I went down to see my mother and stepfather this weekend. Although I’ve shown you most of her house (here, here, here), I thought some of you might like to see just a few shots of the garden.
Southern California’s very different from the North. We’re a big state, 800 miles from north to south. My mom’s house is 300 miles away, and that counts as close. Latitude isn’t the only difference. The cold California Current, which runs from Alaska to Mexico, warms up somewhere around Santa Barbara, encouraging a very different palette of plants. From the tropics, albeit the dry sort.
I went out in the early morning to get some pictures. Sunset would have shown you better skies and light, but I was always either cooking dinner or eating it right around then. The bank above Mom’s house; purple lantana, blue plumbago, palms.
Several Mandarin orange trees in a sort of mini-grove, with irrigation. Grandkids have been tasked with picking them for the house ever since my mother and stepfather moved in. Walking barefoot across a spiky damp lawn, basket in hand.
Pink bougainvillea, purple salvia, yellow and white hibiscus, palms.
Hibscus, close up.
And, in the funny way that California landscapes mix up species, an evergreen, a tropical shrub, and a palm frame the bluing morning sky.
44 Responses
Holy cow. I LOVE this.
@K-Line, Happy to oblige our way far north friends:).
Looks lush and lovely. We are a bit dry here in San Diego and hope the recent rain will spruce things up a bit. I really love hibiscus flowers .. it’s a very bold flower .. quite large and says “I’m here!”
Monica.
@MonicaP, Yes, it’s dry in SB too. The lawns are brown, but the hot weather plants have thrived. And I agree, hibiscus is a great plant, so enthusiastic.
Beautiful.
@Mardel, :)
Your mother’s garden is lovely!
I would love having limes and lemons in the garden…I can imagine how much fin it would be to make fresh lemonade and marmalade.
@Bungalow Hostess, I think it would almost be more fun to have lemons and limes than oranges, because no worries about the not-sweet-enough thing that happens sometimes when you grow your own oranges.
Lovely garden & you do call it a garden – not a yard . So is there a difference between your gardens & yards ? Is it about size or cultivation ? In the UK a yard has no soil , just hard surfaces & no plants , bar those grown in containers . I’m curious .
Wendy in York
@Wendy in York, Ah. In my way of speaking, a yard is simply the land outside your house that you own. The garden is the planted landscape, vs. the driveway, the patio, or the wild wooded areas.
Beautiful bursts of colour on a grey old day here in Sydney. Where it’s supposed to be spring and the weather’s been lovely up until now, weekend’s eve.
SSG xxx
@Sydney Shop Girl, Summer will come to you, as surely as it is leaving us, this much we know! What plants grow where you are?
Beautiful!
I love our varied this state is from north to south!
@Andrea@WellnessNotes, Me too! I have never driven all the way north, and I’m curious to try.
I love this – the colors, the vibrancy, the lushness of it all. It’s so tropical and wild, it reminds me of Hawaii.
@Jane, The colors are very Hawaiian, to say nothing of the palms:) In fact, it’s kind of other-worldly to have these plants amid the semi-arid land. I think there are some Caribbean islands that are also dry, I’d have to look them up.
This is so beautiful Lisa. I see some Salvia Leucantha in your photos–one of my very favorite perennials–which also grows in Texas. I loved this post.
@Susan, Thank you. And yes, the salvia leucantha holds her own amongst the bigger flowering shrubs:). Oh, and I’m holding out for them to plant some milkweed on the hills too, as they are right on the monarch flight plan…
I would love to have a mandarin tree in my garden, heaven! Southern Californians are so lucky to have them on their doorsteps. Have you tried Kishu tangerines? I adore them but they are particularly hard to find in the shops. I was given a box of them a few years back and they are truly the best I’ve ever eaten.
@Chronica Domus, I haven’t! Come February I live on the organic clementines I find at Whole Foods. I’ll look for Kishu, thanks.
I love your post! It is not only very beautiful,but educational for me. And so interesting…and did I say beautiful :-)
By Adriatic sea there are palms,mandarin trees,bougainvillea,lavender,salvia,immortelle,oleander…..I have hibiscus in my garden,trimmed as little trees
Dottoressa
@dottoressa, Oh your climate sounds so like Santa Barbara then? Except it snows, no? Are there any bloggers local to you? I’d love to get a sense for the area.
