The trees got their annual trim

I have a tree service in on an annual basis but I don't have every one of them trimmed each year.  However, this year, I included more of them than usual.  This year's exercise included pruning fourteen trees and four tree-sized shrubs, as well as the removal of two dead shrubs and shearing the tall hedge that backs our lath house.  It took the entire day. 

The house and garden had a lovely peppermint scent that day as all six of the Agonis flexuosa (aka peppermint willows) were trimmed.  I think sending the mass of that debris through the chipper is what perfumed the air.

This one on the south end of the back garden is the largest .  It singularly accounts of much of the shade in my back garden but it'll be sunnier now for a time.

This Agonis sits in the northwest corner of the front garden near the property line.  It's always been more wispy than the tree shown in the prior photo.  I don't have it pruned often.

This one alongside the driveway entrance is also on the wispy side and seldom trimmed

The 2 Agonis located directly behind the front hedge along the street may get trimmed the most frequently.  They're more prone to wind damage it seems.

This one on the south side of the garden has always looked a little wonky

The Arbutus 'Marina' (aka strawberry trees) do get trimmed annually.  A good cleanup of the trees' dense interior canopies is necessary to prevent black mildew from forming.  Pruning temporarily reduces the volume of flowers, beloved by hummingbirds, but it keeps the trees healthy and the canopies quickly flesh out.

These 2 Arbutus sit on the north end of back garden

This Arbutus on the northwest side of the front garden presents the trickiest pruning challenge due to all the succulents planted below it.  The agaves suffered "edema" (damage to their leaves) when they were covered by a tarp 2 years ago but the team avoids using those now.

This Arbutus on the south end of the front garden sits atop a moderate slope, also planted with agaves and other succulents

The other trees that received beauty treatments this year include:

Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku' almost got lost on the list but I pointed it out before the team left and one of the crew did a neat job of cleaning it up 

Pruning this lime citrus tree (Citrus aurantiifolia) is a last chance try at saving it.  I inherited it with the garden and while it still produces a lot of fruit, they're tiny and we've little use for them.  It's in the cutting garden area and sited next to the former fence.  If the lime tree is eventually removed, that space may provide me an opportunity to install a small greenhouse.  The fence behind it separates our property from our neighbor on the north side.

The Magnolia grandiflora is another tree that receives an annual pruning.  The principal purpose is to clear its canopy from the roof.

The ornamental pear tree, Pyrus calleryana, is a messy thing, dropping both leaves and inedible fruit that even the critters don't seem to care for.  The debris has been substantially reduced (for now). 

We have ten other trees I didn't include, three additional citrus, two western redbuds (Cercis occidentalis), two pineapple guavas (Feijoa sellowiana), a noID guava (maybe Psidium guajava), and two persimmons (Diospyros kaki).  In retrospect, I wish I'd thrown in at least the redbuds and one of the persimmons, as well as the lemon tree at the bottom of the slope.

Some of my tree-sized shrubs have gotten so large that they're hard for me to handle:

This is Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid'.  It replaced another tall Agonis flexuosa that a former neighbor bullied me into removing based on the claim that it blocked her view of the port years ago.

I used to prune these 2 'Copper Glow' Leptospermums myself, which took hours and hours.  Last year, I decided to hand the chore off to the tree service, which does the job in a fraction of the time it took me.

Leucadendron salignum 'Chief' is another plant that outgrew expectations.  There was one large limb that stretched along the ground and rested its heavy branches on the hedge behind it.  I'm a little concerned that lopping off that limb may kill it but the service did a clean job of removing it at least.  I still have more work to do to cut away the remaining dead foliage. 

The removals (not photographed) included a dead Ceanothus arboreus, also tree-sized, and a large Coprosma repens.  The much-loved Ceanothus 'Clifford Schmidt', which I'd planted from a one-gallon pot, dropped dead in late spring after ten years in the ground.  The tall Coprosma 'Plum Hussey' was poorly placed and was effectively strangled by a rampant honeysuckle vine that crept up from the upper area of the back slope.

The tree service did a great job of cleanup, although leaves and small branches continue to fall as expected.  There was relatively little collateral damage this year, although I lost a branch with Tillandsias wired onto it, which I'd stupidly left on the ground below two of the trees slated for trimming - it must have picked up with the debris and that's entirely my fault as I usually do a better job of clearing work areas before the crew arrives.  However, without an extra charge, the service agreed to send the fence boards my husband recently removed through their chipper, saving him weeks of parsing that out in stages using our recycle bins so that's a win. 

