Tag Archives: garden design

atmosphere in the garden, butterfly plants, California Native Plants, color in the garden, drought tolerant plants, foliage color

Adding Bright Color to the Garden

primrose_yellow
Yellow primrose

Do you ever look at the collection of cut roses at the market and think ?Which is my favorite color today?? Sometimes it?s the strawberry pink ones I?m drawn to other times i like butterscotch or deep red. It?s the same dilemma in my garden. I try to use restraint and stick to just 3 colors but who can do that, really? In early spring I love the soft pink and pure white of bleeding hearts, camellias and early rhododendrons but maybe because I?m surrounded by so much green, I?m drawn in summer to the bright jewel colors of orange, yellow and red in my garden.

clivia_miniata
Clivia miniata or Kaffir lily

I?m looking forward now to my orange clivia flower clusters that are emerging from deep within the dark green strappy leaves and will be opening soon. The color is especially vivid on a dark rainy day. I also have lots of deep golden and red primroses blooming now. I?ve enjoyed these same plants blooming repeatedly for many years in partial shade. I even get some sporadic blooms throughout the summer.

hakonechloa_macra_Aureola
Japanese Forest Grass – hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’

Also at this time of year I get color from foliage too. My ?All Gold? Japanese forest grass and the variegated one have emerged from winter dormancy and they are some of my favorites. Besides being deer resistant the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind adds another dimension to the garden. The chartreuse leaves of heuchera ?Citronelle? – coral bells – add a colorful touch of foliage all year round. There?s a variety called ?Lemon Chiffon? and another named ?Lime Rickey? that i want to add to my collection also.

Later in the season I look to brighter flowers to brighten my garden. High on my wish list for several years is the kniphofia or red hot poker. In addition to yellow and red varieties there?s a cool dwarf one called ?Mango Popsicle? available now. This terrific drought tolerant plant attracts hummingbirds and blooms continuously from late spring into fall. Other colors in this dwarf ?Popsicle? series are banana, creamsicle, lemon, papaya, pineapple and fire glow. All would look awesome planted in a drift.

There are so many plants I want to add to my perennial garden on the terraces between the low rock walls. Some of the existing plants are California natives like salvia ?Bee?s Bliss? with some water smart South African plants such as coleonema ?Sunset Gold? and leucodendron ?Safari Sunset? and an Australian grevillea ?Coastal Gem? thrown in.

Because I wechinacea_Hot_Coralant to add more vibrant colors to this area I?m looking to some of the new?echinacea or coneflower. From deep gold to pumpkin orange to red-orange sunset colors this perennial has medium water needs once established and is deer tolerant. I?m hoping the seed heads will attract more goldfinches to my garden if I don?t deadhead but allow the flowers to remain on the stalks throughout the summer and into the fall. I can also plant more California native grasses for the goldfinches like blue and yellow-eyed grass and festuca californica.

Santolina 'Lemon Fizz'
Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’

A plant like santolina ?Lemon Fizz? provides chartreuse mounds of fragrant foliage for year-round color. In the summertime it?s topped with bright yellow flowers. This compact evergreen plant is perfect to edging pathways, borders and in herb gardens. Plant in mass for a colorful, drought tolerant ground cover.

I have quite a few native sticky monkey flowers in orange and yellow that the

mimulus aurantiacus
mimulus aurantiacus

hummingbirds love. Also the reddish-orange California fuchsia adds color to my landscape later in the summer cascading over the rock wall. A lemon yellow fremontodendron or flannel bush would add some height to my slope.

Also I?ve wanted an Island Snapdragon or galvezia speciosa to add to my red-yellow-orange color scheme. This evergreen California native blooms with bright red snapdragon-like flowers in late winter through early fall. It?s a tough plant and very adaptable to many garden situations and soils. It can

Fremontodendron_californicum
Fremontodendron californicum

even be hedged or pruned to ground level to keep the foliage fresh.

The bright colors of yellow, orange and red play well with blues and purples and are especially useful in mid-summer when the harsher light of the direct overhead sun can wash out paler hues.

compact shrubs, Deer Resistant Plants, drought tolerant gardens, drought tolerant plants

Changing Times – Changing Gardens

Maybe our gardens in California should never have looked like a Monet painting filled with layer upon layer of water thirsty perennials and lush green lawns big enough for a soccer match. Because we were first settled by Easterners who could grow these plants with natural rainfall I?m going to give us a pass. It wasn?t our fault. But now we are wiser and smarter. We may have been kicking and screaming at first but all us us now accept that water is limited and we need to use it wisely.

That doesn?t mean, however, that we have to live in graveled yards with no landscaping. Our goal should be to figure out what the new California landscape should realistically look like and plant accordingly. We can still be surrounded by green and silver foliage and colorful flowers that look lush without breaking our water budget.
Look outside the old box and discover a whole new plant palette and a way of gardening that works for all of us.

drought tolerant plant plugs
Drought tolerant plant plugs

Recently in the mail, I received a collection of low water use, low maintenance plants native to Australia. I plan to trial the small plugs in my own garden but I know already that they are going to be winners. I have seen a couple of them at the wholesale nurseries. Others are improved selections of known tough, drought tolerant plants. They are well suited to our Mediterranean climate, easy to grow in well drained soils and hardy in winter. I?m looking forward to a time when they are available in local nurseries. In the meantime, I plan to specify them where appropriate in future landscape designs.

I?m excited about all 5 varieties of plants I received. Three are grass-like and the other two are compact versions of well known shrubs.

