LOSING YOUR LAWN

TURF-FREE GARDENS OFFER DESIGN CHALLENGES--AND REWARDS

From Arroyo Monthly Magazine, March, 2014

At long last, the lawn has become passé in Southern California, and it’s about time. 

Lawns are perpetually thirsty and California is in the grip of a record drought. Many municipalities are paying residents to rip out conventional grass and replace it with drought-tolerant landscaping. (In Pasadena, the rebate is a dollar per square foot of turf, up to $2,500.)

Still, even scoundrels have redeeming qualities and lawns have theirs: providing a soft, durable play space that’s easy to incorporate into a garden. “When you have grass, artistically it ends up being a fairly simple design,” says Laramee Haynes of Pasadena-based Haynes Landscape Design. A strong design becomes more vital in the absence of grass, he says, because the assemblage of plants replacing it can look “too busy.” 

Despite the challenges, losing one’s lawn presents opportunities. Many lawn-liberated gardens in the San Gabriel Valley are exemplars.

The story continues on the Arroyo Monthly website.

FALLEN FOREST

Evaluating urban forestry after the recent severe windstorm

From March 20012 issue of Arroyo Montly Magazine

When thousands of trees toppled in last November’s fierce windstorm, it was a reminder that urban trees, those gentle giants, can pack a powerful punch. Pasadena and Altadena are still littered with stumps, uplifted sidewalks and orange cones. The event has prompted soul-searching among arborists and tree lovers over the challenges of sustaining urban forests.
The loss of so many mature trees — more than 1,500 in Pasadena alone --- isn’t just an aesthetic issue; it means hotter, more polluted neighborhoods for years to come. “Large trees, particularly conifers, are like giant air filters,” explains Rebecca Latta, a former Pasadena tree superintendent. “They intercept large particle pollution that can get into your lungs.”
It’s a calm January day, and Latta is surveying some of the damage in north Pasadena. She examines the slanting 8-foot-tall stump and exposed roots of a deodar cedar. A resident has wrapped the tree with green-and-white barricade tape reading “killer tree.” “The winds were coming from the north and pulled the root plate up,” says the consulting arborist and oak specialist based in Glendora. “You can see the roots came up a long way, so there had to be tremendous force placed on top of this very tall tree.” Indeed, wind speeds approached 100 miles an hour in the unusually destructive storm; meterologists considered it a ferocious variation on the gentler and warmer Santa Anas typical of the season.
Latta notes the winds especially “devastated the really tall trees — Canary Island pine, deodar cedar, stone pine.” Some trees probably toppled simply because of the velocity. But the demise of others can, at least partially, be attributed to the challenges of growing trees in parkways. “Street trees have to be maintained in a situation where they have limited root space,” says Latta. “And, in some cases, the trees will pull up the sidewalk, curb and gutter, so those trees will have their roots pruned when new sidewalks are put in.” That makes trees less stable.
Inadequate watering regimes also threaten both street trees and their brethren in home gardens. That’s because trees and lawns have fundamentally different water requirements, as horticulturist Barbara Eisenstein is quick to point out. “Watering once or twice a week for 10 minutes is not good for trees,” she says. “The water doesn’t soak down very far; trees want a much deeper root system and you want to water them infrequently and really deeply.”
The storm was so intense at Eisenstein’s South Pasadena home — small branches flying everywhere, windows blowing open, dust swirling around the house — that she worried her mature avocado and deodar cedar would crash onto the Craftsman home. They didn’t, perhaps because of the care she’d given her trees. Eisenstein had removed the lawn around both trees and replaced it with mulch, which allows for less frequent watering and prevents root rot. Another tip: Cap or remove irrigation systems around trees so they don’t spray the trunks. “There should be no watering [next to the tree],” says Latta, “If the soil is too wet or the soil is compacted you don’t have enough oxygen in the soil or the exchange of gasses that tree roots need to be healthy.”
Pasadena is hiring a consultant to undertake a storm post-mortem, analyzing how its street tree practices might be improved. The findings are expected to be released to the public in the spring. Meanwhile, Forestry Superintendent Kenneth Graham says, the city hands out care guidelines to residents when workers plant new street trees, advising, among other things, “not to grow any groundcover adjacent to tree trunks.” He notes that the city trims and inspects street trees every five to seven years, depending on the kind of tree. Latta says that for some trees, that’s not often enough.
And many trees, both municipal and residential, suffer from sloppy pruning. A lot of cities have cut their tree maintenance funds, and Eisenstein says they often contract with companies that charge less and aren’t as diligent. Pasadena, however, has increased its street tree budget in the last decade.
Perhaps the worst offender is Southern California Edison, which prunes — no, hacks --- trees near power lines, lopping off their tops in a bad buzz cut. “Trees should never be brought down, called ‘heading back’ or ‘topping,’” Eisenstein says. “As soon as you cut a branch in the middle like that, it sends out multiple shoots that aren’t attached to the stem very well.” The new shoots are weaker and the dense regrowth creates more wind resistance.
For homeowners, finding a good tree service can be a challenge. Latta says even she struggles to find qualified crews. She recommends making sure a certified arborist supervises any pruning and that the arborist doesn’t leave your job site until the crew is done cutting. It also helps to hire a consulting arborist who specializes in the tree species you have.
As Latta continues her tour, she points out more stumps in Altadena, then drives by a spot where trees blown over in a previous storm have not been replaced. Pasadena officials say they’re optimistic they can secure grants and other funds for replanting, although they acknowledge the city faces financial constraints. But Latta wonders aloud whether L.A. County will have the money to reforest Altadena. “All these cities --- Pasadena, Altadena, Arcadia, La Cañada --- have really amazing urban forests,” she muses. “I think the legacy we leave our children is to replant and to maintain the trees we have so we don’t lose them.” And even if the fallen are replaced, it will be decades before the saplings grow into the giants that stood before the storm.

