Anagallis monelli: It's BLUE!

I had this plant a few years back, and it died. It grew to about 8" tall and 20" wide. I've been on the lookout for it locally ever since and finally bought a couple at the Fullerton Green Scene plant sale/show.



Oh that glorious, electric, no-purple-in-it-anywhere blue. Happy to have it back! It is in the same genus as a weed that plagues this area, Anagallis arvensis. A. arvensis is a prolific seeder, but my original plant produced no seedlings, however much I longed for them.

Calflora describes A. monelli as a perennial, so how did I kill it? No clue, no matter. The replacements were inexpensive. It's just a little plant that doesn't take up much room, and forms no woody structure. Perhaps it's just a biennial, or an annual. Fine, whatever. What matters is that incredible blue.

Old Vs. New Commercial Landscaping

The typical '60s-'00s office building plantings of squared-off ligustrum-and-lawn-plus-a-patch-of-annual-color:




Right across the street from the above is a newish residential apartment complex:




Not only are the plantings intended to be more environmentally friendly, but in addition, the use of the property is also moving towards a more efficient use of resouces. Office buildings all around--why not have apartments right nearby and walk to work, rather than driving for miles?  Mixed use:  what a concept!  (That, and the area is seriously over built with offices.)  The interior of this complex is an atrium filled by a pool and mostly concrete paving.  This street side strip is essentially all the landscaping for this complex.

Rather than the standard patch-of-color changed out twice a year, the focal point of the corner are these grand pots hosting equally grand agaves:




Though reclaimed water is in use, cutting down on reclaimed water is even more economical.  The lavender color of the valve cover indicates reclaimed water is in use here, though that is true for the older lawns as well:


The planting palette is Agave, blue Fescue clumps, Phormium, Rapheolepis, Strelitzia, Senecio.  There is Tracheospermum as a ground cover in the hell strip under Ceiba (Chorisia) trees. 



The cat-friendly bark of Ceiba (Chorisia) speciosa:


The Ceiba flower drop may become an issue in time.  A wet pink sidewalk staining goo is formed by walking on the fallen flowers.  Pehaps actual pedestrians are still expected to be rare.  Many parts of  this area still have no sidewalks--why would anyone want to walk?--though that is changing.  

The trees are Washingtonia palms, Ceiba, and Lophostemon confertus.  The trees in immediately surrounding older landscapes are pavement-popping Erythrina and Ficus retusa nitida.  A wise move towards less invasive root systems, perhaps, now that sidewalks are going in. 

The alley way to the parking structure has a raised bed with Anigozanthos.  It is somewhat rare to see the plants appropriately sized for the planting space, which in this case is narrow:


I'm seeing quite a few of this same planting scheme going in.  Here's a question.  Agave/blue fescue/senecio:  how fast will this become the landscape cliche that people want to avoid?  What then? Though it has to be better than weekly mowing and daily watering of lawns no one sits upon or plays on, fashion will change; it always does.  What's next?  No plants at all, just concrete?  Change is affecting even staid suburbs as energy becomes increasingly  expensive.  Change:  we all need to get ready for more. 

Lonely lawn with pavement-popper:

Alchemy

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;



My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.



For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,




To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.

~Sara Teasdale



I hope your Sunday is a beautiful one.

Tree Mutilation of the Week

Sometimes you cringe at the sight of a tree being trimmed, and sometimes you cringe at the sight of a tree not being trimmed.  This poor specimen needs to be trimmed alright, right down to the ground:


The house on this property burned down.  Some of the tree burnt.  Then it got really windy and the crown of the tree snapped right off.  It sat for a couple of years, along with the burnt-out house.  More than one ownership change appeared to have occured.  Finally, the house was rebuilt.  I thought they would remove the tree at that point.

The orange caution tape is original to the crown snap of four or five years ago:


Nope.  It's hopeless, guys.  Seriously.  Time for chainsaws and a stump grinder.  Please,  put it out of its misery.

Inadvertently Good #2

Not an inadvertent beauty.  This inadvertently good thing is cultural, as in what plants like.   A surprise about Echeverias.



I was lucky enough to find a copy of the John Pilbeam book, The Genus Echeveria.  The book contains some photos of Echeverias taken in their natural habitat.  Some of them live dangling from vertical cliffs hundreds of  feet tall, their small root systems lodged in cracks in the rock.  Some live tucked under the base of boulders, watered by the dew that drips downward off the stone, shaded by the stone.  Others are found mixed in with grasses and other soft-foliaged plants in dappled shade or even deep shade along roadsides.  This last environment is not what I think of when I think of succulents.

Carex solandrii:
 
Which brings me to one corner of the yard where nothing I tried would grow.  Long before I got the book and saw photos of Echeverias in their natural habitat, I had a problem spot near the front door.  The spot was in either full or dappled shade from a Cercis tree for all but a couple hours in late afternoon, when it got full blazing sun and reflected heat from the walk way.  And in winter, when the Cercis were leafless, it got full sun all day.  Because of tree roots, the soil was very, very dry.  I tried Heucheras.  Some were fine nearby, but not in that corner, that very visible corner near the front door.  A Carex solandrii lived a little back from the corner, happy because it got most of the water from one sprinkler head.  A Fuchsia was next to the Carex and filled out the back of the planting bed behind the tree trunk. 

