December 13, 2017
Matilija Poppies and Other Stuff too!
Matilija Poppies and Other Stuff too!
There are always “things” going on at the nursery. Each season new and different things are propagated at the nursery. This is also the time of year when you can plant just about anything in your native garden and it will grow.
A few things that we’re propagating right now are toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) from seeds and our pacific coast iris hybrids.
The toyon is a large shrub (H 10’+) that produces large clusters of red berries on our hillsides right now and is sometimes call Christmas berry. This is the time we collect the berries and plant them out. If you’re going to try this do it now because the seeds won’t germinated very well past January. Here’s one of our seed flats.
Here are our pacific coast iris hybrids that have germinated so far. Each spring we “cross” some of our hybrids in hopes of getting new irises with new and interesting flowers. Fall is the time to plant them out but we won’t see a single flower for another year.
Good to pay attention to the plants that are in flower this time of year as things can get pretty dull and the bees and butterflies need food to eat.
The indian mallow(Abutilon palmeri) is from our deserts and flowers most of the year with the exception of the last have of winter. It has bright poppy colored flowers that feed the bees.
Golden bush (Isocoma menzesii) flower on our hillsides from late summer into early winter feeding all kinds of pollinators and is just in time for feeding the monarch and queen butterflies.
And of course it’s the best time to plant matilija poppies(Romenya coulteri). If you plant them now in 1-gallon pots you’re likely to get flowers the first year. Here they are in their 1-gallon pots with a picture of the flowers below.
They can be aggressive growers – not a bad thing giving the flowers they produce.
Cool stuff happens every day!