Click through for Barbara Eisenstein's Tips on Planting and Caring for Trees

States Struggle to Rein in Runaway Garden Plants

On a misty summer morning, ecologist Christy Brigham sinks down to the sand at Point Mugu State Park, part of the patchwork of federal, state and private lands in Los Angeles County's Santa Monica Mountains. She watches a darkling beetle forage among rare dune plants -- lacy, lavender sand verbenas and beach primroses, which resemble large buttercups. When Brigham came to this area eight years ago to work for the National Park Service, she thought she'd become an expert on plants like these, part of the region's unique Mediterranean-climate flora. But instead, she's spent most of her time dealing with common plants, many of them fugitives from local gardens and nurseries. Continue reading on the High Country News website.

Flights of Fancy: South Pasadena Butterfly Garden

When Barbara Eisenstein and her husband, Jim, moved into their South Pasadena home a dozen years ago, it was like many in the neighborhood: an architecturally significant home — a 1910 craftsman — surrounded by a fairly banal garden. The grounds were mostly lawn, albeit studded with mature trees. A few birds perched in the oak, but it wasn’t the miniature nature preserve that encircles their home today.

Over the years, the lawn lost ground and was supplanted by wildlife-supporting native shrubs, including ceanothus and sages, and herbaceous plants such as monkey flower, penstemons and yarrow. Today the garden pulses with vibrant colors, bird song and the slurping and munching of lizards, caterpillars, butterflies and other small dinner guests.

Read the rest of this piece on Arroyo Monthly's website.

AND check out the extensive sidebar (exclusive to the print edition and reproduced here) on how to attract these popular butterflies:

SWALLOWTAILS

In addition to the giant swallowtail, two others frequent local gardens. Named for the tiger-like stripes on their yellow wings, Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) will drink from a variety of plants commonly found at nurseries, including lantana and aster family plants such as zinnia. Eisenstein grows native seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) and a variety of sunflowers. These swallowtails deposit their eggs primarily on sycamore trees, but they also use poplars, cottonwood, willows and alders.

The anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) is also abundant here, because exotic sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) has become a roadside weed and wildland invader. Skip the fennel; attract it with native plants from the carrot family.

COMMON BUCKEYE

Despite the name, these small brown butterflies are uncommonly lovely. Their wings are adorned with large eye-like spots in a kaleidoscope of blues, yellows, pinks, orange and black. “One of the reasons buckeyes are still relatively common in Southern California is because their caterpillars eat members of the snapdragon family,” says Karner. He adds, don’t panic if your snapdragons get chewed up. The plants will rebound—perhaps growing even more vigorously—and know that “you’re going to get some nice butterflies out of the deal.” Eisenstein’s garden features another buckeye host plant—native monkey flower (mimulus species).

LADIES

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) is sometimes called the cosmopolitan because it’s thought to be the most widespread butterfly globally. This small orange and black insect migrates into Southern California from Mexico in late winter/spring. It’s the one school kids rear in classrooms. Among the plants that host its young are lupines, mallows—even a vacant-lot plant called cheese weed--and thistles. Native and exotic mallows are easy to grow. Lupines provide a gorgeous blue accent in a native plant garden; they are nature’s complement to orange poppies.

Resident West Coast ladies (Vanessa annabella) will frequent the same plants. Both species sip from sunflowers and buckwheats (Eriogonum species). Eisenstein grows California buckwheat. It sports little orbs of creamy white-to-pinkish flowers that dry to a rust color.

CLOUDLESS SULPHUR

This pretty pale yellow butterfly has become rare in recent years. It depends on native cassia and senna plants. The exotic ones found in conventional nurseries don’t do the trick, according to Karner. So ask your local nursery to order the natives, or visit the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley or Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.

MONARCH

These charismatic orange and black butterflies only deposit their eggs on milkweed plants. The black, yellow and white-striped caterpillars nurse on the plants’ alkaloid sap, which makes them toxic to predators. Exotic milkweeds are readily available, but some research suggests they leave the butterflies more vulnerable to parasites than the natives do. A good source for milkweed seed is Butterfly Encounters.com.

When positioning milkweeds, keep in mind that some are not beauties, and the voracious caterpillars will defoliate them. It’s the butterflies that dazzle.

GULF FRITILLARY

This pumpkin-colored butterfly, with black and silver accents, is native to Mexico and the Southeastern U.S. The grey caterpillars brandish horizontal orange stripes and black spines. The insect moved into coastal California when its host plants—passion vines—became popular in gardens. Avoid blue crown passion flower (Passiflora caerulea): it’s a weedy plant that can escape gardens and damage wildlands.

Butterflies

Meet Frank. He's a monarch butterfly that my son and I raised. We don't actually know the insect's gender, but that hardly matters to a four-year-old.

Butterfly gardener extraordinaire Connie Day gave us two caterpillars from her garden, which is a certified Monarch Waystation.

We reared them inside (mostly) on a milkweed plant, which provided all they required, except water drops. We placed the plant inside one of those netted cages you use to raise painted ladies.

Some articles I reported recently afforded me the opportunity to engage Brent "the bug guy" Karner of the LA County Natural History Museum in an extended conversation about butterflies. A portion of the discussion was broadcast last weekend on KPCC's Off-Ramp. Check it out.

Milkweeds for Monarchs

Dwindling monarch butterfly populations have prompted some gardeners to pepper their landscapes with milkweeds, the various plants in the Asclepiadaceae family on which monarchs lay their eggs. Chubby, zebra-striped monarch caterpillars gorge themselves on the plants' milky alkaloid sap, which makes them poisonous to birds.

The question for many isn't whether to grow milkweed, but how -- and which kind.

In Connie Day's Santa Monica garden, a tiger-colored monarch spars with another butterfly, chasing it from a patch of milkweeds.

"The challenge is keeping the food here," Day says, noting that a few monarchs can defoliate a plant in a couple of weeks.

Read the rest of this story in LA Times Home.

