Flower Gardens

» Cottage_Garden - Pansies

Today's photo appearing with the article on Flower Garden Basics is of Osteospermum and Pansies. I have these growing together in a big, glossy, deep blue ceramic container by my kitchen door. I love these jewel toned pansies, what a terrific saturated ruby red.

To me, though, these kinds of modern pansies are not exactly pansies, these are uptown relatives of pansies. To me, "real" pansies have to have pansy faces!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller

In response to Pansies posted by Cottage_Garden:

This photo goes along with my article published today on the definitions of Annual or Perennial? It is looking a bit pixillated to me, not sure why and I'm sorry about that, I'll try and fix it soon.

The color is fabulous though. Pink cosmos really pops, especially against that soft silvery gray background of Dusty Miller.

Gray foliage is a great foil for so many different flower colors.

Just for the record, the cosmos is an annual. You would grow it from seed planted in the garden a week or two after your last frost, or maybe from transplants.

The dusty miller is usually sold as an annual in cold winter areas but sometimes overwinters in zone 7 and warmer.

Both like it warm and sunny.

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - Osteospermum and Pansies

In response to Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller posted by Cottage_Garden:

The Photo with Flower Garden Basics shows osteosperumum and pansies crowded cheek by jowl in a container by my kitchen door. I was able to plant these in early February here in southern California. I enjoy them up close every day!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - Pansies in Hot Colors

These delightful pansies in hot colors ( shown with Selecting A Garden Site) were growing in a traffic median in the heart of Los Angeles, south of Beverly Hills. They were so perky amidst a multi-street intersection with about fifteen lanes of traffic roaring by. I had to cross three streets to take the photo but they were so eye-catching I did it.

Somehow, though, the colors remind me more of autumn mums or football team colors (Univ. of Southern California maybe?) than spring flowers. Wow.

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - Dandelion Puffball

I think maybe dandelions might be the universal weed. True, you could eat the foliage in a salad or saute, and make wine from the golden yellow blooms, and kids love to blow the seeds all about, but honestly they are a pesty thing in the flower bed. I found this prime specimen on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

See it along with Clearing A Flower Bed. It looks a lot prettier than a weed has any right to, I think!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - The Floral Mural

This fabulous dream-garden mural catches my eye every time I pass its corner. It is up high on the building facade with a backdrop of brilliant blue sky.

Below the floral mural is a perfectly executed trompe l'oeil painting of elegant, heavy drapery, maybe a theatre curtain. You can see a bit of it in the photo. I'm not sure how the two are supposed to go together.

The shopfront was apparently at one time a fabric-related business, then a florist, or maybe both at once, this is Los Angeles after all where anything goes. But now .... nothing.

The square photo format shows only a third or so of the flowery part, it is a long narrow painting.

Anyway, you can enjoy it while pondering the effort required for top notch Soil Preparation so you can grow flowers that look as good as the ones in the picture!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - The Fallen Leaves (aka FREE Organic Matter)

Autumn leaves are a readily available, free for the raking source of precious organic matter for your garden. I used to beg them from my neigbbors when I had a town garden. They'd bag them and (with permission) I'd raid the curb!

You can compost the leaves, dig them into the soil, or use them as mulch. Raking is a time honored fall tradition. In a big yard it can become time consuming and maybe even overwhelming, but with the modern mulching mowers, leaf blowers, and shredders, it is still relatively quick and easy to save them. It is a wasteful shame to bag them up and throw them away!

I snapped this photo last fall in Burbank. It is somewhat unusual, in southern California, to see autumn foliage color up and fall off the trees and then sit on the lawn!

One of the few kinds of trees used here that do show good fall color is the gumball, or Liquidambar. These may color red or gold or purple or orange or a combination. And of course, they drop the spikey gumballs.

Another reason it was hard to find fallen autumn leaves is that here in Los Angeles, it is customary to have a "mow and blow" crew maintain your lawn and garden at least once a week if not twice or even three times. So whatever does fall is removed almost instantly.

Most yards are very small, like a postage stamp, so a quick mowing job on a tiny lawn followed by rapid clean up with the leaf blower is all it takes. It looks very tidy.

On the other hand, it also removes every speck of naturally provided organic matter. Leaves, stems, twigs, gumballs, flower petals, grass clippings, you name it, it's gone. Cleaned right to bare ground.

And for whatever reason, most people don't seem to mulch. This astounds me in a climate where watering is done almost year round. But in any case, mulch is a good source of organic matter in that it rots down slowly over time and supplies it little by little.

As far as what the mow and blow crews collect, sweeping nearly every single yard clean as a whistle? In Burbank, for example, there is a curbside recycling program in place so green waste goes into specially marked bins. I haven't looked into what happens to it after that. Yet.

You can see this photo of rare fallen leaves from Burbank accompanying Adding Organic Matter.

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Barbara Nicholson Bell - Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller

In response to Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller posted by Cottage_Garden:

I always thought of cosmos as an annual, even a weed, as it grows along the roadsides in the northeast. I planted one of those "wildflower" cutting garden annual mats that you cut to length and cover with a little soil. The cosmos were among the tallest I've ever seen that year. The next year, I planted something else, but the cosmos came back. The third year, I dug up the beds and planted roses. The cosmos came up again...

Finally in the fourth year there were only one or two cosmos left. I am looking forward to seeing if any come up this year!

» Cottage_Garden - Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller

In response to Pink Cosmos and Dusty Miller posted by bici:

Cosmos is an annual. Sometimes it will reseed itself. There are dwarf varieties and also the taller ones that can tower over five feet. The flowers are white and several shades of pink. All delightful!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Cottage_Garden - Calla Lily

The pure white calla lilies fascinate me. They are widely grown in gardens here in Los Angeles and are blooming now. They look pure, the picture of perfection, fresh and clean, glistening in the garden, eye catching from a distance and still exquisite up close. Their foliage is also that ideal medium green, it says jungle and it says oasis, it says lush garden vitality.

Almost weedy in their aggressiveness in a damp location, they will spread unless controlled but will die down in summer if not watered here. In other areas of the country I have had them as "annuals" in my garden, and I have also seen them as houseplants. But they are most stellar in the garden.

I took this picture this afternoon as I strolled the neighborhood. This particular gardener had a big clump of them growing beneath a silvery barked deciduous magnolia (a few pale pink blooms left on it) next to a clump of bold, strappy foliage of agapanthus (not in bloom yet) and clustered around a Japanese garden style lantern; enchanting! mix of texture and form, perfectly framed beneath the little tree, a tour de force. Very simple but powerful combination in a cool and shady spot.

See its portrait at Design With Confidence.

-- posted by Cottage_Garden