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Lavender Starflower

71101It is really an evergreen shrub with limber stems; but lavender starflower, Grewia caffra, can work almost like a rambling vine. It does not actually climb or grip anything. Like the canes of a climbing rose, it can be tied onto a trellis or fence as an espalier. As a free standing shrub, the arching stems should be pruned selectively. Shearing deprives them of their natural form, and inhibits bloom.

Espaliered plants can reach the eaves. Free standing shrubs have the potential to get as high and wide, but take more time. Alternatively, lavender starflower can be trained as a small patio tree. The leaves look like elm leaves, with the same sandy texture. The lavender star-shaped flowers are as wide as a quarter. They are not abundant, but they bloom as long as the weather is warm. Lavender starflower does as well with full sun as it does in partial shade.

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Yuccas (reblogged)

 

P71022+Yuccas are almost as useful as aloes are for gardening in chaparral or desert climates. I say ‘almost’ because most are not quite as friendly. The leaves are outfitted with nastily sharp tips. It is how they protect themselves from grazing animals in the wild, but it is not such an advantage in home gardens. Some actually have the potential to be dangerous where someone could bump into them. The leaves of Joshua tree can puncture leather. Some types of yucca get so big that they make it difficult to avoid their nasty leaves, even if planted in the background.

That being said, for those of us who do not need to worry about endangering children, dogs or anyone else out in our gardens, yuccas are very distinctive and handsome plants. Their striking foliage radiates outward from dense foliar rosettes. Large spikes of creamy white flowers that bloom in summer or autumn stand above the foliage quite boldly. Some yuccas produce remarkably tall floral spikes. Our Lord’s Candle, Yucca whipplei (Hesperoyucca whipplei), is a terrestrial yucca that sits low to the ground, but produces a huge flower stalk that stands ten feet tall! Modern garden varieties of Adam’s needle, Yucca filamentosa, are variegated.

Of the yuccas that develop sculptural trunks, only a few are available in nurseries. The giant yucca, Yucca elephantipes, is almost too common in mild climates, and unfortunately develops a massively distended trunk that is too big for some of the situations it gets into. Most other trunk forming yuccas that grow slower are uncommon because they are susceptible to rot in landscapes where they get watered through summer.

Except for a few tropical yuccas that are very rare, yuccas are very drought tolerant. Even in desert climates, some yuccas survive on annual rainfall. Others are happier if watered a few times through summer. Giant yucca happens to be a tropical yucca, but surprisingly does not need much water.

Giant yucca is very easy to propagate from cuttings of the big canes. Even big pieces can be cut and stuck as cuttings. However, most of the tree yuccas are difficult to propagate.

Terrestrial yuccas that do not develop trunks are generally easy to propagate by division of pups, although some are difficult to handle. Some terrestrial yuccas actually develop small trunks that creep along the ground, or maybe stand a few feet tall. They can be propagated as cuttings like giant yucca.

P71021

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Aloes (and a Rant)

P71020We really should be growing more of what grows well here. This is as relevant in other regions as it is in the Santa Clara Valley. Some regions have a lot more to choose from. There are always limitations too. Tropical plants do not survive the winters of New England. Apples and pears want more winter chill than they can get in San Diego.

In California, we do not have enough water to go around. Well, that is not completely true. Much of that misconception is political, which is none of my business. Much of it is that there are just too many people living here and sharing a limited resource. Much of it is that many of the too many people living here waste water on, among other things, gardening.

Many of the urban areas of California are in chaparral climates, which means that there is not much rain. Los Angeles and some other urban areas are full blown desert, which means that rain is quite minimal. My former neighborhood in the western Santa Clara Valley got about a foot of rainfall annually. It was considered to be chaparral. Trona, in the Mojave Desert, gets about four inches of rain annually.

However, few people in chaparral or desert regions landscape their homes accordingly. Some limit their ornamental plants to natives. Others limit their choices to plants from chaparral or desert climates, even if not native. Yet, most of us grow plants and lawns that really have no business in chaparrals or deserts, and we do so excessively.

Well, enough of that rant. There are many plants that really should be more popular here.

Aloes are a perfect example. Although many are from more tropical climates, most do not need to be watered too much. Some prefer minimal watering through summer. After winter rains, they produce fresh new succulent foliage in spring, and bloom reliably. Many have flashy orange or yellow flowers on striking vertical spikes. As plants grow, superfluous shoots can be separated and planted wherever more of the same plants are desired.

Smaller aloes are quite dense and mounding, with tight rosettes of stout leaves. Larger types with more open growth can get six feet tall. A few grow into small trees, with thick trunks that might be distended or buttressed at ground level. Leaves might have pronounced teeth along the margins, and most are spotted to some degree.

Everything about aloes is striking. They have prominent and colorful bloom. The distinctive succulent foliage is bold and unique. The larger aloes even have sculptural form.

Aloes are ideal for planters and pots because their roots are so complaisant and undemanding. They are rarely bothered by insects or disease. They are so easy to propagate that cuttings or pups can be acquired from friends or neighbors who are already growing them.

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Society Garlic

71025Some flowers are better left in the garden rather than cut and brought in. Society garlic, Tulbaghia violacea, looks like it would be an ideal cut flower, with nice bare stems. The aroma suggests otherwise. It smells something like a strongly aromatic combination of onion and garlic. Even in the garden, it might be a good idea to keep it at a distance. Deer and rabbits do not mess with it.

