An update from Berkeley

5 Jun '07 6:59 pm

Another lovely set of garden pics to enjoy! As Faith stated, you do have such a wonderful variety of unique plants and I'm also fascinated with the blackish-maroon shrub behind your yellow flowering aloe! Is it a kind of desert plant, Mark? Thanks for sharing these lovelies! Very Happy

6 Jun '07 12:28 am

nice of you to stop by. That darker succulent is the Aeonium 'Zwartkop'. (I've seen the hybrid name spelled various ways, but that is how my sunset book spells it.) Somewhere here I have a photo of its flower which is pretty interesting in its spiraling geometry. It's very undemanding but I believe it wouldn't be as dark if it didn't get a good deal of sun.

11 Jun '07 5:17 am

Thanks for plant name, Mark! Couldn't locate your flower pic, but googled and found that it has lovely yellow blooms seem here http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Crassulaceae/Aeonium_Zwartkop.html I had earlier imagine their flowers in soft pink like the top of their rosette. Wink

Even without blooms these plants look lovely, don't you think? Smile

12 Jun '07 12:08 pm

The folliage is the star feature. The flower is more interesting in form than in color, to me at least. It grows well in my dry garden bed, which only gets water when I notice something suffering - not often.

30 Jun '07 2:08 am

Well it has been a while since I've put up new pictures from around the garden. New actors have appeared on stage. My big pink phormium Guardsman is in bloom for the first time this year and Yellow Wave is in bloom again this year. The bees and hummingbirds sure do like them.

The rest are pretty well described below each photo. I assume the Dianella tasmanica is from the island of Tasmania and I wonder if it also grows in New Zealand. Does anyone know if it is popular there, or perhaps a pest? (Mine is beginning to spread by sending out runners, even through my crushed granite pathways!)

30 Jun '07 2:52 am

Mark, I love all the exotic (for me) plants in your very California garden. I am especially envious of the dierama in your last picture. I tried unsuccessfully to obtain some 'Alba' dierama this past spring. I had been told last fall that a local nursery carried it and would probably have it again in spring. I tried for several weeks to get some; being told each time that it wasn't in yet, try again next week. Finally after three trips and several phone calls I was told that they never had this plant after all. The person who told me they did was probably thinking of something else. So frustrating. I will have to get it through mail order. How did you find yours?

30 Jun '07 5:26 am

My Dierama plant came to me as a seedling growing in the crack between some stepping stones in Ted Kipping's garden in San Francisco when I visited his garden during an Garden Conservancy Open Day several years ago. Ted Kipping is an arborist (tree shaper is how he introduces himself). He has advertized on or inside the back cover of the magazine "Pacific Horticulture" for years. I run into him all the time at shows and sales. For years he was president of the S.F. Rock Garden club and is a collector on a whole other level than either Gordon or myself. Anyhow, I was just starting to garden then and when I expressed interest in his Dierama plants he looked around at his feet, pulled out a ziplock baggy from his pocket and then, bending down to pluck something from between the stepping stones came up with a seeding you could scarcely see. I took it home, potted it up for a year and then planted it out.

You can see parts of his garden at the website for my very favorite garden, the Harland Hand Garden. Harland designed the hardscape for Ted's garden to provide a lot of places for Ted's plant collection. Ted has done all the pruning at Harland's garden for years. Here is the web address for the Kipping pages at the Harland Hand Website:
http://www.harlandhandgarden.com/KippingGarden.htm (Drop everything after the last slash to go to the main page of the site.)

I think the plants we receive this way from other gardeners are kept with special affection. The Linaria I have growing in my garden likewise comes from a good gardening friend who was also very inspirational for me when I was just starting out. This is the common, tallish one with the nice purple-grey folliage which has loads of tiny purple or pink blooms growing on spikes. Her's was the first fully mature garden (more than 20 years when I came the first time) I ever visited and boy was I impressed. Her garden was a classic English Rose Garden in back with an cottage garden feel in the front. Carol T. was the librarian at my school and three of us had a three way visit one day when we found out we were all smitten with gardening. Carol's garden just made my jaw drop. Mine at the time was mostly consisted of one large, cresent shaped bed with several other plants scattered around what was essentially a barren weed lot. She always brought friends to our Garden/Studio parties and would tell them how much it had changed. She just sold her house this year and moved 'home' to Colorado where she had grown up. I can't wait to see what she has done there.

Well that was a whole more than you asked for. The good part about virtual communication is that you can skim and scan when the other person goes on too long!

30 Jun '07 6:09 am

This has been so interesting,Mark,with lovely photos.I got a surprise to see'guardsman'then realised it was a flax(phormium)flower.The native birds here absolutely love it and get the nectar from its throat.One of my favourite trees is the Jacaranda.It is hard to grow here in the Waikato area because of severe frosts,but in Auckland and the coasts it can be seen.You must have a really pleasant climate for all the wonderful plants you have there.I will check the website you mentioned,thanks,I have a notebook to write down garden sites.
Dixie.

30 Jun '07 6:50 am

you are absolutely right about the climate here. The lowest temperatures on record here in the past twenty years ranged from 36 to 23 F (2 to -5 C). The average hottest temperature around here during that same time period was 97 F (36 C), but normal temperature range in summer is between 60 to 75 F (16 to 24 C). As a result, when I talk to folks like Chris and Gordon on this site as well as friends in Oregon and Washington north of us, I always feel like I have to put an astrick next to my gardening accomplishments. The only things we can't grow are fruit and ornamentals which require more summer heat or greater winter chill like stone fruit. There are any number of tropical or subtropical plants which will never thrive here but which manage to get by at least. Green thumb? More like a green climate.

30 Jun '07 5:53 pm

My opuntia cactus had two new blooms open so I went out just to get a couple shots but then one thing led to another and, well, see for yourself. (Dixie, beware what the digital camera can do to you!)

An update from Berkeley

Hi Jacqueline,

I do agree, Jacqueline.

The Berkeley Update .. updated.

New pictures and new actors

Funny you should ask ..

interesting

Hi Dixie,

Still more new photos from Berkeley.