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English Daisy

70419Once it gets into a lawn, English daisy, Bellis perennis, can be very difficult to get rid of without leaving bald spots. The thin but tough rhizomes creep along the ground, producing rounded leaves that get no longer than two inches. Mowers barely scratch the surface. English daisy seems to prefer partly shaded areas to drier sunny spots. Although invasive, it can be pretty in informal lawns.

The inch wide white flowers with yellow centers bloom in phases throughout the year. They are least abundant during cool winter weather, and most abundant about now, as weather gets warmer in spring. Garden varieties have more clumping growth, and slightly larger white, pink or rosy red flowers, all with yellow centers. Some have plumply double flowers. They are grown as flowering annuals, but can perform for a few years as light duty perennials.

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Onion Weed

70412What an unappealing name! That is probably why so many of us know it simply as ‘wild onion’ or ‘allium’. Few of us bother to get sufficiently acquainted with it to know it by the species name of Allium triquetrum, which is actually not much more appealing than ‘onion weed’. It is not really wild, but has naturalized as an invasive exotic, or in other words, ‘weed’. At least it is a pretty weed.

The foliage might not be much to look at as it emerges from formerly dormant bulbs late in winter. Each bulb produces only two or three leaves that get only about half a foot tall, and are only a bit wider and glossier than grassier weeds. Then the three sided flower stalks grow up as much as a foot above the foliage, and bloom with as many as a dozen small and pendulous white flowers.

The half inch long flowers are individually no more interesting than their foliage; but collectively, they briefly brighten unrefined or neglected areas of the garden with wispy soft white drifts of bloom. They can bloom through shallow weeds or groundcover, and tolerate considerable shade. Yet, as resilient as they are, they are not too drought tolerant. Onion weed is edible, but not very flavorful.

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Forget-Me-Not

80418It is not easy to forget annual forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica. Even if it dies back early in the heat of summer, it will probably throw plenty of seed to regenerate through next winter, and bloom again by next spring. It can easily naturalize in damp or riparian areas, and might be considered to be a weed; but like nasturtium and foxglove, it is a polite weed that is not aggressively invasive.

The tiny blue flowers start to bloom while winter is still cool, and then get a bit more abundant as the weather warms in the beginning of spring. Some modern garden varieties bloom with pink or white flowers. Tender leaves are about two or three inches long, and less than an inch wide. Soft stems creep laterally, but do not get far. Mature plants are less than a foot tall, and two feet wide.

Between autumn and early spring, seed can be sown directly where plants are desired. Because they are so tender, plants are not often available in nurseries. Forget-me-not is a nice understory plant to larger rhododendrons and up-pruned shrubbery, or covering for daffodils, freesias and other spring bulbs. They want regular watering and rich soil, and can be happy in cool partial shade.

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Snowdrops

80221Where winters are more wintry, garden enthusiasts get to brag about their snowdrops as they emerge and bloom through melting snow. Diminutive white flowers against a backdrop of white snow may not look like much to us. We have more colorful flowers through winter, without the snow. Their kind of snowdrops, Galanthus specie, need more winter chill than they would get here anyway.

We have our own kind of snowdrops though. Leucojum aestivum does so well without significant winter chill that it can naturalize, and sometimes shows up in well watered gardens and riparian areas without being planted intentionally. Leucojum vernum is similar, but blooms with only single or paired flowers, rather than three or more small and pendulous flowers on each arching stem.

The rubbery leaves are about half an inch wide and a foot tall. They stand rather vertically, and can get nearly twice as tall if they need to grow through groundcover. The flower stalks are about the same height, and with the weight of the drooping flowers, might lean a bit outward from the foliage. Each flower has six white tepals with a yellowy green spot near the tip. All plant parts are toxic.

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Franklin Canyon Park

P71126Because I sometimes go to Brent’s jobs sites while in the Los Angeles area, people sometimes ask me if I see many famous actors. Well, I try to stay out of everyone’s way, so rarely see anyone at the sites. If I see anyone famous about town, I would not know it. I do not watch enough television or movies to recognize many of them.

However, I did recognize this famous actor from my childhood as the renowned Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes. He was just out for a stroll in Franklin Canyon Park in the Santa Monica Mountains above Beverly Hills. It happens to be one of my favorite places in the Los Angeles Area, and has an interesting history.

Even those who have never been to Franklin Canyon Park might have seen it on television and in movies. Franklin Canyon Reservoir was Myers Lake on which Opie Taylor was skipping stones on the Andy Griffith Show. It was also a pond near the Ponderosa on Bonanza, and near where Daniel Boone lived, and on various far away planets on Star Trek. Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon lived there!

There are a few exotic plants that were planted there over the years, and a few that have naturalized. The familiar deodar cedars are of course exotic. So are the few coastal redwoods from farther up the coast. Yet, most of the flora of Franklin Canyon Park is native, and shows what the Santa Monica Mountains were like before the surrounding area became so developed. Large sycamores and cottonwoods live in the riparian area at the bottom of the Canyon. The upper slopes and ridges are much more open, with smaller trees and all sorts of scrub. There were a few toyons, which are also known as ‘California holly’ scattered about. I can not help but wonder if there were more of them decades ago when Hollywood(land) was named after them. I know that there is now more vegetation than there was when fires burned the area more frequently, and some plants are less competitive than others. It is fascinating nonetheless. Sometimes, it can be difficult to imagine that there was ever anything natural in Los Angeles. I am sorry that I have no better pictures.