After writing about plants with purple flowers, two gardeners shared their purple horticultural passions.
For Greg Fitze, who gardens in Long Beach, it’s false heather. “This plant is extremely low maintenance,” he writes. “It is slow-growing and much ignored, needing little water. It soldiers on in a narrow strip on the south side of our garage. It deserves better.” His last observation is appropriate, since false heather can easily be missed unless it is prominently displayed where you can regularly appreciate it, as on either side of a pathway that leads from the street to your front door.
Upon first setting eyes on false heather (Cuphea hyssopifolia), you might just fall in love with it. Delicate purple, white, or lavender-pink flowers are embedded among tiny, glistening leaves. Although advertised for both full sun and partial shade, false heather becomes old and ratty-looking after only a few years of overly sunny exposure. Given sun in just the proper dose, which is no more than three or four hours of direct daily exposure, its innocent look of youth may persist for a decade. You will have to occasionally prune it back but this does not keep it from returning to its compact, unblemished stature. If you need a low hedge that grows up to about two feet, false heather is the plant for you. Like most plants in its genus (Cuphea), it blooms virtually without interruption throughout the year.
Matthew Hunt gardens in the Talega enclave within the city of San Clemente, and praises his purple Polygala x dalmaisiana, commonly known as sweet pea shrub. Its flowers resemble sweet pea blossoms although it does not share botanical kinship with that plant. He mentions that several are planted in his yard, but the largest of them “we have pruned into a small tree approximately 12 feet tall with three trunks. I think it might stop flowering in December or January, but it flowers at least nine months of the year.” Indeed, where temperatures stay above 40 degrees, this hybrid of two South African natives blooms all twelve months of the year in coastal gardens.
Sweet pea shrub is a rangy plant that is cut back to keep it more compact. Planted on a property line, it provides separation between neighbors’ yards. Keep in mind, however, that it is not a long-lived species with an average lifespan of ten years, 20 at most. Sweet pea bush does best growing in full sun, but it can handle a bit of shade. There is a dwarf version of this plant (Polygala fruticosa var. Petite Butterfly) that only grows three feet tall and keeps its more compact form. The genus epithet of Polygala comes from the Greek for much (poly) milk (gala) and one of its common names is milkwort. This name is derived from the notion – which has not yet been proved – that cows which graze on plants in this genus give copious quantities of milk.
Hunt mentioned another outstanding woody perennial that he has also shaped into a tree. It’s the LipStick tropical hibiscus, a Chinese hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) cultivar that gives him flowers, albeit more fuchsia than purple, eight months of the year.
Like other hibiscus of this most widely planted species, Lipstick will reach a height of 20 feet.
It is worthwhile to consider seldom-seen hibiscus species that could add exotic flare to our gardens. One of these is pink hollyhock tree (Hibiscus splendens). The plant can put on eight feet of growth in a single year and produces a plethora of six-inch-diameter blooms. Cotton rose mallow (Hibiscus mutabilis) also displays six-inch flowers, only these are darker pink in color on a plant that reaches a more manageable height of six feet. Finally, Florida cranberry (Hibiscus sabdariffa) shows off stunning, edible red calyces that remain once flowers have fallen and can be used in a variety of recipes for baked goods, stews, chutneys, or simply for making tea.
Liv O’Keeffe, an executive of the California Native Plant Society, informs me that the Society’s website (cnps.org) is an excellent guide for matching native plants to your area. When you reach the site, type in your address and natives compatible with your location will appear. You can also match plants with wildlife, especially butterflies and hummingbirds, that they attract. Pollinator plants are highlighted. Lists of native plant nurseries and landscapers that specialize in natives are also found on the site. O’Keefe reminds us that this a favorable time to plant natives since, installed at this time, they have six months before next year’s heat arrives. Keep in mind that drought-tolerant natives should be well-watered their first year or two before curtailing or eliminating watering altogether. At the same time, there are riparian natives — those that grow along watercourses — which may need regular attention in terms of water needs for many years after planting.
The most popular book on gardening, with three million copies in print, is “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew. Using this technique, you can grow 16 different vegetables in a 4-by-4-foot grid, although some of the square-foot spaces may be planted to flowering plants that attract beneficial insects. “The Square Foot Gardening Planner: A 3-year Journal for Recording, Planning, Planting, and Care of your Square Foot Garden,” (Cool Springs Press) is the perfect holiday gift and workbook for someone who not only wants to get into square-foot gardening but wishes to become in vegetable crop growing culture. A green thumb is someone who learns from past experiences, and there is no better way to do this than by following the progress of what you grow and how differences in weather or appearance of beneficial insects or pests, for example, from one year to the next, affect the productivity of your plants.
California native of the week: There are five California native dogwood species and mountain or Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) is the most magnificent of them by far. It grows to 30 feet with a canopy of equal spread that is completely enveloped by white bracts (bracts give color to bougainvilleas and poinsettias, too) that make you think snow has fallen on the tree. This is not an easy plant to grow, but if you succeed, it will leave you breathless when it blooms in the spring. A more modest fall bloom is sometimes displayed as well. Before dropping, foliage turns orange, red, burgundy, and purple. If anyone knows of a local source for this plant, please advise. Seeds may be found through vendors on Etsy.com.
Do you have a fall garden experience or observation you would like to share? If so, send it to Joshua@perfectplants.com. Your gardening conundrums and successes, as well as questions and comments, are always welcome.