Plant It Now

I just gave a talk on planting - where I live, in the SF Bay Area, this is prime planting time.  And on planting responsibly, because we are having a drought.  

People say we're in the middle of a drought, but how would they know?  I'm hoping we're at the end of the drought, and for a while the weather prognosticators were predicting a very wet winter, but we haven't heard much from them since they said "Um, maybe not..." a few months ago.  I realize it's a tough job, but seriously?  if you can't do it, don't sign up.  And if you're not sure, say so.  Although a career based on "Really, we're just guessing," or "This is what the dartboard/ouija board said" is perhaps a career with a tenuous future.  Or not...what does the dartboard say?

But back to the garden:
Plant things that need less water, please.  Get them established now, while the soil is warm (better root growth!) and the days are shorter (not so drying! less watering needed!)  And really, you know that even things that are drought tolerant need water to get established, right?   Daily water if it's hot, more often if it's stinkin' hot, less if it's cool.  The best watering guide is your finger: stick it in the soil up to the first knuckle.  If it's dry, water.  If it's wet, don't.  And if this grosses you out, you should get another hobby.  Or obsession.  Maybe needlepoint, because if this grosses you out, you are so not a gardener.

Another recommendation: don't plant a bunch of water-sucking annuals.  Of course if you believe in Murphy's Law, and you find your drought-tolerant cyclamen rotting in a puddle of water in January, you can be upset with me, and rue the unplanted pansies.  Or you can consider the cyclamen an offering to the rain Gods and be thankful the drought is over - for now.  

My friend whose roof will be off all winter says she's fine either way - either it doesn't rain until the new roof is on, and things stay snug and dry, or it does rain, and she is willing to sacrifice her hardwood floors and plaster walls for her garden.  For all of our gardens.  

So back to planting annuals: think about where you'll actually see them  - like just outside your kitchen window.  Or right next to the door you come in when you come home.  (Note: this would be a problem for me - I would have to plant flowers on the refrigerator in the garage.)  And don't plant annuals along the driveway if you don't walk down the driveway, or you can't see it from inside the house.  Just sweeping past with the headlights  once a day does not justify all that water.  

Remember that the color you can see at night - the only color - is white.  But yellow is so cheery on a gloomy winter day I always put some yellow pansies or primrose outside the kitchen window.  And for those of you who are snarking that white is not really a color, off to the needlepoint store with you.

Plant a pot or two of annuals by the front door - if you use the front door.  Or of you're planning a party.  You can ignore the water rules in a few pots.  Plant the annuals with something perennial and spiky, and something that will spill out of the pot.  Because you know when you're planting a pot, you're thinking "Thriller, Filler, Spiller", right?  After contemplation, if this does not make sense to you, see the note above about taking up needlepoint.

This is also the best time to plant perennials that are fragrant directly into the (well amended) soil in the garden.  Sweet Box (sarcococca ruscifolia or s. humilis) in the shade next to a door, or under a bedroom window, will waft soft clouds of honeysuckle fragrance all winter, and it is brilliant in a flower arrangement.  It lasts forever and smells heavenly, and no one expects that divine fragrance to be coming from such a mild-mannered plant.  I try to have a few sprigs in a vase by my bed.  I love waking up to the smell of the garden.

Daphnes are great - the variegated forms are my favorites, because they light up the shadiest corner.   Try Sweet Olive (osmanthus fragrans) in a sunnier spot - it smells like the most divine freesia, starting now and blooming off and on thru the year.  I have one osmanthus by the pool that blooms mostly in summer, and one by the gate that blooms mostly in fall and winter.  No idea why.  But never thump a free melon.

And if, like me, you've let some of the thirstier plants die this summer, now is the time to replace them with less thirsty cousins.  My hydrangeas had a really tough time, they spent most of the summer with leaves drooping limply.  I'm giving them to a friend who has springs on her property, and I'm putting in sweet box, and camellias (surprisingly tough) and some topiary boxwood just for fun. 

Sloat Garden Center in Danville is a great resource for less thirsty plants.  So is Orchard Nursery in Lafayette.  Passionate knowledgeable staff, beautiful displays - where are my keys?  I'm off to look for inspiration.  

Bamboo-zled

Not enough rain.   Weeds everywhere.  No helpers.  If I weren't so stubborn, if I hadn't invested so much of myself, I'd be tempted to give up gardening.  Maybe go in for rock collecting.  

It is an early year for everything.   The Chinodoxa have spread around the iris.  If you haven't planted it yet, add it to your list for next year: it is a most satisfying bulb, trouble free and cheery.  It blooms in the gap between paperwhites and the proper daffs, and it spreads.  In this case that's a good thing.