Late Fall In Our Garden

Most of our summer edibles are gone. But one wax bean plant is still producing a profusion of shiny little beans. I assume they're tasty, but can't really say. My three-year-old has claimed them as exclusively his.

It's a great strategy for getting kids to eat veggies. We steam up a batch of mostly store-bought green beans, topped with our homegrown yellow ones. My husband and I look longingly at the wax beans, but our son hordes them all.

Another great kid veg: potatoes. Need I say it? They're fun to dig up. We've planted the remains of our last year's yukon golds and they're thriving. We stored the seed potatoes in a wine fridge over the summer. It's a small, 8-bottle cellar, so there was something of a Sophie's Choice going on all summer--more potatoes, less wine.

A lot of our last fall's seed was still viable this fall. Indeed, some of the lettuce and spinach seed I'd left in the fridge (in a plastic bag), took off immediately.

We're trying a new variety of beet this year. I bought some Bull's Blood from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I'm already enjoying these gorgeous red greens in my salads.

Roses: The Fruits of Neglect

I've finally had some time to work my garden. After some reluctance, I pruned my unruly rose bushes.

Three of them top out over six feet tall, in part because I like them that way. They're surrounded by native sages and Mediterranean rock roses, and thrive on the same drip irrigation system and low-water regime. (I gave them supplemental water for the first couple years.)

I hadn't pruned the roses since last fall. As a result they were loaded with persimmony rose hips. I thought of it as my fall color, and the bushes looked far happier in the hot fall than had I tried to keep them blooming.

A few years ago Emily Green, who currently writes the LA Times Dry Garden column, wrote a brilliant piece about leaving roses alone. Check it out. It will make you long for the days when newspapers gave writers the space to write like this. Or at least some of them. Few write as well as Green.

Now, if only the weeds would pull themselves.

Trumpet Zucchini

What possessed me? Who slipped me the silly pill that made me decide to grow two zucchini plants this summer?

I wanted to add a new kind, while relying on an old standby. It still amazes me that someone--my aunt--could mail me a few innocuous seeds and one would turn into this:

Zucchini rampicante tromboncino. This climber produces gorgeous curved or trumpet-like fruit. Many of mine have little leaves embedded along the side of the fruit, making them especially pretty as gifts. And, yes, I've had a lot to give.

We turned a few into the best-ever zucchini bread. And we've enjoyed endless rounds of ratatouille. (Believe it or not, my kid loves it.) Any recipe requiring 3 or more cups of zucchini gets my attention these days.

Summertime...

...and the eatin' is easy. We're gorging ourselves on red baron peaches. Yesterday, peach cobbler; tomorrow peach-rosemary jam.

We're a little challenged aesthetically this year as we had to defend our food from digging skunks and at least one very healthy rat (all those blueberries he ate, no doubt).

In the bed above, Italian trombone squash (Zucchetta Rampicante Trombocino) is climbing a tomato cage and heading for a trellis. My aunt calls these "rumpa trumpas" and the name has stuck.

We also love the Romanesco zucchini we planted next to it. My 3-year-old enjoys the star shapes it makes when sliced.

Most of our seed this year came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Renee's Garden Seeds.

The heirloom De Bourbonne cucumber is thriving. And the sungold tomatoes are producing, despite the unseasonably cool weather.

Renee's "French Gold" beans are delish!

I've let some of my spring lettuce flower and the one above produced a lovely surprise.

Small Wonders

One of my favorite things about gardening is the little surprises: the bulbs and wildflowers that spout up in spots you didn't expect or had forgotten about, a new bloom you hadn't noticed forming.

Among the small wonders I'm enjoying these days is this feral celery (above). Last year the deliberately planted crop was bitter and I didn't (intentionally) start any this year. Wouldn't you know it, this volunteer, which has been totally neglected, is delicious. And it's growing in decomposed granite! Not that I recommend that; it's getting seepage from a nearby pot of marjoram.

We also had lettuce crop up in unusual places, including right next to nitrogen-fixing bean plants. Those greens were quite tasty; never fertilized. (I should note my entire garden is not that wet: it cropped up in places where I was watering new plants and near a water barrel.)

