Hi Germinatrix,
I recently bought an agave plant and it is planted outside in full sun and is well drained during this summer. However, I live in Portland, OR (land of zonal denial!)and the rainy season is coming (sigh)...should I pot the agave or use a cloche or some other protection to keep it from drowning? I know others who keep their succulents out all winter but this is a young plant and may need protection at least thru its first winter.
zenchick

Hello zenchick,
I am only too happy to enable your zone denial! Like I've said before, there's nothing like an Agave or big Aloe to give your garden sculptural drama - and who doesn't want some of that? I think your idea of potting it up for it's first rainy season is a good idea (a cloche or other type of cover wouldn't protect it from it's main enemy - cold, wet roots). But don't bring it inside - let it live on a porch or under the eaves of your roof (I don't really know if 'eaves' is the right word - I mean overhang). Let it get a little wet and feel a little chill. Then next year, if you really love your agave and want to give it the best chance - improve it's drainage by raising it's immediate area - even 6 inches will improve drainage when the winter rains come. It can be as simple as making a mound of earth and shoring it up with some rocks, or you can get some landscape ties and build a small raised bed. Ammend your soil with some compost and a little sand, and plant your agave with some friends who like their drainage sharp, like lavenders, sedums, kangaroo paws, and the like. This way, you can take your zone denial as far as you want. Look at me, I'm like a pusher!

keep reading for a question from Nancy Z...

I'm a hypocrite! I'm totally Miss 'Plants Plants Everywhere', but ...I have no indoor plants. It's not like I haven't tried - I had two Giant Birds of Paradise flanking the sliding doors that open onto my back patio,and they looked fantastic- so I planted them in my garden. I replaced them with two beautiful Monstera, and they looked even better ... so I planted them in my garden. My new project is an 'Indoor Landscape' for my living room - and I will NOT nab the plants for my garden.

So I headed out to Potted, a store in the Los Feliz area of LA that is devoted to beautiful pottery, incredible outdoor furniture, and all the accoutrements of the patio lifestyle.
What a blast! Just walking in thrills the senses - the colors and shapes reach out and grab you. They have containers of every size and style, plastic mats and Chilewich rugs, fountains ready -to-go-, and windchimes that you actually want to hang in a visible place ...

I chatted with Mary, who is as fun as her store is, about our past lives in "The Industry" - she'd been a set designer for years before the call of the wild. I followed her around as she showed me treasure after treasure, and then I saw them - gorgeous celadon pots in a rounded square shape with a cool bevel on the sides. I thought they'd look perfect in front of my Batchelder tile fireplace - the celadon would pick up the tiny random bits of green and turquoise.

So here they are in situ - what do you think? You can't really see the variation of the color in the tiles, but it's there. Now I just have to find the perfect plants... hhhmmmm....

Maybe Giant Birds of Paradise?

A garden doesn't have to be big or expensive to be great - just check out this little grey garden by Michael Kirchman, Jr. (not to be confused with Grey Gardens, the awesome documentary by the Mayles brothers, and now a Broadway musical!). Michael is the undisputed King of Grey, and he shows it by making it the predominant color of this simple container planting. Before Michael came to work at Elysian Landscapes, I have to admit I had a thing against grey plants, for some arbitrary reason. They made me want to cough. I thought they looked dusty and dry - but it's all about using the right plants in the right way. Michael uses contrast all over the place here - The grey and white striped agave and the filigreed artemisia are similarly colored, but the textural difference provides a satisfying relief. The major contrast is the fabulous play of colors between the deep, lush green of the hedge, the cool river of silver below, and the eye searing hit of the orange Sedum nussbaumeranum in the concrete bowl. All this in a 4x4 corner and a few containers. Feel free to steal this idea from Michael. I did!
For a list of the best of the grey, read on...

I'm in the throes of plant lust. I just received a copy of Old House Gardens -Heirloom Bulbs for Every Garden. I have to sneak it into the house so my husband doesn't see it - I hide it in last month's Vanity Fair...he thinks I'm reading about the difficulty of being Hilary Swank, but I'm planning on acquiring some serious heirloom bulbs.

Living in a hot place, heirloom bulbs aren't my gardening forte, but I have a deep desire to have them in my garden. I know my tulips and daffodils will never be as glorious as the ones planted by gardeners in, let's say, New Jersey - and I'll have to re-plant them every year - but I am up to the challenge. Some might say these bulbs won't make sense in my tough, succulent heavy landscape ... well, we'lll see, won't we? I like being the mad scientist of gardening! And besides, part of the name of this outfit is "Heirloom Bulbs for Every Garden". And that means mine, too.

