We’re adjusting our pricing on retail California native nursery stock, which we haven’t done since 2005. The new pricing is still “dirt cheap” especially relative to other forms of physical and psychological activities and our peers. The new pricing for 1-gallon California natives will generally be $7 and 5-gallon plants will be $22. There will be some exceptions as there always are, for things that require a little more difficulty to grow like Matilija poppies , Fremontodendron, and bush poppies. These will be a couple of dollars more as they always have been.  Some of our pacific coast irises will also be exceptions too like our new introductions, which can take several years to produce and offer gigantic flower size, brilliant color, and durability in your Southern California garden.

Our tall bearded reblooming irises and Louisiana irises will remain the same at $8 for 1-gallon stock and $27 for 5-gallon stock. We will continue to offer exceptional quality and range of selection ready to grow in your garden.

There will always be ways costs down by taking advantage of our promotional items, discount days, contests, and paying big$’s when you bring in your old nursery containers for recycling.

Man, this stuff is still cheap!!!

Thanks,

Bob

Carnival de Iris 2013 – Epilogue

Our 2013 Carnival de Iris is now history and it sure looks like a good time was had by all.  Lots of people to watch the iris crossing demo and lots of people watching our California Native Flower Arranging Contest.  We had quite a range of talented people making beautiful  arrangements, all winners.

Our youngest entry Gigi, waiting for two brand new front tenth to drop down, has you can see has a big future as an artist.

We had 5 judges with a range of backgrounds.  We had as judges Euan our web creator, Cheryl our graphic arts person, Lisa and Trish both garden designers and Mr. Matt – Super. for the Conejo Parks and Rec. and the founder of our event.

My family arrived after the event and talked with a lot our iris and native plant customers. They suggested that I serve beer and wine and put out more chairs. We’ll maybe so.  

A big thanks to all those who attended, entered our contest, and judged!

I’m going to have to limit space to 30 contestants we’re filling up real fast. We still have a little capacity so if you want “IN” send me an email. matilija@verizon.net.

IF YOU WANT TO GET “IN” ON THE CALIFORNIA NATIVE FLOWER ARRANGEMENT CONTEST and get the $20 gift certificate just for entering, you should probably email me directly as we are limited to space and those who reserve space will entered unless you don’t check-in by 10:30 April 13th. matilija@verizon.net

Carnival de Iris 2013

Every year we have a couple of events that that are designed to be fun, educational, and save you a few dollars too. This year our first event is our annual Carnival de Iris. It will be held at the nursery April 13^th from 8:30 until 3:00. This is the beginning of the peak iris blooming season. There will be tons of our tall bearded reboomers, pacific coast, and Louisiana iris that have just begun to bloom.

Seeing photos of irises is nothing like seeing them live and it’s just the start of the season too.  Our tall bearded rebloomers will also bloom beyond spring in other seasons too. This is your chance to see them live and take them home to your garden. While there will be some pretty good price discounting, we’ll also have and iris demonstration and flower arranging event too.

As many of you may know we have been hybridizing some of our own irises for a while. We’ll should you how to hybridize your own irises. While this could be an, all day lesson, I think we can do this in a 15 minute demonstration.  That’s because anything beyond 15 minutes is beyond me too!

The main event will be a California native flower arranging contest that will be judged. Everyone entering the contest will get a gift certificate and the “Grand Winner” will get a big “Grand Gift Certificate”.  Contest rules and details will follow shortly but contestants will be able to cut flowers from all over the nursery with the exception of the irises both native pacific coast and non-native.

So we’ll need both some contestants and brave judges too!

The Details

These are the details for the California native plant flower arrangement contest:

*All entries- you must bring your own flower vase and clippers-you can clip from any of the flowers in the nursery or plants growing around the nursery-and you’re limited in your material what’s on the nursery grounds.   Note, you can’t clip any of the irises.  You’ll find many more flowers on the plants planted out around the nursery.  All entries must be finished and ready for judging by 11:00 A.M. April 13^th.

