but what would aunt barbara like?

A lit­tle over a week ago we went up for a long week­end to visit Aunt Bar­bara in LA’s San Fer­nando Val­ley. The Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion, one of the Southland’s major sources of Cal­i­for­nia native plants was only half a dozen free­way exits away. I’ve mail-ordered seeds from them but I’d never been to the nurs­ery. Mid­sum­mer isn’t high plant­ing sea­son. Vis­it­ing to buys plants might not be the best idea. Still, alright, you know where this is headed…

Bar­bara was busy with a friend, but John and I took the trip to Sun­land, the com­mu­nity sit­u­ated near where the Val­ley reaches toward the Los Ange­les River and meets the San Gabriel Moun­tains. Urban sprawl quickly gives way to large, dusty lots. Man­i­cured land­scap­ing starts to fade away as the look and smell of the foothills blows in from the east. What a great loca­tion for a native plant nursery.

The perky Baja fairy duster, look­ing a lot like many Aus­tralian plants South­ern Cal­i­for­ni­ans are used to seeing

The Matil­ija pop­pies were past their peak, but there were still a few around

Late July isn’t high sea­son for native flow­ers. The last of the season’s Matil­ija poppy flow­ers (Rom­neya) appeared here and there on the nurs­ery grounds and Baja fairy duster (Cal­lian­dra cal­i­for­nica) pro­vided some blooms next to the park­ing lot. (Inter­est­ingly, accord­ing to the Tree of Life Nurs­ery, Theodore Payne–the per­son, not the foundation–was respon­si­ble for dis­cov­er­ing and intro­duc­ing the ‘White Cloud’ cul­ti­var of Rom­neya that is so often grown.)

Some­thing else that was bloom­ing: Den­drome­con harfordii

Also in bloom: Salvia pachy­phylla with its gor­geous pink bracts against the vio­let flowers


A lit­tle trail leads to the lit­tle rise of land over­look­ing the nurs­ery. The sign points to “Wild­flower Hill.”

This time of year it’s pretty much Cal­i­for­nia Flat-Top Buck­wheat Hill, which isn’t at all a bad thing. It’s a sub­tle and gor­geous plant. But if you came expect­ing Butchart Gar­dens, well you’d be dis­ap­pointed. Of course, if a taste of wild Cal­i­for­nia is what you’re after, this is your place.

Of the three retail native plant nurs­eries I’ve been to over the last sev­eral years, this one is prob­a­bly the wildest and the least “garden”-like. There are pock­ets with benches and pic­nic tables, but the main nar­ra­tive here is that you’ve stepped over the edge into wilder­ness. Shut your eyes and you hear birds every­where. Look away from the build­ings and you could eas­ily feel that you’re far­ther than four blocks from the sub­urbs. (By con­trast, San Juan Capistrano’s Tree of Life Nurs­ery feels the most nur­tured, tended and garden-like. The Escon­dido branch of Las Pil­i­tas Nurs­ery falls some­where in between.)

We were stay­ing with Aunt Bar­bara, and I wanted to go back with a cou­ple plants that might fit com­fort­ably into her gar­den, both in the way it looks and the way she waters it. To give you a taste, here’s a shot of her front walkway.

…and here’s another shot at the Payne Foun­da­tion grounds, of the beau­ti­ful spires of spent sage against the brown­ing land­scape. This kind of scene gives me a real sense of nature’s sub­tle cycles, but I had a feel­ing Aunt Bar­bara wouldn’t go for it. What plants would rec­on­cile the deep divide?

The short list of the nursery’s many selec­tions included sea­side daisy (var­i­ous cul­ti­vars of Erigeron glau­cus), bush snap­dragon (Galvezia spe­ciosa), Cal­i­for­nia aster (Aster chilen­sis) and maybe even one of the Cal­i­for­nia fuch­sias. Bar­bara men­tioned lov­ing the flow­ers of Matil­ija poppy, but that’s a plant pur­chase I think a per­son needs to make for them­selves, after they’ve seen how vig­or­ous it can be and how un-cottage gar­deney it starts to look this time of year.

The win­ners?

