Garden rooms

When we first saw our house, the backyard seemed huge and never-ending. And absolutely captivating. I loved it instantly! I still do. The magic seems to be that there are 'rooms' and separate spaces in the garden that lend it so much depth and charm....and in each one you have the chance to lend it a singular feel and enjoy the result (or try again!).

The Hammock Corner - located under the huge magnolia tree and flanked by Camelia Lane and the tulip magnolia. Always shaded and cool here. Makes for excellent napping.


Bird Bath Central - just in front of Itchy - the guest cottage. Surrounded by a white dogwood, pink jasmine and a white oakleaf hydrangea. More than birds, squirrels frequent the bath.


Snowdrop Alley - from Hammock Corner leading up to Itchy; running just behind the tulip magnolia and aforementioned BBC! This year the dogwood is glorious and so white...the ornamental guava has small white flowers and this other hedge whose name I never recall has white feathery spires..and to boot, the white azaelea is blooming too....too bad that the hydrangea doesn't flower for a few more months. This is the first year this walkway looks so enchanting.

Roja malare rajakumari (aka my own Jackson & Perkins line up)

The roses are exploding all over Palo Alto! The moderate, dry weather here makes growing roses so easy. I remember my mother and her trusty gardener, Iyyasamy, slaving away in the hot, Madurai sun trying to coax the rose plants brought down from Kodaikanal to grow and thrive. Madurai has pretty clay-y, red soil and it's really hard to dig it and loosen it up. Once she got a cart load of chicken manure delivered and mixed into the soil. How it stank up the place and how the dogs loved it! Anyway, the small leafed rose plants finally coughed up the flowers and we were all escstatic! But they never did do that well - they were plagued by black spot and leaf-cutter bugs and soon died. The next summer, back in Kodai, we'd get another set of cuttings!

So I'm particularly proud of my line up of roses this year.....I chose all of them for fragrance and fullness - I don't care for the angular perfectness of the tea roses, preferring the floribundas or grandifloras....don't like red or orange roses particularly - a couple of these found me - they were cast away in a trash pile and I had to rescue them.

Has a delicate fragrance and starts off deep pink and then the petals yellow outwards leaving the edges pink. A very pretty rose that is about 3" across. I think this was called " Pink Lady" - not the most original name I'd say....


One of my two climbing roses - Sunset Boulevard - has a spicy smell - I thought it would be more yellow and less peachy....I wish this would climb a bit more and cover that ugly garden shed....


The other climber - Strawberries and Cream. The photo is out of focus...this rose was a mild disappointment - despite the evocative name, the rose manages to only look speckled and the smell is not memorable. But if this climber covers the shed, I'm sure it will look glorious along with Sunset!

"Texan Beauty" - this is a bush rose and smells like cloves -as weird as it sounds. The rose is beautiful but has a fatal flaw - it seems to get too heavy for the stem and droops as it opens fully. Dew makes the matter worse...but the bush is covered with flowers. Pretty.

"Queen Esmeralda" - isn't she perfect? When the bloom opens, the color fades to a pale, pale rose. Smells heavenly - very "rose-like" if you know what I mean. Great long stemmed roses that stay for a long time after being cut. Despite my efforts, this plant is plagued by black-spot each summer but soldiers on, producing tons of flowers! This rose was in the garden when we bought the house...I'm glad it survived my gardening!

Another inherited rose - don't know the name - but it's a great one. Large pink flowers - about 5" across on long stems. I give a lot of these to my neighbors because they stay for a long time in vases without dropping their petals. Smell divine!


A "Cecile Brunner" rose...I lied about having only 2 climbers - this one too...the rose is most like the "table roses" of Kodaikanal and have the same smell. The plant bursts with blooms and this one is trying to climb on the bougenvillea ....I love this dimunitive rose with a large presence!

The orange, rescue rose...I found it on top of someone's garden trash. The roses are pretty and prolific but the plant has the most vicious, spiteful thorns ever. And this rose drops its petals as soon as you cut the flower and put it in a vase! Pretty good defense I'd say.

I think there are 4 or 5 more roses that are about to bloom ...Queen Anne of Denmark (a white delicious smelling flower), the most red one in the garden (a rescue) and a couple more...I did not realize I had so many.My mother-in-law once gave me a t-shirt that said - "Never enough roses". True.

