Whatsit Bush

I used to know the name of these but for the life of me I can't recall. They're needing a good pruning and I'd like to find how they need to be treated. Oh, they're the two chartreuse/lime ones on the right. Thanks in advance,

Coleonema/ Breath of Heaven...aren't they wonderful? One of my favorites, though for some reason I dont' like the pink flowered form. I've recently planted a bunch of the white flowered. though...

At least that looks like coleonema...I could always be wrong...lol....is that the white flowered form? Can't really tell. The pink is lovely, but just never fits in with my place. Yours is looking great. I've been wondering why we haven't heard from you in a long time. I see you're still in one of my favorite places and I'm soo longing to get up there.

gypsy, I just work too much, that's all. I only get two days off a month right now so don't have a lot of time on DG. Do come up...would love to meet you.

Thanks for the ID, yes, that's it. It's the pink (actually it's more lavender) form. I'm no fan of pink and would probably like the white a lot better, but I gotta say the flowers are so inconspicuous I don't much care. It seems to be growing gangbusters right now and it's at the base of the stairs leading from the path to the front porch....won't be able to get to the front door before long. When I get a second I'll go research the best way and time to prune them.

BTW, tomorrow is my favorite Cambria happening. The Presbyterian church has a thrift sale three times a year and they are wonderful! Items are marked with little colored stickers, 25¢ , 50¢ and $1....if it's something really big like a couch or a desk it might be $5 or $10.....and they usually give you a break if your bill is over $20. Don't know where their volunteers have been for the past 40 years but I'm happy with the prices. I always pick up gardening containers for 25¢ (I'm talking 5 gal size or larger here), extra keyboards for 50¢ and things to make into toys for Rupert and the kitties. Last time I got a perfect Dremel for 50¢ with a bunch of cool attachments. Sorry, just had to share my excitement.

My coleonema had tons of little pink flowers and somehow it just offended me, so I pruned it right out of the ground.....I would love to find these with no flowers at all as what I'm attracted to is the wonderful wispy growth and scent. What is the shop/Bakery? Whatever it is,on the street directly behind Robin's? They had a couple of coleonemas flanking the steps to the door that were beautiful. I can't wait for mine to be full grown...I planted 8 but think I need more...lol....

I only grow the lime green one because I love that color in the garden, great contrasts with greens. I have it in very poor clay soil, filtered sun, rarely water it so it's probably not up to the size it should but it seems happy for the last 3-4 years in those spots so I can't complain. The tiny pink blooms are small enough not to bother me as I don't do pink here either.

So, Stella, is the one you have the lime green? That's why I wasn't sure of its ID, the lime green color. Hmmm, I don't think I've seen that one..the white forms that I planted are one gallon size and just now beginning to 'wisp' a bit and though the new foliage is lighter in color, I don't believe it will be lime green. They'd been trimmed to a more compact form for 'sales presentation'.I may need to look for the lime green..

Very definitely lime green, actually I call it bright chartreuse. Here's the specific cultivar: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=coleonema+sunset+gold&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=ZyNzSr-yIIqgswPa4Pn5CA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4

I was hesitant to post this photo because I can't tell you who took it. Got it off the internet, but isn't it great? I love the purple with the chartreuse and wish I had the money to invest in about a dozen of each plant for one side of my yard that needs a screen.

Edited to say these are: Golden Italian Cypress, Salvia Leucantha and Coleonema Sunset Gold.

This message was edited Jul 31, 2009 10:13 AM

DG PF only has one image, maybe you can add yours as well and add comments
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/92154/

Maybe I should take a photo with the plant a little more prominent in it. I'll do that, thanks for reminding me Sue.

Always a good reason to grab a camera and shoot new pictures!

Sunset Gold! That was it! Yes, I definitely have to get that. I love playing different plants off of the leucanthas, their royal purple goes with/ contrasts so well with so many other plants. I love s.leucantha with tagetes lemmonii. A long border of that is just spectacular...actually,maybe I've mentioned this before, stella, but the place where I saw that combo and fell in love with it was at Linn's Restaurant out off of Santa Rosa Creek Rd.
I've become rather jaded lately about having all of these plants and always needing more, so I've actually been able to go to nurseries and come home with nothing...to let go of the obsession...and then I see the leucanthas with the lime coleonema...well, gotta have that......I mean, I've already got the leucanthas, right? Well, really, I was already heading down that long, slippery slope after spending some time reading about the bush fuchsias this a.m...