Hellebore foam at the feet of the ceramic bamboo - another very satisfying plant, and the only bamboo that will not spread - despite what your bamboo-zled friends will tell you.  Hand made by my friend and fabulous artist Paula Hamilton.

In the fall I planted daffodils in pots, the bulbs almost touching, with pansies on top.  The gold crowned sparrows ate most of the pansies, but the daffs are a huge hit.

Boxwood cones planted last year to give winter structure to the garden - brilliant.  I'm not taking credit for inventing the idea, just for translating it to my garden (stolen, borrowed, whatever).  And for the placement.  Hard learned, hard earned.  So happy to have that skill.

The Patio we built one mothers' day invites  you to sit.  But no gardener ever has sat in her own garden unless she was pulling a rose thorn out of her finger, or deciding on the best place for a prized plant.  Even with guests present the true gardener is leaning over to pull a weed or snick off an errant tendril of clematis.  Guilty as charged. 

The stone stairs, better with boxwood.   And hellebores - they carry the garden thru winter.  

Grape hyacinth tucked into odd corners at the edges of paths are blooming.  They get lost in the garden beds, unless you have them in huge sheets, but walking along contemplating the weeds, just a handful of flowers catch my eye, and are a note of happiness.

 Forget me nots.  Without them winter would be grim.  If you don't pull them when they're gone to seed and mildewed, but give them a haircut instead, they will bloom all summer.  And start blooming earlier next year.  I fling the seeds I've trimmed off everywhere, and in the dead time between winter and spring my garden is a sheet of blue.   

Spring is hovering just over the horizon, that bustle and rush.  Then comes the baking summer and the long evenings, gardening long past the time any sensible person would have gone inside.  But now, just this day, my garden is magic.  Off to look for fairies and photograph the violets.  Quickly, before this moment is gone.

What's Happening Now

Many years ago a woman asked me to walk thru her garden with her and consult.  I knew she was tightly wrapped, but I didn't know how bad it was until I saw her hellebores.  Every single one had been stripped of all its leaves, and the flowers looked naked and embarrassed.  I hate people who torture their plants.  And I wonder about people who are that tightly wrapped.

Reminded me of a Beverly Nichols piece on consulting on a garden.  After a very rushed cup of tea the wife walked him around, and shot down every suggestion for improvement (and trust me, there was a lot of room for improvement) with  "Oh no, Mr Gardener (or what ever the hell his name was) would never stand for that.  He is quite attached to his (fill in the blank - fishpond, hideous rock pile, or what ever ugliness was under discussion at the moment).  

As Mr Nichols was leaving, the husband made an appearance and asked about their progress.  

"I gather you have some strong opinions about what is to be done in the garden..." Beverly Nichols said to the husband.

"Who, me?  No, I don't care if she bulldozes or floods the whole damn thing.  What ever makes her happy!"

Truth will out.

The hellebores are saving my garden.  The freeze made straw of the grasses and the geraniums, the forget-me-nots and the Icelandic poppies - thankfully the forget-me-nots and the poppies have recovered.  Mostly.  And the daffodils are starting (and the paperwhites of course) but they are a bit simple.  I have been cutting them for the table - I have resolved to have flowers from the garden on the breakfast table every day we are home.  Check with me in August, but so far so good.

But it is the hellebores that make me smile.

I don't understand them as cut flowers.  Some stems last forever, some wilt immediately.  In the same vase.  From the same plant. At the same stage of growth.  But in the garden, they have won my heart.

They bloom when the weather is bleak (except for this year, when we could use a little bleak weather and none is coming).  They have volunteered in the gravel, where hellebores are not supposed to grow.  Pink and white together.

The whites light up the shade.

The dark pinks charm, shyly nodding their heads.

Their cups are beautiful, pink and green with shaggy stamens.  

Each plant is a mass of flowers, the leaves nearly obscured.

Some hybridizer must be working on getting them to hold their heads up - just like the guy who bred the Stargazer lily, the first lily to face up not down.  But for now, they all nod.

Did you know that before the Stargazer all lilies hung their heads? There is a myth about why lilies do this, something about Christ and being ashamed.  But gardening is full of myths (remember the guy who puts salt on his iceplant?  It's in my book) - and few of them are founded in fact.  

There is a new hellebore this winter, a seedling.  It has appeared in two places, and I hope it will be happy and stay.  It's called picotee when the edges are a different color.  I call it cheerful and am happy it's in my garden.  All by itself.  

What's blooming in your garden?