Category Archives: plant profiles

gardening, plant profiles

toloache

2 Comments

In the local canyons, this time of year brings about the spectacular flowers of the sacred datura, Datura wrightii. The low, mounding bushes grow two to three feet tall and easily twice as wide, and are covered from dusk to mid-morning with immense white trumpets, easily eight inches across, often flushed with pale lavender.

Photo by Dlarsen, via Wikimedia Commons [ source ]

This is one of several species of the genus that has been called toloache in Mexico. It’s in the nightshade family, and like other members of the genus Datura, the plant is as toxic as it is spectacular.

Even though it’s highly poisonous, some Native Americans used the plant as part of a ceremony marking the passage of a child to an adult. From the Wikipedia: “Among the Chumash, when a boy was 8 years old, his mother gave him a preparation of momoy to drink. This was supposed to be a spiritual challenge to the boy to help him develop the spiritual wellbeing that is required to become a man. Not all of the boys survived [my emphasis].”

Datura budOn my recent pre-dusk hike through our local Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve all the buds on the numerous toloache plants were tightly furled when I arrived.

Datura unfurlingBut by the time I left, less a half hour before sunset, the flowers buds were loosening. Had I stayed an hour longer I would have been able to view the fresh flowers in the last glow of daylight like an intoxicating evil welcoming the night.

Datura with hand for scaleHere you can get a sense for how large these flowers will be.

Despite its bad press this is one of our local plants that I’ve been eying to add to the garden. The only thing the cat shows any interest in are plants that look like grasses or catnip, and there are parts of the yard no small child could get to. Besides, I’ve already got a number of toxic plants in the garden–oleanders, tomatoes and other nightshade cousins.

In addition to having amazing flowers, this datura requires no added water during the long dry summer. Nothing this spectacular can make that claim.

Speaking of poisonous plants, last week’s New York Times had an article on the Duchess of Northumberland. She’s in the process of building a modern annex to grounds that were designed by Capability Brown, the landmark British landscape designer from the eighteenth century. Traditionalists are not happy. “They said I am to gardens what Imelda Marcos is to shoes,” the Duchess is quoted. In her project one of the features is the Poison Garden, which the article describes as “a spooky fenced-off area with about 100 varieties of toxic plants, as well as cannabis and opium poppies.”

I bet this duchess’s garden parties will be pretty interesting affairs…

landscape, landscape design, my garden, plant profiles

my newest sage

1 Comment

The number of examples that I have in the garden of the sage genus, Salvia, is growing. The latest addition is a tiny little plant of white sage, Salvia apiana, that I put into a hole in the front yard where a few other plants have failed. The plant is native to this area and doesn’t require additional water so I’m confident that it should have no problem with with the dry soil and the hot sun exposure. Time will tell whether it can compete with the roots of nearby established plantings.

Local examples of the white sage show it to be fairly low, mounding plant of strongly-scented greenish white leaves. Robin Middleton’s amazing salvia site says that “people find the fragrance of the foliage unpleasant…I don’t particularly like it,” and the description at Las Pilitas Nursery calls the perfume a mixture of “sage, pine needles, burning rubber, skunk.” To my nose, that mixture of sage and pine needles and burning rubber and skunk smells like the local chaparral and long hikes on a sunny afternoon, so I actually enjoy it. In the late spring the low plant puts up informal head-high spires of white flowers, sometimes with a lavender tint, but for me the plant is most valuable for its attractive foliage.

Photo from the Wikimedia Commons, contributed by Eugene van der Pijll [ source ]

In addition to having a number of uses for the local Native Americans as a food, flavoring and medicine, the white sage was considered sacred, figured in sweat lodge ceremonies and was used remove evil spirits.

After the conclusion of 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego one of the more creative post-convention protests involved an action to exorcise the evil that some thought the convention brought to town. In an act of purification, in an ceremony that involved drumming and chanting, protesters burned sticks of white sage to cleanse the Convention Center site of the residual evil.

my garden, plant profiles

mistaken identity?

4 Comments

Summer in my garden began officially on Wednesday, June 25 at approximately 6:35 p.m., when I held in my hands the first ripe tomato of the season. Here’s a shot of the fourth tomato, from yesterday. Seems like a couple of large two-legged mammals invaded the garden and ate the first three…

My Mr. StripeyI’ve said a couple unkind words against the mounstrously vigorous Mr. Stripey, but that’s the variety that bore first this year. The fruits so far have been small, about three ounces, sweet and extremely mild, with a very thin skin. The color is a rich, medium yellow, with dark rosy-red flushing to the fruits both inside and out. So far they don’t gush classic tomato flavor, but they’re still the best tomatoes I’ve had since last autumn’s farmer’s markets.

