Exotic and on our doorstep
The word "exotic" is not usually associated with a native-plant tour, but at this year's Going Native Garden Tour on April 30, visitors can view native-plant species they might otherwise see only by traveling to out-of-the-way islands off the West Coast. To native-plant enthusiasts, the plants of the Channel Islands, those murky apparitions rising from the coral haze of a Southern California ocean sunset, are as exotic as a rare orchid in a Brazilian rain forest. The isolation of island life there has created species of plants found nowhere else. James Evans, a Southern California transplant, brought botanical bits of his childhood with him after his move north. He introduced them into his Mountain View home garden. Evans mixed local native plants with natives from Santa Cruz Island, where he sailed as a teen, then added plants found near his mother's Ventura home. The garden evokes memories of his youth. "I remember the smells. Sometimes, the smells were wonderful, such as the Cleveland sage," he said, releasing the herbal perfume of the silver-green leaves by rubbing them between his fingers. In Evans' front-yard garden, delicate bursts of pale-pink Santa Cruz Island buckwheat flowers, (Eriogonum arborescens), mingle with showy, rose-colored, hibiscus-shaped blossoms of Island mallow (Lavatera assurgentiflora), a rare Channel Islands native. Patent-leather-shiny black bumble bees flit from flower to flower, sipping the nectar of five species of sages, and blue-purple flowers of woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum), a Southern California coastal scrub plant. Five years ago, the home's landscaping was nonexistent, Evans said. When he and wife Jill moved there, only a few shrubs and a badly placed orange tree passed for a garden. "There was no lawn, which was good," he said, admiring the oval beds, containing more than 30 species of native plants. Before getting started, Evans knew nothing about native plants, but he was inspired by a newspaper story. His beginning criteria contained only two requisites: lots of color and a walkway. He and Jill hired Portola Valley landscape designer Annaloy Nickum, referred by Yerba Buena Nursery in Woodside. Nickum designed a series of beds, with five varieties of sages as anchor plants and a large semi-oval bed as the centerpiece. Saliva "Bee's Bliss," a sprawling, creeping shrub with purple-blue flowers, is the main bed's dominant plant, surrounded by golden aster, a low, spreading plant with a mounding habit and bursts of small yellow flowers. "We really started with a blank palette," Evans said. Now, the garden is filled with color — orange California poppy, purple seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus), lavender beach aster (Aster chilensis), red-branched manzanita (Arctostaphylos uva ursi), orange and red monkeyflowers (Mimulus), fiery-red California fuchsia (Zauschneria californica) and blue-purple flowered lupine. A meandering Turning Leaf flagstone path to the front door ties the colorful garden together. Mottled in beige, ochre and terra cotta tones, the stones complement the brilliant palette of the garden in spring, and add a splash of color to the green foliage when blooms have withered. A narrow path of crushed goldfines wends around the central bed, connecting it visually to smaller surrounding beds. Granite boulders, islands of gray and white, are strategically placed to create focal points throughout the garden. From the street, a vertically shaped boulder draws the eye toward the central bed, contrasting with foliage of dark-green sage. The couple picked out a large, oblong granite boulder to serve as a bench, where Evans can sit and contemplate. From his perch, Evans can admire a 5.5-foot-tall Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri), currently loaded with buds. It has the largest flowers of any native plant in California, according to the Jepson Manual, the tome on California native plants. When it blooms, it will put on an eye-popping display of large white flowers with yellow centers. Evans paired the towering shrub with Santa Cruz Island buckwheat and Island mallow to create privacy in front of the house. "This plant costs me the most work, because it has runners," he said of the Matilija poppy. "Keeping it maintained is a major chore. It gets very large and spills over, but I really like the flowers." Evans' garden is filled with many contrasts: lupines with hand-shaped leaves; lance-leaved penstemon and monkeyflowers; upright, fountain-like native grasses, such as Festuca californica and Festuca idahoensis. The towering Matilija poppy can grow from seven to nearly 19 feet; monkeyflowers, California fuchsia and lupine, one-and-a-half to two feet, and seaside daisy just under a foot. Sages also vary widely in habit and color, from rangy to densely packed with spires of flowers. White sage (Saliva apiana), a Southern California dry coastal shrub, and Cleveland's sage, both growing to three feet tall, have showy silvery-to-white leaves. Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) has light-green leaves, contrasting with magenta blooms. The garden's plants have attracted a range of insects, including bumblebees, carpenter bees and honeybees. The creeping sages, Bee's Bliss and Dara's Choice attracted swarms of aphids the first year. The plants were vigorous, so Evans didn't fight them. "The following spring, lady bugs were everywhere," he said. The native garden has been a journey of discovery for Evans. "Different things captivate my imagination at different times, such as the toyon seedling (Heteromeles arbutifolia) I found at a neighbor's to replace a flannel bush," he said. Evans tried to introduce real lizards to the garden, but they wouldn't stay, he said. Instead, a large, plastic green lizard, the only bit of whimsy in the garden, suns itself on the granite bench. It's a fitting companion, as he contemplates adding new plants. Sue Dremann is a staff writer for the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice's sister paper. She can be e-mailed at sdremann@paweekly.com. What: Going Native Garden Tour When: Sunday, April 30, [2006] 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Where: Locations are throughout the Santa Clara Valley and Peninsula, including in Mountain View Cost: Admission is free, but registration is required through www.goingnativegardentour.org, before noon, April 29, or until the tour reaches capacity Info: Write info@goingnativegardentour.org Resources: Design: Wildscape Garden Design, Annaloy Nickum, Portola Valley; (650) 851-8375 Installation: EarthCare Landscaping, Cupertino; (408) 871-2792 www.earthcareland.com Materials: Lyngso Garden Materials, Inc., Redwood City; (650) 364-1730 www.lyngsogarden.com ; Yerba Buena Nursery, Woodside; (650) 851-1668 www.yerbabuenanursery.com |