These grew from formerly small and shriveled clumps of tuberous roots.
It is hard to imagine how the small shriveled clumps of tuberous roots of ranunculus, Ranunculus asiaticus, planted last autumn can produce such bright pink, red, orange, yellow and white flowers between late winter and early spring. The two or three inch wide, semidouble or double flowers stand about a foot high, just above their soft deeply lobed foliage. Those of us who did not get ranunculus in the ground last autumn can find blooming plants now. Ranunculus want to be in full sun, in rich, well draining soil.
Deadheading (removal of fading flowers) promotes subsequent bloom; but the season is rather short. Foliage will soon be turning yellow, and will eventually die back. If not watered too much, dormant ranunculus can survive through summer, but should be dug and stored in a cool dry place until next autumn if they are in pots or areas that will get watered regularly.
Extensive breeding can compromise floral fragrance.
As I enjoy good friends and cheap coffee out on the deck, I am also savoring the sweet fragrance of the abundant white bloom of the black locust off in the distance. I know that black locust is a noxious weed that invades riparian environments; but they smell so good on such pleasantly warm spring days. Modern varieties are certainly better behaved and more colorful with their pink to purplish flowers, but their fragrance does not compare so well.
Earlier here on the deck, one of my friends and I discussed how modern Buicks are much safer than old classic Buicks are, but are not quite as elegant and stylish. It made me think of how decades ago, modern roses were developed for flower size, form, color and stem length, but in the process, were deprived of, among other qualities, their fragrance. Perhaps I would have been more attentive to my friend if the coffee were as potent as the fragrance of the black locust.
Modern varieties of many classic flowers are less fragrant than their ancestors were. This is because decades (and centuries) ago, fragrance generally had not been prioritized in breeding as much as were other physical characteristics, such as flower size, form, color and so on. The plants that were consequently used for breeding typically had the most visually appealing flowers, but lacked fragrance. Such disparity is actually quite natural among plants with variable flowers.
For example, most bearded iris that naturally have the biggest, fanciest and most brightly colored flowers are also the least fragrant. Their progeny that have become the modern varieties are just as flashy, and also, just as deficient of fragrance. Conversely, the relatively small and simple pale purple flowers of my favorite ‘Grandma Sheppard’ bearded iris are remarkably fragrant.
To the iris, this is all quite sensible. Their fragrance is not designed to impress us, but is merely intended to attract pollinators. If they are fragrant enough to entice the insects that bring them pollen, they do not need to waste any more effort on visual appeal. Without fragrance though, they can alternatively use color (including infrared and ultraviolet) to direct insect traffic where they need it to go in order to accomplish pollination. Almost all of the many varieties of iris prefer to specialize in one or the other; either fragrance or visual characteristics, but not both.
So many of the old classics seem to have lost some or most of their fragrance as they have ‘improved’ over the years because visual appeal has been prioritized more than fragrance. Besides flowering locusts, roses and iris, some types of honeysuckle, mock orange, sweet pea, violet, hyacinth, lily and even narcissus are less fragrant than their ancestors were. However, traditional as well as modern fragrant roses and iris seem to be gaining popularity. Fortunately, gardenia, lilac, wisteria, stock and the fragrant types of angel’s trumpet and jasmine are probably as potent as they have ever been because they have not been tampered with as much.
Desert ecosystems are fascinating, but so are local ecosystems.
Vacation was excellent! I do not get out much, but when I do, I feel as if I enjoy it more than those who travel regularly. The simplicity of my travel allows me to enjoy it more intimately than those who travel more elaborately and put more effort into enjoying what they should probably just enjoy more effortlessly. Anyway, I went to the Pacific Northwest for two weeks, returned for two weeks, and went to the Southwest for two weeks. Actually though, my trip to the Pacific Northwest was limited to Western Oregon and Western Washington, and my trip to the Southwest was limited to the area between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Regardless, it was excellent, and I encountered several climates and ecosystems that are very different from what I am accustomed to. I drove through dense rainforests dominated by massive Douglas firs as well as sparsely forested deserts dominated by sporadic saguaro cacti. Winters are much cooler in some regions than here. Summers are much warmer in some regions than here. It was all so fascinating. I encountered so much vegetation that I would like to grow here, and brought a bit of it back, but can not grow everything that I find intriguing within other regions. However, as excellent as it all was, it also reminds me that I prefer to be here, within the climates and ecosystems that I am most comfortable with. Winters do not get too cool. Summers do not get too warm. I may not be able to grow all the cultivars of apples that prefer a bit more chill in Washington, or all the cacti that prefer more arid warmth in Arizona, but realistically, even if I could work in the garden constantly, I could not possibly grow everything that performs well here.
Yucca is a genus of about fifty species. However, any two can hybridize. They are more like fifty or so varieties of one species. They maintain distinction by blooming at different times or inhabiting different ranges. Mound lily, Yucca gloriosa, is one of these species. However, it is technically a perpetuating hybrid of Yucca filamentosa and Yucca aloifolia.
