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Semperflorens Begonia

Some of us learned this as fibrous begonia.

From spring until autumn, semperflorens begonia, which is also known as fibrous, bedding or wax, begonia, is a warm season annual. They actually start to deteriorate as the weather gets cool this time of year. However, they do not necessarily need to be pulled out as their season ends. In sheltered locations or with protection from frost, they actually survive through winter as perennials. They are so easy to propagate by cuttings or division of overgrown plants that tired older plants can replace themselves with their own babies before they get too ugly.

The small flowers of semperflorens begonia can be white, red, or various shades of pink in between. Foliage is more often green or bronze, but can be reddish or variegated. The largest plants get only a foot tall. Denser dwarf types are half as tall. Semperflorens begonia likes rich soil and regular watering (when it is not raining). They prefer partial shade, but will take full sun if mixed with other plants that keep things cool and humid.

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Strawflower

Strawflower retains its color and form, although not foliage, as it dries.

Just like cosmos, zinnias and other related flowers, strawflower, Helichrysum bracteatum, seems to be at its best as its bloom season ends. Bloom started in summer and should finish now that weather is getting cooler. The two and a half inch wide flowers last in the garden until they get ruined by rain. They are excellent cut flowers, and even better dried flowers.  

Strawflower can be white, pink, red, orange or yellow. Their seed should be sown directly where they are wanted in spring. Mature plants are about two and half feet tall and a foot wide, with three or four inch long and somewhat narrow leaves. Dwarf varieties are not as good for dried flowers, but are fuller and look better in the garden. 

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Toyon

Native toyon berries appeal to birds.

Hooray for Hollywood! It was formerly Hollywoodland because of the California holly that still grows wild there. California holly is not actually holly, though. It formerly classified as hawthorn and two different photinia. It then became two other species of the genus that it is now. Ultimately, but perhaps just temporarily, it became toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia.

Toyon is native to all but a few counties of California. It is therefore quite happy within the chaparral climates here. Once established, it needs no more water than it gets from rain. Occasional irrigation enhances foliar color and vegetative growth. Excessive or frequent irrigation can cause roots to rot. Fire blight can sometimes become a significant problem.

Toyon is unlikely to grow more than twelve feet tall with sunny and warm exposure. It can grow more than twice as tall if it competes for sunlight with larger vegetation. The simple evergreen leaves are narrow and somewhat serrate. Billowy trusses of tiny white flowers bloom for early summer. Trusses of bright red berries feed birds through autumn.

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Western Cottonwood

Western cottonwood is better in the wild than within refined gardens.

The brilliantly clear yellow autumn color of Western cottonwood, Populus fremontii, is best in the higher elevations and inland areas of its extensive range, which spreads from the coast of California to the Rocky Mountains and as far south as Mexico. Although it thrives in local riparian areas, particularly Coyote Creek and Guadalupe River, mild temperatures in both summer and winter do not allow it to get as colorful as it does in Nevada. It is almost never planted intentionally, but has a sneaky way of sometimes growing from seed in well watered gardens.

The bad news is that Western cottonwood grows big, fast and aggressively. The shallow roots displace pavement, compete with other desirable plants and damage septic and drainage systems. Large trees produce an abundance of annoyingly fuzzy seeds that adhere to anything. After causing so much damage, Western cottonwoods survive only a few decades, leaving big deteriorating carcasses that need to be removed before collapsing. Consequently, Western cottonwood is really suitable only for large open areas or in the wild.

Mature trees can be more than fifty feet tall and more than half as broad. Their somewhat thick leaves are almost triangular, with paired angular lobes on the sides and blunt tips. ‘Nevada’ is a male cultivar that does not produce fuzzy seeds.

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Japanese Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle is more fragrant than colorful.

Bloom should be most abundant during late spring and summer. Within this mild climate though, it often continues sporadically through autumn. Japanese honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, is presently blooming nicely in some areas. Its trusses of ribbony creamy white flowers fade to pale yellow. Although unimpressively colorful, they are alluringly fragrant.

Japanese honeysuckle here is almost exclusively Hall’s Japanese honeysuckle. It might be recognizable by a cultivar name of either ‘Hall’s Prolific’ or ‘Halliana’. Some botanists consider halliana to be a variety rather than a cultivar. (Variety names are neither quoted nor capitalized like cultivar names.) ‘Purpurea’, with dark but not purplish foliage, is rare.

Japanese honeysuckle, like star jasmine, is a vine that can be a ground cover. As a vine, It can climb more than thirty feet high. Unfortunately, it sometimes overwhelms shrubbery and small trees. Its twining stems can constrict the stems of other vegetation that it wraps around. As ground cover, it can get three feet deep. Leaves are two or three inches long.

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Santa Cruz II

Begonia boliviensis ‘Santa Cruz’

Begonia boliviensis ‘Santa Cruz’ is significantly bigger than it was when I wrote about it three months ago. If I had known that it would have performed so well, I would have groomed it for better form. It grew upright at first. I just let it do so because I wanted to make a cutting from the tip when it got pruned back. However, because it leaned over and branched as it should, it did not get pruned back. It could have developed a better and lower form if I had tended to it better, but I am too pleased with it now to complain that it is a bit more upright than it should be. I do not mind that I did not get a cutting from the primary stem that I did not cut back because there are now many more stems that I can get cuttings from, simply be grooming out a small bit of superfluous growth from within. I could get many more than I want if I were to actually prune this specimen back for winter. It is getting to be too exemplary to cut back for winter, though. Nor do I want to leave it out to get frosted, as I might do with other begonias. The horticulturist who procured it will shelter it from frost, and perhaps groom it a bit after winter, but otherwise try to retain as much of this growth as possible for a head start next spring. I am curious to see what it does. Will it shed most of this growth as it resumes growth from below next spring; or will it grow from near the tips of where it stopped growing this year? I did not expect to be so impressed by this modern cultivar of Begonia.