* Anyone entering the contest will get a $20 nursery gift certificate, per family, no matter what no matter what. Since this is a pretty good deal and we’d like to stay financially solvent will have to limit the number of entries to 20. And I’ll be the one to determine “family”.

*We’ll also need judges! The judges will get a gift certificate for $40 no matter what no matter what. We can take up to 6 judges. We’ll post the judges and some of their info. on our site.

*The winner-only one winner will get a gift certificate for $100! The decision of the judges will be FINAL!

Good luck-this should be fun- and you get a free $20 gift certificate!

Gotta do it.

And now the DISCOUNTS TOO!!!!

Any questions you can email or call 805-523-8604

By Matilija Bob

Every year we produce and pot up a large group of “mixed” pacific coast iris hybrids. These are from our own hybridizing that we did, not the year before but two years before. It generally takes at least two years from “crossing” irises to get the first flower and sometimes 3 or 4 years. The flowers from these crosses can be all over the place, just about every color combination you can imagine. Because of the tremendous genetic diversity swirling around in the background of these irises,even the flowers from “siblings” tend to look more like a random population entering Disneyland than a family portrait.

 Buying pacific coast irises from the group marked “mixed” is like playing the pacific coast iris lottery. Sometimes they have flowers and you have an idea as to what you’re getting but full information is still a gamble because they can still be short or tall or….. Other times you can see that they are going to be big but you don’t know the flower colors…. It’s always a surprise.

So when you come to the nursery to buy pacific coast irises and you’re in front of the thousands of irises in the sections marked “mixed” you gotta ask yourself “do you feel lucky”?

Here are a few pictures from last year from the section marked “mixed”. To learn more about pacific coast irises you can go to http://pacificcoastiris.org/, if you’re smart you buy a $7 digital membership too.

The meadow garden has gotten to be a trendy thing over the last few years, but what exactly is it? Well, searching the www I found lots of definitions or none at all depending on your viewpoint. There do seem to be a few commonalities. A meadow is an informal garden often times composed of grasses and other annuals, generally; but, it can be somewhat formal and have perennials too. Say what? 

Here’s a workable definition: a meadow garden is generally informal but not totally random. They’re often designed with groupings of plants to tone down some of the wild look and keep the fire department from citing you for not practicing proper fire abatement.  They do, indeed, often incorporate grasses and annuals; but the more salient trademark is that they are generally planted with a central section of plants that tend to be short so that you can look across the garden from one end to the other without obstruction.  

Now, what about care and maintenance? Care and maintenance should be minimal if you’re doing this right. While you need to water regularly (1 – 2 times/week) when your new meadow is getting established; generally, 1 year or less after that, things should be on their own.  It’s okay to cheat a bit and water during a dry winter or summer (2x per/month) after your meadow’s established, but that’s it. With more water, you most likely will start to do “damage”.  Meadows should principally rely on rain for their irrigation.

You may also want to cut plants back on occasion to neaten the meadow up a bit.  This can range from an annual mowing to a 3 times/year clipping. The “leave it alone and let it grow naturally” approach is also fine, but your neighbors, family members, and fire department might not share the same view.

The following are some examples of meadow landscapes with comments.

This is the meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden – a classic, but a little big for the average front yard. This picture was taken in October, a rough season for the native California meadow; yet with the different leaf textures and colors and use of fall flowering plants like the California fuschia, it looks pretty cool.

No, these are not from residential gardens; they’re natural meadows.

The top photo are grasses and irises in Oregon. The lower meadow scene  was photographed in the Santa Monica Mountains.  The meadow with native grasses and pacific coast irises can easily be done in semi shaded areas in an “average” size yard. The second meadow taken in the Santa Monica’s, while a bit large in scale for the average home yard illustrates the idea of a “path” that provides visual direction and focus which can be an important element in home meadow design.

Here are a few more home garden size examples to take a look at.

This is a real clean and simple example of a meadow garden. You’ve got the low growing grassy section in the middle, which is Carex praegracilis and California poppies.  At the outer edges, you have some low growing Ceanothus and Verbena.  This is a garden that my friend, Trish Munro, designed for a client.

The next meadow is small and a bit on the complex side.

