It’s hardly May, and I have my first tomatoes of the season already, this gorgeous pair on a seedling of the heirloom Cherokee Purple.
Okay, I cheated a little. These are actually hothouse tomatoes. Some seed I planted in the greenhouse last spring didn’t germinate until last fall. Transplanting the plants outdoors in November would have meant certain death for the little tomatoes, but I didn’t have the heart to pull them out. One of them set down roots through the drainage holes of the pot and just kept growing. Although the greenhouse is too shady and unheated, the plant survived. And now I have these first two tomatoes, with more on the way.
I’ve never used the greenhouse for anything as practical as growing veggies, so this will be an interesting experiment.
The first artichokes of the season are also on some plants that were almost accidents. For years we had a clump of an especially good selection growing in the veggie garden. But a room addition on the house put the garden in shade, and the plants went into decline. I dug them out and was going to toss them, until I decided to try a couple stems in the back of a new raised bed. The combination of more light, more moisture, and fresh compost-rich soil worked their magic, and the plants are now looking as good as they ever have.
I like to think that I earned some bonus points for showing some mercy and not tossing the tomato and artichoke plants into the greens recycling. But in the case of the artichoke, at least, it’s another life lesson in trying to find the right location for an underperforming plant.
Are there any plants that you’ve had similar experiences with? Any “rescue plants” that ended up rewarding you as much as others you’d planned for?
The native plant garden at San Diego’s Old Town State Historic Park occupies a gentle rise in the land on the north end of the park. The garden sits on the grounds of the Silvas-McCoy house, a modern reconstruction by the park service based on foundations excavated in 1995.
The house replicates an 1869 structure by Irish immigrant James McCoy. Previous to McCoy’s arrival the site was previously in the hands of Maria Eugenia Silvas, and the grounds also contain the foundations of two adobe structures that predate the McCoy house.
The park service, charged with interpreting the history of San Diego’s founding, decided between rebuilding the McCoy house or recreating the earlier adobes. Would they opt to tell the story of early Spanish settlement? Or that of later settlers? Or instead could they do something to interpret the area’s original inhabitants, the Kumeyaay, whose village of Koss’ai occupied the site, and whose tenure went back thousands of years? Choices like that are never without controversy, and you could make good arguments on all sides of the debate.
This was during a flurry of historic reconstruction in Old Town which turned this corner of the park into a construction zone. During the project I spotted one of the more amusing informational signs I’ve encountered, one that proclaimed a nearby patch of earth to be the “Future site of San Diego’s first city jail.” (Do you ever regret not having a camera along?)
The native plant garden, like the Silvas-McCoy house, also participates in the park’s mission to provide historic context. The selection of plants reinforces the story the garden tells.
In the days of Silvas and McCoy the San Diego River flowed in front of this site. The plants that would have been found here would have been primarily riparian species. To tell that story, you’ll see stands of mugwort, sycamore, mulefat, coast live oak and willow featured on the grounds.
In the past, the river would sometimes empty into Mission Bay to the north, or into San Diego Bay to the south. The geographical indecisiveness of a meandering river works fine for the natural world, but poorly for a culture tied to private ownership of property. The current San Diego River has been forced into an engineered channel a quarter mile to the north and is no longer able to decide on its own where it would like to go. So, in addition to telling a story about the location of the river 150 years ago, the garden–a riparian plant community stranded hundreds of feet from the river that would have originally sustained it–to me speaks to notions of ownership of space and ideas about the control of nature. It’s not just another pretty garden.
Of course, when you say “garden,” people do want to see pretty flowers. Above is chaparral mallow (Malacothamnus fasciculatus), and here’s the perky red monkey (Mimulus aurantiacus)…
…and the ever-popular California state flower (Escholzia californica) in its most recognizable color form, with wands of white sage (Salvia apaiana) in front.
And here’s a bouquet of some of what was blooming.
The garden in its current state goes back only a little more than a year, when a group of local California Native Plant Society volunteers weeded the site and planted many of the plants. The garden hosted an open house on Saturday, and visitors got a chance to tour the site and get insights from ethnobotanist Richard Bugbee about traditional Kumeyaay uses of many of the plants in the garden.
For example did you know that young flowering stems of white sage were peeled and eaten raw? This is one of the most assertively aromatic of sages, but peeling the stems purportedly takes away the oil-producing glands and gives the stems a flavor something like celery. (Maybe “tastes like celery” is the botanical equivalent of the catch-all “tastes like chicken,” but I intend to find out the next time my plants need a haircut…) Future plans for the garden include signage on traditional Kumayaay uses of the plants growing there.
That’s ethnobotanist Richard Bugbee, second from the right in this photo, along with landscape architect Kay Stewart, far right, who was heavily involved in designing the garden. Next to Richard is Peter St. Clair who, along with the original donor to the native garden project, had the vision and persistence to have the garden in the first place. Peter also organizes the volunteer work crews that help maintain and shape the garden.
At not much over a year old, this is still a young garden. There are still areas to be cleared and plantings to be finalized, but the garden has good bones and occupies a fascinating location. It’s definitely a place to watch as it matures, and they’re always on the lookout for volunteers to help the process along. Sign me up!