A bloomin' orchid!

I finally succeeded in having a Cymbidium orchid plant survive a whole year and even have blooms! My friend and neighbor Rema gave me this plant as a house warming present. It came in the usual weird wood chip-like medium. After a few weeks of looking after it, I just stuck it in a pot of soil and placed it on the patio - could not be bothered to buy more "orchid medium". It seemed to thrive and occasionally I'd feed it orchid food. The plant seemed healthy enough but I had no expectations about flowers. But this spring, it was a delightful surprise to see 3-4 long spires of yellow-maroon blooms....The blooms are long lasting - though,like all orchid blooms, each a bit weird looking! Gotta say though that orchids don't inspire the same poetry that say....um...jasmine does :)

The grass is green and the rose (will soon be) red....

Spring this year has been a perfect mix of cool weather, showers (though there could be more) and sunshine. Since the bulbs start to bloom pretty early (late Feb/early March) here in Northern California, a few days of 75+ degree weather spells the end to these beautiful flowers. They "blow" and look droopy and daggy! I realize I'm not going to get much sympathy with this view point considering, this year that a good part of the mid-West was blanketed by blizzards. But...I digress. We did have that burst of warmth and my black and white long stemmed tulips wilted after just 3 perfect days...it was beautiful while it lasted and a small price to pay since the rest of the garden started to fill in nicely.
Here is a shot of them - the black (deep purple actually) ones are gone but the white and pink tulips are still there...


The tulip tree (a tulip magnolia really) fared much better. Cooler temperatures and some showers allowed the tree to be festooned with the blooms for a whole week while the azaleas under the tree just started to open. This picture was taken just when the first blooms took on color. I'll find a later picture... Right now the garden looks very lush. The lawn fluffy and green ( a temporary phase I'm sure, given my past experience!)
And here it is a week later....

Last summer, I'd acquired a South African Jasmine vine. It was advertised as being very frost sensitive but seems to have survived. The fragrance is quite mild - to me it looks and smells like a "Mullai poo" (or is it "Pichi poo? I always get those 2 confused..Always reminds me of that old song " Saamandhi, malli, mullai, roja poo. Malar. Manam". ).
While claiming this success, I must confess to killing (yet another) "Gundu Malli" plant. I had this guy in a pot, did not leave it out in the open during winter etc etc. Five star care. (Remember me when I am ) Dead. Dead. Dead.

It's suddenly 2009 and I have a new garden!

Despite my resolve to post regularly on things garden, I totally blew it and time marched on. But my garden did change and after a huge remodel, it's growing in. I can definitely see that experience of many past failures in various planting experiments and improved knowledge of sun and water in my yard is showing. I have wasted less money and plants this time around and most of the plants I saved in pots during the remodel have all found pretty good permanent locations. This summer should see some good growth. Right now in winter, it's all looking a mite daggy!

The new addition to the front yard is a fountain cherry that's probably going to be about 16' high at the most. It's still a sapling but has such a graceful form and is beautiful in spring covered with flowers. The old red maple has found a better and shadier location and looks much happier. I'm still struggling to grow delphiniums successfully. Ticks me off that the various gas station planters have better success with it than I do. Maybe the constant exhaust fumes are what's needed! The hollyhocks still have pockmarked leaves but the blooms are spectacular.....I'm still working on the "fillers" so that the look will seem chaotic but actually have a lot of planning involved. I think that's the real secret of an English/cottage garden look.

The lawn continues to be the bane of my efforts. Endless twiddling with the automatic sprinklers hasn'f fixed the dry patches and Truman's favorite peeing spots don't help either.

This past summer vegetables were a moderate success -3/7 came through - beets, tomatoes and green beans. Need to plant some juicy fat tomatoes next time. I managed to kill off the green peppers, corn and strawberries and the cucumbers too. The aging pear tree may have to go and htat will give the vegetable bed more sun. Let's see if this summer is a better one.