Sherry, are we related?!! ^_^

Oh, undoubtedly...do you have hundreds of plants sitting around in pots?

Welcome to the family....hundreds. Probably 30 different pots with just clematis, another 30 with callas of different sorts and I wouldn't even want to try to count the succulents growing big in their pots and getting ready to be in the rock garden.....that I still haven't had time to put together. Time, I need more time!

Reminds me of something I saw in Trader Joe's today called Lemon Juniper. It had a tag on it that said, 'Smell Me' but of course I couldn't smell a thing.
Love that lime color with the purple.

Yep, my backyard can be mistaken for a nursery!

Stella,beautiful pic of the Golden Italian Cypress, Salvia Leucantha and Coleonema Sunset Gold.My Mom lives in Los Osos near to you and is looking for deer resistant plants.Are these plants good candidates for a front yard with sandy soil?.

Absolutely perfect BeaHive. Deer resistant, the live in sandy soil at my place and need zero attention....except they're getting a little too large for the path. I would definitely recommend this combo for those conditions.

Great..if I may borrow your pic I would like to send it to my mom for some inspiration. I think she will love the combo.

Please read the post with that one. I found it on the internet and have no clue who took it....just don't quote that I took the picture please. Otherwise, hey, I found it on google images so I'd say as long as you don't use it for commercial purposes you have every right to show it to your mom too. BTW, I don't have the Golden Italian Cypress (yet) but another thing that looks wonderful with the other two is statice. Again, deer resistant and drought tolerant and gives you that purple when the salvia isn't in bloom. Personally I'd love to see something orange in there to finish the color wheel, but haven't figured out anything large enough to say "wow."

Funny Stella. She just bought a whole bunch of statice and planted it. The man at her local nursery also said it was deer resistant. The next morning every last flower bud was eaten. She is very frustrated as you can imagine. Between the deer and the rabbits. She loves the animals but hates what they do to her yard.

Will Orange cosmos grow down there? That would be nice to finish your color wheel!

Orange cosmos would definitely do it, but it might be a little too wimpy for the composition....and only lasts a short while. What is orange and big, loves sand and sun and blooms for more than a couple of months a year?

PS: I can't believe they ate her statice! I think I'd be putting something outside the fence line for them to feed on if they're that hungry.

That Sunset Gold Coleonema has to be in full direct sun or it will go green in nothing flat. Also, if not given enough sun it gets all leggy and straggley (sp?) looking.

I planted 15 of them in what I thought was full sun and within a month they were your basic green color...(in a western exposure). I dug them up and moved them to a southern exposure and they reverted back to gold. This turned out to be a good thing after all because I used those pink variegated rose colored Berberis behind them and the effect was really nice.

Her house backs to open space and she had so much trouble she put in a stucco spanish style fence to match her house. That helps in the back except for the rabbits who have burrowed underneath it. The deer munch on just about everything. I have sent her more Bearded Iris and daylilys as they do not seem to bother those so far, but she wants more variety. Roses are out and the grasses such as pampus grass has gotten way out of control in her neighborhood.

Siberian wallflowers could work. They do come in orange. They bloom about 8-9 months up here.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2103/

Stella: Orange, and big, and likes sand and blooms longer than a month or two ?

Leonotis leonurus (Lions Tail ) ?????

or are you looking more for an annual type low grower?

This message was edited Jul 31, 2009 8:51 PM

I think the Siberian wallflower might not like such dry conditions.

The Leonotis would work great...I'd still like a more "wow" orange band though....but I'll probably tuck a lion's tail in there just the same....thanks for that.

