Garden Plants Archives - Summer-Dry | Celebrate Plants in Summer-Dry Gardens

19 01, 2025

Ericas for Mild-Winter Summer-Dry Climates

Ericas for Mild-Winter Summer-Dry Climates

Nora Harlow2025-01-19T18:48:48-08:00Categories: Blog, shrubs, Climate, Nora Harlow|Tags: nora harlow, shrubs, climate|

So, your summers are reliably dry, warm to hot, and sometimes, if only briefly, scorching. Your winters are usually wet and chilly but sometimes, briefly, icy cold. Years of drought and winter downpours both are common. Your soil is partly or mostly clay. Can you grow ericas? The short answer is maybe. Ericas from South Africa in the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, Mendocino County, California Ericas are native to a long but fairly narrow band from Norway south to Portugal, Spain, and northern Morocco, east to Turkey and Lebanon, and south to the southernmost tip of Africa.

18 12, 2024

Babianas

Babianas

Nora Harlow2024-12-18T06:11:27-08:00Categories: Blog, perennials, Nora Harlow, bulbs|Tags: nora harlow, perennials, bulbs|

Babianas are deciduous, mostly winter-growing, spring-blooming, bulblike perennials native to southern Africa. Best massed in the garden, these are diminutive plants with an outsized floral effect. Growing naturally on well-drained silts and clays, granite-derived gravels, and rocky or sandy slopes and flats, they need sun, good drainage, fairly mild and moist winters, and a dry summer dormancy. Babiana framesii is native to the mountains of the winter-rainfall northwestern Cape, South Africa. Appearing in mid- to late fall or winter, usually with the first rains, babiana leaves are lance- to sword-shaped, linearly ribbed or corrugated, often softly or

19 11, 2024

Leucospermums

Leucospermums

Nora Harlow2024-11-19T16:05:36-08:00Categories: Blog, shrubs, Nora Harlow|Tags: nora harlow, shrubs|

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

14 10, 2024

Pineapple Guava

Pineapple Guava

Nora Harlow2024-10-16T04:32:27-07:00Categories: Blog, shrubs, Nora Harlow, plant names|Tags: nora harlow, shrubs, plant names|

Pineapple guava may hold the record for the longest lasting resistance to a plant name change, a resistance recently rewarded with a reinstatement of the original name of Feijoa sellowiana. This evergreen, subtropical South American shrub or small tree was given that name in 1859, renamed Acca sellowiana in 1941, and returned to its original name in 2019. Many gardeners and horticulturists --along with much of the nursery industry-- never made the switch. Pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana) pruned as a small multitrunk tree Feijoa sellowiana has thick, leathery, elliptical leaves, glossy dark green on the upper surface

16 09, 2024

Chilean Myrtle

Chilean Myrtle

Nora Harlow2024-09-18T17:54:37-07:00Categories: Blog, trees, Climate, Nora Harlow|Tags: nora harlow, trees|

Luma apiculata, sometimes known as Chilean myrtle, is a small to mid-sized, usually multitrunk or low-branching, evergreen tree. Leaves are small, leathery, dark green, and broadly oval with a short, acutely pointed tip. Bark is smooth and grayish tan, turning cinnamon brown with age and peeling to reveal patches of white beneath. Masses of fragrant, creamy white, mid-summer flowers with showy, brushlike, pinkish white stamens are followed by edible, purplish black berries in fall. Limbed up and out of flower, trees can resemble a manzanita or a madrone, to which they are not related. Luma apiculata is

17 05, 2024

Hummingbird Sage

Hummingbird Sage

Nora Harlow2024-06-27T19:38:02-07:00Categories: Blog, perennials, California Native, Nora Harlow|Tags: california native, nora harlow, ground covers, perennials|

Blooming from early spring well into summer, hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) is an easy and adaptable plant for summer-dry climates. This low, slowly spreading sage accepts sun or shade, almost any reasonably drained soil, and moderate, occasional, or no summer watering. It is an especially good candidate for dry shade. Salvia spathacea in flower in the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Hummingbird sage is endemic to central and southern California, commonly found in sunny or shaded spots among oak woodland, chaparral, and coastal sage scrub in foothills and valleys not far from the coast. Summer-dormant if grown dry,

16 04, 2024

Salvia x ‘Bee’s Bliss’

Salvia x ‘Bee’s Bliss’

Nora Harlow2024-06-27T19:38:01-07:00Categories: Blog, groundcovers, Nora Harlow, subshrubs|Tags: nora harlow, ground covers, subshrubs, habitat garden|

The groundcover salvia known as ‘Bee’s Bliss’ has been popular with gardeners and nursery professionals almost since its introduction in 1989 -- and for good reason. With so many excellent salvias in the trade today, there are others that are more powerfully scented or more conspicuously floriferous but few are as accommodating, reliable, and inherently useful in the mostly summer-dry garden. Salvia 'Bee's Bliss' This cultivar was discovered at the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley and is believed to be a hybrid of Salvia leucophylla and S. sonomensis (or possibly S. clevelandii). ‘Bee’s Bliss’ stays