Society garlic is sometimes known as pink agapanthus because it has similar foliage and flowers, only much smaller. The tiny flowers are really more lavender pink than pink, and bloom in round clusters on stems about a foot and a half tall in late summer or early autumn. The narrow leaves are only about a quarter of an inch wide, almost grassy, but more rubbery like those of agapanthus.

Mature plants form dense clumps of foliage at least two feet wide. Variegated plants stay much smaller, but are also very likely to revert to green (non-variegated) growth, which if not removed, overwhelms and replaced variegated growth. Society garlic is very easy to divide for propagation. It likes full sun or slight shade. Although somewhat drought tolerant, it prefers regular watering.

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Dracaena Palm

71018Dracaena palm, Cordyline australis, is not a palm at all. It is more closely related to yuccas. (Incidentally, a few yuccas are also inaccurately known as palms as well, but that is another story.) The simple specie that grows taller than a two story house is rare nowadays. It develops a high branched canopy of evergreen olive drab foliage. The three inch wide leaves are about three feet long.

Modern cultivars stay significantly shorter, with somewhat shorter and less pendulous leaves. Some are nicely bronzed or purplish. Others are variegated with creamy white, pale yellow or pinkish brown. Trusses of minute flowers that bloom in early summer are not much to look at, and drop sawdust-like frass as they deteriorate. Bloom might be greenish white or blushed, and then fades to tan. Most modern cultivars do not bloom much, or may not bloom at all. The gray trunks have an appealingly corky texture.

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‘Peaches and Cream’ Grevillea

71011No one knows for certain who the parents were, so the hybrid Grevillea ‘Peaches and Cream’ lacks a species designation. (If it is important, the parent are most likely Grevillea banksii and Grevillea bipinnatifida.) It is an evergreen shrub that gets about four feet high and wide, with intricately lobed light green foliage. Individual leaves are about four inches long and two inches wide.

Four inch long floral trusses of tiny flowers can bloom at any time, attracting hummingbirds. Flowers bloom greenish yellow and then fade through a range of yellow, peachy orange and pink, from the bottom of the truss to the top. Warm and sunny exposure promotes bloom. Established plants do not need much water. Like other grevilleas, ‘Peaches and Cream’ grevillea can cause contact dermatitis. (It is best to know if one is allergic to it before planting it.)

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Dwarf Pampas Grass

71004Modern garden varieties of pampas grass found in nurseries are generally non-invasive. Their flowers are described as ‘sterile’, and therefore unable to produce seed. What that really means is that they are exclusively female, and unable to produce seed without male pollinators. However, they have the potential to be pollinated by naturalized pampas grass, and sow a few hybrid seed.

Of course, if naturalized pampas grass (Cortaderia jubata) are already in the area, a few tame dwarf pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumila’ will not make much of a difference anyway. They have the same elegantly cascading foliage and boldly fluffy flowers in the middle of summer, but on a smaller scale. The long and narrow leaves might stay less than five feet tall. The white flowers might stay below eight feet tall. Unfortunately, the leaves can easily cause nasty paper cuts!

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Wandering Jew

70927It could not have survived out in the desert for forty years. Wandering Jew, Tradescantia fluminensis, would have desiccated before its first summer. Well watered gardens are a completely different situation. Wandering Jew can become invasive and mix with other more desirable ground covers, only to die back and turn dark brown through winter. It starts over the following spring.

The one or two inch long leaves and succulent stems are very tender, sort of like busy Lizzie (impatiens). Stems root wherever the swollen nodes touch moist soil. New plants are ridiculously easy to propagate by cuttings, or simply by scattering pruning scraps wherever new plants are desired, and sprinkling a bit of soil or compost over them. Because it is so tolerant of shade, wandering Jew is an easy cascading houseplant. A variegated cultivar has slightly larger leaves.

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Myrtle

70920After many centuries of cultivation, myrtle, Myrtus communis, has not changed much. It was one of the more traditional plants for formally shorn hedges in Victorian gardens. It functions somewhat like a drought tolerant boxwood. Unshorn plants can grow as gnarly small trees not much higher than the eaves. ‘Compacta’ gets only about three or four feet high and wide, even without pruning.

The finely textured evergreen foliage is very aromatic and darker green than boxwood foliage. Individual leaves are not much more than an inch long. Not many of the tiny white flowers that bloom in summer develop if plants are shorn regularly. Unshorn plants that are allowed to bloom can produce small bluish black berries which might be messy on pavement. Foliar density is best in full sun. Shade can cause bald spots. Established plants may not need watering, and might live longer than anything else in the landscape.

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California Sycamore

70913No other big tree has trunks as sculptural as those of the California sycamore, Platanus racemosa. They bend and groove so irregularly, seemingly without direction, that it is a wonder that old trees in the wild eventually get a hundred feet tall. Some trees have a few trunks. The mottled beige bark is quite striking both in the shade of the broad canopy, and while trees are bare in winter.

California sycamore is a surprisingly well behaved street tree, but only for a few decades or so. The roots are quite complaisant. The main problem is that the bulky trunk eventually gets wider than the parkstrip. Another problem is that such a big tree drops a huge volume of foliage in autumn, and then again in spring as anthracnose ruins much of the new foliage. The big palmate leaves are about eight inches wide, and covered with tomentum (fuzz) that is irritating to the skin.