How many of us are california Natives?

I am not, I lived 11 years in Ohio, near Cleveland, but been here in Southern Cal. since 11. I was wondering if you are from this State, do you take any gardening ideas or styles common to other Regions and try to incorporate them into your home and or yard? If you were originally from another State do you struggle to make things work in your home and yard that are influences from where you came from or do you totally embrace the different styles of the Western Garden and home? Does that make sence? I had a vision for a style of cottage gardening, in my old house,(with My X dh) that I struggled many years to make happen in the High Desert. You see very , very little of this where I live and it was difficult but it made me happy when I finally got it and it felt like a warm fuzzy to me. Some neighbors loved it and others thought, WHY?

Me, born and raised.......though it does make it tough....my garden longings lean to colder climes and yet when I'm there I miss the things I grow here. That's what zone denial is all about...leaning one way or another. We want it all.
Sherry

This message was edited Feb 25, 2007 12:08 PM

and?????? there is more miss, you don`t get off that easy. What are your influences? California style or Western style or do you like things like lawn jockies and those culdron pots attached to x posts, like back east? Anything to add or do I assume no Chatty Cathy? lol

I lived in Belgium the first 28 years of my life.
My garden is a happy mix between CA and Belgium. First, I planted the things that reminded me of my childhood; orchard fruit with low chill requirements, lilacs, Descanso hybrids, because they do well here. I have all kinds of poppies, which are at home at both places!

I added citrus fruit, lavender and acid loving shrubs, we don't have those in Belgium.

But if you look at pictures, and neighbours say it all the time; it looks like Belgium.

I haven't had problems growing my "Belgian" plants, because most of them have low chill brothers, and teh only thing I had to give up are my Fuchsias. The hummers bring gallmite, and there's no stopping them. ( my having 6 hummingbird feeders out won't do much good in that regard either lol)
The very visible difference is; I STUFF my garden with plants. Belgium is very small, with 11 million people, so we use all the land we can, the garden isn't finished as long as we can see ground! Here in my neighbourhood, gardens are minimalistic.
Some people like it, some people hate it. But, one can't please everyone. I am happy, and so is my family!
Check it out if you need a visual, Christie
http://mrschristiecolla.spaces.live.com

Christie

I grew up near Cleveland, OH and lived briefly in Indiana and also in Cincinnati before moving out here 5 years ago. There is pretty much nothing in my garden that could be grown in Ohio, I totally embraced all the wonderful new types of plants that could be grown in our warmer climate out here. My collections include Australian/New Zealand natives, CA natives, and members of the pea families. And I practice zonal denial by collecting things with pretty showy or fragrant flowers that would probably be happier in Florida or Hawaii, and keep them in my greenhouse for the winter. Oh, and no lawn either, my front yard is entirely garden, and in the back I have a crushed gravel "lawn" for my dog, but then the rest is garden beds. In Ohio that would be unheard of!

Hmmmmm.....well. I've lived in a lot of different places and had a lot of different influences. Every garden has been totally different depending on where I am and where I am in my life. At this point I don't know how I would describe it...I like things *large*..big trees,wild things and a look that I suppose what most would think of as unkempt, but to me conveys a certain feeling that I can't find in "model gardens". No lawn.

Christie It is beautiful. I love the use of all the space and I LOVE BUNGALOWS!! Ecrane I would love to see pictures. I have practiced zonal denial in my last house but I can barely get anything to survive the open area that I live in that is wide open to the now gusting70 mile an hour winds. I can`t get my zone plants to live. i am working on a microclimate on the other side. Ya, your yard definatly is not Ohio, no woods and you have no grass but have sprinklers. Gyps, sounds sort of cottagey in it`s informality. i love that too. thanks for playing. Dawn

I have a bunch of pics in my diary--nothing looks like much yet because I just moved into this house in June and had to start from scratch on the landscaping, and by the time I got things planned out and got on the calendar with the landscaping guys, nothing got in the ground until November/December. So it doesn't look very interesting yet, but you can at least see the before and after of what I started with and hopefully imagine the potential of what it will look like once things grow a bit!
http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/m/ecrane3/

I too well understand that, YOU well know my plights here. I have barely started, myself after three years of fighting desert weeds, crabgrass, gophers....Now I have a second area to work on. the first one took some hits in the freeze but is ok, it will recover by fall hopefully and be great next year, I hope. The other side, I killed all the grass, rabbits finished it. I am working on trees and nothing else on that side this year. It is too much. My new toy is my hope, the east side microclimate. I will look at your diary.

I was born and raised in Nor CA. Mom, Paternal Grandfather born and raised in Nor CA. My paternal great Grandfather was born in Virginia City but ran away from home at 12 to seek his fortune in SF. Happen to live in Phoenix at the moment.... Yep, I brought a little bit of Northern California gardening with me.... its very expensive. Nothing lives. I have very healthy huge cactus in the front yard and they do great. The wild birds love my cactus. I'm rethinking the back yard which is burnt up hibiscus (and other ridiculous plantings) from the Dec freeze.

