Fabulous February Foliage

As the title of this post indicates, I do love alliteration.  But before spring formally arrives and flowers dominate the scene, February is a good time to take stock of the foliage plants that add so much to my garden.  This won't be a comprehensive review as I've skipped some of the major players that are at risk of overexposure after repeated inclusion in my posts, like Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt'.  I should also note that many of the plants I've included here flower at some point during the year; however, I want to emphasize that these are plants that won a place in my garden in large part because of their foliage.

I'll start with those that shine in different shades of green.

Acanthus mollis was a major player in my former shady garden.  In contrast, the plants have struggled here, although I have at least three clumps like this one that appear in response to rain every year.  They usually fade away as the soil gets drier and our temperatures rise.  I only occasionally get flowers but I value those large leaves, which are relatively unusual in my climate.

I introduced Arthropodium cirratum (aka Renga Lily), a New Zealand native, to my garden in 2011 and it's proliferated, mostly through divisions of my original plants.  I've found it to be an excellent plant for use in dry shade.  The graceful foliage is evergreen and the flowers that appear in May are a plus.

I expect most people grow Echium webbii principally for its brilliant blue flowers but I'd grow this plant even if it didn't flower.  It has a beautiful shape (at least until it gets old and woody) and the foliage gives off a silvery-blue glint in the sun.

Next up are the standouts in shades of silver.

Centaurea 'Silver Feather' is another plant I'd grow even if it didn't flower.  I planted an excess of these in my back garden, underestimating their mature size but, positioned at appropriate distance from one another, they make a stunning statement in the garden.  One of my plants in the front garden died back but I rooted a cutting to fill the empty spot.

I wish these Helichrysum thianschanicum 'Icicles' didn't bloom.  After bloom, they looked misshapen.  I cut them back hard in late summer, not sure they'd survive, but I'm happy with how they look now.

Salvia canariensis var candidissima has fuzzy silvery-white foliage.  It produces interesting flowers in summer.

Variegated plants and those with unusual foliage color also play important roles.

I determined that, in my garden, Cordyline 'Can Can' is happier in a pot than in the ground.  The smaller plant is Cordyline terminalis 'Chocolate Queen', a recent mail order purchase from Little Prince of Oregon.

Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira' has great presence in my front garden in bloom and out.  It does get woody over time and in another year or so I expect I'll have to replace it.  I'll try taking cuttings this spring to get a replacement queued up.

Hebe 'Purple Shamrock' is a dwarf evergreen shrub.  It needs a regular trim to keep its shape (something I don't always handle on a timely basis) but it's otherwise a carefree plant.  It produces small purple flowers in summer but, with foliage like that, who cares?

Yucca 'Blue Boy' has wonderful purple foliage.  It's supposed to grow 4-6 feet tall by 3-5 feet wide but mine have stayed smaller (or are just biding their time).

When we acquired this garden just over ten years ago, the only succulent plant in the garden was a single clump of Agave attenuata in the front garden.  In every year since, they've gained a larger foothold.  If I were to venture a guess, I'd say succulents now account for roughly one quarter of the plants in my garden.  Many of these, like the larger agaves, regularly crop up in my posts so I've included just a few of the more demure specimens in this one.

These two 'Joe Hoak' Agaves have been in place since 2015, slowly growing in size.  One came to me as a pup from blogger friend Denise of A Growing Obsession.   

I showed this Crassula Senecio amaniensis in a recent post but here it is again.  I love its shape.  The one in my street-side bed develops long decumbent branches, which is apparently a response to receiving less water.

Years ago, I stuck a tiny cutting of Crassula ovata 'Gollum' below the Xylosma hedge running along the street.  It's become a nice accent with its orange-red tips and I've now used other cuttings as fillers among succulents elsewhere.

Graptoveria 'Fred Ives', shown here in front of three Hesperaloes, remains one of my favorite succulents.  It's tough as well as pretty.

Mangave 'Jaguar', a birthday gift from my husband the year before last, has proven to be a very attractive plant.  I need to surround it with more succulents that'll pick up the copper and burgundy tones in its foliage.

Mangave 'Spotty Dotty' has been happier since I relocated it to this sunnier spot.  Its coloring is unusual, even for a Mangave.

I took numerous photos of Aeoniums in preparing this post but I decided they deserve their own separate post, which I'll share sometime later this month.

That's it from me this week.  I had my first Covid-19 vaccine shot yesterday and I'm starting the weekend with a positive outlook as a result.  I hope you find something to put a positive spin on your weekend too.

All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Another perspective on the garden

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.

