You know, it's been a long time since I've shown you all a long shot of one of my plantings - shame on me! I just get so caught up in plant beauty shots... and, to be frank, the ole garden hasn't been herself lately...

Front Garden : "There you go again, talking smack about me!"
Germinatrix : "I'm not talking smack, I'm just letting people know that every garden has a little slump -"
FG : "Slump! Slump? Look at all the other front yards during winter! Nothing! Nada! I try so hard for you...
Germi : "Okay, let's not get into this in front of everybody."
FG : "Are you trying to shut me down?! I have a voice! I matter! What kind of a relationship is this if you constantly silence me?"
Germi : "You are my Front Garden! You are so visible! I'm always putting images of you on the blog..."
FG : "Not as much as Back Garden."
Germi : "Oh, come on. You're being a little nit picky, now. I mean, what do you want from me?"
FG : "I think we need to go into counseling."
Germi : "You have GOT to be kidding me!"
FG : "See? You never take me seriously! I'm just the "Front Yard"... people just pass through me on the way into the house, and then where do they end up - in the Back Garden! You don't even call it 'Back Garden'! You call it THE Garden!"
Germi : "You are so hypersensitive."
FG : "Stop telling me what I am!"
Germi : "Anyway, there is no such thing as couples therapy for a gardener and her garden."
FG : "Well there should be! I've gotta go - I have some blooming to do - not that you'd notice..."
Germi : "Wait a minute - I just put up a shot of the Beschornia the other day!"
FG : "Talk to the hand."

Heavy sigh. Does anybody else have this kind of a situation with their gardens or is it just me? Maybe there SHOULD be therapy for gardeners!

Last year Elysian Landscapes did a fantastic hillside garden - the client wanted it to be bold and tough, so I called upon one of my favorite hillside plants that is big and superbad, superbold, and supertough ... drumroll, please ... Echium fatuousum or ( it's evocative common name ) Pride of Madeira.

This plant makes me think about the dramatic coast of California, the rugged hillsides that just up from the sea ... in the spring, Echiums are dotting the hills, stretching those awesome spires toward the sky that is the exact shade of blue as the flowers. It is a lovely thing to see. I love being able to bring these plants into gardens, because they really take your breath away when they are in bloom.

Out of bloom, the sage green leaves, long and pointy, make a lovely background for the summer bloomers that come up after the cerulean antlers of the Pride of Madeira have disappeared.

I wish there was a dwarf version of this plant, because it is too big for many gardens. But since there isn't - or at least not that I know of - I say be bold and plant this fierce giant in a corner and let it dominate. I 've seen it with it's lower branches pruned out and turned into a tree - and it looked tremendous. I'd underplant it with some Euphorbia martinii, Aeonium 'Zwartkopf', and Salvia 'Maynight' - now that would be a hot moment in any garden ... the Echium is evergreen and blooms in the spring, the Euphorbia is also evergreen and blooms at the same time as the Echium, the Aeonium's dark good looks give the planting year-round focus, and the Salvia gives a beautiful deep purple summer blossom. Now add a grass, like Pennisetum orientale, and you've got the fall taken care of, too.

I like that. I might have to rip out something in my garden right now so I can plant this!

Oh, the heady smell of spring; it's Jasmine polyanthum blooming and filling the air with it's light, sweet fragrance. I can't get enough of it when I'm walking around the neighborhood, which is a good thing, because it is draped on almost every fence or climbing up every arbor I see.

Some people can't stand the smell or sight of it - too common, too overdone. I understand, but somehow I am always taken by that first bloom and the perfume that comes with it. For some reason, I don't mind that this vine is so ubiquitous, I enjoy it - the delicate pink buds, the clean white flowers, the fringe-y leaves, and that heavenly smell. It makes me think of rolling lawns and baby lambs and bunny rabbits ... ah, spring...

And then I think about how impossible it is to keep the vine looking good after that first blush without constant cutting, and how ratty the neighborhood fences are going to look in three weeks with crunchy brown jasmine flowers clinging to the yards and yards of blown-out vines.

Sigh. Can't I just enjoy the moment? And can't I be thankful that my neighbors have planted Jasmine polyanthum so that I can enjoy this lovely fragrant moment without having to plant it in my own garden, where I would have to deal with the crunchy, ratty aftermath?

Yes. I will enjoy, and be thankful.

I wish our computers had Smell-O-Vision so you could catch a whiff!

OMIGOD, everybody - it's happening. When I first started blogging, I kicked myself because the most dramatic bloom in my garden had just finished. I waited until the next year, but nothing happened - and now, when I thought it would never happen again, my Beschornia yuccoides is sending up a magnificent bloom spike.

My goodness, the name of this blog should be "Bloom Spike", considering how much I've been talking about them lately!

I found out about Beschornias a few years ago, and they have become one of my favorites. The leaves are a beautiful blue/green, and they are evergreen for us here in SoCal. They hail from Mexico, and they grow well in dry temperate gardens all over the world, luckily for everyone out there who loves the unusual! As a foliage plant the Beschornia is something like a cross betwen a yucca and an agave, but it's flower is ... a thing to behold. I don't really think you can call it beautiful, or even pretty - but it is a wonder. To behold.