I mentioned earlier that my last year's basil, moved to a pot at the end of summer, had resprouted. Below is the proof of my perennial basil.

I'm also grateful for a bounteous harvest of snap peas. I love them so, I intend to try a tip I picked up from my dad the suburban farmer. (Okay, he's a college music professor, but he grows so much food he supplies his college cafeteria.) The tip: when weather warms, extend the life of your peas by placing ice cubes on the soil in the morning.

We're also enjoying spinach, scallions, lettuces, sorrel, carrots, strawberries, blueberries, and just harvested the rest of our yukon gold potatoes.

Apples on the way!

Runaway Plants

If you missed my five-part series on garden plants that threaten wildlands, check out the first three installments below (with links to the full story on the LA Times website).

GARDEN HANGOVERS PART 1

Ecologist Christy Brigham stands amid willows hemming Medea Creek in the Santa Monica Mountains. The trees’ amber leaves glow in the morning light. She frowns at an ivy-like plant with violet-blue flowers. It’s blanketing a large swath of the creek. “Periwinkle is a common landscape ground cover,” she says. “It’s attractive to some people. I think it’s a green menace.”

Periwinkle (Vinca major) hails from the Mediterranean. Let loose in parts of Southern California, it smothers virtually all of the wildlife-supporting native plants in its path. California is home to many indigenous plants found nowhere else on Earth. Many are at risk of extinction. The main culprit is urbanization, but weedy exotic plants — even some that residents buy for their gardens — often share the blame. Able to rough it in the wild, runaway plants can throw entire ecosystems out of balance.

Read the rest of the story.

GARDEN HANGOVERS PART 2

When many of us think of Los Angeles, there’s a palm in the picture. That palm is likelyWashingtonia robusta, the Mexican fan palm.

Mexican fans are the remarkably tall (up to 100 feet), skinny palms with fan-shaped fronds that have towered over much of the city’s built environment for more than a century. More conspicuous than stars in L.A.’s washed-out night sky, some palm constellations have even been dubbed historic-cultural monuments.

Although other palms have sneaked into the scene, Nicholas Staddon, director of new plants for Monrovia Growers, says Mexican fans are still popular and “very valuable — it’s fast-growing and has a wonderful tropical look.” No primadonna, aptly named robusta thrives in a couple square feet of dirt amid a sea of concrete, even roots in sidewalk cracks.

But the region’s palmy past is seeding trouble. Click over to read the rest of my LA Times story.

Part 3

Grasses are among California’s most prolific weeds. Exotic bromes and other annual grasses now carpet millions of acres, displacing of native wildflowers, bunch grasses and shrubs.

Most arrived with 19th century settlers and livestock (as contaminants in feed or lodged in animals’ coats, for example). But in recent years, ornamental grasses have joined the fray.

“Grasses are useful in a landscape,” says Jim Folsom, director of botanical gardens at the Huntington, “but by nature they are invasive; being a grass generally means being able to cover a lot territory fast.”

Read on.

Happy Days

I find it nearly impossible to be miserable in spring. No matter how dark the evening hour, morning brings a new bloom.

These days the wildflowers are flouncing, the peas towering, and the bulbs blazing.

Pictured above is the California native Chinese Houses (Collinsia heteropylla). Named for its pagoda-like structure, this wildflower is found in oak woodlands.

Below are a couple hybrid sparaxis. Bulbs from the Cape of South Africa are generally used to a climate similar to ours (albeit not quite as dry) and lean soils. Here they're growing in decomposed granite, amongst California poppies.

When I first planned this garden I had pretty much one thing on my mind--lure birds. Over the years I've become more absorbed in the plants in and of themselves. And I've added plants purely to feed or please me.

But the birds still come and remind me not to stray too far from my original purpose. Below is a white-crowned sparrow, identifiable by the racer strip on his head.

White-crowned sparrow in ceonothus.

