Cultivating Heady Hillside Aromas
Even though the days are impossibly short and the holidays are nearly upon us, I’m still trying to get a few more things in the ground, including some of those native plants that make our hills so fragrant.
The various artemisias and salvias that are largely responsible for the heady, herby fragrance experienced on hikes, are notoriously difficult to grow in the typical flat backyard. But I’m assured that a few will survive and bring the scent of the chaparral into my city garden. All, of course, will thrive in a hillside garden.
Bart O’Brien, director of horticulture at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, says sages named “Pozo Blue,” “Allen Chickering” and “Aromas” smell the sweetest and “persist the best” of the Salvia clevelandii clan, the most fragrant salvia in the chaparral. Expect them to grow to 4 to 6 feet, spreading as wide, when the tall spikes of bluish flowers are in bloom. After they flower, cut them down by one-half to two-thirds so they do not become too woody, he says.
The hummingbird sage, Salvia spathacea , with gray leaves and lax spikes of deep burgundy flowers, grows in the open shade and is probably the next most fragrant. Carol Bornstein, director of horticulture at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, rates it “pretty reliable” in a slightly shaded garden. It grows several feet wide on spreading rhizomes and blooms at 3 feet in height.
She and O’Brien say the pungent white sage, Salvia apiana , makes a reliable garden plant, though they caution that as many people detest the medicinal fragrance as love it. Fans (my kids among them) bind and dry the nearly white leaves and burn them as incense. It will grow three to 5 feet tall and nearly as wide. Forms of the silvery-foliaged purple sage, Salvia leucophylla , are also candidates, especially Pt. Sal Spreader and Figueroa Mt., which grow 5 to 8 feet wide but only get 3 to 4 feet tall. Of similar size, the hybrid Mrs. Beard may be the best of the bunch, O’Brien tells me, but may be impossible to find for sale.
There are also two forms of the native sagebrush, Artemisia californica , that have a chance: Montara grows to about 4 feet across and 2 feet tall, while Canyon Gray can spread to 8 or more feet. Run your hands over the finely cut, silvery foliage, then cup them to your face and you’ll agree that this is a defining California scent.
With the exception of the hummingbird sage, all need full sun, and all should be watered once a week, at the most, during the dry season, at least once they’re established. With winter’s storms on the horizon (hopefully), now is the perfect time to plant any California native.
These will be difficult to find at most nurseries, so try one of the native specialists: Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, (714) 728-0685; Matilija Nursery in Malibu, (310) 457-3381, or the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley, (818) 768-1802.
Corn-Salad Seedlings
Not all the seeds germinating in my garden are weeds. Some irrepressible flowers are coming back, and the vegetable garden is full of little corn-salad seedlings. Also called lamb’s lettuce or mache, it’s a delicious, nearly wild salad green that’s so easy to grow it practically plants itself.
One of the tastier ingredients in European mesclun mixes, it has a subtle, clean, slightly nutty taste that never turns bitter, even after setting seed. Eat it alone, toss into an ordinary salad or add it to cooked beets with a little walnut oil.
Plant seed soon and plant lots because it’s the smallest thing in the vegetable garden, making a tiny rosette only a few inches across and barely that high. Several varieties are available from the Cook’s Garden, P.O. Box 535, Londonderry, VT 05148; (802) 824-3400.
Planting Gift Ideas
Those shopping for the Southern California gardener who has everything should get in touch with VLT Gardner Horticultural Books in Santa Barbara, (805) 966-0246. They have two titles that are new and not generally available.
“Mediterranean Gardening,” by Heidi Gildemeister (Editorial Moll, Marjorca: $35) is a how-to book written in English for the European Mediterranean region so similar to our own, and “Lotusland: A Photographic Odyssey” (Allen A. Knoll: $59.50) shows and tells about the amazing and eclectic Montecito garden begun in 1941 by Madame Ganna Walska, now a property of the Garden Conservancy.
Available at most bookstores, “The Gardens of California,” by Nancy Goslee Power (Crown: $50) is another candidate for the coffee table sure to please any gardener or landscape looky-loo. Those fascinated by cactus and succulents will find “Dry Climate Gardening With Succulents” by the Huntington Botanical Gardens (Pantheon Books: $25) full of extremely useful information on growing succulents in the landscape. Kid gardeners will like “The Plant-and-Grow Project Book,” by Ulla Dietl (Sterling: $6.95), with its safe and easy activities, and “Weird Things You Can Grow,” by Janet Goldenberg and cartoonist Phoebe Gloeckner (Random House: $12), laid out like a giant action comic book.
Actually, I rather like this last one myself.
