When Plants Get Stressed

 Different plants respond differently to stress (much like people). Many plants, like this brilliant 'Santa Barbara' bougainvillea, think it's best to send out as many flowers as possible to help spread seeds before it may expire. Although it is considered a tropical plant, and I think of tropical plants as ones coming from lush, rain forest-y places, many are extremely drought tolerant. This is probably why the most beautiful and prolific bougainvilleas are usually found in the most desolate places like abandoned buildings or deserted parking lots and yet we can't get them to bloom in our own backyards.

 Every year I have the queen palm trees at our SJC home trimmed in the fall when they put out their flowers and annoying seeds. They cover the ground with scrappy little flower petals then cherry-sized seeds that make a big mess when you have 100 of them. This year I have already had to bring my tree trimmers out once in the summer because they were uncharacteristically blooming and seeding all over the place in July, I'm assuming due to the lack of water. We removed the seed pods, flowers and any dying branches. As you can see here it is almost time to do it again.

 Although it is impossible to remove established acanthus, they do not like the drought at all. I have lost a whole bed of them in Laguna and the ones I have placed here and there in the shade in SJC are not fairing well. As you can see, this one has lost all it's leaves but is desperately trying to establish its legacy by expending every last bit of energy in putting out this lone flower stalk. I'm sure it will survive and I hate to say it, but I have never seen them sprout from seed in my gardens yet.

 The good news is that a bit of stress can force a stubborn non-bloomer to finally bloom like this little banana tree! I have grown bananas in Laguna for many years and planted a couple trees as soon as we moved into SJC, but they never bloomed. This week I was delighted to see the first flower on my little 'Ice Cream' plant. Hopefully by the time the holidays come I can show the grandkids how bananas grow.

Not all plants respond to stress with prolific blooms. My roses have been almost non-existent this year. They seem to pull in and reserve all their strength to withstand the cut back in water and when they do bloom they are small, sad flowers. I have fertilized same as usual, but they prefer to wait it out until more water is available. I have noticed that the vacant lot down the street where a gentleman grows dozens and dozens of rose bushes for his hobby of showing roses in contests is as prolific as usual. He does use synthetic fertilizers which stimulate the blooms no matter what is going on with Mother Nature. Of course along with that he has to use lots of sprays and lots of water, but he does have glorious flowers!

Sago Palms

Female Sago Palm

Male Sago Palm

Any questions?

Moving Towards Fall

This week and last we had the trees trimmed in SJC. We try to put it off for as long as possible, but the palm trees start to open their seed pods and drop the pollen and eventually the seeds and it is a terrible mess. It takes four whole days of about five men to do the job.

The end-of-summer gardens are really a mess. I am frustrated  because it is just a disappointment to walk around and see so many ailing plants due to a long dry summer. Not only that, the temperatures have been so hot that just keeping everything alive is a chore. Most of my attention has been on a number of house problems that have required me to hire and track servicemen and contractors which is challenging and time consuming and drives me somewhat crazy. I have also been suffering from a shoulder issue for a while now and it is time I just concentrate on resting and healing that, which means numerous weekly trips to acupuncture and massage. This is also a busy time for many of the organizations we support, so because of a number of reasons getting to this garden is going to take a while. Of course I have help that keeps it from going totally off the charts, but it clearly is missing a loving touch, and I am clearly missing spending time out there with my plants!

The Big Trim

It takes my tree trimmers three days to clean up the hundred plus palm trees we have on our SJC property. Removing dead and dying fronds is half of the work. Removing heavy seed pods is the other. These gentle giants are not self cleaning and removing dead and dying material that harbors bugs and disease keeps them healthy and happy. Tons of debris has to be hauled to the dump because palm materials don't decompose in the compost pile and I'm not into basket weaving. It is a big job but everything looks so neat and tidy when it is done that it is worth the headaches.

Deep Soak

After being away for a couple weeks it is nice to come home to summer weather! The first order of business in the garden is to give all the large, established plants a long, slow soak to assure they are deeply watered enough to hang in there through the warm temperatures of late summer and early fall. A dripping hose for a long period around the bases will do a lot to bring relief to the palm trees and screening hedges until the rains replenish the deep soil moisture in the ground. Even the drought tolerant plants will welcome a good long drink around this time of year. And that is about all I have the energy for today!

Tree Trimming Time

It's tree trimming time for our SJC yard. The trees in Laguna were trimmed last fall. It took two days to trim those trees (we were rewarded with many messages of thanks from our neighbors whose view looks past those trees). They only need trimming once every two or three years. It is another story with the palm trees in SJC. They need to be trimmed every year and it takes three whole days. They develop very large, heavy seed pods that make a mess as well as many dead fronds that hang down and eventually fall off. Some of the fronds from the queen palms are 12 to 15 feet long, quite heavy and can do considerable damage to the plants below when they land on them. My tree trimmer estimated that he took almost five tons of debris from the palm trees to the dump. Unfortunately palm fronds and pods do not break down and will not compost and we just aren't into that much basket weaving around here!

Waiting For A New Home

A couple years ago I had a number of these queen palms moved to another spot in the front garden in SJC. Unfortunately they were placed over the septic tank area and had to be moved again when I needed to access the tank for pumping. It has been too wet to do much with them the past weeks so they are laying patiently on the path waiting to be relocated. Luckily they are a hardy plant that can take this kind of abuse and bounce right back.

