Foliage Follow-up: November 2013

I've added quite a few foliage plants to my garden this year (and the gardening year's not over for us yet in southern California).  One of my most recent acquisitions is Dampiera trigona 'Purple Wire.'  It blooms, as you may be able to detect from the picture below, but the foliage is what landed it in my cart during a recent nursery trip to Carpinteria.  It's a relatively low-growing, clumping plant suited to a rock garden environment so my hope it that it'll find the soil of this former rock quarry hospitable.

It's hard to get a good picture of this Dampiera.  The foliage really is wiry.

Another recent acquisition is a diminutive Phormium, 'Tiny Tiger,' which I picked up on the same nursery trip up north last week.  It gets just one foot high and one foot wide so it should do fine in its location along the pathway of my dry garden.

I've also added a mass planting of Alternanthera tenella 'Crinkle Red' along the pathway in my renovated side garden.

10 Alternanthera tenella 'Crinkle Red' line the pathway

Close-up of Alternanthera

As of last week, no fewer than 3 Prostanthera ovalifolia 'Variegata' have taken root in my garden.

This Prostanthera ovalifolia, placed in the side yard in late September, is getting by on morning sun only so far

My newest Prostanthera ovalifolia, purchased for a bargain price of $8.99 last weekend, is seated in front of a Ceanothus hedge in the back garden

I've posted about my use of Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' in the garden many times (most recently here) but I've also added the smaller-leafed Coprosma 'Evening Glow' to my collection

One of 3 Coprosma 'Evening Glow,' all still relatively small

But the foliage plants making the biggest impact in the garden right now are still the 2 Persimmon trees we inherited with the house (previously featured here), which are in their full fall splendor.

Persimmon 'Hachiya' in the dry garden

Persimmon 'Fuyu' in the vegetable garden

What foliage is lighting up your garden at the moment?  To see other foliage picks, please visit Pam, the host of the monthly Foliage Follow-up at Digging.

Bloom Day: November 2013

Southern California has been saved the cold that is sweeping other parts of the US.  In fact, recent temperatures have been more reminiscent of summer than fall.  Our thermostat hit the upper 80s on Wednesday when downtown Los Angeles reached 92 degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures have been slowly falling since Wednesday and there's a rumor of drizzle in the forecast but I think real rain is still a pipe dream.

Perhaps as a response to the warm afternoons, some spring/summer bloomers have made a reappearance.  I posted pictures of reblooming daylilies earlier this week but other plants that generally flower during the first half of the year have also made walk-on appearances.

Pale blue Agapanthus bloom

Pink Alstroemeria (no ID)

 

Ruffled Leucanthemum x superbum (Shasta daisy)

Fresh bloom on Papaver nudicaule (Iceland poppy)

Another Iceland poppy

However, the biggest show-offs at present are a few of the fall bloomers.

Camellia sasanqua (no ID)

Close up of the Camellia blooms

Correa pulchella 'Pink Eyre' looks better in person than in my photos

Senna (Cassia) bicapsularis is making a bigger splash now than she did when I featured her as a favorite plant at the end of October

A few of my recent purchases are also flowering.

Grevillea 'Superb' (Yes, I finally found an acceptable place for her!)

Phygelius x rectus 'Salmon Leap' is settling in bordered by Abelia 'Kaleidoscope'

Argyranthemum frutescens

I broke down and put in a few pansies right before our most recent mini-heatwave

A somewhat fuzzy picture of the first blooms from Salvia mexicana 'Limelight'

And some of the plants that have pumped out flowers for months are still going strong.

Celosia argentea var spicata is turning tawny but still has presence in the back border

Osteospermum ecklonis '3DSilver' has bloomed all year but the blooms have become more prolific as the weather cools

Pelargonium 'Pink Blizzard' and Calibracohoa 'Cherry Star' have provided non-stop blooms in pots near the front door

Even my beloved Plectranthus ciliatus 'Zulu Warrior' still has some blooms.

Plectranthus ciliatus 'Zulu Warrior'

All in all, I'm not doing half bad in the bloom department for mid-November.  Please visit Carol's May Dreams Gardens for bloom connections from around the world.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: They're back!