The fact that this is the first variety to bear this year confuses me a bit. Mr. Stripey is usually listed as being a large, beefsteak, late-season tomato, bearing 80-85 days after being set out. Some sources mention that the variety often sold as Mr. Stripey is actually the smaller-fruited Tigerella, and several sites list their plants with both names. How unhelpful is that? If I can judge by photos of both varieties, mine looks much closer to the true Mr. Stripey, even though the fruit is small. What do you think?

A couple Mr. Stripey images on the web:
Mr Stripey
[ source ] [ source ]
Versus a couple Tigerella images on the web:
Tigerella Tigerella
[ source ] [ source ]

Most sources list Tigerella as also being a late-bearing variety, so mistaken identity would have had little to do with my seeing the fruits towards the start of tomato season.

The thing that confuses me most about the identity of the tomatoes in the garden is the fact that Mr. Stripey sits about four feet away in the bed from the hybrid Early Girl. I planted the hybrid on the same day as Mr. Stripey, mainly to get some early tomatoes and to get a head start on summer. The Early Girl label says it should bear 50 days from being set out, and that’s been a reasonable estimate based on my past experience growing it. This season, even though Early Girl has a half dozen fairly nicely-sized fruits on its branches, they’re all still as green as the leaves. Fifty days from being set out? Not even close.

So, instead of concluding that Mr. Stripey came with the wrong label, I’m starting to wonder if I don’t have an impostor trying to pass as Early Girl. Maybe some disgruntled Home Depot employee switched the tags? Or their supplier decided a red tomato is a red tomato and no one’s going to know the difference? This wouldn’t be the first time I got something other than what the label said.

Even though there’s a certain amount of variation from plant to plant–it’s probably a little unfair to evaluate an entire tomato variety with just one plant–I doubt that the variation would explain the differences I’ve seen. Time for CSI San Diego. Time for some backyard DNA testing…

All that said, I guess I’ve made a strong case for buying seed from a reputable grower–and then carefully labeling the seedlings!

plant profiles, rambles

"eucalyptus autumn"

2 Comments

The Japanese language has many poetic names for the seasons. One phrase that I’ve found particularly beautiful is take no aki, or “bamboo autumn.” It refers to the period in middle- to late-spring when leaves of some bamboos turn yellow and fall from the plants. In addition to the gorgeous built-in poetic analogy, I like how the phrase grounds a specific portion of the season by invoking a natural process that presumably would have been understood by a good portion of the population.

Another eucalyptus with exfoliating bark When I take my lunch break during the week and head to the gym, I follow a path that takes me by a small cluster of eucalyptus trees planted in a patch of lawn. Several of the trees have beautifully smooth trunks which are covered with a delicately mottled silvery bark. Once a year, usually late in spring or early in summer, the bark exfoliates, dropping off in small chunks that reveal the surprise: a bumpy, pale ocher layer of new bark underneath.


Exfoliating eucalyptus Another of the trees drops larger, thin, brittle sheets of red-brown bark, revealing a deliciously pale icy green below.

Many eucalyptus species have bark that exfoliates, as do many other trees, such as the sycamores that congregate in the moister areas of the local canyon bottoms. So…why shouldn’t we have a name for when that happens? Why shouldn’t we come up with ways to reattach language to natural processes and the world around us? Why not refer to this awkward transitional spring-summer period we’re in as “eucalyptus autumn?”


(Okay, okay, if you must quibble, not all of the 740-plus eucalyptus species shed their bark. And those that do, don’t do it at exactly the same time. But I vote for anything that grounds us more securely in the cycles of the world. And language, being such a fundamental component of our existence, seems like a great tool to use to accomplish the goal.)

my garden, plant profiles

no bad plants?

3 Comments

I’ve killed my share of plants when my pride in being able grow something got in the way of common sense. And then there are cases where the plant gets the serious upper hand.

One example of the second situation is of a pencil cactus, Euphorbia tirucalli. (Notwithstanding its common name it’s not a cactus at all, and instead belongs to the genus that brings you the perky holiday poinsettia.)

Someone gave John a little cutting. It looked cute. Why not put it in the ground? A little bush with pencil-shaped leaves would be fun.

