular sort) than a grass.

Contrary to its common name, blue eyed grass, Sisyrinchium bellum, is not a grass at all, but is like a diminutive iris. The modern cultivars that are more commonly found in nurseries are somewhat more colorful than the wild plants that are native to coastal areas between about Santa Barbara and Portland. Yet, even these are rather subdued, with small half inch wide blue or light purple flowers delicately suspended above bluish grassy foliage that may be as low as only a few inches, and is rarely higher than a foot. They bloom best in sunny but not too hot areas. Once established, blue eyed grass is not too demanding, but naturalizes and slowly spreads more reliably if watered occasionally through summer. However, they can rot if watered too generously or too frequently.  

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Winter Flowering Cherry

Such bloom seems a bit early.

Its name describes it simply. Winter flowering cherry, Prunus X subhirtella, is a flowering cherry that blooms for winter. It is more popular where winters are cool enough to inhibit other bloom. It is less common here only because of other options for wintry floral color. Besides, slightly more floriferous flowering cherries bloom almost immediately afterward.

WIntertime bloom is actually a bit more reliable here than where it is more popular. Frost is too mild locally to damage it much, and mostly occurs earlier. Rain is mostly too light and too brief to dislodge much of the bloom. Bloom is a bit less profuse than that of other cherries because it is a bit more continuous. Therefore, it recovers from minor damage.

The relatively common sort of this uncommon flowering cherry blooms for late winter. Its bloom is slightly lavenderish pink. Some rare cultivars can bloom as early as autumn or as late as spring. A few are pendulous. Floral color ranges from white to pink. Floral form is mostly single but can be double. Deciduous foliage turns yellow or orange for autumn.

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Victorian Box

Victorian box does not get too big.

In the right situation, Victorian box, Pittosporum undulatum, is a nice small to mid-sized shade tree with dense foliage, sculptural branch structure and pleasantly fragrant spring bloom. In the wrong situation, it drops enough leaves, flowers and sticky seeds and bits of seed capsules to make quite a mess. This finely textured and sometimes sticky debris is easily absorbed into thick, shade tolerant ground cover like Algerian ivy, but is difficult to rake from pavement and to clean from roof gutters. Besides, even though Victorian box is not a large tree, the roots can eventually become aggressive enough to displace pavement.  

Young trees grow rather vigorously to about ten feet tall and wide, and then slow down somewhat as they continue to grow to as much as three times as tall and wide. They are easily contained with occasional selective pruning. The small, clustered flowers are not as impressive as their fragrance, adding only a bit of pale yellowish white color over the exterior of the rounded canopy. Some people, as well as birds, like the greenish olive-sized fruit that turns orange and eventually splits open to reveal sticky orange seeds within. (‘Pittosporum’ translates into ‘sticky seed’.) Leaves are about two or three inches long, or longer, with ‘undulating’ margins.  

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Cabbage

Cabbage is a cool season vegetable.

Resemblance to lettuce is merely coincidental. Cabbage, Brassica oleracea, is instead a close relative of very dissimilar vegetables. Brussels sprout, broccoli and cauliflower are different varieties of the same species. So are collard, kale and kohlrabi. All are winter cole crops. (Cabbage comprises the varieties of capitata, tuba, sabauda or acephala.)

Cabbage became seasonable last autumn. Its last phase is now maturing. It grows most easily from cell pack seedlings. Alternatively, it can grow from seed, which starts about a month and half earlier. Cabbage is biennial, so will go to seed if it stays in the garden too late. Warm weather initiates and accelerates the process, which ruins flavor and texture.

Green cabbage is the most popular type. Red cabbage is the second most popular type. Dutch white cabbage often classifies simply as a pale type of green cabbage. A mature cabbage weighs about a pound or two. Its loose outer foliage can be a foot to nearly two feet wide. Within more ideal climates, some varieties grow slower but significantly larger. With rain through winter, irrigation is probably unnecessary. Soil should be organically rich.

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Tulip

The soft pastel shades of these tulips brighten this somewhat shady landscape.

The mild winters that are so comfortable for us are not so desirable to tulip bulbs, which need to be chilled to perform as perennials. Consequently, they behave as brief season annuals locally. The most popular varieties have simple single flowers in white, yellow, pink, red, purple or pinkish orange. Double tulips are rather ruffled. Parrot tulips are larger and even more ruffled. As the names imply, lily-flowered tulips are shaped like small lilies, with pointy flared petals; and fringed tulips have finely serrate petals. Tulips stand between half a foot to two feet tall. Early types are already finished blooming. Late types, particularly if planted late, may bloom as late as early May.