Today's column continues our garden design series with a focus on plant selection.
Gardening can be fruitful on cold, rainy days as gardeners let patient plants grow roots and prepare for new growth in the spring. A unique motivation for this process may come to mind now as one of your New Year's resolutions.
© Courtesy Santa Cruz Sentinel Aloe Arborescens is a South African native that grows to impressive size and spreads over time. Photo from the end of December. (Tom Carwin)The decision to grow a garden may be motivated by a move to a new garden, a decision to improve an unsatisfactory landscape, or a search for new ideas. The motivation may be the desire to create a year-round garden. With that in mind, today's photos are a selection of plants that look attractive in winter.
Since gardens are constantly changing, landscaping is not a permanent maintenance, but a significant change to the landscape. In the previous parts of this series, we covered the basics of gardening and the basic concepts of landscaping and landscaping. These columns can be viewed online at the Sentinel Archive: tinyurl.com/53557vht.
As we plan to explore plant selection ideas, the mention of "community garden" in a recent issue of the Garden Conservancy newsletter (gardenconservancy.org/) prompted us to consider ideas for gardening purposes.
Volksgartens are mostly indoor gardens that differ from high-end gardens.
© By Santa Cruz Sentinel Black-rose Aeonium (Aeonium arborescens 'Blackhead') blooms in spring, hibernates in summer and displays well in winter. Photo from the end of March. (Tom Carwin)Luxury gardens are works of art characterized by high design and classical horticulture. As a rule, they require a group of highly skilled gardeners.
Indoor gardens can be well-designed and artistic, and most of all, they often provide unforgettable scenery and entertainment because of their ability to grow and their love of healthy plant growth.
Scientific studies describe three groups of gardens, which we briefly present below.
• Naturalistic gardens treat plants as biological entities and define a culturally controlled biological community or habitat.
• Functional gardens consider plants as cultural elements during indoor activities.
• In ornamental gardens, plants are seen as part of the landscape design, either as a house or as a place for formal human representations.
In Santa Cruz Sentinel, the Japanese camellia (Camellia japonica) blooms from mid-winter to late March in warmer climates such as the Monterey Bay area. Photo from early March. (Tom Carwin)While your entire garden may fall neatly into one of these three groups, some parts of the garden can be described as natural, functional or decorative. There may also be some overlap.
This analysis supports the plant selection plan.
Our previous landscape column recommended specific types of plants to plant (or care for) in each area. These categories include ground cover, small shrubs, large shrubs, creepers, small and large trees. Add to these categories any perennials, perennials, annuals, and other types of plants you might consider.
The gardening process boils down to choosing specific plants for each category and in your plan.
As with other stages of gardening, the choice of plants is linked to the design of the landscape. Whatever plant you choose should do well when placed in a specific position in the structure at maturity. In addition, each selected plant must be similar to its neighbors in terms of leaves, color and shape.
Some landscape designs favor contrasting foliage, flowers and shapes in the flower bed, while other designs may emphasize some of these features, especially flower colors.
Another intersection of landscape design and plant selection occurs in garden landscaping (mentioned earlier). For example, a nature garden can follow the theme of native California plants to help with plant selection. As another example, the appearance of an ornamental garden can be based on the color of the flowers or the combination of flowers; Native habitats such as Mexico, Asia, South Africa or Australia; Or preferred species such as a collection of roses. A functional garden can be dedicated to fruit trees or vegetables, or it can be a children's playground without plants.
Some gardeners eschew these many design issues in favor of spontaneous plant selection based on success with previously known plants, a chance encounter at a garden center or catalog, a gift from another gardener, or other inspiration.
And that's good, because the ultimate purpose of your garden is to bring happiness.
Plant selection should be a creative experience, structured or unstructured.
Enjoy your garden!
Previous knowledge
The Garden Conservancy has announced their virtual programs for the summer of 2023. The first webinar in this series: Gardening in small spaces takes place on January 12 at 11:00 am. Garden designer Jason Williams encourages his urbanites to create unique growing spaces such as courtyards, patios or balconies in a way that benefits mental health and positively impacts urban wildlife and biodiversity.
For more information on this series, visit gardenconservancy.org.
The Garden Conservancy has announced a four-part fantasy program in Sissinghurst between seasons starting in March 2023. Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at the famous Sissinghurst Castle Gardens in England, will guide viewers through Sissinghurst Gardens and explain pruning and propagation techniques in the art of English gardening. Smith says that you leave any program "with the confidence that you can implement it in your backyard." This column will contain more information about this series as the schedule approaches. Mark your calendar.
The Cactus and Succulent Society of America will host a webinar on Survival of the Fat on January 7th at 10am EST. Moderator Buck Hemenway talks about how to collect, store and conserve water in South Africa. Hemenway is a longtime cactus gardener and owner from Southern California who moved to South Africa after his retirement. For information on this free event, visit cactusandsucculentsociety.org.
Tom Carvin is a past president of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Friends of the Monterey Bay Iris Society, past president and member of the Monterey Bay Cactus and Succulent Society, and UCLA Lifetime Master Horticulturist (certified 1999-2009). Today he is a board member of the Santa Cruz Residence Association and is active in the Pacific Horticultural Society. View daily photos of the garden https://www.facebook.com/ongardeningcom-
566511763375123/. For information on gardening education and an archive of past gardening columns, visit http://ongardening.com.
© Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Sentinel . Winter rose (Helleborus orientalis x hybridus 'White Lady') blooms in mid to late winter in a variety of colors, including white, yellow, green, pink and deep purple shades bordering on black. Photo from the end of February. Photo from the end of February. (Tom Carwin)