The Dry Garden: Here’s to the Egolf Tree

An artist friend of mine calls crape myrtles “living bouquets.” In the hottest weeks of summer, the man to whom we owe thanks for the white, pink, lavender and red bouquets now before us, often un-watered and somehow unwilted, is Donald Roy Egolf. From 1958 until his death in 1990, Egolf was a plant breeder at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. His contribution was so outstanding that this column, besides constituting the deepest of bows to those wonderful plants, bears the suggestion that we rename the crape myrtle the Egolf tree, or Egolfus donaldii, so as to take in many new compact and shrub forms.

Click here to keep reading a Labor Day salute to Donald Egolf and crape myrtles in the Los Angeles Times.…

The Dry Garden: I should

 

In a crowded world, original observations are few. One of mine is that beets taste good with everything — provided that you like beets. Another is that the good people of Los Angeles might be struck dumb if denied the phrase “you should,” with a close second being, “you shouldn’t.” … Instead of recommending that you do as I do this week, it seemed marginally less bossy simply to impart a few of the things that I am currently telling myself to do. Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times.

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The Dry Garden: Beware the foxtail

 

Foxtail: Hordeum murinum in Voorhis Ecological Reserve, Cal Poly Pomona. Source: Curtis Clark / Wikipedia

A romp with your dog in the garden or park should be a happy thing. Life affirming! Usually it is, until your dog encounters the wrong plant. Then it can swiftly become pain and suffering, first for the dog, then for your bank account. Inspired by a recent emergency room visit with a terrier after what seemed at the time like a picture-perfect Kodak moment in a meadow, this is what amounts to a pet owner’s Most Wanted list of plants that can harm dogs, which gardeners should remove and hikers should avoid.

Top of my list, and also the lists of veterinarian Nancy Kay  and UC Davis weed scientist Joseph DiTomaso are foxtails. Depending on where you live, these might be one of a number of grasses with needle-like seed heads. After a …

The Dry Garden: Palo verde ‘Desert Museum’

A tree whose name translates from Spanish to “green stick” has performed a remarkable feat. Native to ranges in Southwestern deserts and once thought here as appropriate only for Phoenix or perhaps Palm Springs, the palo verde tree has become a favorite choice of Los Angeles landscape architects.

Click here for a Q&A with Mark Dimmitt in this week’s Dry Garden column in the Los Angeles Times. In it, the director of natural history at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson kindly talks about a selection of palo verde tree that, thanks to him, is now giving “xeriscaping” a good name.…

The Dry Garden: Mulch now

The end is in sight. On Sept. 30, California’s “water year” will end and meteorologists will begin measuring rain for another 12-month cycle. Gardeners will begin planting with the expectation of help from seasonal rains. Before then, however, we must get through August and September. Atop the to-do list: irrigate and mulch.

Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times.…

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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com

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