Blog|Garden Plants>shrubs|Nora Harlow Archives - Summer-Dry | Celebrate Plants in Summer-Dry Gardens

23 01, 2025

Leucospermums

Leucospermums

Outside of South Africa, where almost all are endemic, leucospermums are best known for their otherworldly cut flowers. Gardeners in other mild-winter, summer-dry climates likely purchase the flowers without realizing that they might be able to grow them. Leucospermum 'Scarlet Ribbon' (L. glabrum x L. tottum) Most leucospermums are upright, evergreen shrubs or small trees 3-15 feet tall, usually with a single main stem. Some sprawl, much wider than tall, either branching from a single stem or sending up multiple stems from an underground rootstalk. Leaves are linear to oval or wedge-shaped, thick and somewhat leathery, usually

23 01, 2025

Leucadendrons for the Garden

Leucadendrons for the Garden

Familiar to many as a knockout component of floral arrangements, leucadendrons are every bit as impressive in the garden. Most are best grown where winters are mild, soils are acidic, and excellent to perfect drainage can be provided, but some are less fussy than others. Dozens of these South African endemics are native to varied habitats, from damp coastal flats to frosty mountain slopes and from the summer-dry Western Cape to summer-rainfall KwaZulu-Natal. Leucadendron 'Little Bit', a hybrid of L. salignum and L. discolor, is a delicate offset here to the bold blue leaves of Agave americana Most leucadendrons

23 01, 2025

Pittosporums

Pittosporums

Pittosporums are a large group of tough and adaptable evergreen shrubs or smallish trees native to subtropical and tropical Australasia, Africa, and Asia and grown in warm temperate climates throughout the world. Most are fairly fast growing in full sun to part shade in any reasonably fertile soil with decent drainage and little to moderate moisture. All bear small, fragrant, late spring or summer flowers in clusters at the ends of stems followed by conspicuous fruits with bright orange seeds. Several species and quite a few cultivars are commonly found in the nursery trade. Pittosporum crassifolium leaves and flowers

23 01, 2025

Oleander

Oleander

jeffreyeric2025-01-23T10:34:40-08:00Categories: Blog|Garden Plants>shrubs|Nora Harlow|Tags: shrubs|

Nerium oleander Every so often it is worth reconsidering a once wildly popular plant that, apparently for no reason other than overexposure, has fallen completely out of favor. Agapanthus is one of those plants. Oleander (Nerium oleander) is certainly another. Overplanted in housing developments and along freeways in the 1960s and ‘70s, oleanders now seem to be seldom planted except by those who appreciate the dense screening provided by their lush evergreen foliage, their lengthy period of exuberant flowering, and their robust constitution. Oleanders are astonishingly tolerant of drought, reflected heat, wind, salt spray, poor soil, neglect, severe

Blog|Garden Plants>shrubs|Nora Harlow

Leucospermums

Leucadendrons for the Garden

Pittosporums

Oleander

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