Day Four: Flowers

It was a crazy week and now we are in the middle of another one. I definitely need to manage my time better. I try to cram too much stuff into the day and then always feel like I am behind (because I am). It is one thing to be a gardener, but another to try and run a business. I have spent quite a bit of time meeting new people and looking at new projects, so now I need to do them. Get to work!

As I have been running around, I am noticing how much has come out recently. Right now there is so much in bloom it is incredible! My neighbor has an old Wisteria which has wound itself around a fig tree. You can see the figs within the flowers:The Jasmine has also been in full force lately. It's scent is so strong that as you walk by, you have to stop and be overwhelmed for a moment. I saw this one the other day, with a big yellow butterfly fluttering around it:The butterfly is right in the center! It is so beautiful!

One of my yards has come alive with color recently. The cymbidiums have really opened up, I just have to be careful as I walk by not to break off the flowers. They are slow to open so every week is better than before.
She has some very nice Iris which have never done well in the past, but this year are blooming like mad.The nasturtiums have started blooming as well (you can see the red flowers in the background) I threw these seeds out last winter but they never did anything until now, which I find interesting. Why did they wait?

The Japanese maple is also starting to leaf out and bloom. You can see the tiny red flowers. I showed them to my client and she was so surprised. Most people don't know that a lot of flowers are tiny, nondescript. They only see the large, showy ones. I think flowers of any size are special! Its life!I was doing a little project last week involving re-doing a small pond. Normally I dont do ponds as they are very tricky. They leak and the pumps always break or get clogged. I like to leave the pond and fountain work to people who specialize in it. However, these are friends and clients so I said I would do it. And I had to get special help for this one! They were busy being supervisors. The yellow one is mine.

The pond is finished and full of water, which is good, but it is situated underneath some very large Pittosporum trees (about 40 feet tall). They are blooming right now with millions of small, very scented creamy flowers. And the flowers are all in the water (and everywhere else) making the water a funny color. The bees are happy though - they are a gentle buzz as you go up the stairs under the canopy.

Lastly, I went and checked on a project I did last year:It was all lawn and the large tree. I am very happy with it and the clients love it is well. The downside.....
a new puppy. The destroyer of all gardens!!! Cute but deadly!
Oh well, yards are supposed to be multipurpose. A place where people actually live. At least that is my philosophy.
Now I shall see what tomorrow brings.....

Day Three: Clients

These last two days epitomized why I garden. The weather has been fabulous, even if it is a bit hot in the sun. But the breeze is nice and the sky is clear and all kinds of plants are blooming and leafing out! Just perfect. I also enjoyed the company of several clients and their yards. And, well, I got paid for it. How cool is that!

Yesterday I had to run some Acacia cultriformis up to a client who lives just south of Mullholland Drive and east of Laurel Canyon. I actually have several clients on her street. This is what happens when you chat with the neighbors. Anyway, she, as well as many others, have fallen in love with the A. cultriformis, a very drought tolerant tall shrub with small, ovalish leaves and the most fabulous flowers (flower type: globular inflorescence).

I will plant the new ones tomorrow, down below her house. She lives on the top of a ridge so the back yard drops down dramatically. It is actually quite treacherous as the steps are old and mostly covered by the Red Apple Ice Plant which is slippery. However, she has a fantastic orange tree down there, plus a Mandarin, so I am rewarded for my efforts. Nothing like standing on the side of a canyon enjoying freshly picked fruit while looking out towards the mountains across the valley. Perfect

After leaving off the plants I went to work at a new client's house who is down at the base of the Hollywood hills, just north of Hollywood and Highland - tourist city! This new house is situated in the bottom of a canyon between two ridges. When you look up from their back deck, way way way at the top you can see a bit of a white house, but the rest of it is mostly native CA chaparral. The owner had extensive landscaping done to hold up the hill and deal with rainwater (when it comes down, it comes down hard and fast).

My new clients are the renters and they hired me to clean up the space. They have been there for six months and the husband has been doing the gardening, which he enjoys, but he got too busy, plus the winter rains brought out all of the cool season grasses and weeds. It is super green here right now but as soon as the rains stop and the heat comes, the green hills turn brown (or gold if you are sentimental). I thoroughly enjoyed climbing around the terraces seeing what hidden gems were there and cleaning everything out. I also enjoyed the conversation with my new client as he really does enjoy gardening. It is always fun to talk shop (plus we talked Hollywood shop which he knows and i don't, that is fun as well)

Today I worked at three houses. The first is around the corner from the previous house (they are the owners which is how I met the new clients). This house is on the side of a hill, with the house facing the road. To walk from the garage, past the front door and into the side gate, you have to traipse up the very steep roadway. I met them originally when I was working on their neighbor's house which is directly above them. From the upper house, you can stand on the back deck and look down into the lower house's back yard. I had managed to get to the bottom of the upper house (my original client) and found myself standing atop the retaining wall for the lower house - and they hired me. How cool is that.

The second house I went to to is really fun to work in for they love plants and love their yard. They have the most fantastic amaryllus growing all over. Each bulb is about the size of a pumpkin (a small pumpkim) Right now it is leafing out, with each stalk about 3 feet high. The stalks will fall over in a few months and these beautiful white flowers come up with the most beautiful scent. Pictures will come. Here is what they look like now:
I dont know which one it is. I will have to educate myself on this. I do know the Amaryllus belladona (naked pink lady) whose leaves look a lot like Agapanthus, but they die back in the beginning of summer. Then, when there is nothing left but the dusty remains of the bulb tops, the incredible shoots come up topped with lovely, delicate pink blooms. They are found out in the woods too. Very fun. But the photo above is another type and I will do some research. Such a fascinating plant!