Reaping

My son and I have been busy in the garden. We're sowing for summer, but we're also harvesting regularly from our fall/winter plantings.

We're--okay, mom is--enjoying salad, salad and more salad. Right now my salads consist of the following ingredients, all from our garden:

• various lettuces
• arugula, both the annual and spicier perennial
• sorrel--just a few leaves cut into strips (chiffonade for you culinary types)
• herbs: parsley, chevril, cilantro
• carrots
• tiny florets of raw broccoli. I'm usually not a fan of raw broccoli, but the fresh stuff is delish
• pea pods, cut in 3rds (yes, I love those culinary scissors)
• roasted beet
• beet greens, in strips add a nice crunch
• garnish of these edible flowers: arugula, rosemary, nasturtium & manzanita
• I drop (cut) basil leaves into dressing of 1/2 olive oil, half balsamic vineagar

Speaking of basil: one of mine overwintered and is budding again! You've got to love perennial basil.

We sprouted yukon gold potatoes in the fall and they've topped the large storage bin we planted them in. We got our seed potatoes from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply.

My 3-year-old won't touch salad, but he does like the broccoli and tiny carrots steamed. He enjoys popping open pea pods. And, of course, he'll pick any- and everything.

Garden Show Preview

(From my article in the March issue of Arroyo Monthly)

There are flashier gardens around town — landscapes cloaked in splashy colors –– but for beauty that’s bone deep, explore the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia. “If you look at what are the most beautiful and environmentally appropriate plants,” says Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof, “the Arboretum has been working to answer that question for over half a century.”

The Arboretum will showcase sustainable plants at its annual L.A. Garden Show, which runs from April 30 through May 2. Organizers include the Arboretum’s new horticultural curator, Jill Morganelli.

The garden’s aesthetic is partly sculptural — curvaceous succulents alternate with twisting branches and thick tree trunks. Largely absent are beds of rotated, brightly colored annual plants common at nurseries. Morganelli says the Arboretum’s signature bird, the peacock, is partially responsible for the look –– it’s an inadvertent “watchdog” of sustainability. “With annuals — plants that typically live for four to six months –– you’ll just waste all kinds of time and manpower,” she observes, “and they’ll be picked to the ground by peacocks.” She adds that annuals are generally water-hungry plants.

On a recent morning, as peacocks dozed under a Wedgwood-blue sky, Morganelli tromped into the 30-acre Australian garden to discuss alternatives. Amid the familiar eucalyptus and bottlebrushes, Morganelli pointed out unusual kinds of grevilleas and acacias. “Australian plants are super-important to us,” she says. “Their environment is just like ours, only on the other side of the world.” The flora from southwestern Australia, in particular, have adapted to a similar climate and comparable soils. Like California native plants, many will languish if watered liberally in summer. Usually, plants from both regions should not be fertilized; Aus

tralian plants are especially sensitive to phosphorus.

On our tour, Morganelli also dropped by the Desert Garden (near the Peacock Café) to brag about Sophora secundiflora, also known as mescal bean. Native to Texas, New Mexico and northern Mexico, this slow-growing shrub can be pruned into a lovely tree. “There’s rarely a design I do without one of these,” says Morganelli. “In the spring, it blooms the most gorgeous purple and white flowers that smell like grape bubble gum.” The rest of the year this Sophora sports silv

ery seedpods. (Note: The seeds are hallucinogenic, even poisonous.)

The L.A. Garden Show will also spotlight California native plants, flora that Morganelli admires. “The plants act as a habitat for native birds, bees and butterflies,” she says. “The other thing that’s really cool is some of them die back and, like magic, in the spring they rise up from the earth all fresh and new.” Morganelli says the plants generally need regular water to get established, but after about 18 months, “you can water as little as every two weeks and these plants live.”

In addition to the exemplary plantings, the Arboretum is inspiring a new wave of sustainable gardening with classes that are substantive and varied.