The only flower on the Vene­ga­sia carpe­sioides that I picked out for Bar­bara. I wished that it had a few more.

Canyon sun­flower (Vene­ga­sia carpe­sioides) and the ever-popular Pen­ste­mon Margerita B.O.P. I planted them before we left, and I’m keep­ing my fin­gers crossed that they A) sur­vive, and B) show Bar­bara that there are some natives that would fit eas­ily into her Cal­i­for­nia cot­tage gar­den. What other plants would the rest of you sug­gest for all the Aunt Barbara’s out there? What plants would you pick that could mix fairly eas­ily with exist­ing gar­den bor­ders and bloom much of the year?

And some of the flow­ers on the Pen­ste­mon Mar­garita B.O.P.


August 11 2010 06:30 am | Categories: gardening • my garden • places | Tags: •

11 Responses to “but what would aunt barbara like?”

  1. Heidi Schreiner on 11 Aug 2010 at 8:16 am #

    Another native enthu­si­ast! Hello from the wood­lands of Wisconsin.

    I’ve been delv­ing more and more into native plants for our area — dis­cov­er­ing the best places to pur­chase along with which plants are designer-friendly.

    You wouldn’t believe the unique plants we’ve got — such as Lead­plant (Amor­pha canescens) and Rat­tlesnake Mas­ter (Eryn­gium yuccifolium).

    Although Rat­tlesnake Mas­ter tends to get quite tall (and mine was lean­ing men­ac­ingly by late sum­mer), I think Lead­plant has such a beau­ti­ful tex­ture that it would be use­ful in many Mid­west gardens.

  2. ricki - sprig to twig on 11 Aug 2010 at 12:23 pm #

    Bar­bara had best be careful…once she’s fallen under your influ­ence, she may find her­self going native. I can see a sprin­kling of Cal­i­for­nia pop­pies punc­tu­at­ing that bor­der, but maybe in your cli­mate they would take over?

  3. Town Mouse on 11 Aug 2010 at 3:44 pm #

    I think a few nice grasses of the ripar­ian per­sua­sion would work out nicely and add some struc­ture to that side strip. Some­thing dainty would be best, not Jun­cus patens, please.…

  4. Jean on 11 Aug 2010 at 4:03 pm #

    James, I really enjoy see­ing all these unfa­mil­iar Cal­i­for­nia natives. I espe­cially love that Baja fairy duster!

  5. ryan on 11 Aug 2010 at 4:29 pm #

    But what would Aunt Bar­bara like, BWWABL, sounds a lit­tle like WWJD. Mar­garita BOP seems like a good gate­way plant; it’s a hard plant to dis­like. Asters and Cal­i­for­nia fuch­sias are more com­mit­ting, less safe for dab­bling. I don’t know that sunflower.

  6. Christine on 11 Aug 2010 at 4:42 pm #

    What about Sys­rinchium bel­lum? They’d love the extra water. Erigeron also seems like a good choice, but I won­der if the Pen­ste­mon would crum­ble under the weight of Mir­a­cle Gro (sorry to be snarky, but it does look like it might play a role in this gar­den!) Checkerbloom or Arme­ria mar­itima might also work. Per­haps one of our native lilies? Oooh, this is fun!

  7. lostlandscape on 11 Aug 2010 at 8:46 pm #

    Heidi, it’s great to con­nect with another native plant fan! I don’t know the amor­pha, but rat­tlesnake mas­ter is one I’ve really admired in the books. It’s a really pho­to­genic plant and looks like it’d be even bet­ter in real life. The mid­west prairie seems like it was a big inspi­ra­tion to the 90s strongly-European New Peren­ni­als move­ment. Even if the phi­los­o­phy hasn’t caught on with every­one, it’s nice to see more of these plants being known to the peo­ple that have them in the woods nearby.

    Ricki, I am try­ing my hard­est! It’s late for pop­pies to look good here, but I think they’d be a perky addi­tion for the spring. They’re easy to sneak in wher­ever there’s a bare spot. They reseed, but not too annoy­ingly for me.