All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Foliage Follow-up & Wednesday Vignette - May 2017

The blooms in my garden are very distracting at the moment and frankly I find it hard to see the foliage for the flowers but I took a look around and identified a few foliage specimens that I could get excited about, even if I've featured some of them before.  The first were the Aeonium arboreum cuttings I planted on the front slope, originally as filler after removing several of the Ceanothus shrubs that made up a hedge in that area.  As more of those shrubs failed and were removed, I filled in with more and more Aeonium cuttings until they became a feature.  All originated from a few cuttings a friend gave me soon after we moved into our current house almost six and a half years ago.

All these plants came from a single source of cuttings and all are planted in partial shade on the front slope.  Some are currently redder than others but I expect that's due to slight variations in the timing and degree of sun exposure.

Another early introduction to my garden was Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt'.  My first specimen went into a pot but, entranced with its wispy foliage, I bought more and soon I was trying them in a variety of locations.  I lost one or two along the way (including the one that spent the first part of its life in a pot) but I currently have six of these plants.  After two and a half years, the last of those is finally bulking up nicely.

According to my records, this is the last 'Cousin Itt' I planted, circa November 2014

My oldest specimens, planted between October 2012 and April 2013, are more impressive.  I've featured them before but I thought I'd share before and after shots to show how far they've come.

The photo at top was taken in September 2014.  The photo on the bottom was taken this week.

The next plant that deserves mention is my much maligned mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin).  I inherited this tree with the house and, were not for its size, its placement atop my back slope, and its overall presence in my back garden, I'd replace it.  It's an extremely messy tree and for almost half a year it's bare of foliage.  Its blooms are pretty but they begin littering the patio and garden as soon as they appear.  The flowers are followed by seedpods that perpetuate the litter for another six months and produce seedlings everywhere.  However, when the foliage emerges and before the flowers appear, the tree is attractive.

Flowers will begin to appear within the next month but I'm enjoying the tree for now

It's unusual for me to say I prefer a plant without flowers rather than with them; however, the Albizia isn't the only instance in which that's true.  I'm no Morticia Addams* but I will cut flowers off certain plants.  Here are two examples:

Helichrysum thianschanicum'Icicles' with flowers (left) and after the flowers were removed yesterday (right)

While I don't mind the flowers on the green Santolina, the bright yellow blooms on the gray form (S. chamaecyparissus) bugged me so they got clipped this week too

This brings me to the end of the foliage follow-up portion of this post but visit Pam at Digging, the host for this monthly feature, for more foliage highlights as I segue to my Wednesday Vignette.

My one hesitation about cutting all the flowers off the Helichrysum and the Santolina was that it might disturb the pollinators in my garden; however, the bees seemed to have plenty of other plants to keep them happy, from the Hairy Canary Clover (Dorycnium hirsutum) growing next to the Helichrysum to the Salvia argentea growing near the Santolina.  If I had any remaining concerns about impacting the bees, the following scene unfolding in my garden on Monday afternoon put these to rest:

Early Monday afternoon, I received a message from a neighbor warning me with some alarm that she'd spotted a swarm of bees near the top of the stairs of my back slope.  I went to check and saw this mass of bees, as well as others flying all around the area.  Although the bees showed no interest in me, I still kept about 5 feet away.  I told the neighbor that I was going to leave them alone for the moment but promised that I'd continue to monitor the situation.

When I checked the area four hours later, it looked like this.  Although there were a few confused bees still flying about, there was no other evidence of the earlier swarm.  If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have known anything at all had happened.

The swarm is apparently a common spring phenomenon, arising when a bee colony divides, which may be the result of overcrowding.  If you're unfamiliar with the phenomenon, as I was, you can read more about it here.  The bee swarm photos are my Wednesday Vignette.  Visit our Wednesday Vignette host, Anna at Flutter & Hum, for images that caught the attention of other bloggers.

*I belatedly realized that I'd featured two members of the Addams Family in a single post - Cousin Itt and Morticia.  Cousin Itt was related to Morticia by marriage through her husband, Gomez.  I'm holding 'Cousin Itt' accountable for my temporary Addams Family fixation.

All material © 2012-2017 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Foliage Follow-up - Drought Busters

My front lawn has been dug up and our front entry is now surrounded by more than 800 square feet (74 square meters) of bare dirt.  Dirt that, left untended, will sprout weeds and grass attempting a come-back.  I'm planning to haul in additional topsoil to create berms and improve the overall quality of my vast expanse of dirt.  A wide area around the Magnolia tree will be topped with decomposed granite and remain unplanted.  But the rest of the area will be filled by plant material that I hope will be far less thirsty than the unhappy lawn we previously had.

In considering what to plant, I've begun by looking at what has done well in my garden thus far.  I thought I'd use this foliage follow-up post, written in connection with the monthly meme sponsored by Pam at Digging, to highlight the foliage plants that have demonstrated their drought tolerance during my, admittedly short, stewardship of this garden.

