Toadshades of the Santa Cruz Mountains
The group of Trillium species known as toadshades could well be the most American of all plants—the widest ranging of all American endemics, native …
Topics: Gardens & Design
Marjorie O’Malley’s Woodside Camellia Garden: Over Half a Century of Camellia Introductions
Seemingly a world apart from the intensity of urban Northern California, majestic oaks tower overhead and camellias cover the hillside as we enter the…
Great Plant Picks: A Special Something for Every Garden
Spring blossoms, funky ferns, charming groundcovers, fancy foliage, delicious fragrance, knock-your-socks-off color—the 2005 Great Plant Picks have …
A Salvia Garden in Sonoma
In 1961, Willa and Ned Mundell purchased *their home on East Napa Street in the town of Sonoma. A few blocks away from their spacious property lies th…
Rudolph Ulrich’s Arizona Gardens
In 1880s California, there existed a distinct and exotic type of garden known as the "Arizona garden." Laid out formally and composed of a combination…
Gardening with California’s Monocots: Grasses
Grasses are members of the Poaceae, or grass family, which has 650 to 900 genera and about 10,000 species worldwide. California’s native grasses hav…
Koala Blooms: New Australian Plants
Each year, The Arboretum at UC Santa Cruz ,(UCSC) works closely with growers in Australia and here in California to introduce new plants through a uni…
Late Season Hebes for Northwest Gardens
For plant enthusiasts in the Pacific Northwest, fall has never represented the end of the gardening season but rather a time of transition following t…
Trees of San Diego: Floss-Silk Trees
With their fat, thorny trunks and branches, tropical-looking foliage, and exotic, hibiscus-like flowers, the floss-silk trees are among the most disti…