The Winter Garden

I find myself in the office feeling a bit distracted. I am finishing my pre-holiday commitments, planning errands and household chores so that I can get to the business of holding down the couch with a book in one hand for the next few weeks until the New Year shows up. 

As is so often the case when I have tasks at hand, I wander out of my office and step into the neglected space that I laughingly refer to as a garden. More laboratory than designed landscape, this is where I ask my never ending question: what is sustainable?  The shortest answer: whatever I can't kill.   

I turn my face to the morning sun that is pouring down. This is why people move to Southern California. Who could possibly stay inside on a day like this?

I wander down the path and the native grass Deschampsia nods its pretty head over the steps that lead up to the deck.

The Deschampsia seed heads catch the morning sun and share space with the Cleveland Sage whose winter pods are just wonderful.  Worth a mention that both of these plants grow in the foothills behind my house.

At the other end of the yard is a ginormous shrubby rose that grows against a south-facing wall. It was a Jackson & Perkins Rose called Lavender Dream. I planted it about 18 years ago, and it lives on spit. The catalog said it would get to be about 3ft wide x 3ft tall - with annual pruning I keep it at 12 ft wide x 8 ft tall.  I call that Horticultural Relativism. It’s a great rose, and lives on native rainfall in my yard. This summer I gave it a soak or two with the hose because we have had so little rain the last 3 years, but normally - yes - this rose survives on native rainfall. Tough as nails, and great habitat for small birds that live within the safety of its thorny branches. They can fly in, the predators cannot follow.  I especially love its little red hips in the winter.  

And then there is the quintessential winter in  So Cal - our very own home grown oranges. Nothing we may buy in the store can compare. If I am going to spend my water budget on anything, it will be on trees and plants that give back. Citrus in Corona does that effortlessly.