Wide Shots - April 2017

It's time to share wide shots of my garden on my current quarterly schedule but, as I'm so excited about how well my garden is coming together in early spring, I probably would have inflicted a series of photos on your even if it wasn't on schedule!  That's not to say that the garden is perfect - it's not.  It's filling in well, although there are still plenty of holes, mostly left to allow space for existing plants to mature but a few just waiting for the right plant.  There are also plants that are clearly unhappy, which I need to move and replace with something that I've yet to discover, but that's all normal in the world of gardening, isn't it?

Okay, this is a photo-heavy post so we best get started.  I'll begin, as I usually do, in the back garden.

We've had quite a few partly cloudy days, perfect for taking photos.  This is the view of the back garden from the rear door, looking out at the Los Angeles Harbor.

Back view from the patio looking south

This is the view of the backyard looking north.  The Albizia julibrissin (mimosa tree) in the distance won't leaf out until June.  The border area in the foreground on the right needs work - the Grevilleas I added there in 2015 haven't grown much and don't look happy despite my efforts to lower the soil's pH so I think I'll need to move and replace them.

View of the backyard from the far north end of the house looking south

Proceeding clockwise around the house from the backyard leads us to the south side garden.

View of the south side garden looking west in the direction of the street.  The area on the left was largely comprised of succulents but over the past year I've mixed in more evergreen shrubs and perennials.  One of the most recent additions, just barely visible on the left, is my long coveted Metrosideros collinia 'Springfire'.  I hope to keep it on the smallish end of its projected mature size so as not to block the view of any of our neighbors; however, I should note that the only neighbor who has ever expressed a problem with my garden departed last week (finally).

View from the small patio on the south side of the house looking out toward the entrance to the harbor

View of the south end garden space looking toward the backyard.  I cut the Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora) that grew on the right side of the arbor almost to the ground and, for awhile, I thought I'd gone too far but it's now producing vigorous new growth.  The smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple') I planted to the right of the Clematis is leafing out too.

Just past the arbor, there's a bark mulch-covered path that leads down into an area adjacent to the street.  This is surrounded by a moderate downward slope, bounded by a dry-stack wall, which my husband and I extended last year.

View of the area looking west toward the street.  The winter rains gave the Dymondia margaretae I planted from flats around the stepping stones a good start.

View from the street level looking back at the house.  The plants in the area above the rock wall extension on the right are doing almost too well.  I'll probably need to thin them out a bit.

The northwest end of the dry-stack wall was replanted last November after the dying Ceanothus hedge was removed.   Last week I added Leucospermum 'Goldie' here in front of Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'.

The path shown above brings one to the driveway at the front of the house.

This is a slightly different view of the front of the house than I've provided before

View of the front garden looking south

The area on the west side of the driveway sits between our detached garage and the street.  This is where we removed the last of our lawn in 2016.  As you might expect, it's also the most sparsely furnished with plants.

Most of the plants here are still small.  Some, like the Dianella tasmanica 'Yellow Stripe' (right foreground), also get more sun in this partially shaded area than they'd like and may require replacement.

Back in the driveway, once again moving clockwise around the house, we head in the direction of the vegetable garden, now used mainly as a cutting garden.

The climbing 'Joseph's Coat' rose on the front chimney is just starting its spring bloom flush

The Matthiola and Digitalis in the raised planter in the foreground have been disappointing.  The Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule) in the center planter are in full swing.  Most of the sweet peas in the rear planter have buds but only a few early bloomers have produced flowers.

Stepping through a gate in the fence at the back of the cutting garden (just out of view on the right in the preceding photo) leads one into the dry garden.

I've done a lot of pruning and clean-up in the dry garden in the past month but I don't think it's readily evident in this photo.  The 2 large Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' are now bloomed out.  The 2 guava trees are producing fruit and new leaves and the persimmon tree and grape vine have begun leafing out.

The gravel path in the dry garden leads to a cement block stairway down the steep back slope. When the temperature suddenly soared to 106F on the first day of summer last year, the back slope was particularly hard hit, partly because I'd cut irrigation in that area severely in response to our drought, funneling the water available to us to other, more visible areas of the garden.  Our heavier-than-normal winter rains have helped the area recover somewhat.

View looking down toward the bottom of the slope.  The pine trees in the distance are in the garden of our neighbor on the south side.  The cleared vegetable beds beyond the hedge on the left are part of another neighbor's garden.

View looking back up toward the dry garden.  The upper area of the slope above the concrete block stairs is the one that causes me the greatest consternation.  That area is covered in ivy and honeysuckle - and weeds.  Ideally, it needs to be cleared and replanted with something else, perhaps ornamental grasses.

This is the bottom of the slope looking toward our property line, which lies just beyond the 3 Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Silver Magic' we planted in 2015.  The lemon tree (just out of view on the right) has recovered from last year's heatwave and is once again laden with fruit, although none of it is ripe yet.  The Calla lilies returned, boosted by the winter rains, and the California poppies (Eschscholzia californica 'White Linen') came up well from seed scattered at intervals during the fall and winter.

The only major area of the garden I've missed in my clockwise circle around the house is the succulent bed adjacent to the street on the southwest side of our property.  It hasn't changed much.

The 5 Xylosma congestum shrubs we planted last spring to continue the hedge of the same material on the left are slowly growing but I think we have years to go yet before the gap left by removing several sickly Auranticarpa rhombifolium is closed.  Most of the succulents planted along the street took winter's heavy rain in stride, although my pretty Agave 'Impressa' isn't looking so good.

That's it for my quarterly wide shots post.  I'll be back with another round of wide shots in July.


All material © 2012-2017 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party