Oh I`m so feeling you Aguane. It is a real hard thing to go from a cooler climate , where you spit and it grows to a desert with extreme highs and lows and surprises like we got this winter. Very depressing and costly. I cry sometimes out of frustration. I work so hard but I am in a habit trail hamster wheel, running so hard and going nowhere.

As a native Californian who has bounced back and forth several times between (coastal) Northern and (inland) Southern California, and who has spent a lot of time wandering through the Golden State's hills and deserts and beaches, and an even greater amount of time gardening, I SHOULD have a great appreciation for the state's native vegetation, and incorporate it into my gardening schemes. But no. For reasons as unmotivated as they are impractical, I gotta grow tropicals. Big, broadleaved, tender tropicals. You can imagine how well they fared in last month's protracted freeze.

But am I going to start planting oaks and manzanita and ceanothus? Nope. I'll join the high desert cottage gardeners, the ex-pat Belgian micro-orchardists, and the fog-belt tomato planters who live in hope that maybe, just maybe, this season everything will work out perfectly.

And if it doesn't, there's always next year . . .

lol It is painfully funny

I am a California native, transplanted to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. When I was a child I was so fascinated when it rained that I would put a chair in front of the sliding glass doors and watch it. Now I have all the rain I could ever want, and I still love it.

I wonder if I might be that way too if i lived there or Washington, I love rain, it is like the sound of the ocean, very rythmic and comforting to me. I loved rain and thunder and lightning when I lived in Ohio and I have been here most of my life and still get excited about it.

I'm a So Cal native, born and raised in Chino now living in Rancho Cucamonga. I sure don't like the changes I've seen in this area in the past 51 years. But I wouldn't live anywhere else.

I am a San Francisco Bay area Native.I lean toward cottage garden type plants.I have almost every plant from Annies Annuals in Richmond. Her california native collections grow very well around my home.In summer though behind the pool I have nothing but Cannas and birds of paradise.With a few Hollyhocks and gladiolas mixed in with agapanthus.My kids said they are going to do a bulb and tuber intervention because they think I over do it planting in January and February for summer blooms.I said to myself mmm.. at least they know what bulbs and tubers are. lol
I have some beautiful hyacinths and grape hyacinths right now here is a photo taken last week.

I want to live there

I'm a native back to 1849. Both sides of my family were gold miners. Great history in my family, My great-great grandmas family came out here in a wagon train that split off from the Donner party and took the long way around.
My Great grand dad lived with Emmet Dalton in Stockton after he got out of prison for bank robbery. My roots go very deep here.

Dad immigrated from Canada with his brother in about 1921. He grew up on a harsh farm in the middle of Alberta. Story goes that when they came across and were asked for occupation, my uncle replied "farmer." My father simply said "I don't care what you put down, just not farmer!"
I was born in Inglewood, where dad was one of the 1st Pepsi distributors. He sold out and moved to Bakersfield to run the Arvin Bus Line (now the Orange Belt.) That lasted about 7 years and we moved to the Trinity Alps (Big Bar) so he could run a dredging outfit on the Trinity River. That lasted almost a full year, during which I went to a one room school house. From there to Fort Bragg for about 5 years as a beer & soft drink distributor. There I got to see the filming of East of Eden in Mendocino (sorta looked like Salinas in the early century, but no TV antennas like the current Salinas had.) Thence to Redwood City to be one of the 1st frozen food distributors (Donald Duck Orange Juice & Eggo Waffles, among other goodies)
From there to San Lorenzo to try a Heat Treating Plant, selling fiberglass shower doors and finally settled into Real Estate Sales at age 54. We moved to Fremont after my HS graduation where they finally settled for their final years. I graduated from San Jose State and resettled in Fremont in 1967, where I have been ever since. Guess I didn't inherit dads wanderlust.
Yes, I am a CA native - of both North & South. ;-}

I was born in Burbank and have lived in Southern California all my life - except for a few months under duress, but we won't talk about that! Lots of my family moved to CA starting around the time of WWI - from Pennsylvania and Colorado - my parents during the depression. Now my brother who lives on the side of a mountain in Mariposa and I are the last of the immediate family here. My husband is from Yorkshire, but so enamored of CA, I can't see us ever leaving. I also have a hard time being very far from the ocean. We hardly ever go there, but I have to know it's nearby. :-)

Kathleen

Wow, you guys, A lot of people lurk here but the ones who have stopped and shared your lives with us, I really appreciate that. It is neat and I was wondering if any of you are going to the RU in Temecula?

I will be at the roundup, hellnzn11.

Beth, my mom and sister live in Eugene (not in the city) and love it there. I enjoy visiting, too.

Kathleen

me too great.

This is such an interesting thread. I've enjoyed reading your stories.

