More: CA cottage garden in winter

There's supposed to be a HUGE storm coming in tomorrow, along with high winds. Then the cold air will hit! I expect the garden is going to look pretty sad afterwards, so I ran out to take a few more photos. We'll probably get a few power outages, too, so I stocked up on tunafish and canned soup and bread today, just in case [grin].

Here's a photo of our south-facing sideyard. This was a dreary straight stretch of absolutely nothing for a full 130'. Talk about narrow beds - the one on the right is 12" wide, and the one on the left is 20" wide!

Here's a photo of part of the backyard - you can see our back porch stairs on the right. This angle neatly hides the dying cannas, the sad-looking potted plants, and a few other unattractive-in-winter plants. The iron trellis is bare now as I just cut back the solanum jasminoides vine last week. It's another one of those world-conquering evergreen vines that needs a firm hand to keep it in check:

I purchased 2 Encore azaleas from Park Seed; one arrived dead. This one seems okay, but I'll probably wait to put it in the ground. It's being framed by 'Tuscan Blue' rosemary in full bloom.

The pink cestrum is loved by the hummers but half the plant is dead from scale. Sadly, I'm going to have it removed.

This foliage combo is in one of the two north-facing beds. It gets watered every couple of weeks in summer (the lower bed lives on the runoff from this bed). With a thick bed of compost over clay, most of the plants have done very well here. Oxalis siliquosa, which shows its best color in winter, competes with a chartreuse plectranthus groundcover. Spikey bearded iris leaves and a variegated alstroemeria complete an intricate but pleasing foliage arrangement.

This little pink-flowering grevillea is trying to survive between an extremely large hellebore, burgeoning nasturiums, and a windfall of dead leaves from a silver maple above it. It's very pretty, and I'm rooting for it!

Here's the hellebore that sits over the little grevillea in the photo above. This H. argutifolius is incredibly vigorous and very showy. It will remain in bloom for another 6-7 months.

This message was edited Jan 12, 2008 5:50 PM

I'm beginning to lose enthusiasm for the other hellebores - H. argutifolius grows so much better and bigger for me, I can forgive it for not being a good cut flower. This hellebore is just starting to flower, as it's in one of the north-facing beds and doesn't get quite as much light as its brother plant in the photo above. This one is next to a variegated aucuba, and those are iris leaves beneath it.

This message was edited Jan 12, 2008 5:50 PM

Dwarf Rhaphiolepsis indica - this is "Ballerina", I think - is one of my favorite plants. For some reason this one is doing beautifully, while an identical plant on the opposite side of this bed is slowly dying. Why? Who knows? Maybe it's just to give me a opportunity to plant something entirely different in that spot - woohoo, back to the nursery!

Generally I try to remember the Latin names of plants, but this one always defeats me - "Kangaroo Paws" is all I remember. I only put one in, but I think I'll get a couple more and give it some company. Love the dark red of the flowers, too.

Shrub lantanas suffer from our cold wet winters and mine are already showing rust on the leaves, even though they're full of blooms. It'll be time to cut them back next month when I prune the roses. I trimmed the santolina earlier in the fall, and for some reason exactly 2 flowers popped up afterwards. Only these 2, and no more! Quite odd.

In the front yard, right by the sidewalk, I mistaken planted a dark red groundcover rose. Now it's so intermingled with a lavender stoechas plant, I'll never get it out unless I dig out both plants together! In winter the rose leaves turn briefly red, making a pretty contrast against the nasturtiums which have reseeded themselves beneath. The rose will be back in bloom in another two or three months.

Osteospermums are weeds, something no one (including the Sunset Garden Book) ever told me. They are very vigorous about reseeding and hybridizing themselves, too. My dark purple osteos crossed with the white osteos, to make this white-fading-to-medium-purple plant that is springing up everywhere. Fortunately, they're easy to remove where I don't want them.

I've been trying for three years to establish a tree rose in front of the house, and I'm hopeful the 'Black Cherry' rose will live through its second winter and start thriving. But the bottom of it is naked and ugly, so I stuck a pruning of this variegated pelargoniums in the ground - and whaddya know, it actually rooted itself during the summer and is now flowering! I did try to remember to throw water on it at least once a week, so that helped. The long slender leaves of a dwarf agapanthus are next to it.

One of my favorite pelargoniums is 'Occold Gold'. I love the leaf colors and the flowers aren't half-bad either! On cloudy days, the yellow just glows.

This is a phormium 'Sundowner' next to an erysimum 'Bowles Mauve'. BM gets so huge - a big stiff 5' ball, this was one of the few places I could put it and still enjoy those long-lasting purple spikes of flowers. Although you can't tell with my crummy old digital camera, the flowers are just beginning to appear on the BM.

Polygonum is a really invasive groundcover. I'm a little sorry I planted it now, but at least I know that living in the city as we do, there's a limit to where even this plant can go (we're surrounded by large expanses of concrete on all four sides). Here you can see its tiny pink flower globes, alongside the stunning colors of oxalis siliquosa. The leaves at the LH top are a Melianthus major, and the statue is an inexpensive resin Kirin, or Japanese dragon-horse.

My neighbor gave me a few of those huge Resurrection lily bulbs, so I stuck them in the backyard. They actually seem to be doing okay, which is surprising since it's pure adobe clay and pretty shaded. Here the leaves sit above a variegated silver helichrysum petiolare.

I have three of the 'Ladies in Waiting' shrub roses, but only one is in bloom right now. Again, who knows why? The other two are clearly tired and want to doze a while.

I wish I'd taken a photo sooner of this rose - it's a new mini-rose I planted in our front stairs planter, and I love the color! This bloom's starting to fade now. It's a deep red, and the roses last on the plant for 2-3 weeks.

This red salvia is still showing some bloom, even as the winter cold and wet hurts the leaves. Behind it is a 'Yellow Wave' phormium, one of my favorites.

Last photo is one of my favorite plants - a variegated erysimum trailing plant. Not really a groundcover, as it stays a relatively modest 2-3' in ground coverage. But it blooms heavily, for long periods of time, survives our wet cold winters, flowers even in bright shade, and never gets any pest damage. Plus, I can buy it at big box garden centers for $3. How can I not love this plant?!?

Very lovely. Thanks for the tour. A tour of my yard now would be mostly dead stuff.

DH just went to the mailbox, came back in and got a gallon of water. Said he was being fussed at down the hill for bird feed and to refill the frozen birdbath.

Edited to say, you are right - I love the erysimum trailing plant too. I have never seen it around here though.



This message was edited Jan 3, 2008 3:00 PM

Jkom.. Lovely and amazing to see the difference a few zones makes... our stuff is sleeping and has been for a while here :)

Susan

That bright pink mini rose is swecome, and so is the pelargonum...I don't even waste my money getting named varieties of either thing-- they only last a season here.

Do Osteospermums like cooler weather, then? I get all my African Daisies confused -- but their growing requirements appear to be all quite different.

I hope you are not part of that awful weather we are hearing about in California, jkom.

Suzy

Yes, these osteos seem to enjoy the cooler weather. We have cool nights even in summer, and they thrive with almost no water. Not truly xeric - the blooms will fade quickly if there's too much heat and not enough moisture, but they're surprisingly drought-resistant.

No, our weather is actually pretty good: have had some cold spells (to us, 40 at night is freezing, LOL - we are such wimps) and just a good averaging of rain, very little real flooding. Rain and winds always bring a few downed trees (knocking out power) or mudslides (irritating helpless commuters) but you know how the media likes to sensationalize things!