Since I reduced my water usage, I've lost a lot of plants.  The healthy ones stand out dramatically in contrast to those holding on by their root hairs.  Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt' is one of these.  As I went through my garden I was surprised just how good these plants look, especially those that have been in the ground for a year or more.  Last December, I commented that the 'Cousin Itt' I had in a pot looked better than those in the ground but the plants in the ground have taken off.  Perhaps they like drought.

This one looked spindly last December but it's got a healthy mop now

Despite competing with tree roots, this one's ready to take over a portion of the backyard lawn

The 3 plants in this border look better than any of the surrounding plants

I'm also impressed by the 3 Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' I planted last September.  Like the Agonis flexuosa trees that surround the property, 'Nana,' a dwarf variety, is taking the drought in stride.

One of the 3 Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' planted along the side yard patio

I've had mixed results with Phormium but P. tenax 'Atropurpureum' and P. 'Amazing Red,' which some sources indicate also belongs to the tenax species, have been the most reliable.

Crowded into a relatively small area along the driveway, this P. tenax 'Atropurpureum' is doing fine

I've been very pleased with this more diminutive P. 'Amazing Red' too - I now have 4 of them

Among the smaller plants, I've been impressed by the drought tolerance of Lomandra longifolia, a grass-like plant; furry Pelargonium tomentosum, also known as peppermint geranium; and Helichrysum petiolare 'Petite Licorice,' which spreads in my garden with relative abandon.

I now have 9 Lomandra longifolia 'Breeze' - I pick up one or more every time I come across them in small pots

The peppermint geranium can get by with less water in partial shade (it's certainly doing better than the nearly dead foxglove next to it in this picture)

The gray-leaved Helichrysums are astounding performers in the sunny, dry areas of my garden but I prefer the fine-leafed variety, which I inherited with the garden, even though it plants itself wherever it likes

I've acquired quite a few Leucadendron in the past 3 years as well.  One, L. 'Wilson's Wonder,' moved in with me - it exploded in size when I removed it from the large pot I had it in at our old house and put it in the ground here.  I've purchased half a dozen more Leucadendron since then, most of them hybrids of L. salignum.   I haven't had any problems with them until L. 'Rising Sun,' planted in March, died suddenly this month.

Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' gets no attention other than an annual trim

Leucadendron salignum 'Chief' has been happy in my dry garden since January 2013 and L. 'Ebony' has sat at its feet for a year now

I'm still not sure what caused the rapid demise of L. 'Rising Sun.'  The 2 most likely culprits are phosphorus toxicity - plants in the Protea family are said to react negatively to phosphorus in soil or fertilizer - or Phytophthora root rot.  It looks more like the latter to me but I'm no expert when it comes to conducting a plant post-mortem.  Still, I'm going to test my soil before I plant a lot more Leucadendrons.  I think another L. 'Wilson's Wonder' might do very well in the front yard.

The sad L. 'Rising Sun' shortly before I gave up and pulled it out

You can find more foliage-focused posts by visiting Pam at Digging.


All material © 2012-2014 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

October 2013 Foliage Follow-up

We don't get much in the way of a seasonal foliage color change in Southern California, at least not by comparison to the northeastern parts of the United States.  The only plant in my garden that's showing a definite color shift right now is the coral-bark Japanese maple planted in the vegetable garden alongside our garage.  Its tips tend to burn when the temperatures soar but, in its current placement, it gets full sun only in the morning, which helps to reduce the leaf scorch.

Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku' in the morning sunlight

Close-up of the Japanese maple's leaves, now shifting from light green to an apricot color

Other plants showing similar coloration unrelated to the seasonal changes in temperature and day length include:

Agonis flexuosa 'Nana,' with new growth in an orangey pink

Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire,' which develops a bright salmon-pink color in full sun

The gray-leaved plants look good regardless of the season.

The artichoke in the half-barrel in my vegetable garden is finally gaining size

I still have some reservations about this combination of Helichrysum petiolare 'White Licorice' and Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue' - the Helichrysum constantly threatens to overwhelm the grass and other nearby plants

I have no reservations about Stachys byzantina 'Helen Von Stein,' my favorite form of lamb's ear

Other foliage that caught my eye during my garden rounds included:

Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey,' which is at risk of being swallowed up by the rampant growth of the Pelargonium tomentosum (aka peppermint geranium).  I think the latter is enjoying the extra water I've been giving the new plants nearby a little too much.

Pseuderanthemum 'Texas Tri-star,' in the border along our living room windows - this slow-growing plant looks identical to a plant I saw labeled as a Strobilanthus at a nearby nursery

Schlumbergera x buckleyi (aka Christmas Cactus), showing the beginnings of tiny flower buds

Solenostemon scutellariodes 'Electric Lime Coleus' and 'Mocha Mint Coleus,' which made it through the summer heat relatively unscathed

That's it for this month's foliage round-up.  Please visit Pam at Digging to view her foliage picks for the month and to find links to other gardeners' selections.