Ms. Sago Palm

Our female sago palm is sporting a brand new set of fronds (they aren't really fronds as the sago is not really a palm, but a cycad) above the seed pods that she produced last year. I have read that it takes about six to nine months to germinate sago seeds and I get enough pups from her base to keep me supplied with all the sago palms I need, so I am not even attempting to crow them from seed. She is looking quite full and lush this time of year!

Ponytail Blooms

Last year I wrote with amazement that our ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) was blooming, something I had never witnessed before. Well this year it has a number of large, looming blooms! I am not familiar with the blooming habits of this plant, I hope it doesn't die back like yuccas or agaves!

Now and Then

This is an angle of the backyard in SJC when we first moved in two and a half years ago, looking out from the patio. There was a single queen palm that was smack dab in the middle of the view looking out from the dining room window. It wasn't too bad until it grew tall and all you could see was the trunk.
This is what it looks like today. It is hard to see in this picture, but there is a small 'Cherokee' liquidambar tree in the middle of this bed that will provide fall color to the dining room window when it gets bigger. The rest of the bed is filled with roses, shrubs, herbs and perennials.

Soaring Pink Jasmine

Pink Jasmine is a familiar sight this time of year in our area. It is very fragrant and easy to grow. I have never planted it in my yard, but it climbs the fence and comes over to visit from our neighbor's yard. I was walking along this path and could smell it, but didn't see it, until I looked up. It scaled the oleander and made a leap into a palm tree for a better shot at the sunlight I suspect. It does have one drawback. It is not self-cleaning and when the flowers are spent there is a big, brown mess to remove or it will haunt you all year long.

Sago Seeds

I wrote about our sago palms blooming last July. Here it is February and this is what has developed. Above is the male plant sporting a whole new set of fronds coming out of the center and below is the female plant with heart shaped seed pods. I have no idea when to harvest them or what producing sago palms from seeds entails. We do get new plants from the base as you can see in the photo above, so I am not sure I will bother with propagation. They have very sharp fronds and I am not crazy about using plants that hurt in the yard because of all the kids. Never-the-less, it has been fun to watch the development of this plant.

Pony Tail Palm in Bloom

I have grown Pony Tail Palms before but always as much smaller house plants. This one was a fixture in this garden when we moved in a couple years ago and I kind of take it for granted because the lovely round base of the tree is hidden in a raised planter. Much to my surprise a few weeks ago I noticed that it was blooming. Who knew? I guess it is obvious it would bloom, but I guess I have never seen one mature enough to break into flower (so to speak). I wonder what will happen next?

Palm Alley

This is one of my favorite spots in SJC. We call it Palm Alley because it is a narrow strip connecting the pool area with the meditation garden that has about a dozen queen palms lining it, creating a shady canopy. It is one of the few really shady areas in the entire yard and I love shade gardening. When we moved in here a couple years ago it was a soggy, wet, grass area and of course the palm trees. My son put in the flagstone path to keep our feet dry and we added hydrangeas, foxgloves, azaleas, ferns, fuchsias, baby tears, ajuga, Australian violets and a number of other shade-loving plants. As planned, the moisture loving plants suck up the water that accumulates in this low area of the property and it is no longer a swamp, but a pleasant path to enjoy the lovely plants that I can't grow anywhere else on the property because they would require too much water.

Before and After

This is a shot of part of our backyard in San Juan Capistrano as it looked when we moved in year before last. It was all lawn and palm trees.


This is what it looks like today. If you look closely you can see the palm trees that are in the center of the top photo peeking through the two pepper trees in the lower photo. This is what we call 'Flying Rabbit Island' and is my answer to creating our own view. When we moved here from Laguna we found that we really missed our ocean view. Staring at the swimming pool is just not the same. So I added this little island in the middle of the back lawn to give us something to look at when we were sitting in our rockers on the little patio off the living room. Although it is not exactly the most colorful time of year in this part of the yard, it still is interesting and one of our favorite spaces.

100+ Palm Trees

It is palm tree trimming time in the San Juan Capistrano garden where we have nearly 120 palm trees. Most of them are queen palms which are my favorite because of their graceful and flowing nature. All of the trees were here when we purchased the property. I am not a big fan of palm trees, in fact I had a few removed from our Laguna Beach property over the years. They are just not my style but I had to admit they fit the architecture of our SJC house and besides, you can't really just remove 120 trees!

Throughout the year fronds die and need to be removed, but it is the seed pods that are very messy that eventually necessitates the call to my tree trimer around this time of year.
Unfortunately the palm fronds, seed pods and trunks do not break down in the compost pile and need to be hauled away. It breaks my heart to see all that green waste removed from my garden, but my wonderful tree trimmer offered to bring me a truck load of compost to make up for it!

Street Side Garden

Here are photos of the new street side garden in Sn Juan Capistrano. We put it in last fall and it is finally filling in nicely. Previously there was some tacky looking grass here among the tall queen palms. We took the grass out and went for a more drought tolerant style of garden. We also added the gravel path. There are still some changes I want to make this fall to add more color in a few places, but overall I'm very pleased with the outcome.

Sago In Bloom

Although they are very popular and sought after plants in our area, I personally have never been crazy about sago palms. They aren't really palms but members of the cyad family, distant relatives of conifers native to Japan. Their leaves are two to three feet long and very leathery and sharp which is why I would never plant one, they hurt!

At my house in San Juan Capistrano there were two sagos in the entry planter when we moved in and they are actually in bloom right now. I have never seen them bloom so it is somewhat of an event. At this time the blooms look very different on each one of them and so I'm thinking that maybe they are in different stages of development or else one is a female and one is a male? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.