That dry empty spot the size of a shoe box annoyed me no end, so I kept sticking small plants there that ended up dying.  Could I rework the sprinkler system, which would involve a lot of digging through tree roots?  No way.  Finally I took some 'Black Prince' Echeveria pups I didn't feel like potting up, and stuck them there. Surprise!



They loved it.  The Carex grew,  while the Echeverias thrived, tangled with Carex, somewhat hidden by Heucheras, in sometimes deep, sometimes dappled shade, just like a roadside in Mexico.  I think I might have inadvertently duplicated their choice habitat.

Echeveria 'Black Prince' flowers:
 
The Echeverias I carefully tended in special succulent mix in pots with what I thought was just the right amount of sun and moisture could not compare.   The Carex finally died, and I thought it was time to move the Echeverias because they would get too much water.  But I didn't move them, and they got bigger and happier yet.   I replaced the Carex with a seedling, the Fuchsia grew, and the Echeverias got bigger and happier yet.   Echeverias, Carex, Heuchera, and Fuchsia.  Together. 

Typical (?) Echeveria buddy:

I found leaves forming new plants, too, in deep shade tucked under Heuchera leaves.

New plants!  With a rose leaf as a comparison to show their size: 

Not a slug to be found:  the lizards apparently take care of them.  Win-win deal with a bunch of Echeverias.  They are happy.  I am happy.  Even the lizards are happy.  The prominent corner of the planting bed is stuffed full, no longer empty.  My laziness served me that time!   "Right plant for the right spot" is a well-known gardener's saying, but I am amazed that Echeverias turned out to be what worked there. 

'Crépuscule' Pruning Update

Whacked it good back at the end of March...and now at the end of May, it's blooming and looking completely revived.


New growth down on the bottom of the canes, where previously was a tangle of dead twigs:


Looking happy again!



Off in a shadowy corner behind 'Crépuscule' I noticed one of 'Fair Bianca's perfect little flowers.  When I planted 'Fair Bianca' the area was sunny.  The neighbors on the west planted a lot of trees, and the neighbor on the north's nasty old Euc grew back after I paid a good bit of money to have their tree trimmed back from the property line.  Now the area is in shade most of the time and is covered with Euc litter.  I doubt 'Fair Bianca' would be any better even given ideal conditions.  Beautiful flowers on a weak, spindly, die-back-prone plant.

Pure white 'Fair Bianca' and her red buds:


If only, if only it could revive like 'Crépuscule'. If only.

Inadvertently Good #1

Inadvertent good idea--actually it wasn't an idea at all, it was an accident. A few years ago Home Cheapo was selling mail order end-of-season left over J&P bare root roses for five bucks apiece, with free shipping. I couldn't pass that up, and got my under-performing copy of 'Julia Child', which has not yet caught up to her quality sisters, as well as a somewhat obscure landscape rose regrettably called 'Petal Pushers'. Ewww.

Rosa 'Petal Pushers': silly name. This rose deserves better.


Nice little rose, as it turned out, but I had nowhere to put it, and finally stuck it by the stairway in the gully, where there isn't even any irrigation. I dump dirty pond filter water on it. That rose in that spot was accident #1.

'Bishop's Castle':


Accident #2 was buying three copies of 'Bishops Castle', an Austin rose sold by J&P a couple or three years ago. Another case of roses I bought without having a place to put them. They got stuck by the stairway, too.



It was about the only open place left, and not quite sunny enough, but I didn't want them in pots, even though they were deemed "compact" growers. I thought they'd be something like 'Jubilee Celebration', which is a dinky little thing that blooms really well. Wrong.



They are small climbers that bloom really well, at least in my yard.   Instead of being small globes on either side of the stairway, the plants arch and spill over the stairway walls. Now I walk down with roses tumbling over each side of the stairway.


I would never have thought of doing this. Accidents made it happen.

'Bishops Castle' is strongly fragrant and I descend and ascend through a cloud of rose perfume. Another piece of Eden, fallen into place.

Some 'Lady Emma Hamilton' Photos

Here's the plant:


This rose has such a sweet, delicious fragrance...








'Jubilee Celebration'


And 'Just Joey' was looking good, too:

Agave Death Birth Watch

Time for this garden's first Agave death birth watch. Though my three Agave desmettiana variegatas are about to bloom and die, each of them has one or two dozen pups ready to take alpha-agave's place. And then there is the possibility of hundreds of bulbils (plantlets) produced by each flower stalk. And seeds!

Research yielded the clue that when Agaves are about to bloom, the new leaves do not grow large and remain significantly shorter than the older ones. This picture illustrates that pretty well. Look how the leaves at the very center are shorter. They have stopped growing:


So, where's the flower spike? No sign of one yet. The foliage is starting to die at the tips and is growing yellowish. The plant is sucking all the stored up sugars in the leaves in order to create the flower-spike.


I might think there is something going on that has nothing to do with an imminent bloom. However, the pups are growing and look very healthy. That's another indication.



Nearby, several Agave strictas are thriving. So it's not a general soil or cultural issue in the immediate area.


Hurry up and wait. My guess is towering boat-mast sized blooming structures will soon appear. I won't miss my grand mature Agaves because I'll have dozens upon dozens of pups to replant. And hundreds of bulbils. And seeds. Oh.....yikes!