This is a meadow in the sense that it is a blend of relatively low growing plants such that you can see across the whole landscape without obstruction.  Like the others, its supplemental irrigation requirements are “zip”.  Maintenance is a 2 times/year trim. The plants used for the meadow in the middle of the landscape include chocolate daisies, desert mallow, island pink yarrow, Calif. fuschia, and some California poppies.  At the edges are larger California natives including Cleveland and purple sage, Matilija poppies, island bush mallow, western redbud, and Chatalpa.

There are also plenty of birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees that are attracted to meadows. That’ll be part of the next installment.

As many of our customers for the last almost 20 years know we started out as a grower of plants native to California and in fact about 70% of the space at our nursery still devoted to just that. However about 5 years ago one of our customers bought a ranch and wanted natural (as he calls it) landscaping but with something (a big something) that flowers in fall and winter when most of the natives are dormant.  After a little bit of internet searching  focused on something called “reblooming tall bearded irises”.  At this point I was a bit surprised that bearded irises were something other than the purple I had grown up with and my grandparents had too and that they come in all colors, color combinations, and many were fragrant. And most importantly, not only do they flower in spring but other seasons too, especially in Southern California.

Top picture taken in spring and the bottom in late fall.

Now, what about care and context? The little purple irises that I grew up with needed no care at all and no water other than rain – a perfect fit for the California natives. As far as context is concerned, bearded irises were used as landscape plants in some of the oldest houses and ranches in California. That’s because they needed so little water and care. They fit right in with both the water and time the early settlers had for gardening.  They were also what Easterner’s grew up with, so there was a familiarity with them.

Flowering in summer 

How has all this worked out?  Well, we did have a few failures initially, growing the irises in containers , but these were relatively minor.  For the most part our native plant customers were pretty accepting of us growing non-native irises. Many seem to like the idea of having big flowering plants in winter.  We currently grow about 170 named varieties of rebloomers and have opened a mail order site to sell the rhizomes www.bonniesirises.com.  This Thanksgiving, we’ll be using many cut flowers from our garden as they make excellent cut flowers. We have also begun hybridizing our own rebloomers, a true sign of mental illness!

Bob Sussman-Matlijia
Nursery-www.matilijanursery.com

“In theory, theory
and practice are the same. In practice they are not.” Yogi Berra

There are tons of books, articles on the web, and scientific info.  that will tell you what plants attract bees and why.  Some info. will tell you to plant flowers that have purple, yellow, or white flowers to draw more bees to the garden. Well some purple flowers attract more than others and bees aren’t supposed to see red yet some red flowering plants attract plenty of bees.  Truth is most flowering plants do indeed attract bees since most plants are pollenated by bees.

In the bee attraction business sometimes theory and practice diverge. Some flowers draw more bees than others and you can see it, those are the ones you want for your garden.  You want the flowers that cause the bees to go “beemanic”.  Here’s a list of the big “5” bee attractants at the nursery, this may not jibe with scientific theory but in practice it works.

Number 5

Abutilon palmeri-a desert native and a member of the mallow family, it gets covered with orange- gold poppy colored flowers.  They flower from spring through fall require full sun and are about 3’ x 4’.  They seem to benefit for an annual trimming.  Check these out.

And another.

Number 4

Galvezia – Island Snapdragon- there are a few species and selections of Galvezia but they all come from either the Channel Islands off the coast of California or Cedros Island off the coast of Mexico.  The Galvezia’s vary in size but are roughly 3’x3’, generally grow in semi-shade to full sun, flower from spring through fall. Their red tube flowers also attract hummingbirds. The Galviezia in the picture is Galvezia ‘Gran Canon’ and it flowers than most of the other verities, while they attract several types of bees this is the only one that would sit still long enough for me to focus the camera.

Number 3

Sphaeralcea-Desert Mallows grow throughout the southwest and Mexico. They can range in color from red to light pink. While there is some variation in size, roughly 4’ x 4’ will be a pretty close approximation of what it will do in your garden.  We grow mostly the orange flowering verity at the nursery we also have the pink flowering verity growing too and they seem to prefer the pink to the orange.

