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Garden of Delights Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2015

Garden Stars: Flowers that Re-Seed

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by ninagarden in drought-tolerant, Flowers, geranium, wildflowers

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

annuals and perennials, California native plants, chickens, drought-tolerant

My friend was visiting my yard a few weeks ago and she said, “Wow. You really worked in your garden a lot this spring. You have so many flowers.” Truth is, I haven’t! I have mostly been crawling around on my hands and knees pulling weeds.  The flowers I have are self-sowers or perennials that re-seed. Every spring, they come up and I just sit back and pull weeds out so they can grow.

Here is an example of Toadflax, which is growing in my front yard. I planted a package of Toadflax about ten years ago, and every year it comes up like this, a frothy mass of colorful flower eye-candy. Of course, it needs water, which our winter rains usually supply, but even in the drought and hardly any water at all, it grew like this:

Below is a native purple geranium ground cover that also grows all over my front yard. I love native geraniums because they re-seed. You can also see lavender mixed with it. Lavender will also re-seed  and you can transplant the baby lavender as well as the geraniums around the yard to fill in bald spots.

Another great re-seeder is verbena. I just learned that the type of verbena that I have growing naturally in my yard is called Moss Verbena. It is drought tolerant, according to the new book I just bought Water-Wise Plants for the Southwest, by Nan Sterman, Mary Irish, Judith Phillips and Joe Lamp’L. Nan Sterman is in San Diego so her advice is particularly relevant.

GROWING TIPS: What are the secrets to re-seeding these plants? You have to live with a little ugly when the blooms die. Just let them go to seed and let them get brown. Then when you cut them, leave the cuttings out where you want them to re-seed. You don’t have to do this forever, just until they dry up a little.

For example, have you ever noticed that when you cut lavender and bring in for a bouquet, after a while you see little black dots all over your counter? Those are the seeds. They are miniscule. When I trim back all the lavender after the spring blooms, I thrown the stems in the ground for a while so the seeds fall out. Same idea.

Here is my list of perennials that can re-seed in my garden–hopefully, they will in yours too:

  • lavender
  • native geraniums; geranium incanum; also Bill Wallis geranium as referenced in my post on Annie’s Nursery; oh great, geranium incanum is also invasive according according to the link above. Oh well, I can live with invasive. I can’t live with dirt!
  • verbena (moss)
  • euphorbia caracias
  • Santa Barbara Daisy
  • Jupiter’s Beard or Red Valerian (some say this is invasive but my hill is so hard to grow on that I don’t care)
  • Pacific Coast Iris or Douglas Iris (a native plant, it is considered invasive by some so beware)
  • yarrow (but it often doesn’t bloom in my yard)

For annuals that re-seed in my yard:

  • Toadflax
  • Other wildflowers like California poppies or any poppy
  • sweet peas (believe it or not)
  • nasturtiums

The hens might help. I find little tomato plants growing from seeds that they pooped out growing all over!

Nasturtiums on the hill:

Mother-in-law’s Squash Tip: Plant squash in mounds. Put five or six seeds in each mound and place a stick in the middle of it. That way you can find where you planted it.

I think that makes sense, right? At least it did when she told me on the phone yesterday. Now that I write it down, it doesn’t. But I’m going to give it a try.

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A Visit to Annie’s Annuals and Perennials Nursery

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by ninagarden in California native plants, drought-tolerant, geranium, mail order gardens, Sonoma Valley, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Annie's, geranium maderense, Geraniums, little Bill Wallis geranium, Sonoma

WIN_20150220_171443

My garden is in full bloom from the spring-like weather we are having. It is nice to sit and looked out on all the colorful nasturtiums growing on my hill, filling in many of the dirt spots. I spent a few hours weeding then digging up the little Bill Wallis geranium seedlings that had grown in on our path up the hill. I transplanted them to the edge of the retaining wall on the second part of the hill. I hope they grow there. They have a good chance because I can easily water there with the hose in the summer. You can see the strip of growth where that water reaches.

I mention the Bill Wallis geraniums because they are some of the most thrifty and thriving plants in my terrifically difficult clay hill. They came in the mail from one of my favorite places to shop for plants Annie’s Annuals and Perennials. I circle plants in that catalog the same way I used to circle all the toys I dreamed of in my mother’s Sears catalog at Christmas.

Then I occasionally buy a lot–probably too much. Some of the plants I have bought haven’t lived as expected. I find little sticks around my yard with Annie’s name on them marking where I tried to grow things: a cigar plant–it looked so much bigger in the picture; clarksias–they were awesome until they died; verbena bonariensis–I loved those but they died in the drought last summer, etc. Some of the most enduring plants from Annie’s have been these great re-seeding, low water geraniums. They are the native type of geraniums and are purple. Annie calls them”floriferous, fast and easy.” They are heat tolerant and self-sow. The other reseeding favorite of mine is the rare geranium maderense or as Annie’s calls it “ginormous geranium.” Unlike Bill Wallis who hugs the ground and mounds, the maderense is tall and has dark green leaves and pink blooms when you can coax it into blooming. I like it for its dark green foliage and dramatic looks. It needs water and a cool, shady spot.

I have been trying to go to Annie’s for a couple of years because the catalog is so enticing. I wanted to see her gardens and the place where all my plants came from.

So when we flew into the Oakland airport on our way to Sonoma, I knew Annie’s was nearby in Richmond, CA, and I planned a morning stop there on our way back home. It was literally “across the tracks”– two train tracks and back in an industrial zone. My husband said it was built on a parking lot, but I didn’t notice. I was so excited and so bummed that I couldn’t fly home with a couple boxes of plants. If I had been driving, I would have loaded up the car!

Here is the front entrance. Oh so exciting!

Here are some of the beds of plants. Everything is arranged by type of plant: “Rarities,” “Annuals,” “Natives,” “Vegetables,” “Drought-tolerant,” etc.

 

This is a verbena that does really well in heat and drought:

I liked this succulent display:

One of the planted beds is below. I was a little disappointed by these demonstration gardens because in the catalog, they look huge. But this was a serious nursery with a ton of green houses where everything is grown right there. You can’t go in a lot of them. Since the plants are typically sold in small container (4 inch pots for $7.95), Annie has big pots planted at the end of each row (like the verbena I showed above) so you can see what the plants will look like when they grow.

One of my favorite plants that does well in my yard is below: the majestic Geranium Maderense.

Something I wanted to buy…I am really into purple and orange in my garden right now.

I walked around with my mouth hanging open and I could barely ask the salespeople any questions. It was a bit overwhelming and it was probably for the best that I could not load up my car and drive them home eight hours to San Diego. I would have bought way to much and then been in a panic to plant it all!

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Sonoma’s Beauty

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by ninagarden in chickens, Sonoma Valley

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Sonoma

Here are some more photos of California’s beautiful wine country. Later in the afternoon after we took this picutre, a big rain storm hit.

On our drive back to the airport, we stopped at a great general store called Fat Pilgrim (www.FatPilgrim.com) and they had a chicken yard with these enormous rusted eggs! Do you think these make the chickens feel inferior? Or maybe they are inspired?

I liked the GARDEN sign on the back fence in the photo below. I also liked the hanging orbs in this tree (2nd photo down).

Our stop after this was Annie’s Nursery in Richmond so stay tuned for photos and the scoop on one of my favorite nurseries!

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