The first tip in creating a drought tolerant garden is to choose the right plants. Most people want their garden to be beautiful and healthy all year long and you can do that with ease by choosing drought tolerant plants. Unfortunately drought tolerants have gotten a bad rap in the past. There has been a misconception that they are brown and woody and unattractive, which is of course, false. So when planning your garden be sure to choose sun worshipers such as plants that are accustomed to a Mediterranean climate. These plants are accustomed to little water and still create a gorgeous and oftentimes dramatic look. In general, plants that have silvery or grey leaves are drought tolerant.
The following list will help you create a wonderful water saving garden.
Continue reading "Step 1: Drought Tolerant Plants" »
A garden group that I frequent went on recent garden tour in the Anderson Valley. It was a great tour and flaunted a wonderful group of gardens. Please continue reading for an account of my garden adventure.
We started at the Anderson Valley Nursery and it has a beautiful Italian olive cultivars and the best
looking Aristolochia californica I've ever seen. We then went to the weekend (or summer) house belonging to a couple from the Peninsula. They (must) have a caretaker or local gardener that takes care of the place for them. There was nothing particularly spectacular about it, but it was comfortable and well kept. It was planted mostly with the usual sturdy, low maintenance, drought-tolerant plants, except for the roses. I can see it being a very nice spot to escape to. Actually all of the Anderson Valley is a
nice place to escape to. It is amazingly quiet. And I can't blame the locals for wanting to keep it that way.
The plants got more interesting at Walden and Ginger Valens garden in Boonville. Walden explained that it was a plant collectors garden. It was pretty much one of this and one of that. Some of the plants were
pretty neat and there was an attempt at thematic coherence. Ginger has a heavy addiction to garden decoration. Next we went wine tasting at Golden Eye Winery. It has a pleasantly landscaped terrace that doesn't compete with the view over the vineyard to the forested hills beyond.
Continue reading "Anderson Valley" »
Late Monday afternoon, April 21st, Erik Sumiharu Hagiwara-Nagata gave a guided tour of the Japanese Tea Garden to members of the California Horticultural Society. Erik’s great great grandfather, Baron Makoto Hagiwara, began the garden in 1894. As we walked through the garden, Erik told us about the development of the garden under the successive generations of his family, the garden’s decline during and after World War 2 and a little bit about the current ongoing restoration work that is bringing the garden back to a higher degree of authenticity.
Erik said that his great great grandfather had aspired to recreate the experience of strolling through clouds of cherry blossoms in the spring. However, most flowering cherries don’t thrive for very long in the evenly cool moist atmosphere of San Francisco. Prunus subhirtella has endured reasonably well, and the Japanese maples and Hinoki cypresses seem to be perfectly happy.
Continue reading "The Japanese Tea Garden of San Francisco" »
Carleton phoned me on Saturday afternoon and said that he wanted to go to The Pinnacles the next day. We left at about eight Sunday morning. After picking up his friend, Mary, in Salinas we continued south on 101. At Soledad, I took the highway 146 exit. We eventually left the flat fields and rolling pastures as we ascended higher into the hills. With altitude the roadside flora became more interesting. We spotted patches of shooting stars and yellow Johnny-jump-ups.
We arrived at The Pinnacles west entrance, paid our fee and parked. The jagged geology is more immediately impressive on the west side than it is on the east side. The climb up is also a little steeper, and the various habitats are more compressed.
From the flat area around the parking lot we went from fiddlenecks and yellow Johnny-jump-ups into a shady canyon trail overhung with oaks. There were colonies of shooting stars in the more open areas along the tiny stream. I only saw one small clump of baby-blue-eyes. It grows more abundantly on the east side among the blue oaks.
Purple fiesta flowers bloomed along east facing slopes along with the related white woodland Nemophila. Scattered among them were milk maids nearing the end of their season and woodland stars just beginning theirs. The predominance of white was relieved by the chartreuse panicles of sanicle and an occasional midnight violet larkspur. Colonies of Chinese houses looked a little stunted from the lack of rain. Coffee fern and bedstraw added their interesting textures. Here and there along the stream were a few buckeyes and elderberries. Poison oak was everywhere.
Continue reading "A trip to the Glorious Pinnacles" »
We are in a drought, which means serious lack of water and very dry land, so we need to be hyper aware of fire safety. The following is an excerpt from the California Native Plant Society Newsletter.
