G’day, greenery
VISITING the Cheviot Hills garden of Lavi Daniel and Renee Claire is like entering an Alice in Wonderland world where plants are aflame in winter colors and flowers look like pine cones sprouting from the soil. Waves of yellows and grays, oranges and lime greens roll and tumble all the way to the ash, eucalyptus and sycamore trees on the parkway, an optical illusion that makes the 5,500-square-foot corner lot appear much larger than it is.
Three years ago, Daniel and Claire were almost finished remodeling their home and installing paths and patios. They yearned for a garden. Daniel, an artist, had used California natives in the past, but this time, he was looking for something different. A friend told the couple about unusual plants at Australian Native Plants Nursery in Casitas Springs, near Ojai, so they drove there and found exactly what they’d wished for, “sexy, interesting and drought-resistant plants,” Daniel says.
With the exception of a few South African plants, most of their choices were Australian, which brought up the question of soil. The couple’s soil was typical Southern California nutrient-rich, heavy clay. Not the best for these plants, mostly from western and eastern Australia, regions with sandy, acidic and nutrient-poor soil.
Jo O’Connell, the Australian horticulturist who owns the nursery, was confident that her plants could thrive with the right send-off. She suggested adding water-degradable sulfur as a way to boost the soil’s ability to release the iron needed by many Australian plants and often locked up in alkaline soils. To increase drainage, she recommended using acidic humus mulch to break down the heavy clay and entice worms to do the same. She advised against using fertilizers.
“Most fertilizers contain phosphorous. I have to tell people to not fertilize, to just use mulches,” O’Connell says. “Australian soils are low in phosphorous, and the plants adapted by having specializing roots systems that grab phosphorous and other nutrients. Phosphorous can be toxic.”
O’Connell’s suggestions about soil and plant placement worked. Three years later, the garden looks lush on a diet of water once a week and mulch every six months. Throughout the year, richly colored views of the garden can be seen from the windows, inner courtyard and back patio that Claire, owner of BedHead Pajamas, especially enjoys. Blooms change with the seasons, except for the grevilleas that bloom almost year-round.
Trees screen the house from the street. Daniel’s idea of proper screening isn’t a hedge, but a visual barrier in which there are carefully selected spaces that guide the visitor’s eye to the neighborhood’s borrowed landscapes. To do this, he chose airy, lacy plants that could be layered and seen through, such as the seven varieties of needle- and fairy-leafed acacias, many that he used more than once.
In the front alone, there are seven languid, weeping river wattles, Acacia cognata, that serve as a backdrop for the house and a separation from the neighbor. Daniel pruned most of the branches off one of them and trained it to arch across the top of a round living room window. Among the other trees serving as a screen are a 20-foot flame tree, Brachychiton acerifolius, which blooms each August with spectacular scarlet, bell-shaped flowers and three fast-growing willow-leafed Hakea salicifolia shrubs that stand 15 feet tall.
Before planting, Daniel thought about each plant’s size, color and texture and how it transitioned to and from its neighbors. This made for almost subliminal vignettes throughout the garden. Next to the street is a slender, gray-leafed, bony, branched ground cover, Melaleuca incana ‘Prostrate Form,’ alongside another ground cover, Grevillea ‘Austraflora Fanfare,’ that can spread from 6 to 9 feet. The grevillea is fast-growing and has long branches, deeply lobed green leaves and red-pink flowers. Both varieties flow downward and give the impression of falling water. They twine into the pathway, adding a sense of mystery to the entrance.
Three large shrubs, Grevillea ‘Kay Williams,’ with large orange, pink and cream flower plumes that bloom continually until pruned in early summer, line the flagstone path. The fairy-wing leaves of Acacia chinchillensis is outside the courtyard wall, its blooms touching a leathery-leafed, variegated pink, green and yellow Leucadendron ‘Jester.’ Although the textures couldn’t be more different, the acacia blooms echo the yellow in the leucadendron.
Acacias are the stars of the interior patio. O’Connell, who helped Daniel place the first plants in the garden, sited the pendulous branches of A. merinthophora against the wall so that its narrow weeping branches would stand out. The needle-shaped leaves of A. rigens became a small sculpture after Daniel’s artful pruning. A slender-leafed breath of heaven, Coleonema pulchrum, accents the fine texture of the trees.
Parkways on both sides of the corner lot are planted to complement the red no-parking curb. Plants include Hakea baxteri, with leaves similar to a ginkgo, and Banksia blechnifolia, an extraordinary ground cover with cone-shaped flowers. Leucadendron tinctum, its center like a round pat of butter surrounded by a purple circle, breaks over the edge of the corner. Overhanging the curb is a clump of Helichrysum ‘Limelight,’ a common South African shrub so bright it lights up the garden from the street.
“The red curb was a very imposing given,” Daniel says. “I think it’s a beautiful color, and takes the light well. You alter the edge and play with it chromatically.”
In his back patio, Daniel capitalized on the idea of a canyon because of several existing elements. One was a tall wood fence adjoining his neighbor, the other a 40-foot queen palm. Standing with his back to his house, he saw the giant neighborhood trees and thought: Why not make a canyon? He planted another H. salicifolia, a light khaki-leafed Acacia cowleana and a tall pink flowering lacebark, Brachychiton discolor, above a bed that snakes gracefully throughout the back patio.
Today, Daniel and Claire’s excitement is centered on a mature garden. “This is a new realm,” he says with enthusiasm. “Look at this grevillea. I got another one yesterday. See how it’s conifer-like?”
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Give them a welcome
Have fun with unusual Australian plants. For the first two years, treat them like any other new plant and attend to their soil needs, says Jo O’Connell, owner of Australian Native Plants Nursery, near Ojai; www.australianplants.com.
Trees
Coast banksia, Banksia integrifolia: Tall and slender with dark green leaves and white undersides. Bright yellow cylinder-shaped flower spikes. Grows well near saltwater.
Hairy wattle, Acacia vestita: Small tree to 20 feet. Yellow, round flowers in spring, gray-green leaves on pendulous branches. Likes good drainage.
Knife acacia, Acacia cultriformis: Small multi-trunk tree to 15 feet. Blue-green triangular leaves on weeping branches. Bright yellow flowers in spring. Good to use as a screen and for cut flowers.
Shrubs
Koala blooms banksia, Banksia spinulosa ‘Schnapper Point’: 2 feet to 4 feet tall by 4 feet to 5 feet wide with golden and red candle-shaped flowers.
Heath-leaved banksia, Banksia ericifolia: Fine in clay soil. Orange-red cylindrical candles. Small light green and gray-green leaves.
Grevillea ‘Long John’: Large, long-flowering red plumes, 8 feet to 10 feet tall by 5 feet to 8 feet wide. Long, needle-shaped leaves that some might mistake for a pine leaves.
Pearl bluebush, Maireana sedifolia: Striking 3-by-3-foot gray-white shrub with succulent leaves. Use as a filler.
Ground covers
Grevillea blechnifolia: Unusual, with green-lobed leaves and pink-red cones growing out of the ground. Good for sun or shade. Melaleuca incana ‘Prostrate Form’: Slender, short, gray leaves on long branches that look like falling water. May grow 1 feet to 2 feet tall.
Grevillea ‘Austraflora Fanfare’: Pink-red and long-flowering with green-lobed leaves on lengthy branches.
-- Ellen Hoffs