Hemerocallis 'For Pete's Sake'

Hemerocallis 'Persian Market'

Hemerocallis 'Russian Rhapsody'

Hemerocallis 'Spanish Harlem'

Reaching Critical Mass

Even by my own standards, I've spent a lot of time at plant nurseries and garden centers over the past couple of months.  This weekend, a friend and I made our previously delayed trip up north to Carpinteria to shop 2 of our favorite nurseries there, Island View and Seaside Gardens.  I posted on both back in early April so I won't cover either one in any great detail in this post.  (You can find coverage of the earlier visit here.)

Both nurseries had lots and lots of rusty metal stuff for sale, of which the following are just a small sample.

Island View Nursery is still emphasizing succulents and indoor plants.  They had some beautiful bromeliads but they were pricey.

However, the prices on the smaller succulents were good by local standards.  The 4-inch pots were priced at $3.25 each and the 2-inch pots were $1.50 each.  They had a good selection, although nothing really unusual.

I picked up 3 ferns and a few succulents.

My Island View purchases, 3 mother ferns (Alpenium bulbiferum) and assorted unlabeled succulents

At Seaside Gardens, I took a look around the demonstration gardens before making any plant purchase decisions.  Whereas California poppies and flowering succulents made the biggest statements at the time of our April visit, on this occasion grasses, Salvias, Tagetes lemmonii and Leucadendron dominated the landscape.

Salvia 'Purple Magesty'  (unfortunately unavailable for purchase)

Tagetes lemmonii (aka Copper Canyon daisy)

Here's what I took home from Seaside this trip:

Prostanthera ovalifolia 'Variegata' (available in a 1-gallon size!), Phormium 'Tiny Tiger', Dampiera trigona 'Purple Wire', Sollya heterophylla (an Australian native I grew years ago and have rarely seen since) and a solar gazing ball (it was 1/2 price)

I also stopped back at the Marina Del Rey Garden Center on my way home from my friend's house to pick up some more Alternanthera tenella I wasn't able to find elsewhere plus some other items I felt I "needed."

Alternanthera tenella 'Crinkle Red', Salvia 'Wendy's Wish', and assorted unlabeled succulents

And I haven't even mentioned the side trip I took to Roger's Gardens on my way to another appointment last week, or my trip to Armstrong to pick up general supplies.  The good news is that I'm reaching critical mass in my backyard border, the new side yard area, and my dry garden.  However, I haven't done much of anything with the front border, the vegetable garden, the garden beds on the other side of the house, the slope...

Favorite plant of the week: Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey'

It surprises me that I haven't featured Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' as my favorite plant of the week since I began participating in the meme sponsored by Loree of danger garden.  I now have this shrub in 3 separate beds in my garden.  I found that I've featured it in no fewer than 5 foliage follow-up posts.  Most recently, in responding to a query presented by Hoover Boo of Piece of Eden, I identified it as my best new plant of 2013.  So why hasn't it shuffled to the top of the deck when it came to identifying a favorite plant?  Maybe it's that it isn't a plant that jumps up and demands to be noticed.  It doesn't flower.  It's growth is steady but not dramatic.  It's relatively short in stature.  However, it's undeniably a beautiful foliage plant.

New leaves are a yellow green color and older leaves are a wonderful burgundy.

The bright leaf color dominates in this young plant

Darker burgundy colors becomes more evident as the plant matures

I think it looks particularly good surrounded by plants with uniformly bright green foliage.

Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' accompanied by an aggressive peppermint pelargonium

Back side of same Coprosma

This Coprosma (aka mirror plant) was introduced by a New Zealand grower.  I initially picked it up because I was amused by its name but the variety is correctly identified as 'Plum HussEy,' not 'Plum Hussy.'  Still, it's a compact shrub that struts her stuff, albeit in a somewhat subtle fashion.

It develops the strongest burgundy color in full sun and it's hardy to 15 degrees (Fahrenheit).  Most sources say it grows to be 2-3 feet tall and wide (or 1.2 x 1.2m), although, in my dry garden (where it was largely ignored for several months), it grew taller but skinnier.  It responds well to tip pruning to promote outward growth and it's reportedly wind and salt tolerant.

Please go to Loree's danger garden to view her favorite plant of the week and to link to other gardeners' selections.