We received some more rain on Thursday, which may spill over into Friday.  From there, we expect some dry, sunny days to carry us through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wordless Wednesday: Summer's Shaggy Look

Arbutus 'Marina' #1

Arbutus 'Marina' #2

Arbutus 'Marina' #3

Arbutus 'Marina' #4

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Hurricane drama

We didn't actually experience a hurricane along coastal Southern California late last week but we did get a taste of the remnants of one.  Hurricane Kay started in the Pacific and hit landfall in Baja California.  It moved north as a tropical weather system, sparking reports of 100mph winds and dropping as much as 5 inches of rain in parts of the San Diego area.  As it moved into my own area of Los Angeles County last Friday afternoon (September 9th) we briefly experienced extreme wind, followed by light rain, which eventually became slow and steady rain in the evening hours, breaking our 10-day heatwave.

In addition to delivering 0.61/inch (15.5mm) of rain here, ongoing storm activity to the east of us set the stage for a pretty sunset on Sunday.  We get better views of the sunrise in my location than we do sunsets.  Our back garden faces east and the western view is largely blocked by hills so what we see of sunsets is displayed in the clouds rather than images of the setting sun.

This was the view to the east, overlooking the Port of Los Angeles, as the sun set in the west

Another view, looking roughly northeast from the back garden

and the view looking northwest, framed by the hills that obstruct the setting sun

 

I visited the local botanic garden Monday morning, hoping to see whatever was left of the floral arrangements created on site over the weekend as part of their Music x Flowers exhibit.  Unfortunately, the floral displays had all been cleaned up and carried away, although I was given a small bouquet of carnations when I checked in at the garden's entrance in commemoration of the event.  I noted that there was a lot of debris strewn about, presumably stirred up by the wind that accompanied the storm.  There wasn't much new to see since my prior visit 6 weeks ago but I strolled the garden for an hour nonetheless.

Then I saw this.  More than simple leaf debris, it appears the storm may have brought down this tree

.

Closeup of the tree's trunk, which had been torn apart

View of the same tree from its other side.  I've no idea what species of tree this was but it appeared to have a twin nearby.  In any case, its removal will leave a sunny spot in an area that was once in shade.

 

Other trees, still intact, were in full flower.

I believe this is a Chitalpa, an intergeneric hybrid of Catalpa (aka cigar tree) and Chilopsis linearis (aka desert willow).  It's a lovely, graceful thing, if too big for most residential gardens.

The garden had advertised that the floss silk trees (Ceiba speciosa, formerly Chorisia speciosa) were in bloom and they were.  The trees are native to South America.  I saw 5 of them on this visit but I recall there are more in parts of the garden I didn't visit on this occasion.  This one is in the garden's upper meadow.

This one near the visitor entrance gives you an idea of how big the trees are.  The tree's trunks are studded with spikes to deter climbing critters.  After, flowering, the hard shells of the seedpods break open to release their seeds, which are surrounded by a fluffy silk-like material.

The temperatures were far lower than the prior week but humidity levels were still high so I couldn't bring myself to walk deeper into the garden on this visit.  Temperatures have cooled even further since the start of the week.  Dare I say, it's feeling a little like fall here?  Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Looking for shade - and another water leak

To be honest, this isn't the hottest summer we've experienced in our area since we moved in over eleven years ago.  The day we first toured the house with our realtor in October 2010, it was 103F/39C and my husband initially refused to get out of the car.  Since we moved in, we've had many heatwaves with temperatures well over 100F/37C.  The worst (thus far) was in July 2018, when our temperature exceeded 110F/43C and got stuck there.  Accompanied by hot, dry winds I felt as if I was caught in a giant hair dryer.  This summer, the temperature has yet to reach 100F but, to my eyes, the garden looks as stressed as it has under higher temperatures, probably because the soil is so terribly dry.  Two years of poor rain, combined with water restrictions, has taken its toll.  I wish I'd spread more mulch during the spring season but I'll have to wait until fall's cooler temperatures arrive to remedy that deficiency as it's simply too hot to spread a truckload of mulch right now.

When I do any work in the garden, I try to take advantage of the shady spots.   Most of that shade is provided by trees.  By my count, we have 23 trees, although not all of them offer significant canopies.  In some cases, tree-sized shrubs make a contribution.

In the afternoon, the peppermint willow (Agonis flexuosa) and the strawberry tree (Arbutus 'Marina') in the northwest corner of our property provide dappled shade to a succulent bed

Closer to the driveway, another peppermint willow and an ornamental pear (Pyrus calleryana) provide a bit more shade.  The hedge (Xylosma congestum) protects the plants in between the trees on either end of this space to some extent but many still struggle.  A Japanese maple (Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku') I planted in the area last year has fried.

