Going Hog Wild (on Plants)

Today was a really big day for my landscaping: the start of the fall plant sale at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens nursery. I made two trips.

I arrived 15 minutes after it opened (8:15 am) way out in Claremont only to find that the main parking lot was full and they were shuttling in customers from Rt 66. Sales in the first three hours were limited to members, but there are a lot of members.

My first priority was to buy plants that I couldn't easily obtain elsewhere: mostly currants and woolly blue curls. Once that was done, I moved on to a whole set of really drought tolerant plants.

So here are the results from the morning expedition.

On the east side of the house, I'm planting pink-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum v. glutinosum). This can grow 12 feet high and 10 feet wide. It can also be trained to espalier. My goal is to create a screen that covers the cinder block wall that separates my house from my neighbor's. It also has a pleasant scent and beautiful flowers.



For the west side of the house, I wanted to plant chaparral currant 'dancing tassels' (Ribes malvaceum). I found two in five-gallon drums and bought them.



Then I moved on to the west parkway strip. My goal was to finish it this morning (which I have, though I still need to put down decomposed granite as an inorganic mulch).

On the far ends of the strip (which is 7 feet wide), I planted woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum). While they look like penstemon, they will grow much larger and have a strong and pleasant fragrance. They cannot tolerate any water in the summer, so I've only planted specimens that don't need water in the summer. They grow to around 3-4 feet.


Next to it (on both ends), I planted white sage (Salvia apiana). This is the sage they use to make sage wands, but I will be really pissed if people steal the flower stems for that. These can get 5 feet across.


The rest of the strip will be blue sage (salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gillman'). It can grow up to 8 feet wide and is very fragrant. It also can handle being pruned back if it becomes too unwieldy. For now, though, the plants are still quite small.


Here's the completed parkway strip:
(the northern half):

(the southern half):

(and the southern half at sunset):


I then turned to the northern parkway strip. This is slightly narrower and is also the side most people will park on when they come to visit.

I saw some Indian mallow (abutilon palmeri) and thought it looked nice for the far ends. It has fuzzy grey leaves and apricot yellow flowers for most of the year.


After lunch, I drove back to the nursery for round two. This time I wanted to find more plants for the northern parkway strip and to start to work out what I wanted to do on the border for the right front yard.

I really wanted to do a medium-sized manzanita in the front, so I settled on the Lutsko's Pink Manzanita. Here's its description: "One of the very best ornamental manzanitas, named for the landscape architect who introduced it: Ron Lutsko. Dense upright shrub 4 -7 ft. tall, with dark glossy green leaves and covered with blossoms in spring which are blushed pink. Good for dry sunny spot."

I put in two (on either side of the tree):


Between the mallow and the manzanita, I intend to put in a flagstone walkway across the strip. I picked up some slate this afternoon, but not enough. I also plan to line the stones with blue-eyed grass (sisyrinchium bellum). While this resembles grass, in fact, it's a type of iris. It has beautiful blue flowers that rise out of it.

This should give you a sense of how the stone path will look (the indian mallow is on the far left of the photo):


And in this shot, you can see the relative position of the mallow, the path with the blue-eyed grass, and the manzanita in the background:


I saw a small fern-like plant with pink flowers that reminded me of the maidenhair fern I put in on the side of the path to the front door. I put this on the opposite side, where it will get plenty of moisture and shade (though it will go dormant in the winter). It's a Pacific bleeding heart "Tuolumne Rose' (Dicentra formosa).


The final area I worked on was the eastern border of the right front yard. This borders my neighbor and her sprinklers cover that part of my yard. Instead of drought tolerant, I needed to find plants that were water tolerant. I went with some exotics: mexican sage and fern-leaf lavender.

Mexican sage is very popular right now and it grows very, very quickly. It will form a decent-sized hedge in no time.


As for the lavender, it was the only variety on sale at Home Depot, so I'm just going to hope.


Here's the finished border:


That's it for a few days. Later in the week, I'll try to pick up some more blue-eyed grass to make the second flagstone path. I also think I'll put some more penstemon at the corner. Then I need to decide what border I want for the right front yard. Once that's done, I can put in the UC Verde grass. I've pretty much decided what I want to put in the front planter boxes, so I'm actually getting pretty close to finished.

On the west side yard, I'm going to put in a wildflower garden. Once I settle on what goes in that planter box and if I want a border, I'll plant the seeds I bought.