Ooo-oooh that smell

More and more I find myself looking for plants and flowers that I grew up with south India to fill my northern california garden - I've convinced myself that the mild clime of this area will surely nurture them. Their names and smells are so evocative of how and where I grew up....I love their tamil names - some quite descriptive of the bloom or plant and the others still quite mysteriously named - i suspect that their names have been colloquialized so much that the original has been long lost....At about 5pm every evening without fail, the flower lady Selvi-amma would come to my grandmother's house carrying her small basket of strung gundu-malligai poo (arabian jasmine ), pitchee-poo (maybe pink jasmine - far as I can translate this seems to mean plucking flower - can't be right, can it?), mullai (a close relative of pink jasmine I think - never was sure what the difference between mullai and pitchee was) ), kadambam (marigold) and kanakambaram( don't have any idea what the common english name is - in latin it'sRuellia Tuberosa ).
In summer in madurai, the heat still shimmers over the ground at 5pm though you can just begin to feel the edge of relief. Selvi calls out her characteristic "Yemmmmaaaoooo pooooo" to summon the residents. The neatly coiled strands of malligai nestled in the dampened banana leaves seems to be bursting with perfume which wafts cooly around. Looking back it was such a neat little self-contained eco-system. The flowers are often strung using fibers from the spine of a banana leaf - the basket is liked with fresh banana leaves sprinkled with water -the strands sold by elbow lengths - 1 muzham - are ocoiled and placed in here and covered with more leaves. When a transaction is completed, the requsite length of flowers are placed in a handy sized portion of the banana leaf and tied neatly with the banana fiber. So if she had a good evening, the product , refrigeration system as well as the packaging materials would all be gone.
Pavazha malli (coral jasmine) was a delicate tree that had masses of sweet smelling white petalled, gently spiralling flower with a coral stem. They would drop en masse under the tree it was the prettiest sight. Arali poo (california highway flower or ) was a bush with many magical offerings. The milky white sap (which we were warned early and often was poisonous - I learnt only quite recently this sap is often used in suicides) often doubled for blood (yeah yeah we imagined it was red too) or sauce to pretend-cook the sand and flowerpetal mixtures in ; but more exciting than this - we'd often find crysalises hanging on the undersides of the leaves. The leaves are both strong and flexible. The myriad of colors on the shell of a crysalis are magical....
Nandiya-vattai is a common bush in south India - the closest I've seen here are the white vinca vines -though the nandiya-vattai flowers have delicately serrated edges on the flower petals. No smell though...their buds are nice and fat and make a satisfying pop! if you smash them against your palm.

Idli-poo (ixora) przed by the adults and landscapers for their globular, spiked orange and sometimes white flowers, were hot favourites amongst the kids because of the sweet nectar you could suck out of them and then turn each floweret into a whistle too (until poor thing just split open)...
Lantana - smelly and poky as ever grew easily there. While learning to ride a bike - I did so on a man's full sized bike - the kind that has a bar running from the seat to the handle bar - I remember losing control and unable to get off landed into this huge bush of pink and purple lantana. aargh - haven't had much time for that plant since then. even the shiny black berries, though squishy are noxious! Of course, it's my luck these are abudundant in California

There is this greenish flower - the petals are thick and kind of snake like that has a great smell - the story was that snakes often lived in and around this plant. I only remember that when my mother would buy these flowers she'd only get a couple - but they sure did smell wonderful - quite unlike any other fragrance I've experienced. Can't even recall the tamil name....



A thrilling plant for kids was the common Balsam - much favoured in borders and pots. The flowers were certainly beautiful but it was the seed pods that were the best. they were fat little pods each with about 10 ball-bearing like seeds. Once the seed pod was mature it would start drying up and finally it would pop explosively open flinging the seeds afar. Ingeneous - rocket propelled (someone once likened it to projectile vomiting - unwarranted if you ask me - it's just fabulous). So the trick was to pick the pods that were juuuuuuuuust ready and gently press them - POP! My brother and I spent hours doing this - no doubt helping the plant propogate as well! In England I think these are called Policeman's helmets.

Jevanthi (chrysanthemum) - usually only white and yellow would show up in November or so - they do need the cooler weather. But the star of winter was definitely the December poo (no idea what the english name is -barleria cristata ) - this came in magenta, purple and white. women and girls wore it often in long strands. The magical thing about these flowers is that they did not dry out and brown quickly - so you could wear them for a couple of days by storing them in the fridge. Their more common fate was to be crushed and scattered all over your pillow the next morning after you forgot to unpin them from your hair!

