Our gardens after we're gone - my front yard

So James at Lost in the Landscape followed by Town Mouse, and perhaps more I'm not aware of, posted about what their gardens would like after they were gone.  And I've been waiting to post my own because I will be moving at the end of the month.  I guess I'll see what happens at least to the front since I'm not moving that far away.  But I wanted to let my landlord know and find a place before this post.  And I did.  My own apartment with a big ledge for some potted plants and a communal gardening space in back.  So my garden will continue just in an altered form.

As for my garden without me...

In front, the lawn has shown no sign of returning after a few blades of grass easily pulled out right after we got rid of it.  And with all our rains, very few weeds and no grass.  So anything like that that comes up will be seeded from the neighbors'.

The manzanita are all doing fine and will be fine I think with no water this summer.  As will the ceanothus, yarrow, white sage, salvia buchanii, and California fuchsia.  (Manzanita and ceanothus in back of first pic, white sage in second.)

 The fuchsia might become a little aggressive though.

Some plants may go dormant or deciduous with no supplemental water, like the ribes malvaceum, western redbud, blue-eyed grass and the columbine under the camelia, which are blooming and established.  But all should be fine.  That's just what California natives are supposed to do.  (Very happy blue-eyed grass)

I'm afraid this path will look a little sad and dry with no summer water, but the iris and snow-in-summer will perk up with the rains.

I'm more worried about 2 other sages, one of which is already not looking so hot.

I'm also worried about this licorice plant (right).  It's invasive, which I didn't know when we planted it. I kinda want to pull it, but it would leave a big empty scar.  Maybe not so great for my landlord trying to re-rent the place, or for encouraging people to let their renters experiment with the yard.  It will stay and spread.  Luckily this Galvezia speciosa (left) is ok with growing over, through and around it.

The hell strip, once a massive lump of weeds, still has some weeds popping through from time to time, but mostly has CA fuchsia, yarrow, native strawberry and festuca californica established.

And the craziest native honeysuckle I've ever seen.  I've trained it up our street sweeping sign post.

We knew this day would come sooner or later, so we chose low-maintenance, drought-tolerant species for the most part.
 
All in all I'm really going to miss the front garden.  But it was a great learning experience and as long as nobody takes loppers and hedgers to it, I think it will become even more beautiful with time.

February Bloom Day

First off, I'm very happy to announce the first of the Western Columbine in the front yard (Aquilegia formosa) is blooming.  It has two fully opened flowers and a bud about to open.  This is one of my favorite flowers.

Also both of the manzanitas are now blooming.  I believe this one is Arctostaphylos bakeri `Louis Edmunds'.  2 of the 3 are in full bloom.  Not too full since they were only planted a little over a year ago.

And also the Ribes malvaceum is in full show.  I'm very impressed with this little guy.

The hardenbergia is finally busting out.

Thanks as always to Carol over at May Dreams Garden for hosting Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Street Trees and Water - Red Maples in Emeryville

A happy New Year to all.  I'll have another post from Arizona and some from Kauai in the next weeks.  But for now something I didn't get a chance to post before.

What a difference water makes. Our wonderful city of Emeryville took out our diseased street trees about a year or so ago and planted new ones. They widened the hell strip so the trees would be healthier and even asked us what kind of tree (off a list of 10 pre-selected varieties) we wanted  in front of our house. They also hired an arborist to oversee the whole project. They brought in compost and planted the trees very well right before a series of storms. Great job Emeryville. We and our neighbors both asked for a red maple and the neighbor on the other side got one too. But each tree so far has had a very different experience.

Neighbor to the north: This tree got no supplemental water at the very beginning, but a while later was put on drip irrigation (a double circle of emitter line) when the rest of the hell strip got planted. This was the last maple in the neighborhood to both change colors and lose its leaves.

Our house: I watered the tree by hand with a 5-gallon bucket of fresh tap water from the very beginning. Watering more at the beginning and less as time went on. Later on the tree also received grey water (the water from the rinse cycle of our washer) . But towards the end of summer received almost nothing until fall. The leaves of our tree started to turn brown at the edges until receiving some water in the fall at which point the centers turned a nice shade of red. It was the first of the 3 to start losing leaves, but held onto some longer than the neighbor's to the south.

The neighbor to the south: The hell strip this tree is in was quickly planted with sod and was watered regularly with sprinklers. This tree turned a beautiful red, but was the first to lose all its leaves.

All pictures taken the weekend before Thanksgiving.

As a note of comparison, the other red maples in our neighborhood received supplemental water only once from a city truck in August. Their leaves turned brown, never turning red, and dropped well before ours did.

Arctostaphylos pajaroensis 'Paradise' or more simply a colorful manzanita

I bought this manzanita variety at the annual plant sale at the Botanic Garden in Tilden Park this spring.  Ryan over at Dry Stone Garden was volunteering at the sale and is pretty sure this was A. pajaroensis 'Paradise'.  I'm not as good at remembering the specific varieties of plants as I should be.  If he's right, and who am I to argue, this baby is supposed to get up to 10' wide.  Not ideal for it's location, but it's unirrigated, so it should take a while to get there.  It seems to be a fast grower though.  The first pic was taken when I planted it in front in late April/early May.  And the second one yesterday.  It's at least doubled in size.

It has a beautiful blueish/greyish-green color on mature leaves, but a bright red on the new growth. Spectacular on more mature specimens.  Here are pictures with rain and without.

Two more pics after the jump.

Native Fall Planting

As I mentioned in a previous post, right before our torrential downpour last week, I decided to move some plants and get some new ones in the ground. All of them weathered the storm well. Almost 4 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Highly unusual for us, especially in October. But everything old and new got a nice thorough soaking.

First off were 5 (3 in pic) native columbine (Aquilegia formosa) grown from seed from the very prolific plants in my backyard. I planted them under a huge camelia by our front door. There are several other volunteer seedlings awaiting a new home.

In that same area, I repotted the yerba buena (Satureja douglasii) I had in the back and moved it to the front steps. It's looking a little bedraggled at the moment, but once it fills out I think it will help to distract people from the hideous brick red and dark grey paint of our house's exterior. The yerba buena roots as it crawls, so there were 3 separate rooted plants in back I cut off this main one. I dug up the smallest to repot in a one-gallon to start the whole process again. Also in this pic you can see one of the columbines in the bottom right.

Along the path from the drive way to the front steps I planted 3 douglas iris I bought at a plant sale at the Watershed Nursery. I can't wait to see them this spring.

And then on to the hellstrip. The mint we threw there to see if anything would survive started to escape from its little concrete strip, so I dug out as much as I could, though I'm sure there will be more to dig out later. Then in went three California fuchsia I saved from a garden I do maintenance on and paprika yarrow divided from the three plants I took out to plant the irises. Unfortunately the reds of the yarrow and CA fuchsia will probably clash, but it's a hellstrip that had nothing but dead weeds a year ago, so I'll take what I can get.

So these pics are not so exciting, it's more the promise of what they'll look like next spring and summer, but here's a pic of the California fuchsia (Epilobium canum) planted in March from the main part of the front yard a few days ago.