Beautiful! Has a Mediterranean feel. I love hisbiscus. I keep mine in a big pot and bring her indoors for the winter.
@Linda @ a design snack, Definitely Mediterranean. And great wine country too!
Yes,there are some young bloggers posting outfits and beauty products,and some wine and dine blogs ,in croatian. I’ll look around for some in english,if there are any
Thank you for your interest :-)
Dottoressa
Well,it looks like that turist visiting croatia or expats are writing more than us. So,while I’m chasing the “real”one : Chasing the donkey and Adventurous Kate may help (who knows what are they thinking about us,didn’t read myself)
Maybe it’s time for me to start,with my command of english it has to be very funny!
Dottoressa
@dottoressa, I think you would have a delightful blog.
naturally I love it. x
@Faux Fuchsia, You would be an LA native like nobody’s business. Probably a movie star within 3 days of your arrival;).
GORGEOUS……..where in southern CALif. is she?I too spent some time down there many years ago……..I always thought we should be TWO different STATES!
@LA CONTESSA, Santa Barbara. Such a gorgeous town!
Mary Anne,thank you very much! I take it as great compliment :-)
Dottoressa
@dottoressa, I suspect many others would feel similarly!
Very beautiful. As you know my mom lives in the same area, but the landscape is very different as her land is covered with live California oaks. But she has the purple lantana, and I must say I don’t ever think I’ve seen a home in that area that doesn’t have it somewhere. It’s beautiful!
@Kathy, Is your mom’s house old? My mom’s house is pretty new, so all the landscaping was installed – no oaks, no natives to speak of. I’m advocating some milkweed if possible…The old live oaks are amazing.
Yes, it was built in 1900-1902. An Italian family came over and brought stone masons and quarry all the Santa Barbara sandstone which the house is built out of, from the property. There are places where remnants of the old quarries remain. It’s really beautiful, but of course full of the problems of old homes. The live oaks are gorgeous, she has acres of them.
Oh, I loved visiting your mother’s home again. What a lovely home. The lantana? I laugh because my husband hates it and makes the gardeners remove it at first sight. Our landscaping is looking pretty sad these days because of the drought. Of course now we have El Nino to look forward to.
@Sandra Sallin, If only we could be sure that El Niño will bring rain. It’s not certain, so cross all possible extremities.
I love seeing gardens in other parts of the world, what is grown there and how it is different from where I live in Brisbane Australia. Our bush (country side) in Queensland is being taken over by lantana and therefore is poisoned and hacked out at every opportunity. We grow palms, bougainvillea but not mandarins. Thanks for sharing, I have only just found your blog and look forward to receiving my weekly fix.
Thank you for sharing the garden. I like the fact, that they grow mandarin oranges.
I love it! Feel free to disregard point #2 from your following post at any time. ;-)
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. Having lived all but the first year of my life in California, I don’t think I could call another place home. With my family in SoCal and my husband’s in NorCal, we traverse the state quite frequently. Don’t know how, but I’m always caught off guard by the beauty we get to experience with each trip.
Lisa, I enjoyed a quick perusal of your blog.
California also extends several thousand feet vertically.
A few years ago, my lady (whom I first met, briefly, just before our last year of high school, in my birthplace and her hometown in these mountains) rescued me from a bad place, and I learned about the Central Coast (San Luis Obispo), another piece of heaven in our great state. Cactus, oak, exotic eucalyptus, a soupçon of fog, a rare taste of hot, and always fragrant.
We got ourselves organized, and moved home to the Northern Sierra. We have sagebrush and mule ears under the Ponderosa pine in back; the alder is showing bright red, and the aspen is as bright as the sun. Down the canyons is fall foliage that reminds one of a New England autumn day.
Today feels like the peak of Indian Summer; it is the high ’80s outside. Friday the temperatures drop. The wood is stacked under shelter. Fire danger is, finally, moderate. We all look for the arrival of the snows; I get to day ski on the steepest long, or maybe it is the longest steep, at a ski resort anywhere. And I don’t have to live in a ski ghetto: my neighbors teach and drive trains and work with their hands and skills.
We are lucky who call ourselves Californians. Those of us who call the Northern Sierra home may be excused for thinking ourselves the luckiest of all.
With style, for sure.
This gardens landscape is just beautiful. It would be amazing to have something half as good in your yard. I need to get someone to help me try and design something like this.
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