In a world where color photographs are easy to come by it can be refreshing to stand back and look at images where the color has been simplified down to tones of black, white and gray.
Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848–1938) compiled his massive series, Wildflowers of New England, Photographed from Nature, in the early part of the 20th century. The photos are warm-toned platinum prints where the plants form decorative patterns. You can tell that the photographer was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, and many of the photos could serve as templates for carved decorations on a piece of furniture.
Left:Edwin Hale Lincoln.Convolvulus Septium, Hedge Bindweed, Morning-Glory, plate 124 from Wildflowers of New England, Photographed from Nature, Volume V, 1904. [ photo from the de Young Museum, which had an exhibition on Lincoln last year ]
Left:Edwin Hale Lincoln.Acorus Calamus, Flag-Root, Sweet Flag, Calamus-Root, 1914. [ image from Alan Klotz Gallery, which will be featuring Lincoln’s work in a show that runs from May 7th to July 2nd ]
Different from Lincoln’s work are the later photographs of Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932). His 1928 Urformen der Kunst, published in the 1929 English edition, Art Forms in Nature, features 120 beautifully grainy photogravures. (Soulcatcher Studio has the entire volume online.) Blossfeldt followed up the book with a second volume in 1932.
Blossfeldt, like Lincoln, came out of an arts and crafts orientation, in his case, that of ornamental metalwork. But Blossfeldt moved in closer to his plants, often showing them in extreme magnification. He didn’t claim to be a scientist, and instead was looking at nature for the ultimate inspiration for human art.
(BTW, If you happen upon reruns of the TV show Will and Grace, take a look at Will’s apartment, and you’ll see several framed Blossfeldts prints on the set.)
Karl Blossfeldt.Sanguisorba, swallowwort, from Urformen der Kunst, 1928. [ image from the Wikimedia Commons ]
Karl Blossfeldt.Monkshood, from Urformen der Kunst, 1928. [ image from the Wikimedia Commons ]
But that’s barely scratching the surface. Check out Edward Weston’s stunning, almost lewd Cabbage Leaf. Or Imogen Cunningham’s Magnolia. Or one of Robert Mapplethorpe’s calla lilies.
Or next time you go out into your garden to photograph a plant, put your camera in black in white mode, and notice the things you start to pay attention to once the color isn’t there as a distraction…
Here’s an update on conditions, taken from the complete press release by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden:
Fire officials accompanied Botanic Garden President Dr. Edward Schneider through the Garden, allowing him to assess the buildings and grounds. “The good news is that the Meadow, Discovery Garden, Teahouse, Desert and most of the Redwood Exhibits are untouched,” said Dr. Schneider. “Unfortunately, the historic Campbell Bridge, the beloved Pritchett Path, the popular Redwood Tree Ring Exhibit, Oak Woodland and Porter Path Exhibits were either destroyed or heavily damaged.” Further damage was also sustained in the riparian corridor canyon as the fire spread from Tunnel Road down to Mission Creek.
…Yesterday, the Garden confirmed loss of structures on its grounds. The 1908 Gane House, the proposed centerpiece of the Botanic Garden’s building project, the Vital Mission Plan, was destroyed. The Botanic Garden had hoped to rehabilitate the large Craftsman-style home and to seek historic landmark status for it. Also lost in the fire was a deck overlooking Mission Canyon Creek, a lathe house, and the Director’s residence and garage.
Original post:
I’ve been distressed to read over the last couple days that at least part of Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens has burned in the Jesusita Fire that’s tearing through the community. Has anyone heard anything more detailed?
This morning’s Los Angeles Times described how the garden’s Gane House has burned:
In Mission Canyon, the century-old Gane House at the 78-acre Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was engulfed in flames, leaving little more than three brick chimneys standing.
“We’re very heartbroken,” said Nancy Johnson, the garden’s vice president of marketing and government relations. “We were hoping to restore it to its grandeur.”
Lost inside were all the gardening tools, horticultural materials, the metal shop that made tags to identify plants, the overstock of books published by the garden, and the office contents and computers of the head gardener and facilities maintenance man, Johnson said. Biofuel gardening truck parked outside also appear to have been destroyed.
[Carol] Ostroff said she evacuated Tuesday and stayed with friends nearby until they too had to evacuate on Wednesday.
“The wind kicked up, and we watched this firestorm on the hill,” Ostroff said.
Ostroff, who along with her husband acts as caretaker for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, sells tinctures and herbal wreaths from her home garden at the local farmer’s market.
“My garden is my life,” she said. “If I lose my garden I’m out of a job. My husband’s out of a job too.”
The SBBG has been an important force in Southern California native plant horticulture, having introduced many interesting additions that are a part of many gardens. My garden alone has Salvia leucophylla ‘Amethyst Bluff,’ Galvezia juncea ‘Gran Canon,’ and Artemisia californica ‘Canyon Gray.’ I hate to see such a resource turned to ashes.
