When I sat down to write this post, I started with a rant about what happened in the US Capitol on Wednesday. Disillusioned and disgusted as I've been with the current occupant of the White House for a long time, I was nonetheless shocked that a sitting President would actively incite violence as he did on Wednesday. However, rather than repeating what you can find in news reports, I'll just share a song from John Fogerty. A friend shared it with me just before the violent attack by terrorists on the US Capitol intent on asserting the President's will over the will of the people. Fogerty had been distressed that his song, Fortunate Son, had been used on Trump's campaign trail over his personal objections. This new song, Weeping in the Promised Land, is his own reflection on the damage Trump has wrought during his 4-year tenure.
As to the foliage standouts in my winter garden, I'll start with the succulents on the south side of our house. I took the first photos in late December.
There's a problem that stands out to me like a sore thumb here - do you see it?
Some of the leaves of Agave 'Blue Flame' were badly damaged by summer heat
The burned and tattered edges of the 'Blue Flame' Agave had bothered me for some time. On Wednesday afternoon, needing to engage in physical activity to work out my anger and frustration with the day's events, I took a knife to the damaged leaves of the agave. Here are the after shots:
I cut out many of the damaged leaves using a serrated knife. In a few cases, I simply cut away the damaged leaf tips.
They're almost magazine pretty now
However, if you look closely, there's some pitting to the outside leaves, apparently the result of the brief hailstorm we experienced after Christmas. I'd thought I've avoided any damage from the hail until I noticed this.
While cutting out selected leaves, I also removed seven 'Blue Flame' pups. Only one of these had any roots hopefully the others can be encouraged to develop some.
In addition to the 'Blue Flame', 'Blue Glow', and mediopicta 'Alba' Agaves shown in the preceding photos, this area is home to several others, most notably the following:
I planted this Agave gypsophila from a 4-inch pot in 2016, not really considering the wisdom of placing it so close to the flagstone path. I'm thinking about moving it to the recently replanted front slope nearby.
This Agave 'Mr Ripley', also originally planted from a 4-inch pot, was placed in another questionable spot along the dirt path used when trimming the hedge just a few feet away
Agave ovatifolia 'Vanzie' is several feet away from 'Mr Ripley' along the same path. I think it'll be okay there but the Kniphofia in front of it may have to move.
Prominent as succulents are in my garden, my eye was drawn to other foliage as well.
The peppermint willow (Agonis flexuosa) trees that partially screen the garden from the street do a nice job imitating lace curtains this time of year
Although it's not as flashy as variegated Echium 'Star of Madiera', Echium webii is my favorite in this genus
I cut Melianthus major back to the ground in September, much earlier than usual, and I was worried that maybe I'd killed it but it's sprung back
I like how this Phormium 'Maori Queen' echoes the color of the neighbors' maple tree leaves across the street, which you see in a peek-a-boo view through the foliage
I'll close with two new succulents I received as recent gifts from friends.
Mangave 'Barney' is on the left and Mangave 'Silver Fox' is on the right. I'm still debating the placement of both.
Getting back to the subject matter at the top of my post, if you're sickened by the lies that lead to events like that we saw on Wednesday, you might consider signing the Pro-truth Pledge and, better yet, ask the officials who seek your vote to take the pledge too. You can find more about it here.
In July, Tamara of Chickadee Gardens published a post by her "facilities manager" featuring his favorite flowers. Earlier this week, Loree of danger garden provided a list of her husband's favorite plants from their garden. With a degree of trepidation, I asked my spouse if he'd identify his favorite plants in our garden. After a roll of his eyes and my assurance that he could limit his list to ten plants, he laughed and signified general acceptance of the request (after I agreed that we could skip the back slope). As background, my husband has always been very willing to help me with all the heavy lifting in the garden, including the removal of all the lawn that came with it, laying flagstone paths, and constructing a stairway of concrete blocks down our steep back slope. He also built an arbor for our grapevine, a dining table for our back patio, a lath house for my shade plants and, most recently, compost bins.
In addition to designing and building the lath house, including internal shelving and external window boxes, he also created custom-fitted shade-cloth screens to cover the ceiling and top two shelving areas to increase the shade quotient during the hot summer months
That said, he shows little to no interest in what I plant, except to occasionally express concern that one plant or another may impact his view of the harbor. He's also severely color blind, so much so that I'm regularly required to advise him as to the colors marking electrical wires when he's wiring anything. I periodically invite him into the garden to look at plants I'm particularly pleased with but the best I usually get out of him is "uh huh, that's nice."