Number 2                                                             

Romenya coulteri-Matilija Poppy- The Matilija poppy has the largest flowers of any poppy in the poppy family. It can be a large perennial shrub and its native range is from Monterey County to Baja Mexico growing sporatically  about 30+/- inland from the Pacific Ocean. They are spring flowering but with a bit of watering the flowering can be extended through summer.

Number 1

Monardella odoratissima-Mountain Mint-Mountain Beebalm-is a small growing perennial with purple to lavender flowers and a very strong minty fragrance. It’s got to be a big nectar and pollen producer because they attract all kinds of bees and butterflies. In nature they grow from California to Washington and inland as far as Utah. They flower from spring through fall if you occasionally deadhead – chop back the old flowers and leggy growth.

I know there are lots of lists of plants that attract bees but the bees at our nursery fly by many of those to land, collect nectar, and pollen from these.  Why? I couldn’t tell you the scientific reason this is only the observation, the bees know and they aren’t saying!

To see the bees performing live you can check out our YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/matilija8225?feature=results_main .

Or even better come down to the nursery, pop the truck, and take some of these home for your garden and watch the beeeeeeeeessss!

(For more information go to www.matilijanursery.com)

This is quite the treat from Mundo Murguia and his company EcoEse Landscape Architect. His contact info email info@eco-ese.com and website www.eco-ese.com. That’s all nice and the picture’s nice too but if you really want to see something just go directly to “Projects ” http://www.eco-ese.com/ and have some real fun. This house is in Sanoma and features buckwheat, monkey flowers, several grasses including Festuca idahoenses. You can see more pictures of this house too by going to the ”projects” button.

This is another garden designed by my friend Trish Munro. Nice example of landscaping a walkway with rock, grasses, and other Calif. annuals plus some tall bearded irises too. Her is  her contact info.  805-620-0708 and email Burgess1312@aol.com.  Yes, it’s true that Trish does not have a  website or FB page – stubborn.

This landscape “framed window” was done by Jennifer Lowe of Darsays Studios.  Her website and contact info. is www.darsayastudio.com and info@darsayastudio.com.  You might want to go to the site and click on the “projects” button.  Featured plants are Heteromeles, white poppies, Lepachinia, Salvia, yarrow, Heuchera Santa Ana Cardinal, and lots of well placed tall bearded reblooming irises.

Here’s a shade garden in Santa Monica that Michelle Ann Matthews of La Loma Development which specializes in sustainable landscaping. For more info. and to take a look at the photo gallery go to http://www.lalomadevelopment.com/.

This is a garden designed by my friend Trish Munro. Her is
her contact info.  805-620-0708 and email

Burgess1312@aol.com.  Yes, it’s true that Trish does not have a
website or FB page – stubborn.

The next post below is from Lisa Burton and Nature by Design and her contact informantion to get more and see more is: www.nbdgardens.com, email info@nbdgardens.com, phone 805-765-1707.

Natives in spring-sages, mallows, chocolate daisies, western redbud, island mallow and more.

Old historic irises in landscape-flower every year with no care!

This hillside garden features matilija poppies, sages, and desert mallows in Simi Valley.

Yellow pacific coast native iris in landscape and spuria iris with orange tree in 2nd landscape.

All kinds of salvia’s and fremontodendron and even a tall bearded iris.

Sages, mallows, and California poppies in this parkway landscape.

Historic irises and orange trees-your classic Calif. lanscape.

Native Calif. meadow scene with poppies, grasses, sages, Calif. lilac.

Hillside landscape with Calif. poppies, sages, mallow, and Calif. lilac.

Calif. natives and tall bearede reblooming irises-tall bearded rebloomers, island pink yarrow, hummingbird sage, and pacific coast irises.

Native hillside landscape features cleveland sage, Calif. lilac, Lessingia ‘Smart Aster’ (don’t know the common name) plus coast live oaks.

More will be added as people send them it. Check out the promotion to see what you get if you send in a picture and send one in too!!