I know I can have success with lilies - I have before ... and I think my garden can use the mid-summer drama they'll provide. Operatic drama. My eyes well up with tears when I look at the images of them - you have to drop everything and go to www.oldhousegardens.com to see what I mean.
One of the best things about these gorgeous heirlooms is that you can grow most of them in pots - you can even put some of them in a dish of water and pebbles and grow them on your dining room table! The website has plenty of information and goodwill for the bulb newcomer, (like me), and the pictures of the flowers are so lovely ...
Keep reading to find out what I'm getting for my fall bulb planting -

I featured my friend and colleague Michael Kirchman's garden a few posts back, and the lovely photo (I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't take it) included two spectacular purple leafed trees which captured the attention of reader Issa Roseberg. She is now infatuated with the dark side of gardening, and I know where she's coming from. Before I gardened, I took it for granted that plants were green. After, I began noticing the grays, the golds, the variegation - but mostly, it was the deep reds and purples I lusted for. Those of you on the east coast have to take pity on me - I grew up in South Texas and moved to Southern California - neither place really has any colorful season change. I wanted to have that kind of drama in my plantings, so as a baby gardener I decided to create a Gothic garden - my front yard was going to be exclusively somber shades of burgundy, red, and purple leaves. Flowers? Only black flowers would be allowed, maybe an occasional red.
I never really achieved my Gothic garden, because I kept falling in love with so many plants outside my strict parameters. I also realized that the beauty of the dark foliage was in the strong contrast they made with the main color in all gardens - green. So purple couldn't be my new green, but it is always very present in every garden I design. Read on for a list of my favorite plants with red/purple/burgundy leaves.

The Germ!

Because I have to admit, a lot of gardeners scare me.  I mean, I'm hardcore when it comes to being a plant lover; I speak my mind. But there are limits. In my 11 years as a gardener I've met some really mean, bossy, snotty, know - it - alls. Once, a widely written about gardener from Northern California asked if she could visit my garden while she was in town (I was an admirer of her stuff and was so nervous and excited), and by the time she left, I was in tears. She insulted my hedge, turned her nose up at my tiny patch of black bamboo, and generally found my garden very underwhelming. What really sent me over the edge is that she made fun of my neighbor's erratically pruned shrubbery. Come on! My neighbor wasn't a gardener - no fair laughing at her plants! There was another woman who was in my garden club - she had to critique every garden we visited, and forced her unsolicited advice on the owners who were graciously feeding us and letting us wander through their lovely grounds. We kicked her out of the club. Maybe she thinks WE were the mean girls.
Recently, I was surfing the garden weblogs, and I started getting the same feeling I got from that Northern California woman. So many gardeners seem to just want people to plant plant plant, and they forget about what I think is the biggest point - our gardens are for us to enjoy. I read in one blog that they hated perfect magazine gardens and loved chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens. Huh? Down with "outdoor living". Why? They want everyone to garden their asses off, but I think they scare off more people than they attract to the cause. What do you think?
Until next time,
Germi

I love cutting my plants. It's soothing to me, grabbing my pruners and attacking my garden with a purpose. One of my favorite purposes - flower arrangements! Which is a misnomer, in my case, because flowers are rarely the focal points of my vases. I love the other stuff, the stuff that the florist usually throws in for free. If I'm buying things at the flower mart to make a big centerpiece with, I usually come away with bundles and bundles of foliage and one dramatic flower. In the picture, there is only one flower being used, and it is only an accent. I was outside cutting my Aeonium 'Shwartzkopf' - otherwise known as the black rose succulent - and decided to build a quick bouquet around it. I wanted it loose, colorful, and casual - but modern, too. I think modern arrangements can be about more than huge numbers of one sculptural flower like a calla lily or an iris with the stems arranged in a spiral. I love contrast - contrasting colors, textures, shapes ... so I always find myself reaching for deep colors, succulent rosettes, sword shaped leaves, and something light and airy. Everybody has their favorite things they like to fill a vase with - my friend and fellow garden designer Judy Kameon likes using the blooms of grasses because of their softness... I use them now, too. I copy her whenever I can. What do you like to use in your arrangements? Can I copy?

For the plants I cut to use in my vase, keep reading...

Every garden, be it in a backyard, on a roof, a balcony, or a windowsill, should have a water element. And by element I mean fountain. Creating a water fountain is much easier than it sounds, and I believe the simplest water feature (and by feature I mean fountain) is best for most home gardens. I mean, you could get all hoity toity and have one custom designed, or you could find a vintage stone extravaganza adorned with spitting fish and the like - or you could be modest; restrained. Think peaceful. Isn't a fountain supposed to be soothing, after all? I like using the same kind of glazed ceramic pots I plant my succulents in. Just fit one with a recirculating pump; the power cord threads out of the drainage hole - make sure you have a waterproof seal. Find the perfect spot for your fountain, add a grounded ac/dc outlet if there isn't one there already (an electrician can install one wherever you need- inside, outside - no problem), and ta-daaa! You have a bubbling, gurgling, white-noising fountain. Really, anything can be a water feature, as you see in the picture above, which shows one made out of a shallow, bowl-shaped rock. And can't you just feel the mellow? A space that invites you to curl up and escape into a good book, or a good daydream, with gentle splishing and splashing as your soundtrack - who wouldn't love that?