…and the winner in the category of Best Use of Barbecue Tongs in a Garden Setting goes to…
This sight comes from the cactus section of one of my local hangouts, Walter Anderson Nursery. Jenny had commented that someone had told her that they weed around spiny plant by using tongs. Here’s a similar use of tongs that makes for a less painful shopping experience…
Here’s a sculpture that sits outside the kitchen window. Made out of chunks of colored glass that have been mortared into a steel frame, it’s perky all day long. But when the light casts the perky shadows on the wall behind it, the sculpture turns into a bright celebration of the afternoon sunlight.
John used to work with Diane Dandeneau, the artist who created this sculpture as a prototype for a some outdoor objects she was interested in making.
Where you put a piece of art in the garden is almost as important as the piece you select. Diane’s sculpture is currently set against a greenhouse wall, which is a pretty busy background and doesn’t really do it justice. But until we find the perfect spot, we can still enjoy, either when we’re near it in the garden, or while we’re looking out the window.
On my last nursery trip I noticed a new horticultural ceanothus selection that I hadn’t encountered before. Ceanothus Tuxedo is striking because of its brown-black foliage, a leaf color I’ve never seen before on a ceanothus. In this photo you can see its large, dark foliage contrasted against the bright medium green of a more typical ceanothus.
Tuxedo arose as a mutation on a branch of Ceanothus Autumnal Blue, a hybrid of C. thyrsiflorus and C. ×delilianus (which is itself a hybrid of a hardy deciduous species with a more tender evergreen one). Autumnal Blue isn’t a plant that’s a typical constituent of California native gardens, instead being an old British hybrid that was bred for its hardiness. Also unlike its purely California brethren, it blooms in summer or fall, not in the spring.
The new Tuxedo selection is reputedly drought-tolerant. Looking at its ancestry, however, it’s clear it will require some supplemental summer water in dry climates. There’s no question that it appreciates good drainage. Mature height is listed as at least six feet high and across.
Next to Tuxedo in the nursery were a couple variegated ceanothus. C. thyrsiflorus ‘El Dorado’ features small light green/dark green leaves on a large shrub. In summer the leaves will show more contrast, with the light green turning more of a yellow color.
If you want yellow-and-green leaves in a more spreading ceanothus, there’s C. griseus horizontalis ‘Diamond Heights.’ (Sorry for the fuzzy photo…) You could think of it as a variegated version of a well known groundcover ceanothus like ‘Yankee Point.’
Both of the above could be considered low-water (not no-water) plants for a garden.
California native plant purists might think twice before planting any of these selections. They scream that they’re garden plants and not visitors from the wilds. But these ceanothus do give you more options if you’d still like your plants to have a bit of laid back California attitude to them.
The last ceanothus I want to share is a wild plant, taken about ten days ago just outside the Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve in the San Diego County foothills. Chaparral whitethorn (C. leucodermis) has got to be one of the most unique of the genus, combining fluffy, vaporous blue-tinged white flowers with a plant that has bark as white as an aspen. It’s an amazing effect.
But unfortunately the plant appears to be singularly difficult to grow in anything but the perfect garden spot. Taking up the slack is a garden-friendly hybrid, L.T. Blue (L.T. equals leucodermis x thyrsiflorus), which preserves the white bark color and blue (if not misty blue) flowers of leucodermis in combination with the much more garden-tolerant C. thyrsiflorus. Las Pilitas carries it, and this last photo is from their site.
I wrote earlier about a little patch of Nuttall’s milkvetch (Astragalus nuttallii), a new California native groundcover I’m trying out. Last time, I was pretty enthusiastic. Now, after eight weeks with less than a quarter inch of natural rainfall, I’m a little less excited.
At this point, at the end of April/beginning of May, the plant continues to be interesting up close: a mix of reddening stems, small green-gray leaves and dramatic red-tinged cream-colored pods.
When the seeds have ripened inside the pods, they rattle in a really interesting way. You can see why many Astragalus are called “rattlepod”:
But the down-side about this plant, I’m finding out, is how it looks from a distance. The red stems, whitish pods and green leaves all give the impression of a brown, dying plant. Just squint while looking at the next image and you can begin to see that it’s not the most kempt looking selection for one of the first things you encounter.
This introduction might work well in an informal area, mixed in with big plants that will take up the slack when this one takes a vacation. A spot that gets occasional garden water also might keep this plant looking nicer, longer. But since I planted it at eye-level, right at the front sidewalk in a spot that gets no supplemental water all summer, I’ve decided it’s probably not the right plant for this spot.
So…I’ve cut it back pretty heavily, and it may be out of this spot if it doesn’t look a lot better quickly. That’s the fate of a lot of California natives: They look great during the cool, wet growing season, but look less wonderful during when it dries out and get hotter, which unfortunately also happens to be the season when people want to be outdoors, enjoying their gardens.
Don’t let that discourage you from planting natives, however. Some of the buckwheats I’ve planted next to the milkvetch are still green all over and are about to begin their long season of flowers and dramatic dried seed heads. And there are many other options for plants that look good throughout the year. It’s just a matter of finding the right plant for the right spot in the garden.
Left: Edwin Hale Lincoln. Convolvulus Septium, Hedge Bindweed, Morning-Glory, plate 124 from Wildflowers of New England, Photographed from Nature, Volume V, 1904. [ photo from the 
