Cyclamen: Rolls Royce of Winter Bloomers
Cyclamen is the Rolls-Royce of cool-season flowers. You can easily spend $60 for a flat of 16 plants. Yet, if you’re careful, you can keep cyclamen alive for 100 years or longer, which makes th...
Category Archives: Flowers
Start a Kids’ Garden with Nasturtium
Q: I am a second-grade teacher. I want to give my students a holiday present of a pot and a packet of seeds. Which flower, vegetable and herb seeds do you think they would have the most success with ...
Chrysanthemums = Lifetime of Happiness
A Chinese philosopher once said: “If you would be happy for a lifetime, grow chrysanthemums.” Mums are plants that thrive and bloom in proportion to the care that they are given. And noth...
Firecracker Fuchsia
Every now and then, a plant comes along that you cannot do without. You surround yourself with this botanical treasure. You plant it in your garden, in pots on your patio, along your front sidewalk a...
Primroses
When the weather cools in the Valley, and blooming flowers for the shade garden are sought, primroses are often proposed. In truth, primroses are not really meant for the Valley and, although they ar...
Cool Blue Blooms of Fall
And so, in the end, it has been left to the cool blue blooms of November to finally grant us a reprieve from the die-hard summer of ’96. Until a few days ago, it seemed that this summer, regard...
Too Many Flowers
The first time that I drove by that uncanny corner, with the incredible flower bed that stretched along the curb, my jaw dropped. And so it was the second and the third time, too. In fact, for more t...
Getty Center Rooftop Garden
The new Getty Museum complex, rising atop the San Diego Freeway south of Mulholland Drive, will contain a 60,000-square-foot garden and an expansive rooftop, succulent garden. This is not a coinciden...
Torrey Pines: majestic, yet delicate
The most majestic tree in Los Angeles just might be the Torrey pine (Pinus Torreyana) that grows in the Mildred Mathias Botanical Garden on the campus of UCLA. Yes, I know there are spectacular oaks,...
Fall Flowers
Never have so many flowers bloomed in November as they have this year. It’s not only the rain, which brings out the best in any plant. It’s also the expanding variety of plants that are a...
