picture this photo contest

Gar­den­ing Gone Wild is host­ing a photo con­test for the best image of native plants in a gar­den set­ting. Wan­der down to the links in the com­ments on their post to see all the excel­lent ways peo­ple use natives in their gardens.

It’s hard for me sit some­thing like this out, so below are my three entries, pho­tos taken in my gar­den over the last cou­ple of months. (As usual, click to see the larger images.)

blue-eyed-grass-with-chard-and-heliotrope

red-and-blue-and-purple-1

I’ve already shared the first two on these pages, so for­give me for repris­ing them. These are of clumps of blue-eyed grass (Sisy­rinchium bel­lum) in a totally assorted plant­ing, mix­ing the natives with veg­gies (Red Win­ter red Russ­ian kale, beets, red– and orange-stemmed chard) orna­men­tals (heliotrope, geum and sages) and an herb (cat­mint). The plant­ing requires an aver­age amount of water­ing to keep every­body happy, but it shows how food plants and natives can eas­ily coex­ist with more gar­de­nesque selections.

(“Gardenesque”–how I love that word. No, I didn’t make it up. I have Noel Kings­bury (with Piet Oudolf) to thank for using it in Design­ing with Plants. He blogs, too!)

The first is a closeup of the native, the sec­ond shows the same bed three weeks later, after the geum started to flower.

juncus-patens-squared

The third photo pic­tures a foun­da­tion plant­ing fea­tur­ing one of the Cal­i­for­nia native rushes, Jun­cus patens. I have this thing for spikey, archi­tec­tural plants, and this one ful­fills my needs nicely. Most rushes are crea­tures of wet zones. How­ever, J. patens is one of the most drought-tolerant. These plants are located in the drip line for water off the roof, and they can make it through the sum­mer with min­i­mal added irrigation.

April 22 2009 05:34 pm | Categories: gardening • photography | Tags: • • •

8 Responses to “picture this photo contest”

  1. Pam/Digging on 22 Apr 2009 at 9:53 pm #

    I’m intrigued by the rush planted under your drip line. Great idea.

  2. wiseacre on 23 Apr 2009 at 5:36 am #

    I like the blue eyed grass and how you’ve arranged it with the other plants. I’d find it inter­est­ing that they belong to the iris fam­ily. They’re one of my favorite dirt road wildflowers.

    If noth­ing else they deserve a ‘small’ prize.

  3. Gloria on 23 Apr 2009 at 5:42 am #

    Nice pic­tures.
    Thanks for the link to Noel Kingsbury’s blog. I like his work, the blog should be interesting.

  4. Greg on 25 Apr 2009 at 1:27 pm #

    I really should get me some of that blue-eyed grass. It’s quite special.

  5. lostlandscape on 25 Apr 2009 at 3:35 pm #

    Greg, how cold do you get? The stuff is sup­pos­edly a zone 7–8 plant. Unlike bul­bous irises it starts grow­ing with our rains in the fall and grows through the win­ter, finally bloom­ing start­ing about March for us.

  6. Saxon HOlt on 25 Apr 2009 at 8:58 pm #

    Well the con­test is done and results posted over at GGW early next week. Thanks for your entry and I am giv­ing each photo bit of con­struc­tive crit­i­cism.
    Nice to see a com­plex plant­ing that incor­po­rates natives. The pho­tos need to have a bet­ter com­posed focal point and for a con­test the pho­tos need some bright­ness and con­trast adjustment.

  7. Mr. McGregor's Daughter on 26 Apr 2009 at 11:45 am #

    You have such dif­fer­ent plants from the ones I’m used to see­ing. I like the Geum, it really stands out.

  8. Wall Hooks · on 03 Nov 2010 at 5:33 pm #

    well, i always join photo con­tests but i have not yet won a photo contest ~

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