Salvia leucantha & Pittosporum tenuifolium January 3, 2009

Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha) is a California staple: colorful and shrubby, it attracts bees and hummingbirds.  This specimen is a bit wild looking, and it’s probably 6-8 plants grouped together.  You can keep it tighter and tidier looking by shearing it back (almost to the ground if you like) right before it starts actively growing in the spring and by planting it in a southern exposure.

Once established, it’s drought tolerant and needs no feeding in moderately rich soils.  In sandy soils, it could benefit from summer water and light feeding.

The silver foliage makes a nice contrast with the brilliant purple flowers, and it goes well with silver foliaged trees:  Melaleuca, Olive, Eucalyptus.  The intensity of color is also good at brightening up a darker area or corner of a garden, but it does best in full sun.  Less sun will result in the somewhat spindly growth seen above and fewer flowers.

(When I first wrote this post, it was titled Saliva leucantha.  Comedy.)

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Search term question: “Can you trim up a Pittosporum teniufolium into a tree?”

Yes you can, but you shouldn’t.

There is one cultivar, ‘Marjorie Channon’, that is very tight and frequently sold as a small plant in a tree form.  However, as they age, they don’t get the trunk girth needed to support a canopy.  You’d have better luck trying to do topiary than attain a good canopy.  IMO, that’s not the best use of these plants.

Half the appeal of a mature Silver Sheen is the contrast between the black stems and the silvery green foliage, so you want to prune to best showcase that play of color.  Thinning from the inside is the best way to keep them open and airy.

If you are determined to keep a P. tenuifolium tight, you can shear them across the top or all the way down – the one I brought with me to the PNW (seen above) will no doubt be coppiced to the ground this spring due to cold damage.  In my experience, if you want a tight shrubby plant you can prune into a small canopy tree, I’d go with a myrtle (Myrtus sp.) or tea tree (Leptospermum sp.)

HTH!

The Huntington Library – December 2008 December 31, 2008

The Chinese Garden is mostly finished; the plants are young and unimpressive, but the structures are beautiful.

Magnolia setting seed.

Oh hai.  My boob feels nice.

On of many lovelies in the History of Science exhibit in the main library.  Thank you security personnel for trusting me to take non-flash photos.

More magnolia.

Los Angeles Arboretum – December 2008 December 31, 2008

See that little plaque there?  I failed to read it.

You can walk into and around this installation.

Agave parryi, how I love thee.

A cycad – further testimony to my love of blue plants.

Trivia Hoedown #10 December 2, 2008

Has it been awhile, or what?  Let’s catch up.  Cut me a piece of that woecake, will you?

1.  Your last term will not necessarily be a cakewalk.

2.  Once insect specimens dry out while patiently waiting for you to pin them and then a couple weeks go by, no amount of relaxing will save your sorry ass and the heads of all your ants will pop right off and roll under the bench when you try to mount them.

3.  Elmer’s glue will facilitate head reattachment and dry invisibly.

4.  You have to make sure you’ve put the heads back on a) facing the right direction and b) in a normal anatomical plane.  The antennae go on top.

5.  In the fall months, you’ll want to be doing two things in the field: wearing blaze orange and making a good amount of racket.

6.  Hunters assume rustling in the bushes is game, not researchers.

7.  It’s true: when speaking, you don’t appear as nervous as you feel.  If your talk is filmed, you do appear as fat jolly robust as you are in real life, though.

8. Science conferences are good geeky fun where you can be with your own kind and tell yourself y’all are elite mainstream.

9.  Lots of visiting fringe groups enjoy free speech on public university campuses.  Don’t be alarmed, and don’t drink the Kool Aid.

Orange Stranger September 17, 2008

I’ve been trying to figure out what rose this is for about four years now: it’s not Chihuly because I have that, and these are much more vibrant. They are a floribunda, disease resistant, repeat flowering. Could be Charisma, but the petals don’t curve back quite the same and I’d be surprised if there are 40+ petals. Confetti, possibly. Fruitee, I don’t think so. If you recognize her, do tell.

(Blooms are normally better formed; this one’s blown out but new ones will be opening in the next couple days.)

Noro and Vanilla September 8, 2008

The beehive hat is at about 90% and this morning as I was lying in bed (because I had left it overnight on the nightstand where I could see it) and counted on my fingers how many months until I could wear it comfortably. Five. This is not a fall hat. It’s a dead-of-winter hat.

And the vanilla orchid bloomed. This isn’t the species that sets the beautiful beans, but it’s a beauty nonetheless. The leaves are bigger than my hands and nearly as thick. The flowers have no scent, but check out the ants at the base of the petiole. They’ve been there since before the blooms opened, and they don’t go into the flowers, they just hang out down there at the base. This plantlet was a cutting from a monster mother plant at the university greenhouse – it’s over 10′ tall and grows in a planter made out of a 3 pallets. It’s a beast.

Spring Gems May 27, 2008

A friend’s carefully reared Orchid Mantis…isn’t she lovely?

Wild Fritillaria spp.

Kettle dyed handspun single ply wool silk blend…..mmmmm.

Ripening blueberries.

Landscape Design November 2, 2007

Finally, a use for trigonometry.

Horse Chestnut Incoming! October 31, 2007

I worked up a plant list for a playground this week in landscape design, thinking I had covered all the ways a plant could be threatening to children: poisonous, prickly, thorny, laden with tempting but inedible fruit, clothes staining, and skin snagging. I spent a lot of time picking the perfect grass that didn’t have toothed edges and the right shrubs that were without berries.

After turning it in, we discussed all the variables and I had forgotten a critical feature that seemingly only boys are aware of: plant parts that make excellent weapons.

I would have never thought of that.

Composting for the Lazy Gardener October 29, 2007

I’ve been sheet composting since before I knew what that meant. Basically it’s just composting right in your beds, which at this time of year means sweeping up all the dropped leaves from the trees and raking them around the base of the plants. Sometimes there are apples in there, or cones, or whole plants that were pulled out.

The only rules are no diseased foliage (so I never use rose foliage or branches) and no weeds. Many weeds can set seed even after they were pulled out of the ground; better to just toss those or compost them in the traditional way.

You can compost kitchen scraps this way as well, but I usually bury those slightly for aesthetic reasons.

Yesterday I put the leaves from the purple ornamental plum around some newly transplanted Euphorbia. Their blue foliage with the burgundy and yellow leaves underneath looks great, and I avoided spending $100 on mulch for the beds. Come spring, the soil will be loamy and shot through with mycelium from the fungi doing their work. The plants will have had relatively warm feet all winter, so losses are less than if they were uncovered.

The key to keeping your garden attractive while sheet composting is to keep your edges clean and sharp and keep the compost in place. You can turn the soil a bit to hold lightweight leaves, or keep all the material raked in the beds until it starts to break down and form a mat over the soil. That takes about 2 weeks with a little rainfall (or the hose).

All winter long, as I pick up debris around the yard, I toss it into the beds. Smaller pieces break down faster, and the plants won’t be vying for nitrogen because they’re mostly dormant.

In the city I didn’t have room for a compost bin, and that’s how I came to sheet composting. I have room now, but I really like the way the beds look with the seasonal detritus used as mulch.  At the LA Arboretum there’s an enormous Ginkgo that sheds seemingly acres of bright yellow leaves.  It would be a travesty to pick them up, they’re lovely spread over the blue Senecio and herbs around the tree.