Several years later its cuteness wore off as it matured into a serious large shrub, ten feet tall. At some point John tried to prune it and got some sap into his eye. There are reports of temporary blindness for at least three days as a result of the sap, in addition to frequent reports of extreme skin irritation. Fortunately John’s situation wasn’t so dire, but it was extremely painful. That wiped out almost all of the plant’s cuteness points, and when its roots started to push over a retaining wall, that was it. It had to go.

I tend to be generous in my evaluations of the value of various plants. There are specific niches in specific ecosystems for every species. When pulled out of an appropriate context and thrown into an grossly inappropriate one, however, plants can respond in two ways. Either they can die–not good for the plant. Or they can take over the way this euphorbia did–not good for the new environment or growing situation.

Last Fall I got out the pruners, loppers and ax, covered every bit of exposed skin that I could, then started to take the thing down. The plant easily filled up the back of the pickup with wet succulent plant parts oozing sticky, milky juices.

The local landfill has a greens recycling program. But they took one look at the evil load and directed us to the dump side of the facility. As a result, a couple millennia down the road, some archaeologist will try to make sense of our culture by picking through a pile of broken washing machines, rotted sofas, discolored pizza boxes and pieces of a mysterious plant with powers to blind and incapacitate.

Euphorbia stump

Nine months later the plant is seriously set back, though not entirely dead. My energy flagged before I could get the stump out of the ground, and every now and then the plant tries to come back to life. I’ve since seen shade-tree sized specimens of the species in West Hollywood, so I’m convinced I got to the plant before it was too late. I’ll just keep at the regrowth until the plant decides to give up the ghost.

Euphorbia pupHalfway across the yard, in a little clay pot, sits another variant of this species, the red form that’s been given the clonal name ‘Rosea,’ and is commonly known as “sticks of fire.” It’s supposed to be a lot less vigorous. It’s not supposed to get much over six feet tall. It’s supposed to lack the same amount of chlorophyll and have less of that life force than its green big brother. But I’m skeptical. That plant isn’t going to get to live outside of its pot. Ever.

Talking to one of the members of the local cactus and succulent society, he thought that was for the best. The red variant hasn’t been around for more than a few years. No one knows its possible eventual size. As far as its eventual supposed six foot height? “I’d be very skeptical,” he said.

Behind him, planted in the ground just a few dozen yards away, was one of the red forms of the plant. It was already five feet tall.

art, my garden, photography, plant profiles

beautiful decay

1 Comment

Here’s another recently completed image in my Destructive Testing series, “Comparative Wilt Test.”

James SOE NYUN: Comparative Wilt Test


James SOE NYUN: Comparative Wilt Test: Oenothera, Osteospermum, Oxalis. Digital pigment print, 16 x 20 inches.

The original photos were taken in the late 90s, and my original intention was to print them sequentially so that you could see the wilting in process. I tried that, but then decided it wasn’t interesting enough. Recently I decided to revisit some of the negatives using Photoshop. I ended up superimposing five of the original images and used different kinds and degrees of transparency for each layer. I like this result much better, though I could also see this turning into a stop-motion video at some point.

The image memorializes a pseudo-science experiment I conducted to see how three different flowering plants would behave when cut off the mother plant, lashed to some supports, then allowed to wilt over the course of several days. The victims in this case are three plants in the garden I was having some ill feelings towards: Mexican evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa), freeway daisy (Osteospermum fruticosum), and Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pes-caprae).

My primrose problems went back to a packet of “wildflower seed” that I’d purchased as a souvenir at the Grand Canyon in the early 1990s. The picture on the packet was appealing: delicate pink flowers on a dainty plant. And they were wildflowers! At first I was thrilled that the sprinkling of seed I applied to some desolate ground in the front yard started to germinate. I was even happier when there was that first extravagant first flowering, with dozens to hundreds of the papery, soft pink flowers covering the plants so you couldn’t see the barren ground anymore.

Okay, if you know the plant, I can tell you’re laughing and know where this is headed… But as I soon found out, as pretty as it is, this is one aggressive plant, reseeding tenaciously and spreading quickly by putting out dense webs of underground runners. More than ten years later, I’m still pulling at the stems that continue to come up in that bed. And even though they’re wildflowers, they’re not native to San Diego. Fortunately for the local ecosystem, they haven’t escaped from the bed where I naively gave them the gift of life.

