Irrational Exuberance

Trycyrtis hirta just emerging in the Spring

     Almost three years ago we moved from New York state back to California.  While living in Long Island's Zone 7 I discovered and fell in love with a few plants that really should probably stay in the damp, woodlands of coastal New York; Epimedium, Callicarpus, Japanese Painted Fern.   A few of them I just couldn't give up forever so I've mail ordered and imported them to an appropriate (or so I tell myself) north-facing, shady microclimate in my Southern California side yard. 

As I set about recreating little vignette reminders of my New York garden I am wondering if it is all worth it.

Today, one of my very favorite plants, Trycyrtis hirta, is in bloom after a yearlong battle with slugs, fungus, dry rot, wet rot, locusts, asps and invading foreign armies.

You tell me...Here is what I saw when I went outside to inspect it this morning. 

It is covered in these stunning little spotted flowers.  It's still just a baby, only two years old, so it hasn't yet grown into its full size or arching habit. 

Part of me - a big part - says, YES!  It is worth it!  Just to be able to admire this complex and beautiful thing created by Mother Nature (for no real purpose that I can discern, except perhaps as a snail Chateauneuf de Pape) makes it worth it.  It really is the most remarkable flower I think I've ever seen.  It's like a tiny orchid, but better.  The closer you look at it, the more complex it gets.

So, my next quandary is....Is this worth it?

Another tiny baby plant, from Heronswood Nursery in Washington State, Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight', aka False Hydrangea.  It will one day - and here is the irrational exuberance again - enshroud the stark whitish property line wall (as viewed from our dining room) with a dense cloak of shining silver green leaves and glowing white Lacecap Hydrangea-like flowers. 

Not next week, not even next year, but eventually...

Texture in the Fall Garden

Nasella tenuissima, Pittosporum Creme de Mint
and mossy fountain

It has slowly been dawning on me all summer that texture is supplanting color as a more interesting element in my garden.    Maybe it's becoming apparent now because in the midst of a very slow, gentle Southern California autumn, there is no fall color, not really, and it wasn't that long ago that I was awash in color at this time of year.   

Every once in a while, usually from the freeway, I'll glimpse what might be a deciduous tree with a shimmer of fall color.  Not often, though.  The blueberries that I feel compelled to grow in our alkaline soil have vivid red tips.   I'm not sure if this is fall color or their silent expression of reproach at being planting down here where they don't really belong.

Norway Maple leaves blanket
the ground

Either way, this small shaft of color in no way compares to the stunning oranges, reds and yellows which would fill the sky overhead and eventually blanket the ground at my former home on Long Island, New York.  





So maybe this is why I am lately noticing subtle and not so subtle texture contrasts all over my garden; summer flowers are mostly gone and as I search for some change to signal the passing season I find texture in lieu of fall color.

From this angle, I admire the texture of wispy Coleonema beside chunky Coleus lanuginosa beside a splash of Liriope beside old fashioned Cast Iron Plant. Each calmly asserting their form, much more gently than would a Sumac or Dogwood as their emerald chlorophyll slowly ebbs away.
It's really in the fall that the garden starts to come alive in California.  As the weather cools and the rains start to sprinkle or pour all the accumulated salts are washed from the soil and the plants are renewed. 

A contrast of scale; my newly beloved (as I have set up colonies all over my garden!) Coleus lanuginosa (really a Plectranthus) with Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' sans the mauve.

The Coleus (I know...for goodness sake, enough with the Coleus!) with our native groundcover Coyote Mint 'Pigeon Point' with the ever-present and armageddon-proof Rhaphiolepis 'Clara'.

My hope is that the Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis) is ornery enough (it is a clay tolerant, dry summer loving California native after all) to compete with the polite, but relentless Coleus.  I'd like it to weave its way through the coleus as a dainty contrast to the succulent, waxy leaves.

And to end the way I began with a contrast of stone against  plant:  Aztec man, purchased at a Long Island antique market, and very content to be relocated to the West Coast, nestled in a bed of Dianthus 'Ichmery'
(Annies Annuals in Richmond, CA.)