He walked through the garden before making any selections. Then he started pointing to things but he left the camera work to me. I asked if he could tell me what he liked about the plants he identified and he responded to the effect that I hadn't said that was necessary so "no" and we proceeded with him pointing and me clicking the camera. Here's his list in order of selection:
Pyrus calleryana, aka ornamental pear : This tree admittedly provides good shade cover in the front garden but it's also extremely messy; however, I'm the one that deals with the leaf litter and falling fruit
Phormium 'Maori Queen': One of my favorite plants as well. He noted that we had several and his praise encompassed all of them.
Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum': He took note of two of them but there are others. He looked up at Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' as we walked by the area on the right but made no note of that plant.
Helichrysum petiolare 'Licorice Splash: I was confounded by this choice, especially as he completely ignored Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt'
Arthropodium cirratum, aka Renga Lily (not currently in bloom): This selection startled me too. I love the plant, which handles dry shade conditions well, but he passed by a couple of dozen of these plants elsewhere in the garden without noting them. The two plants here receive more sun and are a bit sun-bleached by comparison to others in shadier areas.
Zinnia elegans: The first flowers he acknowledged, although he waved at them and said "these chrysanthemums or whatever they are." In retrospect, I wondered if he noticed these because this area was recently covered with scrappy looking rosemary shrubs. I added the Zinnias as a temporary filler after pulling the shrubs out.
Yucca 'Bright Star': Another plant we agree on
Polygala fruticosa, aka sweet pea shrub: Although I've got a few of these in the garden, the most I can say about it is that it's a tidy shrub when young
Lantana 'Samantha': Another flowering plant, this one with variegated foliage. There was no mention of the lovely sunflower in a pot nearby that echoed the yellow flower color.
Pelargonium 'Lady Plymouth': His selection of this one had me thinking that he's drawn to variegated foliage that stands out among the surrounding plants
Gladiolus 'Green Star': A total surprise
The Mandarin and navel orange trees: In this case, he specifically mentioned that he appreciated their excellent fruit. There are still a few orange spots visible near the top of the Mandarin orange tree on the left but most of those are just shells left by the rats after they ate the remaining fruit in place.
If you've counted, his list included twelve plant species rather than ten as we'd both lost track. Like Loree, I suspect the list might be very different at another moment in time. No succulents were identified. I was moderately surprised there weren't more trees on the list (I'm certain the lemon tree would've been included if we'd gone down the back slope) and almost as surprised that he included any flowers at all. I'm not sure what I can take away from the exercise about his preferences other than perhaps that he shows some preference for variegated plants.
Online sources are predicting a nice drop in temperatures over the weekend and although they've consistently underestimated our daytime highs I'm nonetheless hopeful they're right this time. I hope you enjoy a safe and comfortable weekend as well.
Yes, I grow a lot of flowering plants. But over the years I've also developed a good backbone of foliage plants. When I find a plant I like, I often look for more plants in the same species or genus. After the floral excesses of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, I thought I'd close out the week by featuring some of my favorite foliage.
I also like to combine complementary foliage. This is Aeonium 'Mardi Gras' with Coprosma repens 'Fire Burst'.
I inherited this clump of Agave attenuata with the garden but I've planted pups from this clump in numerous other areas
This photo of the flaking bark on Arbutus 'Marina' is off-topic but, as all five of my Arbutus are doing their thing right now, I felt I had to share at least one photo
This mass of agaves in my north side dry garden grabbed my attention, in part because the dense clusters of the smaller agave are now encroaching on the larger Agave funkiana 'Blue Haze'. I didn't have a name for the clustered agaves and I went down a rabbit hole looking for one. I found similar plants labeled 'Rosa Gorda' and other things but couldn't locate a formally accepted name. Even San Marcos Growers, my go-to source for plant IDs admitted to the confusion as to its name. One on-line commentator identified it as a hybrid of Agave potatorum and A. isthemensis but didn't cite a source.
My oldest Agave ovatifolia sits several feet away from the mystery clump in the same bed. It's gotten rather cozy with the Agave vilmoriniana on its left.
I inherited several Calliandra haematocephala with the garden too, all used as foundation plants, which means they're regularly sheared to keep them within bounds. The good news there is the fresh new foliage is gorgeous. I actually like the foliage of this plant better than it's pinkish-red powder-puff flowers.
This is Centaurea 'Silver Feathers', which I like in this location, where it glows. I've got too many in another location in the back garden and some or all are going to have to come out as one walkway is no longer passable.
I may have over-used Coleonema pulchellum 'Sunset Gold' as well. I have these plants in both my front and back gardens. Those shown here are in the back, on opposite sides of the flagstone path. The clump on the right is encroaching on Yucca 'Bright Star' and needs to be thinned.
I only have one Dasylirion longisssimum and I'm not sure I like it here but I recently cut back a blue-flowering mass of Wahlenbergia in front on it to reveal its structure so I can make a decision on whether or not to keep it. (The purple-leafed plant behind it is Vitex trifolia.)
Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' deserves its name. I have two, one of which I brought with me from our former house. It's the one on the left, which gets more sun and glows this time of year. The plant on the right is in partial shade.
I often forget that I have a Leucadendron 'Ebony' but I caught it peeking above the mass of Grevillea 'Scarlet Sprite' in front of it and snapped the photo on the left yesterday morning. I subsequently cut back some of the Grevillea and took a second photo yesterday evening. A bit more pruning is required I think. (The plant behind 'Ebony' is Leucadendron salignum 'Chief'.)
I have more grass-like Lomandra longifolia 'Breeze' than I can count off-hand
Here are more in the back garden, mingling with Abelia grandiflora 'Kaleidoscope', the color of which is echoed by Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' in the background
And here's still more in the front garden, mixed with Phormium 'Maori Queen' (and that's not even all of it)
I only have one Melinathus major but it's looking its best right now. I cut it down to the ground each year. It's complemented here by Leucadendron 'Jester'. This 'Jester' is always relatively pale by comparison to the one I have in full sun.
I was ready to pull out this Phormium 'Yellow Wave' but, after two years of decent rain, it's looking better. There's a second Phormium behind it, which I think is supposed to be 'Apricot Queen' but just looks like a smaller version of 'Yellow Wave', never having developed any apricot color.
These Yucca 'Blue Boy' sit in the same bed. The one on the left was given to me by Denise of 'A Growing Obsession' years ago after I reported losing another one to agave snout weevil. There's a third tiny plant in there too, which I found growing in another bed a year or more after I removed the infected plant.
Yucca gloriosa 'Variegata' is a slow-grower. I planted the one on the right in a decaying tree stump to deter the raccoons from using that spot as their toilet. It's taken awhile but my strategy finally seems to be working.
That's it from me for this week. I hope you're finding ways to stay both healthy and sane as the scourge of the novel coronavirus continues to afflict the US. Seriously, anyone who doesn't mask up when going out in public needs to look in the mirror before complaining about shut-downs and the tanking US economy. In addition to wearing a mask, be sure to vote in November - we can't afford four more years of this reality game show with people's lives at stake.
We're clearly on the cusp of spring here and flowers will be demanding more and more attention as the weeks go by - it's hard to ignore them when something new seems to pop into bloom every time I glance at the garden. I decided that, if I was going to do a survey of the foliage that contributes so much to my garden but rarely gets the attention it deserves, the time was now. At the outset, I also set myself a challenge, which was to skip all the usual suspects. That means: no succulents, no Leucadendrons , no grasses, and no trees or tree-like shrubs. When the list still got long, I also cut out bromeliads, the begonias and other foliage plants in my shade house, and even that attention-hog, Acacia 'Cousin Itt'.
So here's what I decided to share:
Artichokes are one of the few plants that have held up against the challenges presented by my back slope. Even when they die back in late summer, they come back with our winter rain.
The small-leafed Coprosmas are often disappointing over the long haul but Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' has held up well for me. I have 3 of these plants in different spots of the garden. All are resilient and hold their color.
I'm not overly fond of the trunk-forming Cordylines but there are some trunk-less varieties I like. Clockwise from the left are: Cordyline 'Can-Can', C. 'Design-a-Line', and C.'Renegade'.
Phormiums look similar to Cordylines in many respects, although they're in a different family. Many, like the 2 shown here, 'Apricot Queen' on the left and 'Maori Queen' on the right, can get big.
Grass-like Lomandra presents a similar silhouette. It's in the same family as Cordyline. Clockwise from the upper left are: Lomandra 'Breeze', L. hystrix 'Tropic Belle', and L. 'Platinum Beauty'.
Corokia virgata 'Sunsplash' is best appreciated close-up
Like other Hebes, 'Purple Shamrock' flowers but its foliage is the real draw
I'm featuring Helichrysum 'Icicles' largely because I thought I'd killed 3 of my plants with aggressive pruning but it's proven more resilient than I gave it credit for. The plants on the left were lightly pruned and the one on the right was pruned down to to sticks.
I've mostly ignored this Ruscus hypoglossum (aka butcher's broom) since I planted it in 2014. I think of it as a foliage plant but it produces tiny flowers in the middle of its leaves. I'm not sure I've ever examined the flowers until now. They look like alien insects, don't they?
Our Xylosma congestum hedges are at their best and brightest when the new foliage comes in following pruning. The 3 plants we added to extend the hedge on its southwest end (right) are finally looking like they'll catch up with the rest of the hedge one day.
I'll end with the Yuccas scattered through the garden. From left to right are: Yucca 'Blue Boy', Y. 'Bright Star', and Y. gloriosa 'Variegata'.
What foliage in your garden manages to compete with the flashy flowers of early Spring?
