Tag Archives: Flowering trees

Deer Resistant Plants, flowering shrubs, Flowering trees, green design, vines

The Hillbilly Gardener of Scotts Valley

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anemone_clematis_vineThe self -described "Hillbilly Gardener" lives In the banana belt above Scotts Valley Civic Center. Technically, Richard Hencke says he is 1/4 German, 1/4 irish, and 1/2 hillbilly from his childhood in Texas and Oklahoma. A true gardener at heart, Richard spends much of his time as an emergency room doctor at a local hospital and the rest of his time tending his garden. With trees and plants collected in his early  days as a Boy Scout in Port Arthur, Texas, as well as plants acquired from the far corners of the earth he has created a spectacular landscape surrounding his home. "They'll carry me out of this property in a pine box", Richard says. He clearly loves his personal arboretum.

On a clear spring day recently, Richard gave me the royal tour. I visited this garden 2 years ago and I couldn't help but be impressed with incredible growth he has coaxed from his many blooming trees, conifers and vines.
The Pride of Madeira spikes glowed in the sun, some cobalt blue, others vivid purple. Early spring blooming shrubs and perennials offered color at every turn.

One of his passions is allowing flowering vines that grow up into the canopy of his trees which adds one more dimension to his landscaping. A Blood Red trumpet vine is happily inching up a redwood trunk while a butter yellow rosa banksia scrambles into an oak. On a fence along a walk a spectacular blooming double white pandorea vine has found a home in a Butternut tree he got in Pennsylvania. A rose colored anemone clematis nearly covered the trunk and branches of a dormant catalpa.

Fragrance and color as well as good "bones" or structure make Richard's garden breathtaking. He nurtures each seedling with the same care he gives to the large trees. I laughed as he pointed out a 15 ft tall aralia elata that was transplanted from a tiny dish garden received many years ago as a gift. One of his favorite trees is a white pine gleaned from his grandmother's place in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. A black cottonwood he picked up in New England, 2 maples hail from New Orleans and the sisal agave grew from tiny pups he found at a rest stop on Hwy 280 in case he ever wants to make rope or twine.

Richard likes to naturalize Hawaiian native plants starting them mostly from seed collected while on vacation. He has several Sacred Koa or A'ali'i growing on the property. Since this dodonaea species grows at 5000 ft elevation up Moana Loa they have adapted nicely to his Scotts Valley climate. I wouldn't be surprised if Richard goes into the canoe or lei making business when his trees grow up.

A small portion of Richard's garden is fenced but most is open to the deer. So far the branches growing eutaxia_obovatathrough the fence of his bright golden pea-like Eutaxia obovata have not attracted them. Also known as Egg and Bacon shrub this plant is a compact shrub originating from Western Australia. It's graceful fountain shape really shows off the thousands of flowers adorning the branches.

Like all devoted gardeners, Richard likes to share plants with others. A couple of years ago he sent me home with one of his F-2 hybrid Douglas iris and this year a dendrobium orchid. I'm hoping more of his cuttings of the Sacred Flower of the Andes ( Cantua ) take and maybe I'll be lucky to get one of these, too. A day in Richard's garden is always a magical experience.

California Native Plants, Deer Resistant Plants, flowering shrubs, flowers, wildlife gardening

Spring Flowering Shrubs

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In the spring we are surrounded by flowers of every color. It's our reward after the winter. My heart goes out to those gardeners in other parts of the country where snow still covers their perennial beds. The availability of winter sports only goes so far as consolation for all that white stuff. I've lived along the coasts of California my whole life and personally, I'd rather be sitting out in my garden enjoying the birds gathering nesting material than planning the summer garden on paper.  But I digress. Early spring flowering shrubs are getting my attention these days and here are a couple of varieties that you'll want in your garden, too.

ceanothus_Celestial_Blue 2There's a ceanothus for every garden. You can't have too many of these workhorses in the landscape. They range from groundcover types for erosion control to shrubs for screens and accents. A new variety I've recently learned about from my friend and fellow Press Banner columnist, Colly Gruczelak, is called Celestial Blue. She planted several 2 years ago from 4" mail order sleeves and now they are 3 ft tall and 4 ft wide. In her sandy garden, home to her personal deer population, the flowers look like blueberry sherbet.

With a light fragrance, described as grape tart, this medium shrub makes a good screen or accent. This cultivar is probably a hybrid of Julia Phelps and Concha. A horticultural cultivar is simply a plant variety that's been selected specifically for gardens.  Celestial Blue flowers 9 months a year especially in the summer when it explodes with rich purplish blue flowers.

Ceanothus provide excellent habitat for birds and insects. They are good for attracting bee and fly pollinators and are the larval host plants for the beautiful Ceanothus Silkmoth. Ceanothus seed is readily eaten by many local birds. Even a deer resistant plant like ceanothus may have its new tasty growth tip-pruned in spring and summer. Think of this as natures way of producing a well shaped shrub, dense and compact.

Planting a ceanothus is an important step to attracting more birds and wildlife to your garden.
rhododendron_occidentale 2
Want even more fragrance in your early spring garden? Plant a Western azalea, the common name for rhododendron occidentale. One of our most beautiful native shrubs in the Coast Ranges it grows also on the western side of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada mountains.

Western azaleas were described by explorers in western North America in the 1800's. The plant contributed to the development of deciduous hybrid azaleas in Great Britain such as the Exbury azalea.

