It is about time that someone reintroduced this technique! Blue Princess holly is now available together in the same pot as its male pollinator, Blue Prince holly (Ilex x meserveae ‘Blue Princess’ and ‘Blue Prince’). With careful pruning to prevent one from crowding out the other, both can coexist and provide profuse, bright red berries every winter, indefinitely. As the plants grow, their main trunks will eventually graft together.
Blue Princess holly is purported to be the shrubbier of the two. Blue Prince might be a bit more compact, and might grow a bit slower. Both eventually get about seven feet tall and nearly as broad, with remarkably glossy evergreen foliage. Their rather wavy leaves have sharply pointed teeth. Fortunately, their teeth are not quite as sharp as those of traditional English holly, which happens to be one of their mutual parents.
If possible, it might be helpful to identify the two cultivars of holly in a mixed planting, and label them so that neither one nor the other gets pruned out. Blue Prince will be the plant that produces no berries. Of course, with selective pruning ‘Blue Prince’ can be confined and subordinated to the showier ‘Blue Princess’. Individual ‘Blue Princess’ holly plants are better for hedges, with separate ‘Blue Prince’ plants nearby.
The Latin name is easy to confuse with the sacred flowers of an aquatic perennial from tropical regions of Asia, or a funny looking British sport coupe. Lotus berthelotii is a diminutive terrestrial perennial known as parrot’s beak. It gets only about a foot high, and spreads to only two or three feet wide. It cascades nicely from hanging pots, and is actually rarely planted out in the garden.
Here on the West Coast of California, most of us know goldenrod only as a color of crayon. In most other parts of America though, it is a common wildflower that is colorful enough to be popular in home gardens. Yet, with more than a hundred specie, it is hard to say exactly which goldenrod, (Solidago spp.) the crayon color corresponds to. All are some shade of gold or yellow, but some are a bit more orange than others.
Is it coincidence that the Latin name of black-eyed Susan is Rudbeckia, or was Becky rude enough to give Susan her black eye? The dark center is something that all varieties have in common, and what distinguishes them from most of the related blanket flower varieties. The daisy flowers of black-eyed Susan are traditionally yellow. Modern varieties can be orange, reddish or bronzed.
We all know about the bad reputation of eucalypti, especially the notorious blue gum. They are too big, too aggressive, too messy, too structurally deficient, and in groups, they are too combustible. However, there are several eucalypti that are not only appropriate for local home gardens, but because of their resiliency, drought tolerance and adaptability to the local environment, should be more popular than they are.
Known more as a medicinal herb, and by its Latin name, coneflower or Echinacea, is a delightful prairie wildflower that works just as well in refined home gardens. It blooms in summer and again in autumn, although autumn bloom can be inhibited if plants are not groomed of deteriorating stems from the previous bloom. Like related gaillardia and rudbeckia, coneflower is a nice cut flower.
What an unflattering name for such striking tropical foliage! The pointed and strap-shaped evergreen leaves of mother-in-law’s tongue, Sansevieria trifasciata, stand vertically, about two or three feet tall. They are rather rigid, and seem to be plastic with a glossy finish. Almost all modern varieties are variegated with silvery gray, white, cream or yellow stripes or banding. Dwarf varieties stay shorter, with flared foliage.
One of the big four for mild climates, sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, develops an excellent display of mixed yellow, orange and red, regardless of how quietly autumn tries to sneak in. Of the other three, Chinese pistache is more orange with less yellow, flowering pear is more ruddy, and gingko is only bright yellow. They all get very flashy color, but sweetgum just might be the flashiest.
From a simple picture, Spanish bayonet, Yucca aloifolia, is indistinguishable from the common giant yucca. The narrow leaves are about two feet long, and flare upward and outward from terminal buds. Plump conical trusses of waxy white flowers with purplish highlights stand vertically just above the foliage. The main difference is that the leaves are more rigid than they appear to be, with nastily sharp terminal spines.
Like redwoods, the cork oak, Quercus suber, is a ‘pyrophyte’, which means that it survives forest fires that burn off competing vegetation. The trunks and main limbs are insulated with a very thick bark. Only the foliage and smaller stems burn off. After a fire, the upper limbs of cork oak regenerate new foliage while other less fortunate plants start over from their roots or seed at ground level.
Tony Tomeo 