And behold it we will! I'll be snapping pictures throught the stages of bloom so you can all enjoy this with me. Fasten your seatbelts!

I have a huge Aloe marlothii named Willard - I named him Willard because he is covered with thorns, so he looks pretty creepy and unapproachable. But I love him. When I got him, he had the most magnificent candleabra of a bloom spike on him - in fact, I still have the dried spike... it looks like antlers. For four years, I have been waiting patiently for Willard to bloom again - to make me the happiest gardener in the world with that magnificent blossom of his, but I have waited in vain. I think he needs something to inspire him ... maybe a female Aloe marlothii - a Wilma!

Or Aloe viagra?

Suggestions?
(photos courtesy MZ)

I blab on and on about succulents - Agave this, Aloe that, Yucca the other ... but if Ididn't have a strong supporting cast of shrubs and perennials my garden would have no surprise, no lushness, no je ne sais quois.

Right now, one of my favorite things to look at is a corner of my backyard where a big potted Agave willmorriana is being cuddled by a team of shrubbery - an Elaeagnus 'Gilt Edge' and a Coleonema 'Sunset Gold' (one of my favorite plants of all time). The E. 'Gilt Edge' is one of those go-to shrubs that people don't use enough; I rarely see it in gardens around here, and that is a shame because it is SUCH a great plant. It does get rangy as it grows, so you have to do a little cutting to keep it in hand - or you can do what I do and celebrate the kooky shape! I've also paired it with Dodonea viscosa purpurea in other gardens, which is a mighty sexy combo if I do say so myself.

The beautiful Coleonema 'Sunset Gold' can do no wrong - you can quote me on this. Anywhere you put it, it's bright greenish yellow feathery leaves will caress whatever surrounds it, making it's partner look better than before. It looks especially great next to strappy leaved Phormiums and waxy Agaves. I don't like cutting this plant - I think letting it find its own way brings the best expression of the Coleonema forward. And every year at this time, the tiniest pink flowers burst open, making C. 'Sunset Gold' look like a perfect home for faeries. I swear... I don't want to look too hard, lest I disturb them, but if faeries exist, they are living happily in this lovely corner of my backyard.

SPRING!!!
It feels to me like spring just pounced on me this week - all the sudden I see all of my early spring garden friends up and perky, and I wasn't aware of them sneaking up on me. They could have screamed "BOO!" and given me a heart attack.

One of the early spring stand-outs in my garden wasn't even noticable a couple of years ago, although it is probably one of the first things I planted. It is the lovely jasmine pictured above - I got it from Heronswood, the old Heronswood, Dan Hinkley's Heronswood, which was one of the most amazing sources for unusual plants (and the most incredible catalog ever). The jasmine was the teensiest little sprig of nothingness ... an inch of stem and two leaves - but the catalog said it would become a vine with glossy evergreen foliage, reddish flexible stems, and heavy pannicles of soft yellow bells with fuzzy pink centers. Sounded just lovely! I planted it near my fence and tended to it for a while, then forgot about it in my zeal to create my front yard garden of goth.

And forgotten it remained, until three years ago when I walked by my house while walking the monsters. There, mingling with my Black-Eyed Susan Vine were big drooping bunches of soft yellow bells with fuzzy pink centers! I actually thought my friend Michael had done a guerilla planting on me ... and then I remembered my Heronswood jasmine. Wow. What a surprise...

Unfortunately, I lost my order form and the id tag in the interim, and I had no idea what this vine was, so I've given it my own name:
Lonicera hinkleyana 'Pink Eye'
I think that works, don't you?
I mean I understand why we can't all go around naming and renaming plants willy nilly, but I think this does justice to the plant and honors the intrepid plant hunter Dan Hinkley, who I am certain found this vine clinging to the side of a mountain gorge in Yunnan, China or something.

If anyone has an idea what this Lonicera really is .... hmmmm...

Don't tell me.

Okay, I know I just recently posted about my beloved Aeonium 'Zwartkopf', and here it is again but I just had to show you all this fantastic combination I just spied out in the old garden - A big frousy Aeonium and a blazing Aloe spike!

Aloe season is in full swing, and the colors of my Aloe arborescens are just out of this world. I'd say the bloom spikes look like red hot pokers - real red hot pokers, not the plant red hot poker. For me, that plant is a big old waste of time ... am I being to harsh?

It's just that when I was a baby gardener, I planted so many Kniphofia uvarias (red hot pokers) and they were so disappointingly short lived. No bang for the buck! The idea of the plant is great - but what you basically get is a bunch of leaves doing not much for the better part of a year, and then a few spikes pop up, and they bloom for two weeks, and that's all she wrote. Sorry - that is just not enough for me... my rule is that in my garden, every plant has to give me at least two seasons of interest, preferably three. Most of our city gardens are not that big, and we need our plants to work for us ...we gardeners need to be ruthless!

But not everyone lives in the type of climate for aloes - so for these people, I will allow kniphofias to be planted, so that you too can have some hot spikes, for a little while at least.