I grew the purple ones when I lived in CA (east bay )Summers were 100+ and it was dry.
gardengate magazine online has a list of 61 orange flowers, shrubs etc.. check it out.

http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/extras/61orange2.php

There are lots of sites to be found by googling re: rabbit and deer resistant plants, and I love High Country Gardens catalogs, because each plant listed has symbols showing whether or not they are deer resistant / rabbit resistant.
Thanks for the info on the coleonemas,JD...I like mine wispy, scraggly...lol....but I would definitely want them to retain their golden/ lime coloring...which works okay, because the s.leucanthas would be in full sun also...now just need to figure out where to squeeze them in.

Thanks for the GG magazine link. What do you think of a really bright alstromeria tucked in there. They're tall enough that the flowers would flop over on the coleonemas. They pretty much like the same conditions and if I plant them just before the winter rains then I wouldn't have to water the drought-loving plants when they don't like it.

I just finished trimming back around 2-3" of the new growth on the coleonemas. I was thinking about the pink flower issue. Could it be that because these have been trimmed regularly they don't have that many blooms, whereas the untrimmed floppy ones might? Just a thought.

Stella, I grow this orange wallflower, picked up at Target, I have about 4 of them scattered around. They bloom for months and are drought tolerant. Once they get scraggly looking, I shear them back and they grow back into the nice mound as picture in this PF.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/159265/

Another great orange with long blooming power is African Daisy, Arctotis 'Pumpkin Pie' I have several pictures here http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/76305/ and I also have a brighter one, 'Flame' http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/76307/

You can see both the 'Pumpkin Pie' arctotis and the wallflower in this shot taken in April.


This message was edited Aug 2, 2009 7:47 AM

Wow Sue, both great choices. I like the Pumpkin Pie for color...great orange. Off the nursery right this minute to see what they have.

Wow, Sue, what a gorgeous flower bed. :-)

Ditto! Do they stay that compact and tidy, or do they need to be sheared & deadheaded?

I periodically go and shear off the dead blooms and trim them up if they spread a bit beyond where I want them to, in fact I have yanked out rooted sections on occasion and planted them elsewhere, and they have never failed to root and take off in that new location. That's my kind of plant! Long bloom season, easy to propagate into a new spot and drought tolerant. Once I find a plant like that, I have no problem eliminating others that just don't cut it for me and repeating that plant throughout the yard. I have a few like that now in addition to the arctotis. Another is Bidens ferulifolia, I can't remember when I planted this one but I think it was late last fall. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/238795/ This plant has not been out of bloom since planted, seriously! Non stop blooms, airy foliage and drought tolerant! So, I will be tearing out some ground cover and edging plants and adding more of these.
The other one I love for the same reasons as the others mentioned above as well as for it's blue green succulent foliage is Rock Purslane, Calandrinia spectabilis http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/112396/
I break off pieces and no matter where I stick it, it will root and eventually spread. The second picture really shows the blue green foliage color, great contrasts with lime greens and darker green foliage. It's sends out these long stems that sway in the breeze and have these cute fuchsia purple blooms on the ends. Last year I had this bad corner with a dead tree stump and hard clay, very hard to dig into even to add any soil amendments. Only weeds flourished there and I was frustrated. I stuck several pieces of the calandrinia around the stump, watered occasionally and it took off and totally filled in the area within a few months and now there is no more fighting any weeds there anymore, no room for them to get through. It will get hit with extended frost but I just yank out the yucky stuff down to the stub and it quickly rebounds in no time.



This message was edited Aug 2, 2009 3:48 PM

Thanks for posting those (new to me) plants, Sue. I'll probably add both of them to my "want list" as soon as I figure out for sure where I need them. Since my neighbor's adjoining driveway strip abounds in the weedy purslane, I'm sure this pretty one would do well in both of our yards.

Do you have any suggestions for something equally tough & low-growing (12" or less) that will grow in crappy soil in shade most of the time in our area? Since my watering system was put in, the space does get watered now, but in the winter it's carpeted with liquidambar balls. I'm thinking gravel....LOL!

Lovely garden, stellapathic!

Does anybody know where I can order a Coleonema/Breath of Heaven plant ? I fely in love with it but I can not find it anywhere.
You are making me so envious with your beautiful gardens.

Thanks

Rodica

Here's a vendor on DG who has it: http://www.forestfarm.com/product.php?id=1387