Holiday plantings

STEVE KAWARATANI

“Don’t it always seem to go?

You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”

-- Joni Mitchell

“We’re all in this alone.”

-- Lily Tomlin

I noted the first speck of light in the sky, serving to separate

the night from the new morning. It had been a restless night, with

sleep just escaping my exhausted grasp. “What troubles you?” my true

love said to me. We might be all alone, I replied.

As we approach the end of the year, I begin musing about where the

next 43 days may go and I panic. Not about my marriage, business or

even Design Review -- no, these priorities occupy other thoughts.

Instead, singularly, I worry about how the garden will look for the

holidays.

We all want our garden to be beautiful for the upcoming holiday

season, for the enjoyment of our family, friends and neighbors. Not

only will it reflect our refined taste, but it will demonstrate that

we love America’s favorite pastime (even if we pay for it). Although

the holidays may be an over-

sanguine target for garden perfection, the fall and winter garden

has its considerable charms, and you need to start planning now and

planting soon.

As a starter, I will be planting Pineapple sage, Salvia elegans,

on my deck. Not only will they provide the requisite showy red

flowers, the leaves can be used to flavor the eggnog and garnish my

mom’s holiday fruit salad. This hardy perennial grows to 2 to 3 feet,

and does well either in planting beds or containers.

Nearly ever blooming in Laguna, Scaevola “Alba,” provides showy

white flowers as a groundcover or planted in a hanging basket. Other

scaevolas can be found at your favorite nursery, varying in color

from blue to purple. They all require very little care and prefer

full sunlight.

To provide berries for our wreath, I’ve planted a California

Holly, Heteromeles arbutifolia in our garden. A native to our

environs, it is covered with red berries from November to January.

Growing naturally as a dense shrub or pruned into a small tree,

California Holly is useful as a screen (to hide neighboring trash

cans) or hillside planting.

Related to the snapdragon, Garden Penstemon, Penstemon

gloxiniodes, brings a showy display of pink, rose, lilac and white

flowers throughout the year. They thrive in well-draining soil, and

will grow either in full sun or partial shade. Sprawling in rock

gardens, penstemon can also be trimmed as an attractive border plant.

You must plant Iceland Poppies, Papaver nudicaule, this month, for

color by Christmas. Technically they are perennials (but flower for

only one season) and I can’t resist their spectacular and brilliant

flowers. The florists at English Garden tell me they make an

excellent cut flower.

I continue to clean and straighten my Baglin sign. The community

will soon discover it didn’t know what it had, until his leadership

is gone from the council. On another note, keep your letters coming,

I always find them to be quite diverting and informative. Oh, it’s OK

to sign them, too. See you next time.

* STEVE KAWARATANI is the owner of Landscapes by Laguna Nursery,

1278 Glenneyre, No. 49, in Laguna Beach. He is happily married to

local writer, Catharine Cooper, and has two cats. He can be reached

at (949) 497-2438, or e-mail to [email protected].