Bob's Article

11/09/08

Sphaeralcea

Landscaping for All Seasons

Matilija Bob

11/07/08

As the seasons progress through the year so should the different and “interesting” features of your garden. All flowers all the time is boring and unnatural. Maybe boring because it is unnatural. While spring is the color high point in a native garden summer, fall, and winter can be really interesting too.

By using combinations for plant structure, changing leaf color, and flowers to seeds/berries the garden can become alive with something to look forward to at each time of the year.

Spring is the easy season. Everything seems to be in flower native sages, columbines, penstemons, irises, and on and on and on…everything! As we progress into summer we need to trim back a few spent flower heads but there are still plenty of flowers coming from Island Snapdragons (Galvezia see pic.) and Desert Mallows (Sphaeralcea ambigua see pic). Both of these plants flower from mid-spring until early winter, taking care of fall too.

Fall produces a changing of the leaves. Check out Vitis ‘Roger’s Red’, a native grape, which will climb nicely up a wall or trail, and the leaves turn bright red in fall(see pic.). Native roses, Rosa calif. (see pic.) are pretty cool too. The rose hips turn bright red as well and last through early winter. Fall also is when the Zauschnerias bloom. Zauschneria or California Fuchsia, have red tube flowering perennials that bloom summer through fall. They are also big hummingbird attractants (see pic. winter).

Oh yeah, Ceanothus. Some of the Ceanothus species bloom twice a year, spring and winter. Ceanothus ‘Ray Hartman’ is a large (H12’ x W8’see pic.) blue flowering shrub. It’s dependable and fast growing. A great flowering screen.

Winter. A big challenge. The garden thins out. The leaves fall off, form and structure become more significant. The red/brown shinny bark for the Manzanitas really stands out. The ‘Dr. Hurd’ (see pic.) and the ‘Howard McMinn are both large Manzanitas that “have the bark”. They are slow growing by nature so get bigger plants, life’s short. There’s also Ribes. Ribes sangunium (see pic.) have long hanging pink flowers that come out at the end of winter. They will draw hummingbirds too.

For winter color, there is always Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia see pic.). Toyon is a tall evergreen shrub with red berries. Toyon’s dark green leaves and red berries give it a holly look at Christmas time. The story is that Hollywood is named from all the Toyons berrying at Christmas time in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Well we might have left out a few plants that are interesting during the “off season” aka. non-spring. Ok, maybe we left out hundreds. If we left stuff out that you’d like to talk or write about, go for it! We’ll pay you.

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Can't wait till spring then click the picture below