Design trends

Year-Round Bouquets

Want to be able to walk outside and pick some flowers to take to a friend’s house or bring inside to enjoy yourself? Not long ago I was looking around my own little garden for good flowers to cut for a bouquet. I had some snapdragons, hellebores and lily-of-the valley shrub flowers to cut. Now I’m thinking about what flowers will be blooming soon and what I might plant now to add to my garden.

Besides snapdragons that bloom almost year round and were recognized as ’Cut Flower of the Year” by the Association of…Cut Flower Growers, I have Crocosmia that will be blooming soon. Their arching stems and brightly colored, long-lasting blossoms will look great in a bouquet.

I also have old fashioned Shasta Daisy. Those long sturdy stems hold up well in a vase. Growing also in my little garden are Calla lily, Alstroemeria, Hydrangeas and Roses. Unfortunately my Flowering Maple (abutilon) which the hummers love, have a very short vase life is.

Until about 100 years ago, one of the most important areas of any large garden was the cutting garden where flowers were harvested like a crop and taken inside for display. Today our lifestyles and tastes are reflected in bouquets that are more casual. The bouquets you make from garden grown flowers, interesting foliage branches, grasses, vines and even herbs always seem to have more personality and cottage garden softness than ones bought from the store.

Flowers that lend themselves to cutting with long stems and a long vase life can be incorporated into any spot of the garden but if you enjoy lots of cut flowers indoors you may want to sett aside a small bed primarily for an old-fashioned cutting garden. A seldom used side yard would be an ideal place as long as it receives at least a half day of sun. Or how about that narrow bed along the fence you never know what to do with? if you’ve never planted in the soil of your future cutting garden, amend the soil generously with organic matter or compost. Then water to germinate weed seeds and hoe them off. Don’t turn the soil again as you’ll bring up more weed seeds. Now you’re ready to plant.

In shady gardens, fragrant daphne odora is a wonderful small shrub that provides interesting variegated foliage as well as flowers. Sweet olive or osmanthus fragrans blooms smell like apricots. Oakleaf hydrangea foliage and flowers look great in bouquets and the leaves turn red in fall which is an added bonus. Our native shrub philadelphus, also called mock orange, has flowers that smell like oranges and will grow in some shade as well as sun. Pittosporum ‘Marjorie Channon’ will add white with a hint of lime to your bouquets.

For sunny spots grow perennials like penstemon and kangaroo paw. Also coneflowers, dahlias, gloriosa daisy, delphinium, foxglove, scabiosa, aster, shasta daisy and yarrow are good as cut flowers. Coreopsis attract butterflies and are long lasting in bouquets.

Self-sowing annuals that have a long vase life are bachelor buttons, clarkia, cosmos, flax, love-in-a-mist, nasturtium, cleome and calendula. Annual flowers such as zinnia, lisianthus, snapdragon, statice and marigolds are great in containers where you can make every drop of water count and are also good for cutting.

Native flowers that last for a week or more include Clarkia and Sticky Monkeyflower. Yarrow and hummingbird sage will last 4-6 days.

While just about any plant material that strikes your fancy will work in a mixed bouquet there are four types of plant forms that naturally look good together: Spires for height and architectural properties with flowers like liatris, snapdragon, gladiola, salvia, Bells-of-Ireland as well as the strappy leaves of flax or cordyline. Round flowers such as roses, dahlias, long-stemmed marigolds and peonies provide focus. Lacy flowers are fillers- ferns, baby’s breath, dill. Foliage from shrubs such as abelia, breath of heaven, California. bay, ornamental grasses, grapes and other vines, herbs, woody tree branches like smoke tree and Japanese maple which also look handsome in a bouquet.

A deconstructed arrangement separates each type of flower into their own vase or container instead of grouping them in a mixed bouquet. Vary the size and shape of the vases and containers and group them together to create a unique vignette.

Design trends

A Day in an Enchanted Garden

Decorate your own old garden shed with yard sale items.

I’ve visited this garden in Bonny Doon many times including when my friend Kate was part of Valley Churches Garden Tour back in 2018 and it’s still as spectacular as ever. So on a perfect June day recently several of my landscape designer friends and I spent the afternoon enjoying delicious nibbles and being inspired by this awesome garden.

Because I’ve always enjoyed the stunning view of the bay from Kate’s house and garden, it always amazes me that when Kate bought the 5 acre property in 1981 they had no idea it had such an incredible view. You should see it now. The view was a surprise to them after they cleared some of the Douglas fir that grew close to the house. Now the area between the cultivated areas of the garden and those outside the deer fence are filled with lavender. After the CZU fire when a neighbor’s house nearby burned to the ground, Kate removed more Doug fir on another slope for fire safety.

When you first enter this garden and are greeted by Kate’s English springer spaniel puppy “Buddy”, as you walk past the storage shed. Now this isn’t just any ol’ shed. Kate is a yard sale shopper extraordinaire and it is decorated with repainted watering cans, vintage gardening tools and wall art, bird houses and pots of all sizes, shapes and colors.

