If the view from your front window is a hedge so maimed by years of buzzing that the only option is to buzz it some more, and if you have better things to do with your money than pay yard crews to torture shrubbery, it may be time to dig out that green wall and start over.
But before sharpening the pickax, dream. Dream aloud. There is no better time than February to view California’s native lilac, lemonade berry, coffeeberry, gooseberry and barberry plants, most of which are in full flower at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.
A tour of Southern California’s best native garden in midwinter reveals these shrubs dripping with gold, white, pink and blue flowers. Although the blossoms are admittedly fleeting accessories, they are succeeded by berries.
Apologies for language that sounds like red carpet commentary. It’s unfair to the plants. Click here to keep reading this week’s ‘The Dry Garden’ column in the Los Angeles Times.
For those of you who missed the previous item about a questionnaire being circulated by the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden, please take five minutes to complete it. Los Angeles has the best climate for gardening in the country. It should have the best public garden, one that recognizes the imperative to change the way we manage our landscape in the face of water shortages and climate change. The Arb should be progressive, not a sleepy foothill enclave run by a weary county establishment and shadowy board reportable to pretty much no one. Help it, help the new CEO drag it into the 21st century. Fill out the form!