Friday, January 31, 2020

The second half of my visit to Kris's garden

Okay are you ready? I've got more photos from my visit to the garden that inspires the blog Late to the Garden Party. I'll start with a reshare of the huge magnolia near the front door. Why?

Because underneath it are all of these fabulous bromeliads...

Naturally they stay here year round, because that's the way folks can roll in SoCal...

In yesterday's post we started in Kris's back garden and traveled around to the plantings near the front driveway, that's where we pick up with Leptospermum 'Copper Glow'...

A stunner...

Centaurea 'Silver Feather' and Pennisetum 'Rubrum'

In my mind one of the signature plants of this garden is the Bauhinia x blakeana (aka Hong Kong orchid). I was thrilled my visit coinsided with it's blooming.

Another succulent bed...

I should also note that I was stunned by the size of Kris's garden. I knew it was big, but it was even bigger than I thought. And so many parts of the garden are completely separate from others, distinct rooms in every sense of the phrase.

The gravel pathway below isn't just attractive it's also useful, a way for Kris and her husband to get the refuse containers to the curb. Kumara plicatilis, formerly Aloe plicatilis or fan aloe, in the center of this bed.

I was blessed with the soft sunlight of a morning in December. The succulents were glowing. That's a Furcraea foetida 'Mediopicta' in the center and several tall Agave attenuata on the right.

Just behind the succulents above (if I'm remembering correctly) is a bromeliad garden, Kris wrote about it here. I think the bromeliads in this photo are (clockwise starting with the pink bloomer): Aechmea fasciata, Quesnelia marmorata 'Tim Plowman', Vriesea ospinae var gruberi.

Aechmea lueddemanniana 'Mend'


Perhaps a Vriesea fosteriana? Vriesea 'Sherlette Shiigi'

This stunner is a Dermatobotrys saundersii, Kris picked up at a Huntington Garden plant sale in 2017.

There are more succulents grouped nearby.

Kris recently wrote about her expanding mangave collection (here), this one is Mangave 'Kaleidoscope'.

Not a mangave, but rather an agave. The teeth look like Agave gentryi 'Jaws' but the color is throwing me off.

Another shot of some of her gorgeous Agave attenuata collection.

Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty'

The rose climbing the fireplace has been a favorite of mine from Kris's bloomday posts, but of course now that I'm looking for it's name I can't find it. Perhaps Kris will chime in and let us know.

Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder'

I was negligent in getting a good overall shot of the cutting garden area, I was so focused on the citrus trees...

...and the ginormous blazing Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire'

More mangaves! Clockwise starting with the spotted guy at the bottom center: 'Blood Spot', 'Lavender Lady' and 'Silver Fox'...

And more agaves. I must be losing my agave super powers because I'm drawing a blank on the guy on the right (Agave lophantha?) Agave funkiana 'Blue Haze', I believe the ones on the left sometimes go by the name Agave 'Confederate Rose'.

And then there's this beauty! Hmmm, I really should know this one...(Kris says it's A. parryi var patonii)...

Ah! Agave ovatifolia and I think, on the right, is Agave vilmoriniana (Octopus Agave).

Didn't Kris pair the colors of the succulents in the planter nicely with the terracotta? The whole thing glows.

Speaking of glowing, wow—this aloe is lit up!

Now we are descending along the backside of Kris's garden, down the slope. I had to keep reminding myself to look down at the steps, not the view.

More Agave attenuata, with some of those steps I mentioned visible in the background.

I was rather transfixed with the gorgeous lemon tree at the bottom of the slope.

Now we're back up at the top, and admiring one of several Arbutus 'Marina' in the garden.

Phylica pubescens, I'm so jealous and wish I could grow this one.

As my tour of the garden was coming to a close Kris offered me a couple of agave pups, of course I said yes. One of them came from this Agave colorata.

One of several striking Yucca desmetiana ‘Blue Boy’.

Yep, I had to include one more view shot...

Agave impressa, I believe.

And we'll end with this fun combo of Agave 'Blue Glow' and Chrondropetalum elephantinum, as you can see the sun was becoming much more harsh at this point. Time to go have lunch!

A huge thank you to Kris for letting me visit her gorgeous garden just a couple of days after Christmas, and when she was still in recovery from the huge remodel that took months and caused some damage to her her garden—although you'd be hard pressed to find it. Everywhere I looked I saw nothing but beauty.

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Weather Diary, Jan 30: Hi 53, Low 41/ Precip .19

All material © 2009-2020 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

23 comments:

  1. It's great to see the rest of Kri's garden today! The Bromelaids are so beautiful, and it always delights me to know they can be grown in the ground there. I don't know if it's the fact that you're now at the front or maybe it's the time of the day (later), but the light seems to have been a bit more challenging in some of these photos.

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    1. OH yes, the light definitely changed as the morning progressed.

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  2. A lovely, big, rambling garden with beautiful views ... what more could anyone want? Ok. there's a few other things in life I suppose.

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  3. Kris has a real eye for making beautiful plant combinations. The purple bromeliad (Vriesea) is stunning. Fun to see Kris's garden through another's lens.

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    1. I really tried to not focus completely on the succulents and bromeliads, not sure I succeed though.

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  4. Always a pleasure to tour Kris' garden. With that view, it is a wonder she gets any work done!

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  5. It was a pleasure to have you visit, Loree. It's wonderful to have real plant people in my garden (NOT a common occurrence!) and I expect I talked your ear off. For the record, I believe the bromeliad in photo 16 is Vriesea 'Sherlette Shiigi' - it never made it to my spreadsheet for some reason but that's what I remember. The Agave in photo 20 is a pup of the larger 'Jaws' elsewhere in my garden. The Agave in photo 28 is A. funkiana 'Blue Haze', picked up many years ago at the long-gone and much-mourned Sperling Nursery. The stripes in the leaves is very faint in this case. Lastly, I think the Agave in photo 29 is A. parryi var patonii, picked up at my local botanic gardens several years ago.

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    1. Thank you for the IDs and again for the visit, and lunch! It was a wonderful end to my California trip.

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  6. What fabulous variegated plants she has and that dark Yucca is stunning. Even though I can't grow most of what she has, I always swoon over her blog and go looking for plant zones. Really fun to see it through your eyes (which I think I said already on the other post!).

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    1. It is true, and one of the things I enjoy about reading posts from the Bloggers Fling, we all see gardens differently.

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  7. Kris has several astonishing collections of plants in her garden and she can arrange them for their best showing. Loved seeing her garden through your eyes.

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  8. Incredible garden - thanks for sharing more of it with us.

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  9. Bauhinia blooming in December is such a good thing. It is funny how different a garden seem when presented by a blogger, vs a visitor. Its interesting to see the different perspectives. Physic pubescent is a new plat for me. Wow.

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    1. I think spell check had some fun with you, but now I will always think of that plant as Physic pubescent!

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    2. LOL. I usually copy-paste plant names, but didn't even notice it switching. My excuse is that english is my second language, so often you'll funny typos and grammatical issues in my comments.
      Let it be our secret :-D

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  10. Always fun to see Kris's beautiful garden.

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  11. Beautiful! How lucky to have been able to see it in person!

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  12. So very glad you made it to Kris' garden on a fine day with blue skies. She manages a lot of garden, and it's always a surprise how large it is.

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  13. Great tour of her botanical garden! Even I would run out of energy looking at it daily or even weekly. Stunning variety and vistas.

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