A Monday morning meeting brought me back to the
South Coast Botanic Garden, approximately 5 miles from my home, this week. As it'd been a month since I'd walked the garden and the docents had a tour scheduled for 110 middle school students the following week, another docent and I decided to take trek through the garden to pick out the highlights in preparation for that event.
I was most interested in checking out the vertical garden, which was under construction at the time of my last visit.
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| Here's what the vertical garden wall looked like when I visited in mid-October. According to the garden's winter newsletter, the wall was constructed to hide the tram shelter and equipment on the west side of the garden. |
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| The space, now dubbed the "Living Wall Lounge," was being embellished with an expanse of decomposed granite when we checked it out on Monday. Unfortunately, I was unable to get up close enough to the wall to identify all the plant materials. |
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| I'd originally assumed that it was being constructed entirely of succulents but that's clearly not the case. In addition to lots of Aeonium, Crassula and Portulacaria, there are a number of fern species, what appeared to be rubber plants (Ficus elastica), and other plants I couldn't identify from a distance. |
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| The wall was constructed of 2 layers of felt mounted on the garden's equipment storage containers. Plants were inserted into slits in the felt and then stapled in place. No soil was used. The vertical garden will be sustained using a hydroponic watering system. |
Even before we reached the vertical garden, my attention was grabbed by what I quickly realized was a tree dahlia. I'm sure this plant has been growing in the garden for a long time but it was the first time I'd noticed it.
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| This Dahlia imperialis with the flowers far above our heads was in the Volunteer Garden |
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| I subsequently found more in the Lower Meadow. The flowers were bee magnets. |
Although my docent friend and I walked from one end of the 87-acre garden to the other, almost all my photos are of areas located in the front area of the garden, where most of the color is concentrated at the moment. As usual, there was a lot going on in the Volunteer Garden and the adjacent areas, which includes the Vegetable Garden, the Lower Meadow area, and the Discovery Garden.
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| This is a panoramic view of a portion of the Volunteer Garden. The new vertical garden is just barely visible in the background. I should note that the garden avoids trimming the fronds of the tall palms as these provide shelter for birds and other critters. |
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| An Abutilon was blooming here, as well as many other areas of the garden. This was one of the smaller specimens. |
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| The area sports the largest Brugmansia I've ever seen |
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| Justicia aurea were also in bloom in spots throughout the garden |
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| This Salvia elegans is in full bloom in the Vegetable Garden |
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| This is one of at least two tree marigolds (Tithonia diversifolia) in the garden. The plants were cut down nearly to the ground not very long ago and have already regained their tree-size stature. I'm seriously considering planting one of these from seed in my own garden - after my annual sunflowers failed this year, this looks like a better bet. |
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| This cup-and-saucer plant (Holmskiodia sanguinea) is another I've never noticed until now |
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| Senna (formerly classified as Cassia) shrubs were in full bloom last month. Most are fading now but this one in the Lower Meadow was an exception. The foliage and flowers look a lot like my own Senna bicapsularis but this one was pruned into a neat (if huge) mound. Senna is a host plant for sulphur butterflies, which I saw flitting about throughout the garden. |
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| This large gold-flowered shrub looked familiar but I couldn't identify it by name |
That last shrub wasn't the only plant I couldn't identify on our rounds. I was also perplexed by one of the flowering shrubs in the tropical greenhouse.
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| We couldn't spot a label for this lovely specimen. Could it be some species of Rhododendron? |
This is the only photo I took beyond the front area. It provided one of the few spots of fall color I saw.
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| When I took this photo, I assumed this vine in the Garden of the Senses was a grapevine. Now I'm less sure but, if it isn't a grape, I'm not sure what it is. |
That's it for my spin through my "neighborhood" botanic garden this November. As I headed to the front entrance, I couldn't help pausing to peruse the plants for sale outside the gift shop. As usual, I fell prey but at least I just brought home one plant this time.
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| This is Haemanthus albiflos, a shade plant native to South Africa |
The docent-led tour for 110 students was subsequently cancelled but at least I got a healthy walk out of our exploratory trek, as well as some photos and a plant.
Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the US!
All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