Mound lily develops symmetrical foliar rosettes that are only a few feet tall. Stout trunks that develop below can very slowly elevate these rosettes about eight feet. Elegantly tall floral stalks can stand as high as five feet higher. The stiff and evergreen leaves are one to two feet long, and about two inches wide. Their terminal foliar spines are very sharp.
The most popular cultivar of mound lily is variegated with creamy white stripes. Tristis is a variety with more flexible and arching foliage. It formerly classified as a distinct species of Yucca recurvifolia. All yuccas bloom with small, pendulous and creamy white flowers. Such flowers may exhibit a pale purplish or faint pale greenish blush.
“Zeroscape” is a neologism that evolved from “xeriscape”. It was a mispronunciation that became a misspelling that became a real word. Ironically, it makes sense. It evolved with the misconception that a xeriscape requires no maintenance. Now, the two are different types of landscapes. A Zeroscape is pavement or gravel that requires zero maintenance.
A xeriscape is a landscape of xeric vegetation. Generally, such a landscape needs less maintenance than conventional landscapes. Nonetheless, some degree of maintenance is necessary. Furthermore, several xeric species require very specialized maintenance. Such specialized requirements may be more demanding than more familiar gardening.
The primary advantage of a xeriscape is that it needs less water than other landscapes. Some xeric species are native to Mediterranean climates. More are native to arid desert climates. Once established, they need minimal irrigation. Many xeric species get all the moisture they need from seasonal rainfall. Some can not tolerate much more than that.
Native species that grow wild can be surprisingly difficult to establish in home gardens. Some xeric species can be even more uncooperative. Cultivation within a garden is very different from natural conditions. In the wild, such species disperse roots proportionately as they grow from seed. In a garden, they begin with detrimentally confined root systems.
Even xeric vegetation within a xeriscape needs moisture while it disperses roots. A few may get enough through winter if they get into a garden early in autumn. Most prefer a bit of irrigation at least through their first year. The difficulty is that some can rot if irrigation is even slightly excessive. They are more susceptible to rot than species that are not xeric.
Maintenance of a xeriscape, is more challenging than demanding. That is because so many xeric species are from harsh desert ecosystems. They innately defend themselves from grazing wildlife. Consequently, cacti, agaves and yuccas are wickedly thorny and spiny. Several are potentially dangerous to handle. So are some euphorbs and acacias. They may not need maintenance often, but when they do, they do not make it at all easy.
(Hespero)Yucca whipplei has an identity crisis. My contemporaries and I learned it as Yucca whipplei. Botanists now insist that it identifies as Hesperoyucca whipplei, although, like any and all other species of Yucca, it can hybridize with any and all other species of Yucca. (If it is a different species of the same genus, such hybrids would be interspecific hybrids. If it is a different genus, such hybrids would be intergeneric hybrids, which is even weirder.) Also, my contemporaries and I learned its common name as Spanish bayonet. Botanists prefer to designate it as chaparral yucca. It is alternately known as foothill yucca, Quixote yucca or our Lord’s candle. Because it was the only species of the genus that was locally native, we typically referred to it merely as yucca. Later, I learned that Spanish bayonet is a general designation for a few arboriform species of Yucca, which develop trunks and perhaps limbs, such as Yucca aloifolia, and that Spanish dagger is actually more commonly a generic designation for a few species that lack significant trunks or limbs, such as this particular species. Anyway, regardless of all this nonsense, I had been wanting to grow this species since encountering it while studying horticulture at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, but could not find an appropriate situation in which to do so. It is too wickedly spiny for most landscapes. I was told that a specimen inhabited one of the landscapes at work, but because it did not look familiar, I was sceptical. It adapts so efficiently to whatever situation that it grows into, that its foliage here is somewhat different from how it develops in the wild around San Luis Obispo. Its impressively tall bloom is very familiar though, and is very distinctive of the species.
Eucalyptus citriodora, lemon gum, is one of several species that I miss from the more southern portion of the Central Coast and Southern California. San Luis Obispo, where Brent and I studied horticulture at Cal Poly, and where I learned to appreciate this particular species, is technically within the same climate zone as Los Gatos. Nonetheless, many species that are popular in Southern California are more popular there than here, perhaps because of the proximity to Southern California. I got this picture on the inland edge of Highway 101 in Carpinteria on the return trip from Los Angeles. It demonstrates how sculptural the elegantly slender, smooth and pallid trunks and limbs of lemon gum are. The airy foliage is delightfully aromatic, but is too high to reach among trees that are sufficiently mature to be so sculptural. A few other eucalypti are similarly but distinctly sculptural. Some develop heftier trunks and limbs. Some develop blotched or uniformly coarse bark. Also, several other genera, such as coast live oak, camphor and ‘Marina’ madrone, develop sculptural form. Such form should be more of a consideration for modern landscape design, as it was until about the late 1970s, when trees like European white birch and the last of the complaisant eucalypti slowly became passe. It is actually gratifying to notice that a few daring horticulturists are experimenting with some of the smaller species of eucalypti that could have become popular years ago, as well as a few that had not yet been introduced. Where lemon gum might eventually grow too large, smaller species, such as Eucalyptus caesia, gungurru, might be more proportionate. Of the more than seven hundred species of Eucalyptus available, more than a few must be appropriate to refined home gardens, and more than a few of such are likely sculptural.