Plant number two, the freeway daisy, had similar issues. It started out life as a tiny plant in a four-inch pot but soon spread like a demon, swallowing up a number of little annuals that stood in its way. At least the plant didn’t reseed much, and the stems, though they can sometimes set down root, were easy enough to control.

The final plant, the Bermuda buttercup, is a common and obnoxious weed over much of coastal Southern California. During its peak bloom in the middle of spring the perky yellow flowers over the attractive clover-ish leaves are a nice sight. But once you have it, you’ll probably have it forever.

my garden, plant profiles

true blue sages

Leave a comment

There are plenty of names for shades of blue: azure, cerulean, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, sky, and navy. And then there’s even the special synthetic intense ultramarine shade that artist Yves Klein patented under the name “International Klein blue.”

A visit to a nursery, however, seems to come up with only a short list of plants having flowers that are truly, intensely blue. Among the more common plants pansies, delphiniums, periwinkles and cornflowers would qualify. But decades of breeding attempts with roses and phalaenopsis and cattleya orchids have failed to produced anything other than pale mauvey or lavenderey colors, mainly because those plants don’t produce the necessary blue pigments in the first place.

There are laboratory subjects that have been genetically modified to carry the genes to produce blue pigment, and they’re producing flowers that are knocking on the door of being blue. For a flower to be blue, however, in addition to having the right pigments, the pH of the petals has to be absolutely correct. Otherwise you get pinks or more of those close-but-no-cigar colors like lilac. (If you’ve played with altering the color of hydrangea blossoms or making litmus paper change from pink to blue you’re already familiar with the controlling effects of acidity. Of course the big difference is that you can accomplish hydrangea color change without going into the lab.) The basic genetic modification process creeps me out a bit, and genetically-modified carnations are sensibly banned from Europe.

Fortunately the sage genus, Salvia, contains a number of species with flowers that require no genetic manipulation to achieve their amazingly blue colors. I’ve devoted a corner of my garden to three of them: ivy-leafed sage, arrow-leafed sage, and gentian sage.

Three salvias compared

The three species compared, left to right: Salvia patens ‘Oceano Blue,’ S. cacaliaefolia, and S. sagittata.

The ivy-leafed sage, Salvia cacaliaefolia, is a robust grower, four to five feet tall and as big around as you’ll let it get. I’m starting to call it the “walking sage” because it can set down roots where the fairly lax stems touch the ground. It also sends up new stems from runners, though these don’t wander too far from the plant. Rambunctious, yes, but the plant has been easily controlled with the help of Mister Pruning Shears.

Ivy-leaved sage flower Ivy-leaved sage plant

As its common name would suggest the leaves are a little ivy-like, triangular, three inches in length, and a pleasant medium green color. The spaces between the paired leaves can approach eight or nine inches, making the plant look a little stemmy and informal, but I find the mounding plant to be graceful and attractive.

Before the flowers open the buds develop an intense, almost indigo-blue shade, about as close to International Klein Blue as you’ll find in the garden. The buds open to clean blue flowers, fairly simple tubular affairs that are about and inch and a quarter long. What the flowers might lack in size and showy complexity they make up with their sheer profusion. The plant went into the ground November 18 of last year, and it’s never been without flowers except for when the sprinkler or heavy rains knocked them off. Hardiness reported to Zone 9.

The arrow-leafed sage, Salvia sagittata, grows smaller than the previous species. So far, for me, the plant is maybe two feet tall and three wide, with the inflorescence adding a foot to the height. True to name, the leaves are shaped like an arrowhead. They easily attain six inches in length, and have an attractive light, almost lime-green coloration. Towards the end of the season the plant can lose its lower leaves and get leggy, so you might want to plant something small and mounding near the plant to disguise the stems. (I’ve planted some lime thyme.)

Arrow-leaved sage flowerArrow-leaved sage plant

The flowers are about the same size as those of the ivy-leaved sage, and take the form of small tubes with one petal modified to form a frilly little “skirt”–a handy platform for insects to land on. (If this were an orchid, the flower part would be called the labellum, the “lip.”) The blooms float on thin, dark stems that make them look like exotic little butterflies hovering over the plant. Their color is a vivid medium blue color, a main-line blue so pure it doesn’t need a fancy name. Peak bloom runs from May to late fall in San Diego. Considered a tender perennial, probably hardy into Zone 9.

The gentian sage, Salvia patens, is the newest addition to my garden. The clone I chose is ‘Oceano Blue.’ So far the plant is about 30 inches tall and 15 wide, definitely the most constrained of these three species. Leaves are oval-to-pointed (“ovate”), medium-dark green, and about two inches long.

