A Tropical Eden with a Mission
Dr Mardy Darian's encyclopedic knowledge of tropical plants and ecosystems, his skill at establishing and working with diverse microclimates, and his …
Seasons: Winter
Updating an Historic Garden
Living in a garden that has been around for over ninety years definitely has its challenges. When the two of us moved into the curators’ house at th…
Small Eucalyptus for Western Gardens
Drought-tolerant eucalypts from desert and mediterranean climates of Western Australia rarely grow larger than small trees or large shrubs, shed littl…
Tender Rhododendrons
Mr Lopez offered us one splendid Rhododendron ‘Forsterianum’, which was a large plant already four feet tall, with smooth, reddish brown bark like…
The Hardy Fern Foundation Turns Twenty
The Hardy Fern Foundation’s goals are “to establish a comprehensive collection of the world’s hardy ferns for display, testing, evaluation, publ…
Orchard Trees of Rancho El Cerrito: Oranges
The primary orchard at Rancho Los Cerritos, in Long Beach, California, was designed by Ralph D Cornell in 1931, as part of an estate plan commissioned…
Laboratory Report
Foliar and Canker Hosts We have learned a lot about sudden oak death (SOD) and its causative agent, the water mold Phytophthora ramorum (P. ram),…
The Native Gardener’s Paintbox: Pink Moments
The many shades of pink are particularly effective when paired with sage green, gray green, and silvery foliage—colors that are plentiful in the Cal…
2009 Great Plant Picks: The Short and Tall of It
The Great Plant Picks additions for 2009 include a variety of groundcovers, late flowering shrubs, selections from the sedum trials, and a host of urb…