drought tolerant vines, fragrant vines, how to prune vines

Vines- What, Where and How

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Zepherine Drouhin climbing rose

My office window looks out on a gingko tree. Hanging from its low branches two bird feeders are visited throughout the day by many songbirds. As an added bonus a climbing Zepherine Drouhin rose grows up into the branches and has just started to bloom with vivid, dark pink flowers. They look like ornaments hanging from the tree. This spot wouldn?t be right for a trellis so if it weren?t for the help of the gingko I wouldn?t be able to enjoy my beautiful rose. In your own garden think about trees, shrubs and even sturdy vines as support for other vines.

Creating an outdoor room with vines can make your yard feel cozy. They readily provide the walls to enclose a space. Views from one part of the garden may be partially open, framed by vines or blocked entirely. Shrubs can also be used to create garden rooms but vines form a thin living wall that is quickly established. Creating boundaries with vines also adds vertical design elements to an otherwise flat landscape. By adding walls and a ceiling to your garden, you?ll be able to enjoy another dimension in addition to more color and fragrance too.

I?m always amazed at the variety of vines my friend Richard grows up into the canopy of his

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Rosa banksiae

many trees. From Lady Banks rose to clematis to blood-red trumpet vine to a spectacular double white pandora vine his trees do double duty in his garden.

For a vine with long lasting interest, try growing an orange trumpet creeper up into a tree. It blooms from midsummer to early autumn and hummingbirds love it. It can tolerate wet or dry conditions, sun or shade and is generally pest free.

Plant vines for fragrance in your garden. Let them scramble up a tree or through the branches of a shrub. Evergreen clematis bloom with showy white fragrant flowers clusters above shiny dark green leaves in spring. Clematis montana

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clematis armandii with hardenbergia vine

is covered with vanilla scented pink flowers in spring also. Carolina jessamine’s fragrant yellow flower clusters appear in masses from late winter into spring.

Another way to double your pleasure with vines is to let the thick stems of a mature, vigorous vine such as grape, wisteria, passionflower or a large climbing rose like Lady Banks serve as a framework for a more delicate stemmed vine like clematis or Goldflame honeysuckle.

Or you can enjoy the classic combination of a flowering clematis like purple Jackmanii intertwined with a white Iceberg rambling rose for another great look. Other vines that are beautiful and easy to grow are our native honeysuckle, lonicera hispidula with its translucent red berries in the fall. Violet trumpet vine, white potato vine, hardenbergia and Chilean jasmine are also good choices.

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lonicera heckrottii

Growing vines is easy if you follow a few guidelines. To encourage bushy growth on young vines, pinch out the stems terminal bud. If you want just a few vertical stems, though, don?t pinch the ends but instead remove all but one or two long stems at the base.

Often when I?m called out to take a look at a vine that has gotten out of control the only advice I can give is to cut the entire vine to the ground in late winter or early spring and start training it all over again. You can avoid this drastic measure by pruning periodically to keep your vine in bounds. Just before new growth begins, cut out unwanted or dead growth. If you can?t tell what to remove, cut the vine?s length by half and remove the dead stems later. On vines like hardenbergia or Carolina jessamine that bloom in late winter, wait to prune until after they have finished flowering.

Many vines require only deep but infrequent waterings. If you are interested in planting a new vine to provide color and fragrance in your garden there are lots of good suggestions on Scotts Valley Water Districts? web site. www.svwd.org

Some to consider from their list of 800 low water use plants are bougainvillea, trumpet creeper, Carolina jessamine, primrose jasmine, cat?s claw yellow trumpet vine and purple leaf grape. Also on the website is a search function in the Water-Smart Gardening section for vines and other plants for particular situations such as shade, erosion, natives or low maintenance. It?s a valuable resource right at your fingertips.

Arizona cactus garden-Stanford University, cactus, drought tolerant gardens, drought tolerant plants, succulents

How the Angel of Grief turned into a Cactus Garden

Angel of Grief
Angel of Grief

A friend of mine who attended Stanford University told me that the next time I was on the campus I should check out the famous Angel of Grief marble statue. Tucked in the trees behind the mausoleum that houses the remains of Leland Stanford, his wife and son, this statue was commissioned by Jane Stanford in honor of her deceased brother. It?s a duplicate of several others that are in places like Costa Rica, Canada, Luxembourg and Cuba and is actually the second on this site after the original was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

cactus_garden_path.1280It is indeed moving to stand in front of this massive white marble statue. Nearby is a cactus garden that is equally impressive to this horticulturalist. Alive with hummingbirds and songbirds, the flowers hummed with activity. In these days of designing drought tolerant gardens I?m always on the lookout for tough plants that combine well making a garden a delight to stroll and enjoy. I came away with lots of ideas. Here are some succulents that would work well in a drought tolerant garden in our climate.

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senecio mandraliscae

On a hot day, the color blue makes everything feel cooler. Plants with blue foliage or flowers can serve to calm a riot of color, connect different color schemes and make a space seem larger. One such succulent that serves this purpose well is called Blue Chalksticks or senecio mandraliscae. As a ground cover this beauty spreads 2-3 ft wide but only 12-18? tall. It?s very drought tolerant in full sun or light shade but will also tolerate regular irrigation and is hardy down to 20 degrees. The blue-gray foliage really stands out when paired with burgundy or pink.

