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Zonal Geranium

Zonal geraniums bloom colorfully through summer.

Where winters are cooler, zonal geranium, Pelargonium X hortorum, performs as a warm season annual. It is perennial only with shelter from frost. Locally, traditional cultivars are so reliably perennial that they can get congested without thorough pruning and grooming after winter. Frost occasionally ruins outer growth, but rarely kills entire plants with roots.

Modern cultivars bloom more profusely and more colorfully than old cultivars, but are not quite as resilient. They are more likely to rot during the damp and cool weather of winter. They bloom exquisitely from spring through autumn though, with bright hues of red, pink, peach, salmon and white. They stay lower and more compact, so require less grooming.

The more popular modern zonal geraniums should not get much more than two feet high and wide. Their small flowers bloom on globular floral trusses that can get as wide as six inches. Traditional zonal geraniums get bigger, with smaller floral trusses. Nearly circular and aromatic leaves generally exhibit darker halos between lighter centers and margins.

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Red Ironbark Eucalyptus

The pendulous foliage of red ironbark eucalyptus moves softly in the breeze. The tall, curvy trunks are elegant and sculptural.

The many varied eucalypti never seem to outgrow the bad reputation of the blue gum and red gum eucalypti that get too big, messy and dangerous for urban gardens. Fortunately though, most others do not get nearly as large, and many stay proportionate to urban gardens. Their smaller canopies are neither as messy, nor as structurally unsound. Their adaptability to so many California climates and tolerance of aridity are serious advantages.

Red ironbark eucalyptus, Eucalyptus sideroxylon, is one of the mid-sized eucalypti that can eventually get quite tall, so is probably best where it has room to grow. Pruning for containment in compact gardens is actually quite a bit of work. Their coffee colored and deeply furrowed bark on elegantly sculptural trunks and limbs contrast nicely behind the mint frosting colored and softly pendulous foliage. The lanceolate leaves are about five inches long and three quarters of an inch wide. Flowers are almost always pinkish red, but can be pink or white.

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Lantana

Lantana just might bloom until frost.

Where winters are very mild, common lantana, Lantana camara, might bloom through all but the coolest of weather. It generally takes more of a break though. It could finish bloom at any time now, and resume at the end of winter. Where winter weather is cooler, foliage and perhaps stems may succumb to light frost. Growth should regenerate through spring. 

The tiny tubular flowers bloom inwardly from the margins of round umbels that are about and inch and a half wide. Flowers typically bloom yellow, and then fade to orange, red or pink. Therefore, the umbels have yellow centers with orange, red or pink margins during the middle of bloom. One cultivar blooms with one hue of yellow. Another fades to white.

Modern cultivars mostly stay rather low and compact. Some sprawl. Older cultivars might get as tall as six feet after a few years. However, after frost damage or coppicing, mature plants may regenerate from their roots, with vigorous stems that get six feet long through summer. The faintly raspy foliage appears to be smooth, and is aromatic when disturbed.

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Catmint

Catmint bloom is like faded denim.

Cats prefer catnip. It makes better tea too. Catmint, Nepeta X faassenii, is prettier though. It sprawls over the ground to get about three feet wide, without getting more than two feet deep. Where well exposed, it may not get much deeper than one foot. The aromatic gray foliage is denser than that of related catnip. Its individual leaves are small and furrowed.

Bloom begins with warming spring weather, and continues until cooling autumn weather. Individual flowers are tiny, and suspended on small floral stems. They just happen to be very abundant. Warmth stimulates phases of exceptionally profuse bloom. Floral color is light or pale blue, like faded denim. Shearing to deadhead enhances profusion of bloom.

Catmint works well as a rustic border or a ground cover for small areas. Alternatively, the blue bloom can be a delightful component of mixed perennials, in beds, planters or pots. Deer generally ignore catmint. Bees most definitely do not. They swarm it! ‘Walker’s Low’ is the most popular cultivar. It may be all that is available in some regions. Catmint is sterile, so generates no seedlings.

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Lantana

Lantana sports two colors per bloom.

All flowers that need help with getting pollinated do what they can to attract pollinators. The tiny flowers of lantana, Lantana camara, actually put forth a bit of extra effort to improve the efficiency of their pollinators, by becoming less attractive once pollinated. Within each tightly set flower cluster, pollinated flowers fade to an alternate color to inform pollinators that their services are no longer needed. This prioritizes flowers than still await pollination. Consequently, each small cluster exhibits flowers of two different colors. The choices are red, orange, yellow, pink, purplish pink or white.

The small and aromatic leaves are arranged in alternating pairs on thin stems that do not get much higher or wider than three feet. Established plants can survive with very minimal watering, but bloom better with somewhat regular watering. The summer bloom is very attractive to butterflies.

Trailing lantana, Lantana montevidensis, has limber stems that sprawl a few feet over the ground without getting a foot deep. It cascades nicely over retaining walls or from large planters. Flowers are shades of lavender, or sometimes white.

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Rosemary

Trailing rosemary cascades over retaining walls.