For more than four years, K.D. Henderson of Monrovia has been a regular at horticulturist Lili Singer’s Thursday Garden Talks, which prompted her to rip out her front lawn and replace it with drought-tolerant plants, including natives. “Visitors used to walk straight up to my door,” she says. “Now they stop and look around.”

That’s the kind of comment Morganelli, another enthusiastic instructor (she teaches organic vegetable gardening and plant identification) likes to hear. “I really feel we are undergoing a renaissance right now in Southern California landscaping,” she says, “and it’s so exciting to be a part of that.”

Among the Aussies Morganelli pointed out:

Correa pulchella (pictured above);

One of several evergreen shrubs commonly called Australian fuchsia. Little bell-shaped flowers—pink to reddish orange-- dangle from its branches. “It’s a great border shrub,” says Morganelli, “and a great accent you can pepper in, even a wonderful hedge.”

Grevillea ‘Wakiti Sunrise’ (pictured at article top)

This is a cultivated plant (a cultivar) bred from one of the 250 plus species of wild Grevillea. It unfurls intricate clusters of hook-shaped, salmon-colored blossoms. “If you want to get rid of your lawn--and don’t have kids or a dog,” says Morganelli, “look at some of these low-growing shrubs.” She also admires the yellow-green color of the foliage.

Acacia merinthophora

The zigzag wattle derives its name from its stems, which zigzag between its flowers--little yellow puffs accompanied by a single pine needle-like leaf (technically, a leaf-like structure called a phyllode). Zigzag’s branches spill out in a weeping fashion. Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof advises planting this uncommon beauty in front of a wall “so you can see its shadows and the finery of the foliage.” (Note: Some other acacias—cyclops ,longifolia, and decurrens--are invasive; do not plant them.)

Dodonaea viscosa ‘Purpurea’

This Dodonaea is native to the American Southwest and Hawaii, but most of its close relatives, which are commonly called hop bush, hail from down under. Purpurea can be grouped together for a fast-growing privacy screen. Morganelli advises pairing them with showier plants: “Take the purple-bronze color of the leaves and bounce them off some other, low-growing greens.”

The Native Plants Morganelli recommends include

Penstemon spectabilis

Also known as showy or royal penstemon, this herbaceous plant dazzles with three- to six-foot tall flower stalks, covered with dozens of blue, purple or pink flowers. “I think of penstemons as my answer to foxgloves,” says Morganelli.

Salvia spathacea

This sage is popular with native plant gardeners. It smells delicious (a mélange of honey, lemon, mint), and can fill a difficult niche: dry shady areas. There’s a reason this red-blooming plant is called Hummingbird sage, says Morganelli, “you’ll see hummingbirds drink from these all day long.”

Asclepias fascicularis

That’s a fancy name for a modest plant known as narrow-leaved Milkweed. “It’s not a beautiful plant all year,” says Morganelli, “but it’s a food source for monarch butterflies.” She advises planting it near the back of a bed, and waiting for the gorgeous black and white striped caterpillars to turn up.

Diplacus or Mimulus

Scientifically, this group of plants goes by a tangle of names, but they are easily identified as monkey flower. Hikers recognize some of them from local trails. Some can be hard to grow and are short-lived; Morganelli recommends the yellow and pale orange shrubby kind.

Now Blooming

The big bloom has begun around my yard. February through June is prime flowering time. Here are a few highlights, including Anna apple (above).

I added more South African bulbs this year, including this Babiana hybrid I bought from Jim Duggan Flower Nursery in San Diego. Jim is the source for species South African bulbs. You can buy a few of the Dutch hybrids in some garden centers, but Jim grows a wide selection of species bulbs. (More on South African bulbs.)

At the other end of the spectrum: volunteer sunflowers (from the bird feeder).

Desert Bluebells (Phacelia campanularia) are great for hot spots and easy to grow. You can find Botanical Interest seeds at many nurseries.

Three of my Ribes species have been blooming for about a month, including aureum, sanguineum glutinosum (below)

and viburnifolium (below). The latter has such tiny flowers, they're easy to miss.

