My quarterly wide shot posts sometimes sneak up on me. That's particularly true in January as I'm shaking off the holiday season and wondering when I may see the early signs of spring blooms. At present, I've also been fixated on weather reports and the dry conditions of my garden. The most recent analysis offered by Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, on his Weather West site supports my own view that Southern California is experiencing one of the driest starts to the current "water year" on record (counted from October 1, 2024). In contrast, Northern California is on track to record its wettest start. Sadly, the prognosis for the balance of our "rainy season" in Southern California isn't positive either.
My roof-top weather station shows that we've collected just 0.29/inch of precipitation since October 1st, much of that the product of periodic marine layers. Luckily, we're still able to run our irrigation system twice a week and cooler temperatures and the marine layer are helping my plants cope with the dry conditions. Outside my cutting garden, I'm being stingy with supplemental water so plant losses are to be expected as the year progresses if rain isn't forthcoming.
I'll start my back garden.
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| This is the view from the back door. Even when the marine layer clears at our elevation, it's been hugging the Los Angeles harbor below us into the afternoon, giving the view a fuzzy feel. |
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| This is the view from the back patio looking north. I still haven't gotten around to clearing the flagstone path of the overgrown Aeoniums shown in the foreground on the right. I can currently only walk that section of the path by carefully placing one foot directly in front of the other, as if I'm completing a DUI test. |
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| And this is the view from the north end of the back garden looking back in the direction of the patio |
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| I'm now standing along the flagstone path near the patio looking south. There are numerous empty spaces in these beds, many of which were left by Osteospermums that died this past summer. I've yet to locate any of the multi-petaled varieties I like best in local garden centers to fill some of those holes. |
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| This is the south end of the back garden looking back in the direction of the main patio. Aloe vanbalenii x ferox is looking its best on the right. |
Pivoting ninety degrees to the left I'm focusing on the south-side garden looking west.
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| The 2 new bloom stalks of the "mutant" Aloe 'Blue Glow' (left foreground), which bloomed in 2023 without dying, are growing fairly quickly. Leucospermum 'High Gold' (right foreground) already has small buds but many of them have black spots that look like they could be mold. Leucospermum 'Sunrise', just outside the frame of this photo next to 'High Gold', has larger untarnished buds. |
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| This is the view from the small south-side patio looking south. I finally cut back most of the remaining Cistus shrubs on the right (behind the 'Plum Hussey' Coprosma). |
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| This is the view looking east from the point where the south-side garden adjoins the main level of the front garden. The Vitex trifolia in the background on the far right has grown very tall and needs pruning. |
Turning right from the vantage point shown above takes me down into the lower level of the front garden.
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| This shot was taken alongside the lath (shade) house, just outside the frame, looking east. You can find more photos of my recent efforts to renovate this area here. |
Traveling back up the path to the main level of the garden places me at the south end of the front garden.
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| Looking north from this point, the view is largely blocked by 2 large shrubs, Grevillea 'Superb' and the Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' immediately behind it. I cut back both on a regular basis but, in retrospect, the Leucadendon might have been a mistake. However, I love the plant and have no plans to remove it. |
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| This is the view from midway down the flagstone path looking south. 'Wilson's Wonder' is show in the foreground on the left. |
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| This is the view from the front door area looking southwest at the area surrounding the Magnolia grandiflora tree. Since we removed the patchy grass below the tree years ago, I've tried various ground cover plants there but none have thrived so wood mulch remains. |
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| This is the view from the driveway looking east at the front door. The remaining 2 Halloween pumpkins need to go but the bare space they occupy needs plants. |
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| This is the view of the beds on the right (south) side of the path leading to the front door |
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| This is the left (north) side of the path to the front door. I still haven't replaced the Coleonema shrub the gardeners insist on shearing into a rectangle. The Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana) looks good, although I can no longer cut its flowers for vases as it's grown too tall. |
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| This view from alongside the house looks southwest toward the Xylosma hedge that lines the street |
On the other side of the driveway adjoining the free-standing garage is another good-sized garden area.
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| This view looks northwest. The lavender shrubs on the far right (partially outside the photo's frame) are sad and I may replace them. |
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| This view of the same faces another section of the Xylosma hedge. There are a lot of self-seeded Polygala myrtifolia (aka sweet pea shrubs) growing this area, which I've allowed to stay, mainly because I haven't found many plants that'll thrive here. |
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| This is the succulent bed I renovated in March-April 2024. It's doing pretty well but I'm hoping to do a better job with the rock edging bordering the path, which is used to haul out our trash cans for pickup. I recently picked up a flat of Ruschia 'Nana' to fill in between some of the larger plants. |
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| This is the same bed, photographed from a different angle looking west. I took this photo on New Year's Day after cutting down 2 'Edward Goucher' Abelias that presented a huge, twiggy mess in the background. My husband removed a third plant earlier this year, although it's attempting a comeback. (All 3 shrubs came with the garden.) I'm hoping to remove all but one, smaller Abelia. |
My cutting garden sits on the east side of the garage.
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| The Anemones and Ranunculus are coming along well, although I've yet to see any sign of buds. Many of the seeds I sowed have germinated but they seem to be waiting for warmer conditions and longer days to do anything. |
Passing through the gate in the background in the last photo takes me into the north-side garden.
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| I pulled out a lot of the sword ferns in the bed on the left but I need to tackle more of the ivy rampantly growing under the larger plants in the area on the right |
Walking along the gravel path shown in the prior photo brings me to the cement block stairway that leads down the back slope.
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| I did considerable work cleaning up the back slope in November but there's still a lot to do. Most importantly, I need to tackle the twisted mass of trailing Lantana and Vesalea floribunda (aka Mexican abelia). |
The last area is my street-side succulent bed, which is best viewed from the street looking east.
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| This area's looking okay since I cleaned it up in mid- September but it'll warrant more effort later this year |
So that's it for the garden's status this January. I seem to have racked up a lot of projects in the course of this review! Maybe I'll get to one or two of them this weekend. However you're planning to spend the weekend, I hope you have a good one.
All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
