Check out my first rose of the season! Readers, meet Rosa 'Eden' - Eden, meet everyone. Ain't she a looker? Actually, Eden isn't truly my first rose this spring; my 'Altissimo' has been pumping out flowers for over a month, and 'Red Ballerina' is studded with flower clusters - but for me, the season always begins in earnest when Eden blooms.
This climber was one of the first things I planted about eleven years ago. I saw her at a specialty nursery and was smitten - the buds were almost as big as eggs, and looked like they were dipped in red, pink, and green food coloring, ready for an easter picnic. Eden has one big bloom in May and a light smattering of flowers throughout the season - she is the only plant in my garden that breaks my rule of giving me more than one season of pleasure. All she does is look stunning May-late June, the rest of the time she's all woody canes and uneventful green leaves. In fact, every single year I say I'm going to rip out this climbing rose and put in another rose with a stronger repeat - or maybe another vine altogether (wisteria? ha ha); but I always give Eden another chance to convince me, and every year she does.
This year, however, she's looking a little peaked, a bit worn out. I'll bet I'm not going to have a spectacular bloom. In that case, do I do the work to revitalize this climber, or do I do what I've been threatening to do for so many years now and just call it a day with the old girl? Hmmm... we'll have to see what unfolds...

A reader from the Southeast, Keeganp, needs some serious help. Her boyfriend is boxwood crazy, and it is driving her 'round the bend. She says that all they have in their garden is boxwood - box topiaries, box hedges, box balls ... SHEESH! Although she admits that their garden is beautiful (box is a pretty classy shrub, afterall), she wants more! She wants color! I don't blame her - let's see, how can we sexy up her garden?
Okay- many people will think I'm a fuddy-duddy, but nandinas are absolutely indespensible, and look great with everything. I love Nandina 'Sienna Sunset' and Nandina 'Gulf Stream'. I don't know why they have a questionable reputation - they are great! Who cares if they aren't the 'plant du jour'?
Since box gives plenty of evergreen structure, I think a small deciduous tree in a great color is called for - my favorite - Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', and it works beautifully in the Southeast.
If pumped up color is called for, then Corydalis 'Berry Exciting', with purple flowers and bright yellow gold foliage, is the plant answering that call! I think it would work in the boxwood garden, especially if Euphorbia 'Martinii' is planted nearby.
That's a few to start with - does anyone have other suggestions?

Wisteria!!! Wisteria!!! People lose their cool over this woody vine - they see one, they go nuts; the pendulous blossoms, all grape-y and sexy; the scent, so heady and fresh at the same time - AAAAHHHH! A beautiful wisteria in bloom makes me want to scream! I want to scream with delight and with frustration, because I feel that 9 times out of 10, planting a wisteria is just plain foolhardy.
You see, a wisteria is like the Angelina Jolie of the garden - it is used to being the beautiful, special plant - and it wants everything ... all the space, all the attention, all the love. Don't ever plant her against your house, because she'll take it over and tear it apart with her insatiable need to be twining all over everything. Seriously - I have seen a wisteria eat houses and keep on going, looking for more conquests - searching for her horticultural Brad Pitt.
The lovely wisteria in the image above is in Judy's garden... like other plant lovers, she was seduced and she had to have one - but Judy was smart. She built a super strong structure far away from her house/studio that 'Wister-ina Jolie' could climb and smother without causing damage to other buildings. Vigilant cutbacks from trained maintenance workers maintain this beauty - don't be fooled into thinking it is effortless!

Readers, I am so sorry you've been stuck with the image of the lovely lady and gentleman in a field of prosaic marigolds, along with a ranting post, for a week - but I killed my computer by spilling an entire cup of coffee on it. My husband has banished me from his brand new MacBook since I'm so careless (I'm sneaking this post while he's at the gym), and of course I can't blog from Elysian Landscapes - Judy would frown upon that, causing unsightly forehead wrinkles, and I can't be responsible for that.
I'm getting a brand new MacBook of my very own tomorrow, so we can resume our fruitfull relashionship and I can tell Suasoria how much I welcome her chiming in on plant suggestions. That's what a real garden club is like - why not our little forum, too, right?
While I'm getting things back on track, check out the work of one of my heroes, landscape designer Jay Griffith. He's what I want to be when I grow up.