It is as familiar for culinary application as it is for home gardens, even with its new name. Rosmarinus officinalis is now known as Salvia rosmarinus, but the common name is still just rosemary. Like many Mediterranean culinary herbs, it is a member of the Lamiaceae Family. Since it is native to Mediterranean regions, it is quite happy within local climates. 

While many culinary cultivars of rosemary are shrubby or upright, the most popular home garden cultivars are trailing types. Trailing rosemary disperses its woody stems laterally, but can eventually get deeper than two feet. Shrubbier cultivars get at least twice as high in less time. The finely textured dark green foliage is evergreen and pungently aromatic.

Bloom is generally most profuse from late spring through the middle of summer, but may never really stop. It can continue in sparser sporadic phases whenever the weather gets warm, and even throughout the year. The tiny flowers are various shades of blue. Purple, white and pale pink bloom is very rare. Bloom is appealing to bees and other pollinators, including hummingbirds.

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Incense Cedar

Incense cedar produces delightfully aromatic wood.

Nowadays, the delightfully aromatic foliage is familiar primarily in garlands at Christmas time. Most of the foliage of old trees is too high up for direct contact. Young trees with low foliage are rare. Incense cedar, Calocedrus decurrens, is unfortunately not as popular as it was a century ago. At that time, it was as utilitarian as it was appealing for spacious but minimally irrigated landscapes.

Incense cedar wood made good shingles and laminate for closets and cedar chests. The wood is aromatic enough to repel moths from woolens and furs, which were still popular then. It was less expensive to import than Eastern red cedar. It grows wild relatively nearby, in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains. Incense cedar fence posts might resist decay as well as redwood posts.

If the wild, where they compete with other trees for sunlight, old trees can get almost two hundred feet tall. However, well exposed old trees in Victorian gardens are less than half as tall after more than a century. Their canopies are generally conical. Large limbs can curve upward like extra trunks. Flat foliar sprays resemble those of arborvitae. The deeply furrowed bark is cinnamon brown.

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Hetz Blue Juniper

A juniper with blue spruce color.

Some junipers that were so popular in the 1950s are now somewhat rare, or redundant to modern cultivars. Although not as common as it once was, Hetz blue juniper, Juniperus chinensis ‘Hetzii Glauca’ is still practical for modern gardens. Most junipers with such bluish gray foliage are either low and sprawling, or upright and tall. Hetz blue juniper exhibits an elegant outwardly flaring form.

Mature specimens can get taller than six feet, and as broad as ten feet. The dense evergreen foliage is not quite as blue as that of blue spruce, but is nonetheless striking amongst deeper green. Straight stems point sharply outward at about the same low angle, but in all directions. Removal of lower growth from old and overgrown specimens might reveal peeling bark and sculptural limbs.

Established Hetz blue juniper with warm and sunny exposure is nicely undemanding. Occasional irrigation through the warmest summer weather maintains color and foliar density. However, color naturally fades slightly and slowly through summer. If possible, selective pruning should completely remove obtrusive stems from their origins. Otherwise, stubs might compromise the natural form.

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California Bay

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California bay is not Grecian bay.

Because of the common name, California bay, Umbellularia californica, sometimes substitutes for Grecian bay. The two are actually very different. Grecian bay is a culinary herb that grows as a compact tree. California bay has a distinctively pungent flavor that is objectionably strong for most culinary applications. It grows fast to thirty feet tall, and gets a hundred feet tall in shady forests.

Because it gets so big and messy, California bay is not so popular for planting into home gardens. However, because it is native, it sometimes self sows into landscapes. Some mature trees live within gardens that developed around them. California bay can work well in spacious landscapes, with plants that do not mind its shade and leaf litter. Annuals and seedlings dislike the leaf litter.

Old forest trees make the impression than California bay typically develops an awkward and lanky form. That is only because they do what they must to compete for sunlight. Well exposed trees, although lofty as they mature, are more densely structured. Some have a few big trunks, with checked gray bark. Old trees are likely to develop distended basal burl growth known as a lignotuber.

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Breath Of Heaven

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Foliar aroma rather than floral fragrance.

Bloom may not wait until spring. Breath of Heaven, Coleonema pulchellum, can start to bloom late in winter if it chooses to. After another more prolific bloom phase sometime in spring, sporadic bloom can continue until autumn. The delightfully pale lavender pink flowers are tiny, but abundant during bloom phases. A few are likely to linger after the main phases, until another phase begins.

The straight species is not as popular as it formerly was. It gets to be approximately five feet tall and broad, or a bit bigger if crowded. Nowadays, most breath of Heaven are ‘Compactum’, which do not get much taller than three feet, with delightfully wispy light green foliage. ‘Sunset Gold’ has bright greenish gold foliage that stays lower than two feet. All have impressively aromatic foliage.

Breath of Heaven is best where it does not need much pruning for confinement. Frequent shearing compromises foliar texture and inhibits bloom. Partial shade likewise inhibits bloom, although it can also promote an appealingly sparser and wispier foliar texture. Unfortunately, breath of Heaven does not live for very long. Even the healthiest and oldest specimens may not last twenty years.