English Gardens are for the Novice

I admit there is nothing I love more than an English Garden setting, but the thing is that being a novice gardener, I have noticed that English Gardens are the most forgiving. All you have to do is add lots of plants, throw in a few unique pieces and viola! English Garden.

Easter is for Tulips

Every year I have an Easter Egg hunt for the kids and every year the tulips are out at that time of the year - this years was no exception. Tulips are a luxury for us in California because if never gets cold enough for them to return the next year, however, who can resist planting them every year afresh when they bring such rewards when they do bloom. Nothing says spring like tulips and spring is anemic without its harbinger so every year, yes! I plunk down my nickels to bring the purest joy of nature into my garden.

Cinderella of the Garden

Cineraria Senicio

I love this plant and I think of it as the Cinderella of my garden. It is hardy, humble and absolutely stunning at show time. I can't claim responsibility for it as I had nothing to do with planting it in my garden. It was quietly reseeding itself in front of my house before I moved in and I discovered it the first winter there (it starts showing itself around November and starts blooming around February and continues to until around June). I asked my neighbor - herself a great gardener - if she knew what the unfamiliar plant was. She did not but added, in words that I will never forget that it was a rather unimpressive bloomer.

As far as I am concerned, she could not have been further from wrong! After much searching I finally found out the name of the plant was Cineraria which is part of the Senecio family, indeed a very large family. The actual name is Senecio stellata. You will find Cineraria’s for sale everywhere in the Bay Area but they are Senecio hybridus, the short and stout cousin of stellata. It is almost impossible to find stellata for sale. However, you can find it at Annie’s Annuals in the East Bay: http://www.anniesannuals.com/signs/s/senecio_stellata_gs.htm

Stellata gets to be 2 or 3 feet tall and is much more airy than its rather ugly cousin, hybridus. It’s colors are brilliant and range anywhere from blue, purple to fuchsia. I heard white is a possibility as well, but I have never seen it. It loves semi shade and fairly moist soil. It reseeds easily.

I have taken to gathering its seeds and replanting them in other areas of the garden and hope that they will be growing there soon. Will certainly let you know. As a tip to myself and others, I read somewhere that it looks beautiful planted with ferns. One thing I do know, I love being greeted by these absolutely brilliant plants, they are one of the plants when in bloom that you makes you think that all the work of gardening is suddenly worth it.

The Scourge of Menlo Park ....

Jupiters Beard

The other day I was at the nursery and lo and behold I saw Jupiters Beard (Centranthus ruber) for sale. I, for one, am pulling this plant out of my garden by the bucket loads and am wondering who is actually paying for this plant, surely those same suckers could come and dig up mine and take it away. It is the scourge of our neighborhood. While it is lovely in some senses, it does have its serious negative sides. So consider the negatives before you plant it or actually buy it.

In our area (California) or any mild climate area it can become invasive and take over your whole garden if you let it. It spreads two ways – one by its gargantuan root system and one by seeds (hundreds of them). The plant will endure almost any amount of neglect. It easily adapts to either dry or moist soil, will grow in clay (or any soil for that matter – just the thought of dirt makes this planet grow), sun or shade – actually really deep shade is the environment that this plant will probably not flourish in, but don’t count on it.

In some parts of the country where it freezes and is only propagated by seed, there is a bit more control but here in sunny California the plant is a wild thing with a determined will to dominate the earth. It should be labeled seriously invasive. Now all that said the plant has some real upsides and if used correctly, it is hard to beat for its long showy bloom in difficult situations. It is the Ever-Ready Bunny of the garden.

Use it in the fringe areas or on rough slopes or banks. Plant with day lilies – they can take abuse as well and bloom about as abundantly and at the same time. When the flowers begin to fade, shear plants back to the main clump of foliage. This promotes continuous blooming and keeps the plant compact and tidy. Removing the spent flowers (about once a month) and their downy seeds greatly reduces the plant's tendency to eagerly self-sow. Keep in mind that there are no limits to this plant's generous nature.

It all began....

A couple of years ago, I bought a house and one of the criteria in my search was to be able to have a garden. Somewhere I got the notion that if I had raw clay to start with it would be more rewarding to build my garden from scratch and design it the way I wanted it than to inherit someone else's design. So when I stumbled upon this lot it seemed to fit the bill exactly. I knew it was going to be work, but I think everyone, underestimates exactly HOW much work it really is. I was certainly no exception. It took me years (and still have a long way to go) to learn about the different varieties of plants, their common and/or scientific name, what their requirements for sun/shade, water and soil conditions were.

First of all, I started with a huge impediment to my garden - in the middle of the back yard a swimming pool stubbornly dominated the landscape. "Keep it! Keep it!" everyone who did not have to deal with upkeep said. I knew it was going and I did not look back. Below is what the back yard looked like before the pool came out.

Taking an in ground pool out is not for the light-hearted gardener. For one thing you cannot do it yourself (unless you have big caterpillar at your disposal) and each city has lots of rules about what you can and cannot do. The first thing you have do is get a permit and city will require you to hire a civil engineer who will measure the soil compaction and determine if there is any 'unusual situations' in your project. There are a couple of ways to abandon a pool and if you are looking to find more information, the following site is good to get you started. http://www.poolremoval.net/procedure/procedure.html

You can leave a pool partially there as long as there is drainage, but in my case I wanted to remove the entire pool because there was a good chance that I would be doing some rebuilding on the site and if the pool was not completely removed, it could cause some real issues when the building did start. If you sell your house you have to list that a pool is buried in the back if the entire pool is not removed. It seemed like the cleaner way to go.

We threw some rocks in the hole and filled it with dirt. Thus the adventure of a garden on the rocks was about to begin. Because the contractor used so much clay (they get good compaction ratings from the civil engineer when they do so) I spent the entire summer amending the backyard. The following summer I put up the hardscape and continued amending as well as laying down the sprinkler system. It was not until the spring and summer 2 years after the pool had removed that I actually got to start on my garden. I am starting to learn albeit slowly and many mistakes, what areas in my yard have different needs and requirements. Just starting.