Gentian sage flower Gentian sage plant

The flowers are almost identical to arrow-leaved sage in color–an intense medium blue–but the flowers are huge by contrast, exceeding two inches in length and height. The petals have a distinct formation that makes me think of a crab claw. I haven’t grown it through the warmest months, but it has a reputation for slowing down in its floriferousness, something I’m beginning to observe. Hardiness reported to Zone 8.

And what about the common bedding plant Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria Blue,’ the mealy cup sage? It can be a great plant, particularly in warmer, less humid climates and seasons when powdery mildew isn’t an issue. The flowers, however, range more towards blue-violet, not a pure shade of blue. So if you’re a blue purist, fuggedaboutit.

my garden, plant profiles

space alien in san diego?

Leave a comment

The evidence!

head of pachypodium

Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. Despite a certain resemblance to the classic “Martian popping thing” available at Archie McPhee’s, it’s actually the final two leaves on a Pachypodium geayi, a succulent and spiny first-cousin to the better known plumeria that is such a fragrant staple in Hawaiian leis.martian popping thing

entire pachypodium plantKept moist, and during the cooler and wetter parts of the year, the plant is a spiny column ringed with a rosette of long gray-green leaves. Drop the watering, and the plant goes into defensive mode, dropping its leaves and making like a cactus. Where we have it, in the back of the back yard, it gets to dry out along with the rest of the drought-tolerant plants, so we get to see its “cactus” behavior most of the summer and into fall. When the water starts up, the leaves come back and it’s happy again.

This species can produce pendant cream-colored flowers with reflexed petals. They’re not the most spectacular bloomers in the Pachypodium genus–P. lamerei could be confused for a plumeria if it weren’t for the spines on the plant.

This plant is about ten years in the ground and is coming up on four feet tall. Mature plants will get triple or quadruple the height of this teenager. More water would help it along, I’m sure, but in my yard it gets what it gets.

So far no pests have bothered it. Would you?

my garden, plant profiles

mariposa lily

Leave a comment

Here’s a plant I hadn’t grown before, the Mariposa Lily, Calochortus superbus.

Mariposa Lily

The first plant to bloom was creamy yellow, almost white, with very few markings. It had a remarkably lacy petal thing going on–but that was due to insects munching on the plant.

And then this clone bloomed, pale blush with some of the most outrageous petal markings I’ve ever seen on a bulb, almost like a peacock feather. Gee, I thought I’d gotten the wrong bulbs since they were so different. But doing my research I was assured they were actually the kinds of variation you can expect from this plant. In fact, there’s a web page that shows lots of variations of this species.

Interior of Mariposa lily

I haven’t seen what this plant does during the summer in a bed that gets moderate-to-light watering. This is a California native and comes from areas where it dries out in the summer, so chances are excellent that the bulbs would rot in the ground. I’ll try to dig up most of them and store them dry, but I’ll leave a few in the ground for a test, particularly those in areas that are farther away from the sprinkler. They’re so cool–I hope they’ll come back next year!

my garden, plant profiles

ancestral vegetables

Leave a comment

cucumber seed packetSaturday I put some seeds of Armenian cucumber into the ground.

There are heirloom vegetables and then there are ancestral varieties like this, varieties that go so far back into history that to grow them and have them at your table is to connect with history, traditions and the ground that they grow in. The Armenian cucumber dates back at least to the fifteenth century, when it was introduced into Italy from Armenia. I’m sure it was being consumed long before then.

Although called a cucumber it’s actually classified as a melon, Cucumis melo var. flexuosus, and is closer genetically to honeydews than to the standard English or pickling cucumbers. With its unusual ribbed creamy green exterior, you have to do a bit of explaining when you share the extras from the garden: well, yes…it’s called a cucumber, but it’s really something different…

The flesh is mild and firmer than any other cucumber out there, almost crunchy, the texture of unripe melon. The fruits can easily reach 30 inches long, but are best picked when half that size. They’re great in salads, and they pair amazingly well with tomatoes.

Last year I started them in late June and had cucumbers 60 days later. Two hills of plants were plenty for two people, with cukes left over for the neighbors. Pretty good soil, moderate watering and occasional fertilizing kept them happy and productive until the end of September. Some people trellis them, but they’re fine if you let them roam like other melons. I like this variety so much that it’s one of those plants that I’ll keep planting as long as I have room for it.