Okay. Someone has gone a little overboard with the garden statuary. I'm all for doing your own thing in your outdoor spaces, and far be it from me to tell anyone what they can and can't do ... but DON''T DO THIS! Not that a Domino reader would, but I felt strongly that this extreme offense against neighborhood standards (worldwide standards, really) needed to be exposed. My Grandmother back in San Antonio, Texas has one of those wooden things that looks like a lady's butt  bent over a flower patch, and she also has two wooden kids sitting in wooden swings hanging from an oak tree, all proudly displayed in her front yard. She loves it. I cringe. This front yard is in tasteful Santa Monica, California - and I'm sure to the owner, it is a fun work of art. It certainly is whimsical. Maybe if the owner would narrow it down to one theme; cows OR pirates OR wizards rather than all of the above ... no - I still think it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Then I started thinking - what would the creator of this tableau think of my precious triangular tile wall? Yes, it is all a matter of taste, but sometimes questionable taste is just the thing one needs. I like to call it 'The Quirk' - the strange choice that takes a design to another, often better, place. I say we should embrace the whimsical, the questionable, The Quirk - but still - No Extreme Garden Statuary! Am I right or am I right?

 

Dear Germinatrix,

I live in Los Angeles which, as you may be aware, has had a bit of warm weather recently. I want to be a good global citizen, but I frankly don't like the scrubby look of most native gardens I've seen. I love cacti, but I live in a Craftsman style house, and a rock and cactus garden would just look odd.

Is "native" a more important distinction than "drought-tolerant?" And what does "xeriscape" mean?

I recycle, use canvas grocery bags and drive a Prius-- but I want a pretty garden, damn it!

I need guidance.
Kitt Yaqui

Dear Kitt,

I'm in LA, too! Where do you live? Maybe we're neighbors!
What a good question - this is a confusing topic. I'll give you a short, simple version of a big, complicated issue. What I am about to say is very unpopular with the 'natives natives everywhere' contingent of the gardening community - they are to gardening what vegans are to foodies. To my way of thinking, the most ecologically sound thing to do when making gardens in Southern California (well, everywhere, considering the new weather patterns) is to plant with drought tolerant species. These plants thrive in low water conditions, and come from dry climates all over the world. 'Xeriscape' is the practice of designing and planting with drought tolerants and creating gardens that use the lowest amount of supplemental water possible. Planting native means using only plant species that originate within a 200 mile radius of your area - the idea being that these plants are obviously better suited to your climate. This poses a problem for those of us who live where you and I do, and want lush, colorful summer gardens. In our area, native plants tend to go dormant during the heat of the summer, and green up during our winter rainy season. So we would have greenery and blooms for the cold part of the year, but when we are enjoying our barbecues and swimming pools, our gardens would be mostly brown and crunchy. I like to use plants from Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and the Mediterranean - all the places that match our hot Southern California climate, as well as the old tried and true standbys that have been living happily in gardens for decades. You can have an eco- garden, and it can still be pretty. So don't feel bad about not going native Some of us are way too eclectic to be hemmed in - we need to use all the colors in the crayon box .
Read on for a list of drought tolerants for your pretty garden, damn it!

Dear Ivette,

I need help desperately. I have a great dane, a really shady backyard, and hence, no grass. I spent 500 dollars sodding the back yard and have not been able to get it to grow. The dog crawls in the bushes and has killed most of them as well. I would really like to be able to use my backyard, but just can't spend very much on it right now. (it's a rental, so I just don't want to go crazy) Do you have any ideas for ground-cover? Or should I just give up and put gravel out there? Thoughts??
Amy

Oh, Amy, fellow Texan,
I wish I could tell you that a lush green carpet was in your future. Maybe it is, but not in the space you're describing. What lawn loves - bright sun and ample water. What lawn hates - shade, lack of water, and dogs. Besides going wee-wee on it, dogs also like to run, play and roll around on lawn grass, physically stressing it so that it won't grow in thick and strong. Deep shade plus Great Dane equals no lawn. There are other groundcover plants that would grow, but your dog would still trounce them. One way I've kept my garden destroyers from doing too much damage is to plant thorny and spiky in front. Believe me, after a few pokes in the nose, they get the message.
Even though I'm a garden designer I love dogs, shade, and inexpensive solutions to problems. Like gravel! Don't think of gravel as giving up- think of it as the smartest, easiest solution to your backyard situation. Since you want to use your space, why not rethink how? If you put down some gravel, set up a couple of comfy outdoor chairs and plunk down a coffee table, you'll have a marvelous hangout area. I'm crazy about West Elm's outdoor furniture - great looking and SO reasonably priced! So instead of spending more money on a lawn that'll never grow, spend it on some furnishing and hang some twinkly lights from those wonderful shade trees. At night, you'll be enjoying cocktails with friends, and during the day you can sip iced tea in leafy coolness with your dog at your feet, instead of mowing the lawn in the hot, hot sun.
I can see it. It's going to be great!
Read on, dog owners w/ gardens...