Blooms With a View Spring Garden Tour of View Park and Ladera Heights happened to be on the day after I arrived late in Los Angeles. That is why I stayed another day late to help exhibit one of Brent’s three landscapes that were featured in the Tour. I did nothing more than answer a few questions, discuss random horticultural trivia, and share copies of a list of some of the other easily visible neighborhood landscapes that Brent designed.
1. Phoenix canariensis, Canary Island date palm is, as its common name indicates, from the Canary Islands, rather than, as its botanical name suggests, from Phoenix in Arizona that I left only last Saturday. Years ago, it was the second most common palm in the Los Angeles regions. Now, in this garden, it was the second most popular topic of questions.
2. Solandra maxima, cup of gold vine was the third most popular topic of questions as a result of this single bloom. It was about six inches wide. I wanted to get a better picture. Eriobotrya japonica, loquat was the most popular topic of questions. I took no pictures.
3. Aeonium arboreum ‘Albovariegatum’, variegated common houseleek is precisely what it sounds like. Most cultivars of common houseleek are as different in form as in foliage.
4. Salvia longispicata X farinacea ‘Mystic Spires’ is like the heftier version of mealycup sage. It provides splendid blue color, and is more reliably perennial than mealycup sage.
5. Bougainvillea X buttiana ‘Barbara Karst’ frames this arched parlor window colorfully. Anigozanthos rufus ‘Big Red’ kangaroo paw below tries to not obscure the outside view.
6. After all, this view is why this is View Park. Los Angeles has certainly grown up since I first saw it in about 1986, and it has grown much more since the old residence was built.
For the past few years, I have really been overly indulgent with the seed catalogues from Renee’s Garden. I wanted to try more varieties of classic annual cosmos, Cosmos bipinnatus, than I could fit in my garden. I recently grew ‘White Seashells’ with tubular ray flowers, and colorful ‘Double Click’ with ruffled semi-double and double flowers, and even the ‘Dancing Petticoats’ mix, which includes several varieties! By now, I have probably grown all but a few of the many offerings.
After trying so many though, I still can not tell you which are my favorites. It would not matter much anyway, since I did not deadhead them to deprive them of their abundant seeds. Their self sown progeny are now mixed and beginning to bloom in random shades of pink ranging from pale pink to nearly red to nearly purple, with a few white.
Naturalized cosmos eventually reverts to bloom with more genetically basic single flowers in simpler shades of pink and white, on stems about three or four feet tall. They can even get taller than six feet and wider than two feet. Most of the popular garden varieties that I started out with though stay less than three feet tall. ‘Sonata’ is a popular strain that stays even shorter, so is among the most practical and proportionate for refined gardens.
Seed can be sown or new plants can be planted now to bloom through summer. Naturalized plants are already blooming only because they get an earlier start. Regardless of color or form, all cosmos flowers are about three inches wide, with yellow centers. Their finely textured pale green foliage is quite delicate and airy.
It is impossible to say how long native wildflowers have adorned the natural landscape of California. Various lupines, California poppy and evening primrose had always been the most colorful wildflowers locally until they began to be displaced by exotic (non-native) plants only in the past two centuries or so. Although natives are remarkably resilient to dry summers and occasional wildfires, they are not very competitive with more aggressive and prolific invaders. What the natives and exotics have in common though is that they are so well adapted to local environmental conditions that they are able to perpetuate without much help.
Lupines, poppies and evening primrose, as well as native yarrow, godetia, and fleabane, may unfortunately need a bit of help if exotics want to move into their territory. In areas that are regularly or even only sometimes watered, weeding to remove more aggressive exotic plants helps the natives stay in control. They should otherwise do well on their own. Although without irrigation their growing season is much shorter, natives are slower to be displaced, since so many of the otherwise competitive exotics are not adapted to dry summers.
Many exotic flowering annuals are prolific enough to almost become naturalized, but are not quite aggressive or adaptable enough to get very far from cultivated landscapes. Cosmos, nasturtium, alyssum, catchfly (silene), four o’clock, gaura and foxglove self sow so readily that they are considered by some to be invasive. Some of us instead consider them to be ‘reliable’. They can be useful for unrefined parts of the garden that we do not mind watering, but otherwise do not want to put much effort into.
However, foxglove and even nasturtium can actually become noxious weeds in coastal areas not too far from here. I think that forget-me-not, feverfew, baby tears and English daisy can be problematic anywhere that they get enough water. Also, most annuals eventually revert to more genetically stable forms; which is why all varieties of dwarf nasturtium eventually bloom with the same yellow or orange single flowers. Yet, if we can distinguish between the plants that we can appreciate for their reliability and those that can be too invasive, native and exotic wildflowers and not so wild flowers can make gardening a bit easier.
Tony Tomeo 