Watching grass grow

The joy of gardening is a bit about enjoying the process, a lot about anticipating the first glimpse of a seedling or flower bud and all that jazz but is really is all about accepting that good things take time - a lot of time. Yeah yeah yeah - but the real reason that it takes so dang long to make progress in your garden has less to do Nature's speed and more to do with all the time you spend going back and forth fetching and carrying - doing things that don't really count.
Picture this - I'm all set to plant a 100 bulbs - I have 2 full free hours while the kids are napping - more than enough time to do this and more! I grab the bag of bulbs and efficiently head to the target flowerbed, eye the planting area and kneel down to get down to business. But wait! first need to get the spade and gloves. Oops go back for the clippers and a trashcan lid so that you can trim that overflowing bush; collect the clipped branches as well as pesky privet seedlings that are just everywhere - hmm maybe you need a hat - back you go. Now that you're ready to dig holes for the bulbs, it's time to check on the insert how deep these need to be planted - but the insert is back on the porch....one more trip. You return and gaze upon the flower bed - trying to visualize where to put the bulbs in a seemingly random but artful manner. You place the bulbs (this could classify as the first actual bit of gardening you've done now in the 30mins you've been outside). Stand up to inspect it. Ok even dig a few holes for the bulbs. Phone rings and the dog wants to play - your back is killing you by now anyway so it's a good thing to stop. Take a tea-break - but this part counts on the credit side since enjoying just being in the garden definitely qualifies! And while you're scurrying back and forth on the endless trips you notice all sorts of things that need fixing or weeding or feeding - each of these has it's own list of fetch-n-carries. So how can you ever finish any one thing?

Annie's art

Annie's Annuals seed packets are quite quite beautiful. They are usually watercolor or pastels I believe. The plants/flowers are drawn with care and are so pleasing to the eye. They exude a kind of old-fashioned air -reminiscent of gardens that thrived before OSH or Home Depot or Osmocote. They never fail to make me pause and enjoy the little art gallery they present. I'm not sure how well seed-packet art pays but it's nice to see the artists acknowledged on the covers. They bear the common (or once common) names of the flower - often more evocative of the bloom than the latin version - lovely names that roll of the tongue - ladybells, Love-lies-a-bleeding, Venus' navelwort, Owl's clover. Strangely, Annie's website did not carry any of this artwork...I tried to find the closest thing in style as I could but I don't think it does it justice.

Fall planting

Seems like the right season to start musings about gardens and gardening.... Running through the neighbourhood I saw a bunch of freshly turned beds filled with rich choclatey earth pleases me immensely. It looks so alive with possibility - the future site of the perfect border - fragrant, floral and a wonderful reason to smile. Of course the moment of placing all the seedlings/plants in the exact places and stepping back to look at the time-lapse movie in your head - where the bed is all filled in, perfectly textured and beautifully colored - some 2 years hence is qute sweet too! Every gardner has quite an imagination - just take a look at all the gardening catalogs - they shamelessly trade in on the gullibilty of gardners to believe phrases like "carefree perennial" or "guaranteed success for even the casual gardner" next to luscious blooms that privately employeed at least three immigrant families! And yet I happily give my money to them and dream on - one day to photograph such luciousness in my own garden.

Garden design is such a treacherous term - there are zillions of books and magazines all purporting to have solved the problem and waiting to hand hold you through the steps. But while they can shwo you the beginning and the end pictures (both quite glorious in their own ways) no one tells you about the in between when your plants are not quite tall enough in the back or full enough on the sides and the whole thing does not look anything like what you wanted! Beware - this is a vulnerable time for the impatient gardner, You are so desparate to fill in that gaping hole in the mddle of your bed (the buddlea is not looking quite as arching or leafy as it's supposed to and the butterflies are giving it the cold shoulder) you impulsively buy something like achllea and stick in in the ground. This then grows all out of proportion - leggy and attracting snails like the dickens! aaargh. On one such trip to my favourite nursery, my haggard state must have shown on my face. Daphne who works there is both knowledgeable and wise. She listened to my increasingly unintelligible need and finally said " If you can be patient and allow the plants to settle in and feel at home, they wil reward you sooner than you think" It was how she said it - i often recall her words when the retail-urge is upon me! I'm convinced Daphne feels the plants deep in her mind's eye. But I digress....back to garden design...

There must be a better way to teach someone to grow a garden and help lead them through the intermediate joys and sorrows of watching this painting (you hope!) come slooowly to life. Mixing and matching textures seems so easy to say and so hard to do !!