    TM, I almost bought some fiber optic grass, which I think would thrive in the wet­ter flower bor­ders and look great with the annu­als. I hap­pen to love Jun­cus patens, as heav­ily used as it is, partly because it’s a good size and so struc­tural with­out requir­ing the water other rushes do. But I think it’d be too archi­tec­tural and dom­i­neer­ing for these beds.

    Jean, I haven’t grown Baja fairy duster but I’ve liked it every place and time I’ve seen it. It’s only a Cal­i­for­nia native if you mean the Cal­i­for­nia floris­tic province and not Cal­i­for­nia proper, but it’s more of a nearby plant than some of the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia wood­land denizens that we grow as “native” plants.

    Ryan, BWWABL! Yeah, I like how it sounds…a good mantra to keep in mind when I’m try­ing to find good tran­si­tional plants. I agree that the fuch­sia would be more of a com­mit­ment, espe­cially dur­ing the times of year it doesn’t look like much.

    Chris­tine, it was fun, for sure, but I also felt so much pres­sure. If these plants fail, will she give up on natives alto­gether? I found a spot near a bearded iris for the penstemon–far enough away from the heav­ily amended soil. Sys­rinchium bel­lum is a great sug­ges­tion. It isn’t fan­tas­tic all the time, but has the grace to with­draw into the shad­ows when it’s done per­form­ing. And Payne had a bunch of dif­fer­ent cultivars.

  8. Gayle Madwin on 11 Aug 2010 at 9:36 pm #

    Like you, I’d def­i­nitely put a pen­ste­mon at the top of the list. I’ve never grown Pen­ste­mon ‘Mar­garita B.O.P.’, but my choice would be its close rel­a­tive, Pen­ste­mon het­ero­phyl­lus ‘Blue Springs.’ (This was, in fact, the first native plant I gave to my par­ents, who are sort of my ver­sion of Aunt Bar­bara — they own a house with actual wilder­ness on the prop­erty and are thus fairly amenable to wild-looking plants, but basi­cally only because it would cost too much to install sprin­klers; they are not really famil­iar with the mer­its of native plant gar­den­ing. I also gave them a Cal­i­for­nia fuch­sia and the seeds of sev­eral other plants, includ­ing Sisy­rinchium bel­lum and Cer­co­car­pus betu­loides, but none of the seedlings survived.)

    I’d give Aunt Bar­bara Linum lewisii, and if she has a shady spot, Heuchera max­ima. If she has room for some new shrubs, I’d give her Ribes aureum, Cer­cis occi­den­talis, and Mala­cotham­nus fremontii.

  9. Susan Krzywicki on 12 Aug 2010 at 2:23 pm #

    Ryan is on the right track, I think. Good choices. Every­thing about natives is a reflec­tion on who we are and what we are doing here. This has more artis­tic and cre­ative power than any­thing I have worked with in a very long time.

    Lend­ing a hand to Mother Nature to do what was intended and to dress it up a bit is irresistible.

  10. Country Mouse on 13 Aug 2010 at 5:21 am #

    Nice sug­ges­tions. I think sea­side daisy is also a good cot­tagey flower. Aunt Susan just needs to know that you have to cut cer­tain of these flow­ers hard back — she may not be into the appre­ci­a­tion of browns that we native enthu­si­asts get into, but cut­ting back keeps things tidy till the next growth and bloom sea­son. Shasta buck­wheat, Eri­o­gonum umbel­la­tum polyan­thum, may be nice too — bright yel­low pom­poms that last quite a while. But it can eas­ily get over­wa­tered. Mimu­lus gut­ta­tus is a bit like impa­tiens in its gar­den behav­ior per­haps — haven’t grown it myself but it grows wild in the wet shady spots here. I love the wild­flower walk shot, and how wild the nurs­ery is — and what dif­fer­ent plants occur in the sunny south.

  11. [ Lost in the Landscape ] » my haul on 14 Aug 2010 at 4:02 am #

    […] has to appear at least four­teen times—let me show off my lat­est finds on my recent excur­sion to the Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion. (You didn’t think I’d go there and only pick up a cou­ple plants for Aunt Barbara, […]

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