I'm a fifth generation native Californian on one side and a second on the other. One side came to California on a wagon train. They were Quakers and helped found Whittier. The other side came from the Ireland to the mines of Montana and then on to Los Angeles where my Grandfather worked in the fledgling film industry in lighting. I grew up in Southern California where the lawn was dichondra and around the edges of the garden were camellias, roses, fuchsias, honeysuckle etc. and perennials like snapdragons. I loved this garden and grew to love plants with my grandmother. I still feel a deep bond with her although she passed away many years ago. My mother for some reason hated Bird of Paradise. One of my husbands very favorite plants.

The way my house is organized it creates pockets of garden area. You can see photos in my DG diary. So I have a perennial garden, a meditation garden, pool area, gazebo, dry creek, shade garden... The big trees were here when we bought the house but almost everything else has changed.

My gardening has changed since I came to DG as I have sacrificed some 'landscaping' for some collections. Now I gather dahlias, iris and daylilies and Japanese Maples in addition to as many wild and unusual plants I can fit into the scape.

My garden gives me surprises every day. Right now it's daffodil time which is not something that I remember from my youth.

Love it, just wonderful. My bulbs just got foliage and never bloomed but the daf. tried to do their thing in Oct. then just froze up in the winter. The ones I forced in the fridge, just did nothing. I can not win here in this area.

The freeze hit a lot of people hard. Here the tulips aren't up yet so there may be some coming later?

Yep, why didn`t my gophers freeze, pray tell.

I'd laugh but it isn't really funny!!! My voles are having a wonderful time.

trust me, there is nothing funny about them WHAT SO EVER. Between the gophers and rabbits. grrr.Atleast i got rid of the crabgrass and desert weeds last year finally. I have no fun gardening here. I am really a masachist(masakist?) I`m too lazy to look up the spelling.

LOL.
You're a "masochist", hellnzn11.
So am I. Trying to grow stuff in Phoenix.
If its not the freeze of the century, its the hottest day in recorded history.
No wonder everyone puts rocks down as a ground cover.
I long for Menlo Park, CA and the ease of gardening. At least there if you wanted a cactus garden you could work around the rainy season with fitting the garden with good drainage.

I heard of it but don`t know where that is? SoCal? What is wrong with us? It is so hard and one abnormal season could wipe out years of begging and pleading and nurturing and shading and sheltering and......? One gopher, one heat wave or broken sprinkler, one vacation with a broken sprinkler..Stop me, I`m spiraling out of control.

I'm born and raised in Southern California.
My family moved to Chino from Santa Fe Springs when I was three, weegy and I were neighbors.
I've lived from Wrightwood to Palm Springs, San Diego and a few places in between, now French Valley.
I can not imagine what it would be like to garden in very cold climate... I admire the fortitude of those who garden despite of freezing temps.

Beth your rain story made me chuckle, you have to be from California to really understand that!

Nanarose, what an amazing story, outlaws and everything... you can't more early Califorian than that.

Doss your garden is beautiful and what an interesting story.

I like everyone`s stories. I can`t imagine gardening in a cold climate that has a long season cold, though it gets very cold here, it does not last. Gardening here is hard enough but to time a little 3 month season to see everything mature and bloom, is not something I can imagine. Bringing in pots everywhere and puting them in a green house sounds like a pain. It has it`s merits, the beauty of other places but here in California, we can have a little of it all and enjoy it nearly year round.

Doss, that's beautiful! I am getting up there to see you one day! Have to!
Dovey, if you don't want anyone to know you know me, I'll understand! (I loved my birthday poem, it's hung right here in my office. I hope I reiterated that many times!)
I cannot imagine living anywhere but SoCal, we just always have the nicest weather and today is a great example of that. Will be pulling weeds in my backyard all day and absolutely loving it.

I think I will get some good garden soil for my lasagna grdn. today. My dogs keep eating all the rotting junk in my L.G. dummies. I should rent a ditch witch for my sprinkler system. Hey all of us need to buy a lotto ticket for the big one. slim to none odds. whatever it`s a dollar.

*LOL*
You all have to understand Louise was a year or two behind me and in our teen years I treated her as such. *innocent smile*
Obviously she hasn't forgiven me... even though it was probably good for her character.
I have since revealed several secrets to her that she could blackmail me with and wrote her a poem for her birthday!
Even so and after all these years, either she still harbors resentment or she is still a little pest.

Knowing Louise... once a pest, always..... *wink*

*hugs to weegy*

I'm still a pest Dovey! I promise not to follow you around the RU and pester you! I do not harbor resentments, that was kid stuff and I am so over it! You're right, it was good for my character!
I love that poem by the way. I really go back to those days when I read it. Ouch, those bullthorns, we called them stickers and we were always barefoot and still am to this day.
Hugs back Dovey, I'm serious, I'm harboring no resentments and never did! (Yeah then why did I mention it to you at the RU?) LOL!
Mwah Dovey!
Got the whole yard weeded, we have flagstone walkways and the weeds were mighty abundant. It looks really cool and later I'm gonna paint my firepit and make it black again instead of rusty! What a great day.

I know you don't... seriously I know

Remember how hot the dirt would get and running from shade to shade until we reached our destination... I really remember that.
And getting stung by red ants ouch!

And we did it all without air conditioning is that unbelievable or what?

small world.