Let’s start with what hybridizing is: Hybridizing is the
affirmative act of collecting pollen from the male iris and implanting it in
the female iris. It involves collecting pollen and implanting it in the same
iris too, or “selfing”.  No smart ass remarks here either.  If a bee, the wind,
or another insect performs this function, it’s not the same.

Ok, how do I pick the irises that I want to hybridize or “cross”?  That’s the big question that we’ll try to focus on. Remember again, this is a long-term hobby.  If you cross something in spring, you won’t see the “flower” for at least 2 years. You still won’t have a clue as to whether or not you’ve really got something for another 1 – 2 years after that.

Let’s start the process with a couple of really simple goals. Frist, we’d like interesting flowers and maybe structure. Second, they have to be durable and survive in your location. This may seem like a big jump but it’s not.  It’s the bare minimum.  To grow something that’s not particularly beautiful isn’t very interesting and hardly worth the time.  Additionally, to grow something that’s a knock out but kicks the bucket after the first flower, well, I’ve done plenty of that and it’s not a fun experience.

Now you’re ready to start. You need stock material.  You want
to work with the widest array of different looking irises that grow well in
your area.  That’s because the wider the array of traits you pick to start your hybridizing, the wider the array of offspring, and the more likely you’ll get something “interesting”.  If you cross one lavender Iris douglasiana with another lavender Iris douglasiana you most likely will get a bunch of lavender Iris douglasiana’s.  Hard to
believe I used to do this and wondered why I got the result I did.  My friend, Richard Richards, straightened me out on this and didn’t laugh or call me names for being so dense.

So, now we’re going to get this wide selection of irises to cross – great!  Let’s look at the second criteria, picking irises that grow well in your area.  You can do this by asking your friends and/or going to public gardens and seeing which irises are growing well. You can also tap the power of the web. There are tons of iris sites as well as our on SPCNI
Facebook page where people will be happy to help you out.  Remember, it does no good to go to all the trouble of crossing irises only to watch them kick the bucket in summer. If you
follow this plan, you should have some pretty good “stuff” by the 4^th year or so.

The next step is letting some of your friends plant a few in
their gardens. If your irises are doing well in your friends’ gardens after a
year or so, chances are you’ve got something that should be registered.  I did the same thing, only it took me a couple more years. I wish I’d had this road map, but we finally have a few things to register too.  Some of these are shown below.

If you do this for a few years, after the 2^nd year, it’s a pretty cool thing to have new irises that no one has ever seen, and you’ve created something each spring. Not exactly like seeing the birth of a child, but exciting none the less.

Note, we’ve stayed away from the “how to grow” information.  There’s plenty of this on
the web and it’s also a different subject. We also didn’t cover how to hybridize for branching, ruffles, a blue rim, color, veining, snow, heat, etc.  If you’re going to get into this sort of thing, you need a doctor’s note.

Growing Matilija Poppies
Matilija poppies, or Romneya coulteri for my purest friends, has the largest flower of any poppy. It’s native to dry, sunny areas from California to Baja. The flower petals are bright with yellow-orange stemains in the center that look just like a golf ball. The flowers also measure 6+ inches across and usually begin in late March and can continue until August, given a bit of water. So, how do you get them started, and how do you take care of them? They have a bad reputation of being both difficult to start and invasive. The latter can actually be true.

To start them growing properly there are just 4 rules to follow:
1. Take them out of the nursery container and place them in the hole without breaking the rootball. Breaking the rootball is pretty much instant death.
2. Plant them in fall or winter- you’ll have much better luck getting them established. This is true of most natives, too.
3. Plant them in a sunny spot at or above the level of the surrounding soil, and water.
4. Water them 1x per week and no more to get them started.
If you can only remember the first two points, you’re 90% on your way!
The rest of the “care” is pretty easy, there isn’t much. There are some “what some people do” sorts of things to note that will make them look better and flower longer. Some people give them a good soaking monthly even after they’re established. That extends the flowering time. Some people cut them back in fall or winter and that makes them look a lot neater. As soon as they are cut back, new clean growth starts quickly.
They indeed can be aggressive, so give them room, especially when planting them in sandy soil.
There, done.