R. aureum (Golden currant) is especially easy to grow and will reseed readily in the garden. I like to snip small branches and bring them in for a small, delicate arrangement.

This year I added the Ribes cultivar 'Dancing Tassles' to my garden. It's similar to sanguineum glutinosum (above) but with even longer, dangling flower heads.

Another petite blossom that sets my pulse racing is five spot (Nemophila maculata), pictured below.

I also adore its cousin baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii). I bought my seed at the Theodore Payne Foundation. The foundation now has a native plant Wiki, a source for pictures and information on plants you hear or read about.

Lupines are really taking off now.

And elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata) has reseeded itself around my garden.

Sweet Greens

The star of our vegetable garden this month is the delicious Di Cicco Broccoli. Hard to believe it all came from a $1.79 packet of Botanical Interests seeds.

Broccoli was a top priority for our winter garden, because it's so sweet when home grown. The stems of this one are even sweeter than the florets, so I happily give my son the soft tops and scarf down the rest myself. I often eat this broccoli plain; sauces can interfere with its wonderful flavor.

Di Cicco is also a beautiful plant. The site of ours, dappled with raindrops, glittering in the early light drew me outdoors this morning for a brief recharge before the breakfast dishes and diapers.

I started these plants in fiber pots on our shady back porch in late August. I placed them in the bed in October (I think).

In Praise of Lili

Plant lovers rejoice! Lili Singer is once again writing for Los Angeles Times Home. Singer knows more about gardening and Southern California friendly plants--both natives and exotics--than anyone I've met. What's more, she shares her knowledge with enthusiasm, lucidity and lovely prose.

So look for Singer's new column online and in the paper.

She teaches at Theodore Payne (where she serves as special projects coordinator), the LA County Arboretum and other venues around town.

I'm a huge fan of the Arb's Thursday Garden Talks with Lili Singer. This winter's series looks fantastic. Singer's guests will include irrigation expert Bob Galbreath, edible landscape pioneer Rosalind Creasy, and native plant guru Bart O'Brien. Also, Jerry Turney will cover the fundamentals of landscape diseases and Jan Smithen will lecture on great Australian plants for So Cal gardens. To sign up for one or all of the 8-class, Thursday-morning series, call 626-821-4623.

(The photo above is from the LA County Arboretum.)

Rain Captured

The results are in: Our rain barrel, Urna Therma, isn't just a beauty, she gets the job done. When we installed her, weren't sure how much water we'd capture. But that one late October rain filled her shapely figure to the brim. So Urna may get a baby sister one of these days.

I use that tap on the bottom to fill my son's tiny watering can and water seedlings. For my two-year-old, it's a good alternative to the hose, i.e. he can't blast mommy with a hose.

With a little planning you can forego a rain barrel and channel rainwater directly into your garden. You can find details on a page of the TreePeople website.

Either approach can keep water from flowing off your property. Once it hits the street, runoff picks up pollution that can be transported into waterways and out to the ocean.

Winter Veg

Our fall/winter vegetables are taking off. The lettuce in the bed pictured above finally sprouted, after three tries. The seed I started in fiber pots in a shadier spot took off immediately, but this bed with afternoon sun was slow to go. Next time around, I'll try a trick Renee Shepherd of Renee's Garden Seeds told me about recently: put the seed in the fridge for a day before planting it.

I interviewed Shepherd recently for a short piece on arugula I wrote for the LA Times. I've planted four kinds of arugula this year because--need I say it?--I love it, and it's so easy to grow. You can buy both annual and perennial arugula. Extra! Read all about it in my arugula report.

Some summer treats still linger, including bell peppers, a lone watermelon I hope will ripen, a few strawberries, and basil.

Some of our pak choi (below) is ready to harvest, and the broccoli is bursting. The peas are producing their first pods (above).

I've also started cilantro, parsley, beans, beets, and chevril. I highly recommend the latter. I like to toss this delicate-flavored herb into salads; it also complements all things eggy quite well. Chevril doesn't dry well, so it's best to grow it.