[ Lost in the Landscape ]

deciding on a small tree

The record heat in Octo­ber and Novem­ber finally did in the Aus­tralian tree fern that I’d been nurs­ing. The plant grows in full sun in its native envi­ron­ment, and was sup­posed to be able to sur­vive full sun in coastal Cal­i­for­nia. But two months of the hottest and dri­est weather this past year took care of what lit­tle will to live the plant had left.

The fern served as a focal point in the gar­den, and its pass­ing left a big void and a sad stick of dead trunk. It doesn’t help that the neighbor’s bas­ket­ball back­board lines up almost per­fectly with the dead trunk.

We toyed briefly with train­ing a small vine up the dead trunk, cel­e­brat­ing life and death and renewal and all that, but we couldn’t think of some­thing that would look great as the main focal point of the space. So we were faced with com­ing up with a suit­able replacement.

We started with some basic requirements:

• The tree should max out in the 12–20 foot range and be not too broad–There’s a young tan­ger­ine tree nearby that we wouldn’t want to shade.
• Some plants imme­di­ately nearby would appre­ci­ate some shade, but oth­ers are quite happy with close to full sun; a tree that could be trained to have an open branch struc­ture would work well.
• Some­thing with a grace­ful nat­ural form would be terrific–no big green popsicle-looking shade trees, please.
• The plant should be pretty easy to find locally, and couldn’t cost too much.
• This being drought-prone Cal­i­for­nia, a tree that would be able to get by with much lower water require­ments than orig­i­nal the tree fern would be a must.
• The “look” of the tree would have to com­ple­ment Mediter­ranean, trop­i­cal or just plain odd-looking plants.
• Though not an absolute require­ment, a native plant would be nice.

The short list came down to four trees or large shrubs.

Ginkgo biloba
Pros: Both John and I have always loved gink­gos, par­tic­u­larly their dis­tinc­tive foliage and incen­di­ary yel­low autumn col­oration. And their his­tory of being a liv­ing fos­sil is cool. There are strains that range from lit­tle round shrubs to mas­sive shade trees, with a cou­ple options in the 12–20 foot range that could be trained with mul­ti­ple trunks. Though not desert plants, they can make do with fairly low amounts of water.

Cons: Avail­abil­ity, mostly. Local sources carry the itty bitty bonsai-friendly sub­jects or the big shade trees, noth­ing in between. The tree grows really slowly, so get­ting a spec­i­men of the small vari­eties would be a chal­lenge. The final look of the plant, too, might not be per­fect for the location.

Black pep­per­mint wil­low (a.k.a. Aus­tralian myr­tle wil­low), Ago­nis flex­u­osa ‘Jervis Bay After­dark’
Pros: Strik­ing dark dark dark pur­ple (almost black) leaves, and a neat weep­ing habit. The bark is shaggy and attrac­tive. Rapid growth to its tar­get size. Drought tolerant.

Cons: The plant seems to develop a dense shade-tree look as it matures–maybe too dense for the spot. The lit­er­a­ture says this form only gets to six­teen feet or so, but it’s only been around for a decade. Call me dis­trust­ful, but I’m just sus­pi­cious that it could be more main­te­nance than I want to sign up for to keep it small. Mature trunks seem large in scale to the plant. There’s a bam­boo nearby, and it might be just too much wispy, wil­lowy foliage.

[ Image from Metro Trees ]

Crape myr­tle, Lager­stroemia x fau­riei
Pros:Sev­eral clones are avail­able locally in boxed spec­i­men size for not too much money–instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion! Gor­geous sum­mer­time flow­ers. Inter­est­ing exfo­li­at­ing bark. The fau­riei hybrids resist mildew bet­ter than the pure species.

Cons: Their col­ors would look really sim­i­lar to a pair of nearby bougainvil­leas. The rigid forms of the trees would def­i­nitely pull the gar­den in a for­mal Mediter­ranean direction.

Dr. Hurd man­zanita, Arc­tostaphylos x ‘Dr. Hurd’
Pros: Per­fect even­tual size (ca. 15 feet). Fairly fast-growing for a man­zanita (though no speed demon). Dra­matic red-brown stems with large light green leaves. Drought-tolerant, but also more tol­er­ant of gar­den water than most man­zan­i­tas. Flow­ers in the winter.

Cons: Spo­radic avail­abil­ity locally, and pos­si­bly only in small sizes. I’m wor­ried that the spot might be just a lit­tle over-wet for even this manzanita.

[ Image from San Mar­cos Grow­ers, who grew my plant ]

So what was the deci­sion? I put a five-gallon man­zanita on order and it hit the nurs­ery a few days later. It’s more of a Char­lie Brown shrub at this point and will take some patience and a few years to get to its final size. If it sur­vives the amount of water it gets, if it attains the size I want, if it behaves well with its neigh­bors, it could be the per­fect plant for this loca­tion. Check back in five years and I’ll tell you how it’s worked out…

Coin­ci­den­tally Saturday’s Los Ange­les Times had a whole page spread on man­zan­i­tas a full eight days after I put mine in the ground. I felt so much ahead of the Times…

February 02 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden • plant profiles | Tags: Agonis flexuosa • Arctostaphylos x Dr. Hurd • crape myrtles • Ginkgo biloba • Lagerstroemia x fauriei • manzanitas • trees | 9 Comments »