I attended a couple HPSO Open Garden tours last weekend, one close to home in Manzanita on Sunday, and the other on Saturday about 60 miles east.
From the first garden visit on Saturday I took home only plants, no photos. The exact inverse result of most garden tours! The owner has been recovering from medical mobility issues that unfortunately began in spring. For decades the garden had absorbed the owner’s horticultural passions, first for penstemons and now with salvias. We both go way back with salvias, so there was lots to discuss.
And then I stumbled on the table in back staged with 4-inch nursery pots. Of course I had to inquire about this small nursery operation. Not for sale, take them, please, he said. I thought he was joking. No joke, he said, you have no idea how hard it is to give away plants. (I’m still trying to process this remarkable assertion that runs completely contrary to my simple world view.) And yet he couldn’t stop propagating. There were some nice salvias, including some Canary Islanders like broussonetii that I was pretty sure would become large, non-blooming shrubs for me in Oregon and then die over winter. I wouldn’t bring it home to the Los Angeles zone 10 garden either, where regular irrigation is uncertain.
But I could definitely use hardy biennial Salvia sclarea, which I had been trying to grow from seed. Now I had two more to add to the one that successfully germinated. Take more, take more, he pleaded. I grabbed a Salvia ‘La Trinidad Pink’ just because its reputation precedes it, and also because I’ve never grown this microphylla found by the Yucca Do nursery near Nueva Leon in Mexico some years ago. I hope next year will be easier for this generous household and keeper of so many salvias.
The garden I visited on Sunday I had seen just a few weeks before, but I really wanted to check out the progress of Mark’s tithonia, which was way ahead of mine. I took a few photos of this garden but not as many as I would if Mark wasn’t also a friend. And Billie was with me roaming the paths too, as if that’s not enough distraction. But you could point a camera anywhere in the Kuestner garden and come out a winner. It’s a mostly shade garden filled with rare evergreen trees like eucryphias that Mark dotes on, with pockets of sun carved out for summer stuff.
More soon, AGO
How generous! It looks like an absolutely perfect day, visiting gardens – plus taking home plants. The pots in the first photo are so cool.
I wish I’d been with you on that Saturday tour! That gardener was was one I’d love to run into here. The passion flower and Tithonias in the Sunday garden were great too.
I bet I know who that first gardener was, I interviewed him for a story I wrote for the OAN on salvia, but never have made it out to his garden. Sad to hear he’s having issues that interfere with his plant and garden passions. As one who was recently a recipient of plants given anonymously it’s interesting to hear someone say giving them away is difficult. Perhaps that’s part of why she didn’t make contact, she didn’t want to haul them home if I said no. On the other hand I have no problem giving away plants in the Little Free Greenhouse. Nothing lasts long.