my haul

In the spirit of the “haul video,” the art form in which a fashion-conscious usu­ally young con­sumer describes his or her lat­est finds from the last shop­ping trip to the mall–a video in which the word “cute” 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, did you?)

This first photo, a dark-flowered selec­tion of desert wil­low, Chilop­sis lin­earis, is a plant I did not buy. But if I man­age to kill of one of my exist­ing large shrub-sized plants in a spot that receives some sum­mer water, this plant will be near the top of my list.

I also didn’t picky up any of the cool selec­tion of pots.

But I did buy a few plants, including:

Ver­bena lilacina ‘Paseo Ran­cho,’ a light pink selec­tion of the usu­ally laven­der Cedros Island ver­bena. You might call its color a lit­tle on the pale and insipid side, but it’s dif­fer­ent from the other clones in my gar­den. Insipid but dif­fer­ent, and maybe just a lit­tle cute. Rea­son enough to have it.

Cliff let­tuce, or Dud­leya cae­spi­tosa. Cute, huh? Ever the col­lec­tor, I think it might be fun to explore some of the dozens of Dud­leya species that grow in California.

Coast buck­wheat, Eri­o­gonum lat­i­folium. I don’t really know this plant–which is some­times rea­son enough to try to get to know it bet­ter. It’s been described as being sim­i­lar to San Miguel Island buck­wheat (E. grande). To me it looks like the leaves are a lit­tle more deluxe, thicker, fuzzier.

This plant, along with the pre­ced­ing two selec­tions, isn’t native to my imme­di­ate area. But being coastal or island plants, I’m hop­ing they’ll like what I have to offer them. The rest of my haul, how­ever, con­sists of species that grow in my county, some of them not far from me.

San Diego rag­weed, San Diego ambrosia–whatever you want to call Ambrosia pumila. The leaves are really del­i­cately cut, like some artemisias, and I think this diminu­tive plant really does qual­ify as “cute.” This is a species that’s listed on the CNPS list of rare plants and pro­posed for the Fed­eral Endan­gered Species list. It’s weird to travel 140 miles to get a mile that grows nearby, but that’s the respon­si­ble thing to do. Our local CNPS plant sales also have offered this plant. Yank­ing these up out of the ground where they grow nearby would be grossly tacky and totally illegal.

San Diego wil­lowy monardella, Monardella linoides ssp. viminea, is another local plant that’s listed by both the state and fed­eral agen­cies as endan­gered. It’ll have del­i­cate whorls of laven­der flow­ers when it blooms. But like most (or maybe all?) monardel­las it has intensely fra­grant leaves that I can enjoy right now.

And finally, one of my favorite of the softly del­i­cate grasses, Aris­tida pur­purea, pur­ple three awn. It’s slightly more coarse than the pop­u­lar Mex­i­can feather grass that’s non-native and start­ing to look like it’s inva­sive. But it moves just as amaz­ingly in the wind, and has a del­i­cate pur­ple tinge part of the year, some­thing feather grass doesn’t offer.

August isn’t high sea­son for plant­ing, but with this cool summer-that-never-was I fig­ured I could get away with it. And really, here, not that far from the coast, the main issue with many plants is water.

I hate to show newly installed plants before they have a chance to fill in, but here’s the fin­ished bed where all of the plants except for the monar­das went into. These Cal­i­for­ni­ans should be bet­ter choices for this exposed, dry spot than some of the exotics that I had in there before. Not shown in this photo is a very happy Cleve­land sage and some ecsta­tic pur­ple three awn plants that I grew from seed.

I haven’t counted all the “cutes” in my writeup. I know I’ve failed mis­er­ably, partly because I really dis­like the word unless I’m dis­cussing my extremely cute cat. I will try to do bet­ter if I decide to com­mit my shop­ping trips to video.

August 14 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • | 5 Comments »

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 | Categories: gardening • my garden • places | Tags: • | 11 Comments »