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Six on Saturday: Away Again

It is a long story. To be brief, Rhody and I are again far away from work and home, near Phoenix in Arizona, without time to write.

1. Prosopis velutina, velvet mesquite is supposedly the most common mesquite here and is also native. It develops sculptural form, but only light shade, which seems to me to be substandard for such a warm climate. Perhaps it is common because it is undemanding.

2. Parkinsonia florida, blue palo verde is also native like velvet mesquite, but is only one of the two most common palo verdes here. Foothill palo verde is the other. Both develop sculptural form and light shade, also like velvet mesquite, and are a bit more sculptural.

3. Lantana montevidensis, trailing lantana is the same common type that I occasionally work with at home, but seems to be happier and more colorful here, even while shorn as these weirdly compact globs, and humiliatingly deprived of its naturally sprawling form.

4. Calliandra californica, Baja fairy duster seems to be more prevalent here than it is in California. Of course, Baja California is a very big and very diverse region to the south of the State of California that I am familiar with. I suspect that this is a hybrid or a cultivar.

5. Leucophyllum frutescens, Texas sage, like so much of the flowering shrubbery here, is shorn too abusively to bloom as well as it likely should. Its silvery gray foliar color is also compromised. I can not even guess what its natural form or branch structure should be.

6. Rhody is so tolerant of my interest in unfamiliar vegetation. His only interaction with it involves just ‘claiming’ it. I absconded with a handful of seed pods and three seedlings of velvet mesquite, and a seedlings of Baja fairy duster (which will get a different name).

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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Elderberry

Blue elderberry is native here.

Although almost never planted intentionally, elderberries occasionally appear in strange places, wherever their seeds get dropped by the birds or rodents who eat their berries. The blue elderberry, Sambucus mexicana / caerulea, is native and most common between California, British Columbia and the Rockies. The American elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, is more common elsewhere, and also appears in the west where it had historically been imported for berry production. Some modern cultivars (cultivated varieties) with gold, bronze, or lacy foliage are actually related to European elderberries.

Except for compact cultivars, elderberries grow rampantly to about fifteen feet tall and wide. Aggressive pruning in winter keeps them looking fuller and more densely foliated. Overgrown plants can be rejuvenated by getting cut to the ground. The big leaves are divided into seven leaflets that are two to six inches long. Blue elderberry foliage is softly serrate and a bit more variable, with five to nine leaflets that may be as short as one inch.

Wide flat trusses of pale white flowers that bloom in late spring or early summer produce small but potentially abundant and richly flavored berries. Blue elderberries are dark blue dusted with white powder on trusses to about six inches wide. American elderberries are darker and more purplish on trusses that can be wider than eight inches. (Red elderberries are toxic!)

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Chinese Elm

Chinese elm is sculptural and textural.

Dutch elm disease became a serious problem for American elms in the 1930s. However, it did not reach California until half a century or so later. Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, is not very susceptible to the disease, but is a vector. In other words, it can survive infection to share it with other species of elm. Consequently, it became unavailable by the 1980s.

Some mature specimens of formerly common Chinese elm still inhabit older landscapes. Younger specimens in newer landscapes are mostly ‘Drake’ Chinese elm. They are a bit more upright, with more symmetrical form. More importantly, they are not vectors of Dutch elm disease. Other cultivars that are also resistant are rarely available at local nurseries.

Classic and formerly common Chinese elm can eventually grow more than fifty feet high. Some can grow thirty feet wide to shade an entire urban front lawn. Some cultivars might grow nearly as high, but are generally not quite as broad. Their blotchy gray and tan bark adorns curvaceous limbs. Their small deciduous leaves are not very colorful for autumn. They can be copious, messy and quite tedious to rake.

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Sweet William

Sweet William can grow as a short term perennial.

Because they do not like warm weather through summer much, sweet William, Dianthus barbatus, is appreciated more as a cool season annual from autumn into winter and even into spring. They can also be planted early in spring for color before summer warmth. They can sometimes survive as perennials in sheltered areas, particularly if mixed and hidden amongst other perennials and annuals. Deadheading (removal of deteriorating flowers) prolongs bloom.

New plants are easy to propagate from division, cuttings or layering of tired older plants. (Layering involves rooting prostrate stems by burying them slightly and them separating them when they have developed roots.) By the time the old plants become too deteriorated to salvage, the new cuttings or layers should be ready to replace them. New plants like to start out in rich and well drained soil, but not watered too much since they can be susceptible to rust and fusarium wilt.  

The white, pink, rosy pink, red, somewhat purplish or bicolored half inch wide flowers form rather flat dense trusses on top of short stems. Minute but abundant green bracts fill the spaces between the individual flowers. The rich green leaves below are about an inch to two and a half inches long. Mature plants of the more common varieties are typically less than a foot tall and wide. More compact and larger varieties are available as seed.