A proud masser of marigolds

Reader Karyn asked a question about irises - she'd seen an image of a massed planting of them and was inspired to follow suit in her own garden, but the fact that using only one kind of plant takes up precious border space (and that irises flower for a little over a month, at best) gave her pause. What to do?
Well, I might be the wrong person to ask, because I think that planting only one type of plant (monoculture) is bad design, as well as being environmentally irresponsible.
Some very famous landscape architects and designers have made careers out of using huge groups of two or three plants in big blocks or stripes and calling that a garden. Sorry, but to me twelve grasses. twenty black-eyed susans, and a hundred yarrow don't do much outside of the three months those plants are at their peak. Many think this is the kind of planting that compliments modern architecture - I say "WHATEVER!". A stripped-down planting surrounding a crisp, modern home is redundant.
I love the complexity of well thought out plant associations, and in addition to being pleasing to the eye, this type of gardening is good for our environment. Using a variety of plants in your garden attracts more beneficial insects and wildlife, those in turn eat the nasty bugs, meaning you won't have to use chemicals to keep your garden looking good. The soil benefits from an increased variety of microbes. You benefit by having a garden that looks great for more than one season.
Don't be taken in by the faux- modern planting Trendy Wendys that look at mixed plantings and turn up their noses, calling them "cottage-y". They can bite me.

A daylily spike (my beautiful Hemerocallis 'Apple Tart' is blooming early) fell over in the recent winds and got lodged in an aloe. Today, a flower opened on that spike, and it looked to me like the aloe was wearing a blossom behind it's ear, like a pretty Hawaiian hula dancer.
The growing season is in full swing! It snuck up on me ... but I know winter is gone when I have to spend as much time in the garden as I can every day, so that I don't miss things like this come-hither aloe and it's fetching flower. Is this obsession? I guess it would be if it were interfering with my job. Thank goodness it is my job.
Browse through hundreds of gorgeous daylilies at Oakes Daylilies. You'll be hypno-tyzed!

I swear, I can't remember planting these beautiful irises, although I do have a vague recollection of a sweet woman dropping off a rhizome as a gift (that is a wonderful thing that happens when you garden in your front yard - other plant enthusiasts will thank you for your neighborhood beautification efforts with gifts from their gardens)
I'm certain I have the freeze to thank for these lovely flowers. Irises all over Los Angeles are as pouf-y and colorful as debutantes at a cotillion - it seems that a little cold does them good. In my garden, however, so much was killed and subsequently cleared that I think room was made for the sun to reach the hidden treasures.

I love mixing frilly flowers with hard-edged succulents, but somewhere along the way the agaves and aloes have crowded out the roses and daisies. This growing season, I'm going to focus on bringing back the balance to my front garden - I don't want it to be a purely macho experience.
By the way, does anyone have a suggestion for garden gloves? I can't find any I like; they're all so thick and clumsy. I'm keeping up the search, but if anyone has the perfect pair, don't hold out on me!

This is my tiny grove of Hawaiian Painted Bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris vittata), which has what I consider to be the most beautiful canes of all the bamboo varieties. I planted it close to my house so there would be a dramatic view of it's canes from one of my living room windows, like a painting...

I didn't say a good painting. Anyway, people tend to freak out about bamboo. Everybody has a friend, or a cousin, or a friend of a friend whose property was ruined by the simple planting of bamboo. They may have seen an image of a crisp wall of beautiful canes and green leaves in some fancy backyard, and so they bought a few bamboo plants and happily dug them in. And then the bamboo proceeded to take over the backyard, devouring everything in it's path. Before long, there are bamboo canes popping up all over the block and it is impossible to remove this stuff because every little piece left in the ground grows into another grove, and lawsuits from the neighbors are in the works, all because the innocent friend/cousin/friend of friend wanted a fancy bamboo hedge. And then the bamboo starts eating people - the plot for a new horror film - "Bamboo - The Running".
Because there are two types of bamboo - running and clumping, and the only people who should ever plant running bamboo are those who have nothing to do with their lives other than care for a bamboo grove. The rest of us need to stick to clumping bamboos. All the bamboos I plant in the ground are clumpers - I only plant running bamboo in pots that sit on concrete (because a root can and will creep out of the drainage hole and wreak havoc if the pot were sitting on soil).
So if you want bamboo, but have doubts and fears - plant it in a pot. And make sure it's a big pot!

Birds do it, bees do it ... cactus that survived my winter freeze do it ... This is what I was confronted with in my garden this sunny April Fool's Day.
Well, I never!