Lastly I went to the valley (the traffic!) to see a client whom I met last year through a mutual friend. She has a great yard in the burbs and is an interesting lady. She has been battling cancer for the last few months so I am always glad to go over there and cheer her up with some pretty flowers and to discuss how great her yard is. She is very invested in the local wildlife and today we discussed how the hummingbirds have forsaken her yard. Granted she does feed several wild cats, but still! My task is to add some more flowers that will attract the little birds. That will be next week....
Here are a few shots of the containers I have done for her:
You can see the peanuts for the squirrels in the front of this photo. She loves to feed everyone!


This is a section of the planter boxes I did along her front window. They are so beautiful!
And one more image to leave you with:

The Japanese Maple just leafing out and blooming. So beautiful! Really, I have the best job.....

Day Two: Spring

Today definitely took me a long time to get going. I think it was the time change, or at least that is my excuse. I had to go to Los Feliz, a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city, to finish cleaning up a front yard. It is a design I did three years ago and includes lots of ornamental grasses and native shrubs. Normally I would have cut back the grasses after Christmas, but the owners were having lots of family visiting in January and February so I wanted to leave the yard looking great for their out of town guests. As a professional gardener, these are things I like to take into consideration.
I find in LA there is not a real season to cut back the grasses. Back East, where it freezes and snows and has a real winter, the grasses naturally die back and you cut them down when you do the spring clean up. I always liked removing the dead leaves in the spring and seeing the tiny shoots of life coming out of the recently thawed ground! Spring there truly is a blessing and a gift after months of rough weather. Here plants grow year round and there is never a true freeze, some frosts now and then which do their own bit of damage, but not the real freeze of the colder regions. I have discovered that sometimes you have to just decide when to cut things back rather than having nature decide for you.
'Cutting Back' is important for several reasons. It can keep shrubs smaller and more manageable, like Wistringia, which seems to bloom and grow all year round. Cutting back also is essential in keeping plants green rather than woody, like lavender. If you let lavenders (and Rosemary) go then they will develop very woody stems and will only have greenery and flowers at the tips of the plants. By cutting them back (usually a third of the green growth) while they are still young, the stems will leaf out lower and stay bushy. The only problem is that sometimes you have to do this when they are still blooming! It feels soooo wrong to do, but I go in anyway knowing that it will keep the plant beautiful in the long run. For lavenders I cut them twice a year; once after their first bloom (about May) and then another time in November or December. And it smells so good!
Ornamental grasses are the worst. Some, like Miscanthus, automatically die in the fall. They are easy. If they enhance the landscape, I leave the dead stems in until now, and if they just look dead, I cut them down. Other plants, like the Pennisetums, don't seem to ever quit growing, but if you don't cut them back in the winter, the new growth will come up amongst last years growth and the bottom will look brown for the summer. Very unattractive!
Check this out:

OK, this was taken last summer, but you can see the grasses in full bloom. Here is what it looks like today, after I cut it back. I still think that it is good. The red flowers on the bottom of the previous photo is Anigozanthus 'Big Red' which is just starting to send up flowers now. I do love this yard as it looks different in every season.


Really, the best part of being a professional gardener, in any locale, is watching things change and mature and evolve over time. I love it!

TTFN Kate

Day One:

Every day is different for me and I often find myself running around the city trying to accomplish everything I said that I would do! Now that this blog is up, I will give a more accurate accounting of my journey through both gardening and running a business. Just as a beginning point, I wish to post a few of my favorite images that I have recorded since thinking about blogging.

In a nursery down the street, they have a special hanging plant which is occupied every year by this lovely creature:Can you see the hummingbird sitting on her nest (right in the middle)? So small and so still. I have seen the nest before as I always check in when I go there, but this is the first time I saw her sitting on top. Such a treat.

Maintenance gardening requires going to a yard week after week, year after year. Now that I am in my fourth year, I have several yards with which I have become intimate and derive great pleasure in watching my plants (yes, I said my plants) go through their yearly cycles. Certain times of the year are more beautiful than others, though that changes for each yard. The differences between plants are fascinating: some are beautiful through all of their cycles whereas others have just the magnificent show once a year. The cymbidium orchid is in the latter category as most of the year they look half dead, but when they bloom.... Watch Out!
Here is one that I love to see each year:

It has just opened up. I think there are seven flower stalks, but I will have to count again. This client has one other plant whose flowers have not opened yet. They are very slow in coming...

Another of my favorite plants for anticipation is the Echium or Pride of Madera. It is a large shrub with amazing flower spikes that start at this time of year and take a long time to emerge. When they do, the bees love them and the color is striking. Here is what they look like now:


A few more weeks and they will be beautiful. This one house has about 20 of these plants. A few of them died after blooming last year, but they self-seed like mad so new ones are coming up. I have learned to manage them as they can seed all over (the lawn, the pathways) and they can become 6'x6'! It is a lot easier to take something out when it is small than when it is big!!!

I am done for today. I need to sketch up an idea for an herb garden and price out some work. When you are self employed it is good to be busy.
thanks and enjoy the day