Gardening : Lummis Garden Blooms for Open House
Time for a bit of horticultural free-associating.
What do you think of when you hear the words water-conserving plants?
Cactuses? Succulents? A sandy, austere and generally grayish landscape?
If so, you are not alone. And the Historical Society of Southern California has a surprise for you.
Its newly completed water-conserving garden, outside the Charles F. Lummis Home in Highland Park, is lush with shoulder-to-shoulder greenery, blossoms of many hues and even a lawn of sorts. The garden, designed by landscape architect Bob Perry, will be the featured attraction at the society’s third annual Lummis Garden Open House, Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Green Despite Heat
“This garden in the middle of August and September, when it’s really hot, still looks green and pretty,” says Suzie Chamberlain, coordinator of garden volunteers. It demonstrates, she says, the number and variety of attractive blooming plants that are drought- tolerant.
Begin at the gate--recently moved down Carlota Boulevard so visitors must walk through the garden--and you’ll see the subdued colors of the Mexican sage up against the shock of orange that is the California poppy. At their feet are delicate baby blue eyes, another spring-blooming California native.
And that “lawn” in the center is actually dwarf pink yarrow ( Achillea millefolium ). Grown from seed, it can exist on a mere 15 minutes a week of summer watering and needs no watering in the winter. Left to its own, the yarrow would grow spiky pink flowers up to about 2 feet in height, but infrequent mowing can keep it down as a grass substitute.
“We were looking for a surface you could walk on, sit on and, because the garden is cared for by volunteers, not have to mow on a regular basis,” Chamberlain says.
Non-Native Plants Too
Though the garden contains a number of plants native to this area, it also includes species that originate in Mexico, the Mediterranean and South Africa--”places with a climate like ours, with a long dry spell every year,” says Chamberlain.
The 15-minute-a-week watering standard holds for the entire 1.8-acre garden.
As an alternative to the usual flower-bed color provided by thirsty pansies, marigolds and impatiens, the Lummis Home garden offers herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, lavender), poppies (such as the hardy, 5-foot-tall matilija poppy) and easily sown wildflowers.
Deceptively fragile-looking spring flowers adorn the abuse-tolerant rockrose, a low-growing shrub that can stand up to salt spray, frost, scorching heat and poor dry soil. “Carmel Sur” manzanita, Chamberlain says, could take the place of ivy as a border planting.
For shade, consider the Western sycamore tree, the California holly (or toyon), the yellow-flowered sweet acacia or the singleleaf pinon pine.
Bulbs and even ferns also are represented in the water-conserving garden.
Most of the species in the garden can be found at or ordered through retail nurseries.
Drip-Irrigation System
Another feature of the garden is the recently completed drip-irrigation system. Such a setup, Chamberlain explains, can apply precious water right where it is needed, with virtually no evaporation.
Simple to install, the system involves plastic tubes laid on the ground and covered with mulch. It is practical for plants widely separated, but not for those crowded together as in, say, ground cover.
Sunday’s open house celebrates completion of the 3-year project to redesign the major garden area. The effort was financed largely by donations from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Metropolitan Water District, the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Mayor Tom Bradley is scheduled to speak at the open house at 1:30 p.m. The event also will include tours led by botanists and naturalists, sale of hard-to-find plants and seeds, free refreshments and sale of books on gardening and local history.
Lummis Home
The Lummis Home, called El Alisal (the Place of the Sycamore), is itself a chapter in Southland history. With its rough-cut beams and granite boulders, the structure was built on the west bank of the Arroyo Seco around the turn of the century by Charles Fletcher Lummis, who, having walked from Cincinnati in 143 days, burst onto the local scene in 1885.
Enchanted by the Spanish roots of Southwestern culture, Lummis laid the stones himself for the house that became a museum of the Southwest and a Spanish fantasy. A scholar, journalist, social activist and rabid Southern California booster, the eccentric Lummis surrounded himself with artists and writers at Saturday-night soirees in El Alisal.
Although today it is headquarters of the historical society, visitors Sunday will see a house that has been largely preserved as Lummis knew it.
The Lummis home is at 200 E. Avenue 43, Los Angeles, just off the Pasadena Freeway. Admission to the event is free. Information: (213) 222-0546.