If I sit in the garden at all, it's usually in this spot under the Magnolia grandiflora at the front of the house.  I didn't have the tree pruned last year because the leaf canopy was still on the sparse side after the prior year's pruning.

For some reason, the 2 peppermint willows facing the street here have a more weeping form than most of the others in the garden.  However, combined with the large strawberry tree on the left, they do a magnificent job of screening the sun on our west-facing side.

On the lower level of the front garden on its south end, the same strawberry tree provides a bit of afternoon shade for the succulents planted along this southwest facing slope

A tall hedge of Carolina cherry laurel (Prunus caroliniana) adds some shade on the southwest side of our property, along with 2 tree-sized Auranticarpa rhombifolium shrubs on the west side (just visible behind the lath house)

The lath house, built by my husband, is a major source of shade for the plants contained within it, most of which couldn't survive anywhere else in my garden.  During the summer months I put up screens made of shade cloth to provide additional protection.

Views of the plants inside the lath house taken from 3 different angles

This peppermint willow in the south side offers some late afternoon shade

On the small south-side patio shade is provided by a roof overhang, as well as 3 Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' shrubs. The screened area on the right is where my cat, Pipig, hangs out when she doesn't want to deal with humans.

This photo shows the dwarf Agonis from its sunny south-facing side.  Without the shrubs, the patio would be a lot less comfortable (although they will need a hard pruning this fall).

The largest of our 6 peppermint willows stands in the southeast corner of our property.  I had it pruned for the first time last year.  Its canopy doesn't seem to provide much shade to the plants below at the moment.  The east-facing bed in the foreground is shaded by the house itself in the late afternoon.

Two more strawberry trees provide shade in this area on the northeast side of the house, one of which is shown in this photo.  Another larger specimen lies just outside the photo's frame on the left.  They provide shade about half the day.

A narrow alley of shade in the dry garden on the northeast side is provided by the large strawberry tree and a combination of shrubs, including Leucadendron salignum 'Chief' and Psoralea pinnata (aka grape kool-aid bush)

A portion of the same area receives a sun relief from both Leucadendron 'Chief' (background, right) and the persimmon tree (Diospyros kaki 'Hachiya') on the left.  The Leucadendron is nearly 10 feet tall.

Given the drought and rising temperatures year-round, I'm feeling the need to add more trees.  We have decent tree coverage on our west-facing side at the front of the house but the south side of the garden could use a good-sized tree.  We formerly had a very large Heteromeles arbutifolia (native Toyon) there but it was felled by the pathogen that causes sudden oak death in 2020.  We lost both shade and privacy when the huge shrub was removed.

This photo, taken in August 2019, shows the Toyon in the background on the right

These photos of the same shrub were taken in June 2020 when it suddenly turned red and died

This is the view the Toyon partially screened when it was in place.  The 4 Eucalyptus trees look ridiculous and I can't understand why the property owners have left them in place (unless they can't even see them from below).

I tried adding a daisy tree (Olearia albida) in that area after the Toyon was removed.  In addition to starting too small with a plant in a 4-inch pot, I think I also chose the wrong plant.  I'm currently thinking about a mildew-resistant crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia sp.) or a fruitless olive (Olea europaea).  Fitting either into the area without pulling out part of the hedge or other established plants might be the biggest problem.  Adding a tree to the eastern flank of the garden (i.e. in the back garden) would be the easier to manage but, in addition to objections from my husband, it raises the specter of complaints from neighbors if it gets big enough to obscure one or another neighbor's view of the harbor.  Unfortunately, my community has an ordinance designed to protect homeowners' views rather than trees.

Meanwhile, my obsession with our water use continues.  We've dealt with two leaks this year, both addressed relatively quickly following discovery.  I check our water meter once a week to ensure there's no evidence of a leak.  My last check on Tuesday was clear but, as I walked along the south end of our property on Wednesday, I came across evidence of a new problem.

We have a drip line hose running through this area along the street.  The wet pavement clearly indicated a break.  When I ran a test of the irrigation line, I discovered water spurting up beneath an Agave colorata I'd planted in 2021.

My husband made a quick job of digging the Agave up with its roots mostly intact

This is a closeup of the break in the hose, which was spitting water into the street.  I'm guessing that the Agave's sharp spines somehow split the hose.

This is a photo of the Agave in place back in May

I'm looking for an alternative location for the Agave.  These are 2 different spots that might be suitable.  However, the Agave has a variety of scars and I haven't decided if it's worth saving.  On the other hand, Agave colorata isn't all that easy to find.

Best wishes for a cool and comfortable weekend.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party