You might be familiar with the compact bottlebrush ?Little John?. Breeders now have come up with a new improved version called Callistemon ?Better John? because of its vigorous growth and dense blue-gray foliage. This 3 foot tall by 3 feet wide shrub is easy to grow, quick to establish and is long lived in the landscape. Hummingbirds love the 4-6 inch long red flowers during the spring.

The other shrub variety I am going to test is Westringia ?Grey Box?.? Westringia are deer resistant and very drought tolerant once established and ?Wynabbie Gem? and ?Morning Light? have been popular for years for this reason. Grey Box is a new dwarf form with beautiful grayish-green foliage. It doesn?t need pruning to keep it at 3 feet tall and wide. From late winter to summer, white quarter-sized flowers appear in small clusters along the stems. I?m anxious to grow this shrub myself.

lomandra
Lomandra ‘Breeze’

A couple of the grass-like plant plugs I received are an favorite of mine. I?ve seen lomandra ?Breeze? growing in heavy shade and also in sun. Deer don?t like it and it looks great with little water. Now there?s a new cultivar called ?Baby Breeze’ which stays at a graceful 18 inches tall. If you want the look of a short grass with no maintenance Lomandra is the new go-to plant. It even has yellow-orange tiny flower spikes in late spring.

Lomandra ?Katrinus Deluxe? is the other selection I?m going to grow out. It?s extremely drought tolerant, very shade tolerant, cold and heat tolerant and deer resistant also. It looks like an ornamental grass but you don?t have to cut it back in winter. It?s evergreen even when temperatures drop into the teens.

Dianella ?Little Rev’ is the last plant I?m looking forward to growing. This flax lily has an weeping architectural habit. It?s a very tough and drought tolerant grass-like plant good for erosion control as well as planting on it?s own or in groups. In spring it blooms with masses of small dark violet flowers. This is a clumping plant for full sun to partial shade that slowly spreads by rhizomes. As with the others this plant also is low maintenance and requires little water once established.

I?ll keep you posted as I discover new plants for our changing times and changing gardens.

Carmel gardens, drought tolerant gardens, drought tolerant plants, garden design

Save Water in the Garden like they do in Carmel

aeonium_echeveria_statice_agapanthus.1600
Aeonium ‘Sunburst’, echeveria, statice and agapanthus grouping

You can sum up a Carmel garden with one of two descriptions – hot and dry or mild and dry. Closer to the coast the weather is mild year round while further up Carmel Valley it can get pretty toasty.

In either place, the people of Carmel are used to paying close attention to their water consumption. Monterey County water districts have some of the most stringent regulations around.

On a recent trip to this beautiful part of the world, I took the opportunity to study their beautiful low water-use gardens. What makes for a successful garden that doesn?t include a lawn and lush perennial border? Here are some of the plants and strategies that I admired while in Carmel.

Because many homeowners are replacing their lawns with low water-use landscapes a well thought out design is more important than ever.

libertia_peregrinans.1600
Libertia peregrinans

Stone makes a garden look like it?s part of nature. Granite boulders are one of the go-to choices for accent rocks due to their lower cost and I saw many gardens with beautiful installations using granite. But it was the creamy yellow Carmel stone that caught my eye. It?s used for everything there from retaining walls and steps to veneer for homes.

Carmel stone is a Monterey sedimentary shale and can be found throughout the Santa Lucia mountain range. The best stone colors, however, come from quarries in Monterey County. With beautiful rust, orange, pink and caramel iron oxide striations it?s plentiful and relatively light by rock standards. That?s probably why it was the material of choice for the native Ohlone tribes who built the Carmel Mission.

In addition to the beautiful stonework and boulders in Carmel gardens, plant selection is often unique and bold as well as easy on the water budget. I wasn?t familiar with Globularia sarcophylla ?Blue Eyes? when I first saw it blooming. Covered with hundreds of button size flowers of cream with dark blue centers it really stood out. This showy little Canary Island shrub is very drought tolerant and hardy down to 10 degrees.

anigozanthos_Gold-Velvet
Anigozanthos ‘Gold Velvet’

Another plant that looked great paired with old fashioned shasta daisies was the medium sized Gold Velvet kangaroo paw. Flowering for most of the year this variety has more resistance to black spot, needs less trimming and is frost tolerant. Plant kangaroo paws in a well mulched garden using chunky bark chips and ensure the crown of the plant is above soil level. Remove older flower stems and cut back foliage every 1-2 years. Kangaroo paw offer drought tolerant color in the garden.

Dramatic purple leafed phormium ?Guardsman? accented one of the gardens. Leucophyllum frutescens ?Los Alamitos? -Texas sage – would complement this phormium. The gray foliage and pink flowers smother this plant in color from summer into fall. Succulents like aeonium ?Sunburst? and echeveria paired with agapanthus and statice made a nice vignette in another garden.

leucodendron_Ebony.1600
Leucodendron ‘Ebony’

A visit to several nurseries in Carmel Valley shed more light on what customers are buying in these times of drought. One of the smaller leucodendrons called Ebony is a favorite. This bushy compact shrub grows 3 to 4 feet tall and a bit wider with lustrous blackish-purple foliage and burgundy red bracts surrounding the flowers from late winter to summer. One of the great things about this species is its ability to tolerate only occasional to infrequent irrigation once established.

Other low water-use plants featured at the local Carmel nurseries include California native Woolly Blue Curls, the stunning teucrium ?Azureum?, Velour Pink Mexican Bush Sage and Wyn?s Wonder Australian fuchsia.

Lots of awesome gardens, nurseries and plants – so little time. Take some ideas from the people of Carmel and embrace low water-use gardens.