Why ‘Fearless Gardening’ advocates pushing the limits with ‘cramscaping’
A book replete with horticultural wisdom and inspiration has just been published.
In addition to vibrant text and glorious photos that are highly instructional where garden design ideas are concerned, it offers the friendly message that gardeners can do no wrong.
Entitled “Fearless Gardening” (Timber Press, 2021), author Loree Bohl is not fazed by the sight of dead plants in her garden. She quotes J. C. Raulston, a highly acclaimed horticulturist who founded an arboretum in North Carolina that bears his name. “If you are not killing plants, you are not really stretching yourself as a gardener.” Bohl embellishes Raulston’s statement as follows: “Experimentation is at the core of building a garden. It’s only through trial, error, and dead plants that you discover what works… How can we expect to get it right the first time, every time? … If the first time you tried baking chocolate chip cookies, they had all ended up flat and burnt, would you have given up and never baked them again? What a shame that would be!”
And, as someone once said, you are always a beginner in the garden. This is what makes gardening such a captivating and exhilarating experience. Each time you plant, the conditions for growth are different, depending on how much sun is available, the surrounding plant species, and the precise character of the soil. Gardening is the preferred preoccupation of perennial students.
In a concluding thought on this subject, Bohl mentions “a man who was selling off a significant plant collection, along with his home, as he was preparing to move into a retirement facility. He didn’t grieve over the aging of his body but over the inability to plant new things and see them mature… This fellow had spent a lifetime traveling, collecting plants, and learning about them; he wanted to keep doing so. Gardeners are always learning, experimenting, trying new things.” Thus, gardening keeps you young.
Bohl is more captivated by leaves than by flowers. “I’m a foliage gardener,” she confesses. “It’s the leaves that get me. I do grow a few plants for their blooms, but the majority earn a place in my garden because of their foliage. . . You aren’t skimping on color if you’re gardening with foliage instead of flowers. Plants come in a wide spectrum of greens – from chartreuse to dark, almost black, as well as silver, gray, purple/burgundy, and even pink. Variegation adds another layer of texture with stripes, dots, mottled or uneven patterns in two or more colors.” Succulents are especially notable in this regard, showing off a kaleidoscope of colors.
Bohl professes her admiration for Ganna Walska, a Polish opera star who eventually ended up in Montecito, where she presided over the horticultural development of a 37-acre estate, known as Lotusland, which is open to the public by reservation. You can schedule a 2-hour tour of Lotusland for a fee of $50 by calling (805) 969-9990. You can also learn about the many opulent gardens on-site by visiting lotusland.org.
Ganna Walska spared no expense when it came to collecting plants for her estate. “Legend has it,” Bohl enthuses, “that when Ganna spotted a plant she wanted while motoring around Santa Barbara, she would dispatch her chauffeur to make an offer, even sending champagne, until the object of her affection became hers. When she needed money to complete the cycad garden at Lotusland, she financed the work by auctioning off some of her jewelry collection.”
The idea of building a garden out of your neighbors’ plants makes sense, but I am not talking about bartering for them with champagne. You can be confident that whatever a neighbor is growing would grow well for you, too, and therefore, as Bohl says, “Don’t be afraid to knock on doors and ask homeowners about plants – most gardeners are happy to share a cutting or seeds.” Nearly every shrub and groundcover, and definitely every succulent, may be propagated from a cutting, while seeds from many trees will readily germinate as well.
If you are strapped for space, you can still create a lush garden. Bohl extols the strategy of “cramscaping … the fine art of cramming as many plants as possible into a landscape… It’s a happy day when I look at a shrub and realize it’s grown enough that the bottom few branches can be pruned, making room for a ground cover or small perennial to be planted under it. Two plants in the place of one: a cramscaper’s dream come true.”
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The more I learn about primrose or popcorn jasmine, the more I like it. This delicately fragranced jasmine may burst into bloom at any time after the first of the year, sending warm rays of sun-colored flowers to passersby. It is a curious shrub with a protean character. Flowers are borne on long, cascading shoots bedazzled with butter-yellow blooms. Primrose jasmine will cover a pergola, spill over a block wall, serve as a carefree hedge, or do all of the above if you decide to make it a major part of your horticultural environment. And, lest I forget, its water requirement once established is virtually nil. The popcorn epithet, incidentally, alludes to its flowers, which are somewhat puffy and change color from yellow to white.
You will still see outcroppings of primrose jasmine on the San Diego Freeway and occasionally notice it brightening up freeway entrance and exit ramps between Van Nuys and Granada Hills. I am sure these plants never see water except for winter rain. They are as drought tolerant as oleanders, those other famous freeway plants. Oleanders, after years of being ravaged by a bacteria carried in the saliva of glassy-winged sharpshooter insects, have made a remarkable recovery thanks to the release of minuscule parasitic wasps that cannibalize sharpshooter eggs.
The natural growth habit of primrose jasmine (Jasminum mesnyi) is fountainesque, meaning that its shoots, up to 10 feet long, arch up and over like the flight pattern of so many rockets shot into the sky. This is similar to the growth habit seen on glossy abelia (Abelia grandiflora), another excellent candidate for a whimsical, informal hedge. Maintenance of primrose jasmine involves just watching it grow. Of course, you can always cut and shape it if you wish, depending on your purpose in growing it. Eventually, its interior turns to thatch as shade-producing exterior growth takes away light from the older interior wood. At this point, you may want to cut it back to within six inches of the ground, from where — being an evergreen that grows almost continuously — it will spring back up in no time.
There is a category of what I call “thicket plants” that are wonderful takeover species for out-of-the-way slopes and sideyards where sprinklers are not practical so that plants need to fend for themselves where watering is concerned. That is, they can thrive if hosed down on an occasional basis during the first year or two of growth and, after that, will do fine with no water at all. This category includes primrose jasmine, Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus drummondii), tree mallow (Lavatera assurgentiflora), Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha), and a large number of ornamental grasses, such as purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) and blue oat grass (Helicotrichon sempervirens). You plant these tough critters and just leave them alone as they spread generously over the empty space they are meant to cover.
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Lavender is blooming now and at least seven types of lavender are widely seen: English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia); spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia); Lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia), which is a hybrid between English and spike lavender; dwarf English lavender; French lavender (Lavandula dentata); Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas); and California lavender (Lavandula pinnata).
The first three types in the preceding list are the lavender of commerce, robust species whose flowers have the most intense fragrances. The other lavenders have more ornamental value – the dwarf English (‘Hidcote’ and ‘Munstead’ cultivars) with distinctive silver-gray foliage, the California with finely cut leaves, the French with serrated leaves and large woolly flowers, and the Spanish with dark purple winged bracts all along its flower spikes.
Tip of the Week: Texas A&M researchers have found ground coffee grounds to be an effective amendment for increasing moisture retention in sandy soils. Historically, sphagnum peat moss has been used for this purpose. The discovery is a real boon to gardeners since peat moss is one of the more expensive soil amendments while coffee grounds are free. Go to any coffee shop with a five-gallon container (or containers) and the manager will almost surely fill it up with spent coffee grounds. In one experiment, turf grass planted in sandy soil amended with coffee grounds could go longer between waterings than where soil under turf grass had been amended with peat moss. In another notable experiment, fertilizer – whether or organic or inorganic – kept plants greener for a longer period of time when coffee grounds were added to the fertilizer than when fertilizer was applied without the grounds.
Please send questions, comments, and photos to joshua@perfectplants.com