Giant hill of Agapathus to California native plant haven?

Check out the bloom on the Agapanthus along the driveway's edge.



Saul, my gardener, convinced me that I could coppice the Agapanthus and it would come back stronger than ever. He was right.

Wood chip mulch, made from trees cut from the property, covers the ground in between the aggies. They've served their purpose and kept me in the good graces of the neighborhood for the past 11 months.

But wait, what's that peeping out of those strappy leaves?


Why it's our old friend Cercis occidentalis (Western Redbud) which I planted as 1 gal babies not too long ago. They've grown so fast! There's three of them, harbingers of the end of the Agapanthus and the start of something better.



- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Unnatural restraint

I found a real garden planning triumph here.

Maybe I too should plant a Mexican Sage too close to the sidewalk (on a slope, no less), forget to cut it back, then prune it awkwardly and tie it like a bundle of firewood with a string that's bound to break in a couple months.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Elysian Park to DTLA

I had a nice stair walk with my buddy Dan. This was one of the sights along the way - neighbors have planted similar impromptu gardens all along this road above Elysian Park.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Rodent barriers

Proving that poor aesthetics have no boundaries, this apparent rodent barrier doubles as a solar cooker on sunny days.


Seriously, what was this guy thinking? There's no particular reason for rodents to be in this tree and it's not near his house. And what's with the double row of circular concrete pavers? They look like manhole covers.



- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Madia elegans ii

The Madia elegans (Tarweed) is blooming nicely. It's in the Asteraceae family and the seeds were used as food by native people.
This was a "try one to see if you like it and it likes you" sort of garden effort, so I tucked it into the corner of the rose bed in front.

The photo above was taken in the a.m., when the flowers seem to seek light. They are fully open and the look of the plant is quite nice.

But by the end of the day, the flowers shun the more direct sunlight that the plant receives on the western side of my house. Some seem to close entirely and others pivot away from the sun. This is a known behavior of the plant.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Madia elegans (Common Madia)

It's started to flower now, and looks to be coming on strong with many more flowers. Red roses in the background sort of set the scale and lets you know that these flowers are significantly larger than your garden variety daisy.

Madia elegans (Common Madia, Tar Weed)

This is, of course, a California native plant, but not exclusively: It is endemic to the western states.  One of the common names is Tar Weed, because it has a strong and distinctive smell, unlike tar if you ask me, but strong and distinctive nonetheless.  This was a one-off purchase / experiment from Annies and it's done quite well.

Don't do this

It's so much easier to be a critic than to be a force for knowledge and goodness.  Plus it's fun to point out others' mistakes while revealing none of your own.  In that spirit, I offer two things you should strive NEVER to do in the garden.

First up is crappy topiary that looks like tuna cans then we talk about dangerous and strangely shaped trees.

Point Vicente lighthouse

I stopped by the lighthouse on the way home.  I hadn't been before, and there's a delightful native plant garden and "wild" area adjacent on the bluff tops.



The best scenery is out towards the ocean, however.




Up at the inland edge of the "wild" area there's a wooden rail fence.  On the right is the wild area.  On the left is some developer's or homeowners' association idea of compatible plantings.  This photo has Agapanthus and sprinkler irrigation.  Indian Hawthorne, sheared to a fare-thee-well and Fortnight Lily adorn the irrigated hell strip adjacent the road.  If only they had used smarter choices. 


Don't do this.

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

A low-functioning ecosystem - Western Ave hillside at Dodson

I had emailed my local CNPS Chapter Vice President, David Sundstrom, a couple weeks ago about some Broom plants growing above Western on the untended hillside.  I was hoping that he could call out the troops to eradicate the Broom.  There's little of it on the peninsula, so keeping it out is a lot easier than trying to remove it once it's got it's hooks in. (Added 09 May: I used the What's Invasive web interface to add Broom to the list of invasive plants on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  It's there in a combined Genista / Cytisus spp category.  I believe this Broom is French Broom, Genista monspessulana, based on the hairy pods, though I didn't take close enough observations to be certain.)

Since we live in a relatively affluent community, there must be City resources to do this job, no doubt supported by an annual gala fundraiser, right?  Not so much.  David and I were the "troops" and we met for about two hours on Sunday to demo the Broom.  My childhood spent doing yard work stood me in good stead this day as I wielded lobbers with samurai-like precision cutting the plants to the ground.  One plant appeared to be the mother ship, as David called it, and he had to take that on with a saw - the trunk was maybe 4-5 inches in diameter.  Most others were amenable to the loppers.  Seed pods for this year were not deemed viable yet, so we mulched the plant material in place.  However, there were signs of multiple years of growth on some plants with last season's dried seed husks still on them.  I guess we're due for a few years of return trips to knock down the sibling plants.  Our cooler coastal climate is probably not ideal for Broom.  I would guess it likes the hotter and more inland foothill and mountain ranges more, so perhaps the plants have been held in check by local climate conditions.

These snails of unusual color were on many Broom plants and on the mustard as well.

A functioning ecosystem - Backbone Trail to Circle X Ranch

I had the great pleasure to lead a group of Scouts on a backpacking trip in the Malibu mountains last weekend.  We hiked a segment of the Back Bone Trail, a trail that is nearly a complete 65 mile run from Will Rogers State Historic Park to Point Mugu.  I was a bit outwardly focused, especially when starting the trip, and forgot my good camera.  I still had my trusty cell phone camera, however.  What I saw was a beautiful and functioning ecosystem.  I saw flowering lupines, blue eyed grass, mimulus, and salvia species and much more.  Lots of pictures below:

Rain 0.48" rain in the last week; Season total 8.94"

25 April 2012: 0.46" of rain (0.35" at the San Pedro annex)
01 May 2012: 0.02" rain

Rains are late this year compared to normal and scant.

