Time to Get Out and Smell Other Flowers

Hard as it might be when our own gardens are so pleasant and pretty, this weekend might be the time to get out and see what others are doing. At Descanso Gardens, at the Lummis home and at the Theodore Payne Foundation--all conveniently located on the east side of town--there are special events at which you will find fresh inspiration for this planting season or next.

Descanso is wrapping up its weeklong Spring Flower Show, timed to coincide with the peak of spring bloom in this canyon-bottom arboretum. Here, both today and Sunday, you will see spring at its best, with some of the largest tulip and daffodil plantings in Southern California. A huge bed of Iceland poppies reminds one that if these are going to be planted, they should be planted by the dozens. If you have heard about the Eastern lilacs developed at Descanso--that have at least a chance of doing well in our Western gardens--now is the time to see what they look like. You’ll find them flowering near the rose garden. You’ll also find azaleas, camellias and flowering fruit trees, at or near their best.

But the highlight of the Spring Flower Show are the outdoor displays around the perimeter of the main lawn. Each is a little garden of its own and there are some intriguing ideas here, to be gathered up and tucked away for future reference. Two in particular are worth studying. One by Milo Bixby is a tiny English-inspired patio garden with most of the plantings tucked in the gaps between the slate paving, or in pots.

The second garden of note is also English in inspiration, but in fact it could be said to be the first truly California cottage garden. Designed by William Baker, it mixes an incredible variety of plants into a tiny space, in true cottage garden fashion. It is very much a huge bouquet, but mixed in with the old-fashioned English flowers are bromeliads, orchids and succulents, ingredients that could only be grown--outdoors at least--in Southern California. It is doubtful if they would all grow together, as they do here, since some need sun, others shade, but the idea is intriguing and the possibility of a similar delightful mixture in a garden, quite real.

Equally intriguing and not the least bit fanciful is the new landscape around the old Lummis House in the Arroyo Seco (200 E. Avenue 43, just off the Pasadena Freeway). Designed by Bob Perry, and added to by a number of volunteers, it is the most handsome landscape of drought-resistant plants I have ever seen. And it shows how colorful drought-resistant plants can be. At this time of the year, it is stunning, and there are all sorts of ideas for the adventuresome. Instead of a lawn, there are soft paths of decomposed granite, and a new planting of a short yarrow that in time will probably take some foot traffic and be mowed, just like a lawn. Instead of marigolds and zinnias, there are small bright plantings of baby-blue-eyes, tidytips and other California wildflowers, by wildflower enthusiast Kevin Connelly.

While the individual plants can be seen elsewhere (including Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, where there is a special native plant sale today, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.), it is the skillful way they are used to make a landscape that is impressive here. The house is not open today. But this Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., you will find people at the Lummis House ready to answer your questions, and you are sure to have many questions.

In a similar vein, there will be a number of free California native plant-oriented events today at the Theodore Payne Foundation, 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley, (in the Northeast corner of the San Fernando Valley, just past Burbank). In particular, you might want to walk to the top of the hill next to the nursery to see a planting of California wildflowers that have grown on rainfall alone, which was little and far between this year. This is also the doing of Kevin Connelly, but don’t expect a miniature version of the Antelope Valley wildflower fields. In time, it may be, and that is the hope of its planter, but if you have ever wanted to grow California wildflowers, here is an example of what you will get.

You can’t plant the wildflowers now, and it’s not a very good time to plant any drought-resistant vegetation--the time to plant is in the fall--but you can see the fruit of that labor this fine spring weekend.