There are so many “garden rooms” in this garden-from the Japanese maple garden filled with perennials of all types to the sunken vegetable garden that occupies the old above ground pool area that was sunk in the ground and surrounded by decking. When the pool developed leaks that persisted no matter how many times it was repaired, Kate had it removed and created an incredible sunken vegetable garden using galvanized raised garden planters of all sizes and shapes. From fruit trees to artichokes to tomatoes and perennials to attract pollinators, this garden has it all.

The generous decking surrounding the sunken garden has a gazebo covered with fragrant climbing roses. Colorful perennials, dwarf fruit trees and more roses grow happily in containers here alongside a seating area with a view of the bay.

Strolling past dozens of perennial and succulent beds, you encounter the fruit trees. Kate swears by the Frost peach which is resistant to peach leaf curl. She has others such as Donut peaches but despite her diligent winter spraying it was recovering from peach leaf curl. The Mission Fig tree looked quite happy as did the pear trees.

Then you enter another area with Japanese maples and a gazebo. Kate has moved several Autumn Moon Japanese maples from this area as it gets too much heat and sun and many were not thriving. Don’t be afraid to move a plant or tree that is struggling to a better spot in your garden. The one Autumn Moon that remains near the gazebo was a vision of burnt orange and bronze on my visit in early June. In the fall its leaves will turn vivid orange and red.

Next came the garden room in a shady spot with blooming rhododendron, Chinese ground orchid, hydrangea, coral bell, Exbury azalea, hosta, hellebore and a recirculating 3-tiered water fountain. With small pebbles underfoot, it’s a lovely spot on a hot day.

Surrounding this home are wrap around porches that Kate has filled with potted ferns and rattan garden furniture. She spends a lot of time reading out here with her puppy Buddy nearby. Her extensive collection of hydrangeas grow happily to border the deck. What’s not to love about this garden?

Get ideas and inspiration from other gardens, both large and small. They all have something to offer.

Design trends

All About Ceanothus

With deep blue blossoms Celestial Blue Ceanothus blooms for almost 9 months of the year.

When the huge numbers of California Tortoiseshell butterflies showed up around here recently, I learned a lot about the different species of ceanothus and how dependent we are on this plant. Because most of us live near or in a Wildland Urban interface we are aware of the benefits of ceanothus and other native plants. From erosion control to habitat, to seed and nectar for pollinators, birds and butterflies, ceanothus is a most valuable plant. A visit to any local nursery will tempt you to get one of each for your own garden. But are cultivars or “nativars” of ceanothus as valuable as native ceanothus?

Research is ongoing but there are only a few studies comparing the nutritional value of straight native species to cultivars or nativars. Many may have as high en ecological value as native species but this is not absolute. Dark foliage, for instance, does not provided the nutritional value for leaf-eating larvae. There is so much that we need to study.

The groundcover varieties I have used in landscape include Anchor Bay, Carmel Creeper, Heart’s Desire, Centennial and Diamond Heights. If deer frequent your landscape you should stick with Anchor Bay, Heart’s Desire and Centennial but the others are great in protected areas.

One of the upright types growing everywhere in the Santa Cruz Mountain is ceanothus thysiflorus. It’s one of the earliest native shrubs to bloom in our area. It grows along a narrow band close to the coast from Monterey to southern Oregon. There are many nativars of this variety. I like Julia Phelps with those electric blue flowers. It’s a hybrid of Wartleaf Ceanothus and Santa Barbara Ceanothus It’s similar in appliance to another popular nativar called ‘Dark Star’.

A great variety I often use when designing a garden is Ceanothus ‘Concha’ because it will accept summer water more forgivingly than most and tolerates clay soil more than other species. Joyce Coulter ceanothus also tolerates clay, summer irrigation and shearing better than other cultivars. It’s a good bloomer, drought tolerant and is covered in spring with wildly fragrant blue three-inch flower spikes.

Ceanothus is often said to be short lived. Most varieties need good drainage, little summer water and don’t need soil amendments. In their wild conditions ceanothus plants have a natural life cycle of 10-15 years although some live longer.

Several members of the ceanothus family can form a symbiotic relationship with soil micro-organisms and fungi, forming root nodules which fix nitrogen. This is a reason why fertilizing is not normally recommended. Adding fertilizer might kill off the good micro-organisms. Ceanothus are better left fending for themselves.

Ceanothus provide excellent habitat for birds and insects. They are good for attracting bee and pollinators and are the larval host plants for the beautiful ceanothus silkmoth. Ceanothus seed is readily eaten by many local birds. Planting a ceanothus is an important step to attracting more birds and wildlife to your garden.

Early California Indians used the fresh or dried flowers of some varieties for washing, lathered into a soap. it has been said to relieve poison oak, eczema and rash.

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