The cactus with the most beautiful flowers
Nowadays, it is rare to receive a letter by snail mail. You know, the old-fashioned way that mail was sent, before the advent of personal computers and e-mail. Surely you remember. Not too long ago, ...
Tag Archives: fall garden
Heat-loving ground cover provides beauty, saves water
No doubt you have seen a “Baby on Board” sign in the rear window of a car at one time or another. This sign, it would appear, is meant to alert other drivers to the possibility of unpredi...
A shining example of a successfully planted slope
You can grow just about anything in our part of the world, and Helen Amritraj’s plantings on a quiet street in Calabasas provide a clear demonstration of this sublime horticultural truth. Up an...
How to get ‘Mystery’ gardenias to flourish
I am infatuated with my ‘Mystery’ gardenias. Flowers are large, snowy white, and powerfully fragrant and foliage is a lush dark green. Watering is done by hose once a week. Where plants a...
Plums, apples and the best kind of berries to grow
I have been privileged to harvest ‘Santa Rosa’ plums, grown in my own backyard, for more than 25 years. My first ‘Santa Rosa’ tree produced fruit for 20 years and then stopped...
Ideally, Trees Should Never Be Pruned
Whenever I hear a complaint about trees, I am reminded of our precarious relationship with them. As part of our immediate environment, we demand that trees should be as close to us as is physically p...
How to successfully plant lemon verbena
It often happens that successful planting combinations happen entirely by chance. For years I marveled at my lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla) that thrived in the company of some ‘Judy Garland&...
A parkway turned edible garden could help change the world a little
It might well happen that, some time in the not too distant future, Los Angeles parkways, those woebegone pieces of earth between sidewalk and street, will be transformed into vegetable gardens. For ...
Gardens provide oasis for reflection in trying times
This column is dedicated to the memory of the innocents murdered in Newtown, Conn. Last Sunday was drizzling and cold. It had been many years since I had visited the South Coast Botanic Garden on t...
Hedging your bets for low-maintenance foilage
If you are pondering low-maintenance hedge possibilities, think about lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia) before making your final decision. Lemonade berry has undulating, leathery sea green foliage a...