Thimble berry awakes

When I purchased this plant at the Payne Foundation, they had the foresight to anticipate questions about its health. A prominent sign next to the brown nubs sticking put of the pot said, "dormant" so that no one was confused. It's showing first leaves now in a part shade area beneath the pomegranate tree.



- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

April 15th Payne Foundation Garden Tour

Juli and I had an unexpected schedule change that let us go on the Payne Foundation Garden Tour last Sunday. The Payne Foundation has made an effort to cluster the geographically dispersed (across the Greater LA area) gardens: Saturday's tour was more inland and Sunday's more coastal. Despite the clustering, getting from one garden to the next is still a bit of a chore and next year I may try the Mar Vista Garden Green Garden Showcase which appears walkable, at least in parts, though not expressly focused on native plants.

I tried to target the older, more established gardens on Sunday's tour, since I wanted a sense of how a native garden can mature. We stopped at a homeowner designed garden in Torrance first. There were a few things that I liked.

I liked the Carex Pansa lawn in the shade of  this Chinese Elm.  Foreground are flower stalks of  Heuchera (Coral Bells) 'Wendy', which proved to be the most popular Heuchera selection that I saw all day.  In fact, I can only remember one or two other selections.  Next year: Heuchera 'Wendy' backlash!

 

The other thing that our first stop had to inspire my native plant interests were these two Lavatera 'Purissima' (Purissima Tree Mallow) that were in pots.  They had a bonsai sort of look that I found appealing.  It seems that Lavatera 'Black Heart', a smaller hybrid, might also be good in a pot like this.

The Torrance house had plentiful use of non-native but water-conserving plants such as those shown below that I thought a striking combination.  Not that it wasn't delightful, but I had hoped to see more natives.

A stop later in the day showed good use of this Gilia tricolor. We liked its look here and at several other locations on the tour.

But again, the landscape combined native and non-native plants and I wished for more natives.  I'm so demanding! Here we can see a rather sprawling lavender cluster at the right of the path and bright green leaves of a jasmine all along the sidewalk.

Another house had a front yard in attractive, but studied disarray that contrasted with its smaller and rather architectural back yard, shown below. I liked the back yard better, but I think that was because the front yard's plants were not mature yet.  The owner changes up the short lived perennials frequently and one older Manzanita anchors the otherwise transient collection. In the back, I think the Palo Verde tree (I assume it's Cercidium floridum) was just the right choice to link the courtyard between the two buildings. In front I overheard the owner talking about using weed block fabric under his DG mulch. At a couple other houses I heard similar comments about using weed block fabric. There's a prevailing feeling I've had from the greater native plant community that "real native gardeners don't use weed block" and I believe it to be true, mostly because of my experience with some that a previous owner installed at my old house. How odd to hear its virtues extolled multiple times on this tour..

My favorite houses were located inland in a designated historical district that I was previously unaware of called Oxford Square near Crenshaw and Olympic.  I didn't take pictures of the most peaceful garden, but I did take photos of the most striking garden.  This garden comprised two houses side by side (same owner, one under renovation to become a rental with the main house planning to take a big chunk of the rental's back yard.  It'll be an even more wonderfuller yard when complete.)  The owner has landscaped the main house garden in what he described as "California Apocalyptica" - a term I could find nowhere else, but it's said to be what you might get when people disappear and only industrial and technological remnants remain among the returning natives (provided the weedy grasses and shit plants don't overwhelm and someone with well-developed garden sensibilities takes care of the place).  Pictures below are of this garden.

What I liked most about this garden was the way that plants intermingled with each other and with the garden structure, particularly in front where most of the industrial ephemera is sited.

Rain 0.99" in the last week; 8.46" total

Almost an inch of rain last week with season total approaching 9" in my back yard this season would seem like nearly normal rainfall if one were merely counting inches.  (A quick Google says not quite - my zip code has 15" on average).  However, we historically get our rain mostly in February, but this February was uncommonly dry. Getting rain out of cycle like this does put the late winter and spring flower bloom a bit off.

The LA Times was writing about the delayed wildflower bloom back in March (A dry season is expected for wildflowers in Southern California).  I think that wildflowers won't do much "catching up" either - the days are now too warm and long for the seeds that failed to start growing in January and February to start.

0.42" 10 April (0.25" at the San Pedro annex)
0.57" 13 April

0.99" total in the last week

Apparently I speculated in error above.


Recent rains are encouraging dormant poppies at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve to come out and show off their colors. Fiddleneck (Amsinckia sp.), goldfields (Lasthenia gracilis), Mojave suncups (Camissonia sp.), and forget-me-nots (Cryptantha sp.) are starting to bloom here and there. Grape soda lupines (Lupinus excubitus) are still putting on a nice show too. The best hiking route at this time is going up the Tehachapi Vista Point trail and back along the South Poppy Loop Trail. Just over the crest at the top, a nice patch of poppies can be seen on the south-facing slope. Another good spot to visit is Kitanemuk Vista Point, where a lovely patch of purple lacy phacelia (Phacelia sp.) can be seen.

and more according to The Payne Foundation wildflower report.

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone