Every year when May arrives, I am sure that the time has come to remove my lemon verbena. Started from a sprig growing in a four-inch pot about 20 years ago, it is now more than six feet tall and wide. I am grateful for all the fragrant foliage it has given but surmise that its time has finally come to be cut up and turned into mulch. This thought recurs annually due to the fact that lemon verbena is the last plant to leaf out in the spring. Luckily, I am one of those who are most reluctant to “shovel prune” anything in my garden and so, again this year, I withheld the impulse to do so with my lemon verbena. Lo and behold, by the time the middle of May arrived, its stems were once again covered in lustrous mint green foliage and its sprays of delicate white flowers had begun to open.
Lemon verbena (Aloysia citriodora) is one of those plants that it is difficult to imagine living without. Its foliage has the strongest lemon scent of any herb. You can use it to make tea or to flavor pastries or icing on your cake. The plant is not water-needy and will do fine with a single soaking per week during the summer. Brought to Europe from South America by Spanish and Portuguese explorers, the custom was adopted of placing it in handkerchiefs from which its fragrance was inhaled to ease the burden of summer heat. From now until it loses its foliage in winter, whenever a guest leaves my home, I present a few shoots of lemon verbena as a parting gift. It never disappoints.
Another shrub in my garden with fragrant foliage that has been flourishing for two decades at least is a spice bush (Calycanthus occidentalis). This California native displays unusual, tentacled flowers that appear as though they would feel no less at home under the sea than in the garden. Mine is growing under a bottlebrush tree (Callistemon citrinus) whose opulent display of scarlet flowers at the time of year blend well with the rosé-wine-colored spice bush blooms. Spice bush is also referred to as strawberry bush since its flowers, opening sporadically between April and August, have a scent, in the opinion of some, that combines the fragrances of pineapple, strawberry, and banana. Spice bush can handle any type of soil. It grows on stream banks and is generally described as needing a moderate water regime although mine, living in somewhat shady conditions, needs no more water than the lemon verbena.
The resins and volatile oils that give many California natives and other Mediterranean climate plants their fragrance have two purposes. First, they increase sap viscosity and so reduce water loss from leaves during the long dry season that must be endured. Second, they make it easier for the plants to catch fire, a beneficial event in their life cycle since blazing heat is required to germinate their seeds. Other than viscous volatile oils in their foliage, California natives utilize three other strategies to minimize heat stress and water loss: leathery leaves, providing a water-tight foliar covering (e.g. manzanita); small leaves, having less surface area for water loss (e.g. ceanothus); gray to white foliage, reflecting sun from leaf surfaces (e.g. California white sage [Salvia apiana], desert marigold [Baileya multiradiata], and Artemesia species).
“With all the hubbub and gnashing of teeth about pending water restrictions to once a week, I’m blasé about the issue because my productive edible garden has always done well with far less.” Thus writes Yvonne Savio, who gardens in Pasadena. “I’ve always conducted my watering timing as an only-when-imperative operation,” she continues on her blog at gardeninginla.net. “But it does take training the plants and trees from the moment they’re seeded or transplanted to grow deeply to retrieve the water that you’ll make available less frequently.”
Savio waters her garden as follows: Once every three weeks in the spring; once a week in summer, except for plants “with foliage bulk like fully branched-out tomatoes,” which need more water when temperatures soar into the 90s (although above 95 degrees “plants shut down, so more water will run the risk of drowning them”); twice a week in the fall; once a week in a dry winter. While Savio advises watering when soil is dry at a three-inch depth, the soil depth that water should reach depends on the length of your plant’s roots so deep-rooted tomatoes and asparagus, for example, will receive more water than radishes and lettuce. Salvio also enriches her beds with compost prior to planting and maintains a layer of mulch at all times in order to minimize irrigation frequency.
Thanks to Randy Duprey, who gardens in Manhattan Beach, for bringing to my attention a vegetable grower in Great Britain who uses lady phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia) as a green manure crop. Green manure or cover crops are incorporated into the ground for soil enrichment purposes. They grow and decompose quickly and are often sown between harvest of one crop and the planting of another. Lady phacelia can be beneficially turned under the earth as soon as six weeks after it begins to grow.
And, wouldn’t you know it, lady Phacelia is a California native and therefore is particularly well-suited to growing here. You will see its mauve flowers flourishing together with California poppies when viewing expanses of wildflowers in bloom. Lady phacelia is also exceptional as a pollinator plant and attracts beneficial insects, especially syrphid flies.
Joan Matthews, who gardens in West Hills, emailed as follows: “I noticed my gardener blowing up clouds of dirt in my yard,” and “it is like taking a hair dryer and sucking out all of the moisture available.” The sale of gasoline-fueled lawn and garden equipment will be prohibited in California as of January 2024. However, electric and battery-powered equipment, including blowers powered by these alternative energy sources, will remain. While they have their place in cleanup of debris on sidewalks and driveways, blowers are antithetical to the health of plants. Leaves that fall into flower beds should be left in place in order to build a rich layer of humus beneath. And Ms. Matthews is correct in noting that blowers result in water loss since leaf litter on the soil surface conserves moisture that is absorbed by plant roots.
Finally, I have recently seen artwork exhibited inside botanic gardens. Exhibits of this kind appear to have become a fashionable trend, yet I fail to see how plant lovers could have allowed this to happen. Call me a purist but, in my humble opinion, artwork crafted by human hands, stuck in the middle of a garden, can only distract and detract from the natural beauty of plants.
The following is a schedule of upcoming weekend shows, featuring local plant societies, at Sherman Gardens, located at 2647 E. Coast Hwy., Corona del Mar: fuchsias, June 4-5; carnivorous plants, June 18-19; Plant-O-Rama — bromeliads, ferns, begonias, carnivorous plants, orchids, plumerias, July 16-17; bonsai, Aug. 6-7; begonias, Sept. 17-18; chrysanthemums, Oct. 22-3.
Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and admission is $5, with complimentary lectures most days at 11:30, together with the opportunity to purchase plants on display. For more information, call (949) 673-2261 or visit thesherman.org.
Send questions, comments, and photos to joshua@perfectplants.com
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