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Highlights of the Fall Dry Garden Today is the Autumnal Equinox, the official beginning of the Fall season. I have been feeling the change coming — the sun angle seems different and the light in the evening makes the plants in my dry garden glow from within. While the springtime is almost an assault on the senses in its utter abundance, Fall is more restrained and serene. There is less to see after the spring annuals have died away and the bunch grasses have been cut back, but what is left holds the attention. If not supplied with summer water, most plants have the sense to go dormant or at least semi-dormant in the dry season. However, others find the strength to put on a spectacular show, even more noticeable because everyone else is asleep. These are some of the plants peaking in the garden at the moment.
In The Native Garden
Ah, the Hemizonias (tarweeds) with their pungent, yet pleasing odor, so associated in my mind with Fall in California. From deep taproots they get the water to look as fresh as spring wildflowers, even as the sun beats down on them and the temperatures rise to 100F. The “Hayfield Tarweed” (Hemizonia congesta ssp. luzulifolia) is particularly pretty with pure white flowers and a row of black anthers, giving the center of the flower a speckled appearance. It grows to a compact, rounded bush 1 to 1 1/2 feet tall and wide and re-sows modestly. It is a great plant, yet only a few people have been willing to buy it. It is, after all, a tarWEED! It is true that it seems to have become weedy in the disturbed landscapes of California, where the bunchgrasses have been lost to annual grasses. But in a landscape with perennial grasses or established shrubs, it behaves well and is not a weed. Once, we were provided with the wrong seed and grew another tarweed that did become invasive. I am still pulling it out of my garden years later. The white (or yellow) Hemizonia has never given me any trouble. This year I was particularly pleased to find it intertwined with the rusty bronze flowered “monkey flower” Mimulus puniceus.
Likewise, this native perennial sunflower stayed fresh and green (and blooming) through the recent heat waves. It is not what you plant if you want the big, annual garden types or the big (sometimes invasive), perennial types. But if you have a dry area and appreciate California natives, this daintier sunflower will please you. I sing its praises whenever I can. Technically, it can get to six feet tall, but in my garden it has stayed around 3 feet.
The “Prickly Poppy,” Argemone albiflora, has been a nice surprise this year. I have never dared to let a Romneya poppy loose in my garden due to its suckering habit, yet this gives me a chance to swoon over large, pure white poppy flowers with a golden boss of stamens, very much like the famous “fried eggs.” It does have purple stigma and a delicious cucumber scent, but that makes it even more attractive. The plant is much smaller (2-3 feet) and is an annual — I don’t know yet if it will selfsow. It appears to be very tough — I planted mine near Verbascum epiexianthemum, thinking that this mullein from a mountaintop in Greece would be a smallish alpine type. Instead, it threw out huge leaves and covered everything around it, including the Argemone. I thought it had been smothered, but it laid itself down horizontally, got out to the light and has not stopped blooming since early summer. The flowers make you forget that the rest of the plant looks like a thistle (it is called prickly poppy for a reason), just don’t pet it and wear gloves when you handle it.
This is a much underrated perennial Scabiosa for dry gardens. It is quite low, perhaps 10” tall, with leaves that are grey and silky with very fine hairs. The flowers are Scabiosa blue and on short stalks, but its real charm lies in the perfectly round balls of papery seeds. They stay together for quite a while before finally disintegrating. In the meantime, there is much beauty to see as a whole (lovely shiny balls) and in the details (green centers and brown stripes on the skirts).
Gzzik! With
a swoosh, a hummingbird passes by my ear and heads for a tall bush
with intense red flowers. It is Salvia regla, the present hummingbird
magnet in my backyard. I am reminded that this plant is planted
on the Texas flyway for migrating hummingbirds — they stop
to feed from it in the Fall on their way back to the tropics. The
size and the color intensity of the flowers attract human attention,
too. My favorite detail is in the drying calyxes, which turn from
bright red with yellow to reddish bronze as they dry up. It grows
treelike (multi-trunked) in the wild and up to 12 feet. In my yard,
up to 8 feet with a very open and narrow form that makes it the
perfect plant along a path. It is drought tolerant, but would prefer
afternoon shade to look its best. Zinnia peruviana comes in two color forms: red and yellow. But as the flowers age, each goes through changes from bright red or yellow to warm and muted colors. At any time there are many of these color variations to see on the same plant. These are not the big cut flower zinnias, but rather delicate, wildflower types found in the wild from Arizona through Mexico to Argentina. If your taste goes towards wildflowers, you will probably prefer these to the garden types based on Zinnia elegans. In addition they will not get the dreaded mildew that afflicts Zinnea elegans.
My last stars of the fall garden are the horned poppies, Glaucium flavum and Glaucium grandiflorum. I praised G. grandiflorum in the summer newsletter and it is still blooming very well. I am astounded it can keep going like that, and the Fall leaves look as fresh as the spring leaves did. For some reason, these two Glauciums do not set seeds in my yard — if they did, they might not last as long. I should also mention, among the highlights of the Fall season, the thrill of finding the many signs of new life brought on by the change of seasons. I see fresh artichoke leaves pushing up and there is even a fresh green leaf on the otherwise totally leafless Ribes speciosum. The native Irises have started making new roots. My monster Alstroemeria is exploding out of dormancy in an almost scary fashion. Considering how hot it was today (though I doubt the accuracy of my thermometer which said 100F on the north side of the house), this seems very optimistic. Yet they confirm my own gut feeling of weather changes coming soon. I will take my winter cold crops, walk out into that warm evening light and plant them. It has been a long time since I have planted anything. Since it is Fall, I will also harvest apples and raspberries and pluck a few of our grapes, now ripened. It
is Fall indeed.
Anni
Jensen
Availability 1. Hemizonia
congesta ssp. luzulifolia: a small batch will be available in the
Spring.
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