Another favorite succulent that I like to use in drought tolerant landscapes is the Ghost plant which is a much easier name to remember than graptopetalum paraguayense. The colors of their 3-6? wide rosettes are what really catch your eye. Ranging from lavender blue to light pink and pale blue on the same plant, this colorful succulent will spread wide but only about 1 foot tall. It?s very hardy to winter lows of 20-25 degrees and will even rebound from being frozen if temps drop below that.

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calandrinia

The Stanford cactus garden has milder winters than us so not all the plants there handle our cold and potential rainy winter weather. But another plant that does great in our climate is calandrinia grandiflora. Brilliant purple, poppy-like flowers rise out of a rosette of succulent gray-green leaves to make a colorful show from spring to fall. Beside being so showy- especially in a large group- this plants needs only very occasional water and is hardy down to 15-20 degrees. It?s super easy to grow and spreads quickly suppressing all weeds as it grows. Maybe that parking strip out front or bare hillside would look great planted with some calandrinia.

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euphorbia lambii

As I strolled through the many winding pathways in this cactus and succulent garden I was amazed when I came across a tree euphorbia taller than I. It really does look like something straight out of a Dr. Suess book. It would need a bit of protection here when temperatures drop below 25 degrees but if you like unusual plants this is the one you?ve got to have. Between the long yellowish-green leaves and the bunches of greenish-yellow flowers-really bracts- it?s a show stopper.

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barrel cactus

Besides the massive barrel cactus in the Stanford cactus garden, there are many, many varieties of aloe, agave, hens and chicks and yucca to name just a few. I was reminded by the huge Joshua trees of my years living in the Antelope Valley. This garden was originally planted around 1880 and many of the original historical plants are still there. Volunteer restoration work began in 1997 and is ongoing. With approximately 500 cacti and succulents it?s worth checking out if you?re in the area.

dogwoods, Flowering trees, plant diseases, planting tips, trees

The Best Dogwoods & How to Grow Them

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Alluvial Terrace Nursery

There?s nothing like learning about trees from someone who has discovered for themselves what makes a winner and how to grow it. Recently I had the opportunity to tour a small wholesale nursery near Corralitos. Jon Craig has evolved from Silicon engineer to a propagator of plants and trees and he?s all the happier for it. He laughs when he says he has loved plants for a very long time starting with his first job mowing lawns. As a former engineer it?s all about the research and the plants he grows showcase his success.

His very favorite tree is the dogwood. Not just any dogwood but the ones that bloom with the largest flowers for the longest time. There are four main species of dogwood trees. From the Himalayas in China comes cornus capitata, Korea is home to cornus kousa. Cornus florida grows on the east coast and the west coast is home to cornus nuttallii or Western dogwood.

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Jon Craig with cornus capitata ‘Mountain Moon’

We are all familiar with the Eastern dogwood that blooms early in the spring. It?s beautiful but rain and wind can cut short the flowering season many a year and the root system is prone to disease. Our Western dogwood is prone to leaf spot fungal diseases. The Kousa dogwood is a more drought tolerant, disease resistant and a tougher plant all around. Large, showy flowers open after the tree has leafed out and remain for a long time. This makes it good for hybridizing with other varieties.

The Stella series is a mix of a florida on kousa dogwood roots. Vesuvius series is a cross of our native nuttallii with a florida as is Eddie?s White Wonder. There is also a nuttullii-kousa cross called Venus that displays huge flowers and gets its disease resistance from the kousa roots. All these cultivars strive to produce a tree with superior disease resistance and huge, long lasting blooms.

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Mountain Moon

Deciduous dogwoods don?t like wet feet especially in the winter. That?s how they develop fungal disease. But there?s an evergreen dogwood that can handle moisture all year round. That tree is Jon Craig?s very favorite. With a name like Mountain Moon you can just picture it blooming high in the Himalayas. Huge flowers up to 6? wide can last from late spring into early summer. After flowering, the fruits begin to form and grow into red balls about the size of large strawberries. This is the reason is it also known as the Himalayan Strawberry Tree. They are edible but bland and tasteless to us. The birds love then though and they remain on the tree while woodpeckers and robins have a feast.

Cornus capitata ‘Mountain Moon’ is a tough tree that can handle strong winds and isn?t bothered by any pests or diseases. They enjoy lots of organic matter as do all dogwoods. Many people think of dogwoods as an understory tree but this location is often too shady. Grow them in a full or partial sun location that gets afternoon shade after 4pm. Add a couple of extra drip emitters or inline drip tubing to your irrigation system and they?re happy.

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Ruby Fall redbud

Besides enjoying the hundreds of blooming dogwoods, I learned about a redbud that is not as fussy as the lovely Forest Pansy. Ruby Falls and Merlot promise to be more reliable in the garden and more heat resistant.

Jon will try his hand growing just about any plant that he thinks others will also enjoy. A fine crop of Alice oakleaf hydrangea grew near a block of Michelia ‘Inspiration’ getting ready to flower and scent the air. The lilacs had finished blooming but the peonies were just starting their show. Jon shared a tip about tree peonies he learned recently from a well-seasoned Japanese gardener. He followed her advice and cut back the tree peony stem in the dormant season forcing it to produce new stems. Voila- they are now loaded with flowers.

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peony

Jon grows many other types of dogwood and also Copper beech, magnolia macrophylla, Royal Raindrops crabapple , Sheri?s Cloud nyssa and even a Purple-leaved hazel. I could only fit a couple of 5 gallon cans in my car so a beautiful smoke bush in full bloom and a Black Lace elderberry now call Bonny Doon home. But I have my eye on one of those spectacular Mountain Moon evergreen dogwoods for the back garden.

The Mountain Gardener's Weblog