If you're out hiking you'll know you are near a stand of these awesome shrubs by the sweet and spicy clove scent reminiscent of cottage pinks and carnations. Western azaleas are tolerant of our native serpentine soils which are high in iron and magnesium. Like many of our western shrubs, they have the capacity to resprout from the ground if the top has been destroyed by fire as long as the root system remains intact.

To grow Western azaleas in the garden provide routine moisture and keep the roots cool by shading the root zone with a deep mulch. Protect them from hot afternoon sun. Also to prevent late summer mildew provide air circulation by growing them in open areas not crowded among understory plantings or in dead air spaces under eves.

Give this lovely native shrub aloropetalum_chinense 2 try. It's a wonderful addition to your garden. Visit some of them in Henry Cowell and Big Basin to see them first hand this spring.

My other favorite early spring blooming shrubs are Lily-of-the-Valley shrubs. I especially like a two-tone dark rose variety called Dorothy Wyckoff although those with pure white flowers are spectacular in the garden, too.
The white flowers of loropetalum chinense or Fringe Flower are even more showy than its pink flowering relatives.
Add a graceful, double butter yellow flowering kerria japonica to your landscape, too. Your spring garden will be a rainbow of color.
 

beneficial insects, berries, birds, California Native Plants, color in the garden, Deer Resistant Plants, drought tolerant plants, edibles, flowering shrubs, Flowering trees, flowers, fragrant plants, fruit trees, gardening tips, groundcovers, hummingbird plants, landscape design, paths, perennials, pests, soil, stone, trees,shrubs,vines,perennials

Hidden Gardens of Bonny Doon

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Enter the Hidden Gardens of Bonny Doon with me as I preview several gardens that will be featured on the tour this coming weekend.  While some of our gardens have a few areas with a "wow factor" , the gardens I was privileged to visit have this element at every turn. I was amazed, impressed and truly honored to spend time in each of them.

First stop was a garden that took my breath away. Looking past the lush lawn, the view takes in all of Monterey Bay. It wasn't always this way, the owner explained. When she moved to the property in 1981, she didn't even know there was an ocean view. It was only after some judicious pruning that this stunning view was revealed.

We  ambled through the many paths that took us up close and personal with perennial beds overflowing with blooming iris, spirea, weigela, succulents, hardy geraniums, coprosma and coleonema to name just a few.

Rabbits are an ongoing problem in this garden. Seems they love her Angelina sedum, coprosma, and Rose Campion as much as she does. Little 12" tall fences surround several of the beds which looks comical but apparently works as the rabbits don't like to jump over them.

Stained urbanite has been stacked by the owner to make short retaining walls and the look is quite classy blending in the flagstone and gravel paths. She explained how easy it was to stain the broken concrete from the old driveway by slapping on some concrete stain. "Piece of cake", she told me.

Other flower beds she edged with Sonoma fieldstone, stacking them herself. At every turn you can see the personal touches that make a garden unique. An old rusty mailbox was tucked into one of the beds overflowing with blooming pansies and million bells calibrachoa.  I loved this garden.

Next stop was another garden 30 years in the making. You won't believe the "before" pictures when you see this garden now. I could barely see the potential in the old pictures but the owner could and started to build up the rock hard soil bed by bed. After many years she has created  an organic garden full of flowering rhododendron, roses, viburnum, herbs, vegetables, citrus, apples and a 5 year old  Staghorn fern that measures 4 ft across.

The owner explained that deer are not a problem because they won't jump the irregular picket fence. Seems the wide pickets confuse their eyesight. Unfortunately, the gophers have decided recently that after 14 years, her camellias are now on the menu and she has lost almost all of the original 40 in the past year. Instead of lamenting her loss, she sees it as an opportunity to add new plants. She has the optimism that all gardeners possess.

Chickadees nested in a box attached to the porch. Garter snakes and alligator lizards patrol the flower beds. A bathtub, sunk into the earth serves as "the poor man's hot tub". Old metal chairs are planted with flowers and ferns and other found garden art is sprinkled generously though out the garden. This is the garden of an artist whose studio is nestled back among the trees. At every turn you feel the peacefulness of this wonderful place. This is a garden to experience not just view.

The last garden I was lucky enough to preview, was an asphalt driveway just 6 short years ago. There are occasional unplanted spots that still show asphalt. What a transformation. With the help of lots of top soil and an auger this gardener has created a spectacular space.  "Everything grows like crazy here", she explained.

The front garden is open to deer and is planted with echium, leucospermum, arctotis, barberry, thyme, rosemary and New Zealand flax. One of her favorite plants is a huge variegated holly that buzzed so loudly with bees I thought the electrical line coming into the house was making all the racket.

In the back, a small orchard edged the fence. Blooming lilacs by the deck heavily scented the air. Succulents intermingle with peony, erysimum and gaura. This gardener explained she " she is one of those people who buys whatever she likes and then finds a place for it". Having had previous experience growing grapes and olives in Sonoma, she is a hands-on gardener who does it all herself. She's a self-described  "drip queen".

A ceramic artist, her sculptures are focal points though out the garden. There is a lot of other garden art in this garden, too.

Where do these gardeners find the garden art, water features and other items that give their gardens that personal touch? One explained, she is always on the lookout for estate sales as she drives around or sees advertised in the paper. "That's were you can really find the treasures", she explained. "Little old ladies have some great plants and other wonderful finds in the back of the garden".

The Hidden Gardens of Bonny Doon Tour takes place Saturday and Sunday, May 19th and 20th. Don't miss it.