Sage… Co-Starring Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme

Posted on January 12, 2020 by Janet

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Who doesn’t know the next line of the lyrics? Who doesn’t begin to hum that familiar, iconic melody, perhaps recalling where they were in October 1966 when they first heard it sung by two fresh-faced New Yorkers named Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel? One of the joys of reaching my age is that the folk songs of the 1960s still seem fresh and somehow relevant. Especially the ones where traditional herbs play a starring role! And no song elevated herbs like the title song of the third Simon and Garfunkel album, which also included Homeward Bound.

But ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme‘ debuted with some controversy since the duo listed themselves as songwriters in adapting this traditional 17^th – 19^th century English folk song (with its many versions) – which would be fine if it was their own arrangement. But it turned out that Paul Simon had first heard English folksinger Martin Carthy (who had first heard it from Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger) sing his own version when he was in England and copyrighted a similar arrangement without crediting Carthy, causing a rift that lasted until 2000 when they sang it on stage together. “Worse”, according to one music critic, “it credited Paul and Artie as if the centuries-old tune had emerged entirely from their imaginations.” (Wiki) On the Simon and Garfunkel website, it says, “the duo used vocal overdubs and instrumentation to weave together a traditional song and anti-war protest to stunning effect.” Although not as overtly political as some of the songs I cited in my recent blog Vietnam – Songs of Protest, the song in its long-verse form does sound like the lament of a far-away lover, perhaps a soldier, asking impossible tasks of his sweetheart at home.

SCARBOROUGH FAIR/CANTICLE* traditional, adapted by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, after Martin Carthy (1966)

Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor needlework
Then she’ll be a true love of mine

Tell her to find me an acre of land
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Between the salt water and the sea strand
Then she’ll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
Then she’ll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

*The lyrics above do not include the “Canticle” verses, which are part of the official lyrics listed in their database, but they were the lines sung by the duo 15 years later in front of a half-million adoring fans at the September 1981 benefit concert in Central Park (below) to raise funds for the redevelopment and maintenance of the park. By then, Simon and Garfunkel had broken up and reunited a number of times; even their rehearsals for the concert were fraught with tension. Though they were elementary school classmates who had sung together since high school, initially as the duo Tom and Jerry, lyricist and composer Paul Simon was continually frustrated by the wandering attentions of his partner Artie of the sweet choirboy voice, who had ambitions to be an actor and solo performer. The concert represented a short-lived reunion for Simon and Garfunkel and produced a double platinum live album.

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The Sages, a Photographic Collection

The Scarborough Fair was a popular medieval market fair held in the town in Yorkshire from mid-August throughout September. Though it went on until the 1700s, it was at its height of popularity in the late 1300s. The use of the herbs in the song lyrics recalls their traditional symbolic meanings: parsley for comfort, sage for strength, rosemary for love and thyme for courage. Salvia comes from the Latin word salvus meaning “healthy”. It refers to the European herb Salvia officinalis, an evergreen (where hardy) sub-shrub native to Mediterranean parts of Europe and the Middle East. Its use as a medicinal and culinary herb is recorded in ancient works by Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen. It is a lovely plant for modern herb gardens, and is a favourite of bees too. (And, of course, one of its principal uses is in our stuffing recipes for turkey.)

Salvia officinalis has a number of fancy-leafed forms, including beautiful ‘Icterina’ (often labelled ‘Aurea Variegata’). I loved seeing it a few years ago (far right) in this exquisite design by Paul Zammit at the Toronto Botanical Garden, along with parsley and calabrichoa, heuchera, hakonechloa, pelaragonium and carex.

Another ancient sage (from the French word sauge for the herb) is Greek sage Salvia fruticosa. I photographed the handful of leaves in the Peloponnese in November, during my botanical tour of Greece with Liberto Dario (Eleftherios Dariotis). There it is used, along with sideritis, for making traditional Greek tea.

Another sage is used for an entirely different ‘medicinal’ purpose. When I was at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew some years ago, they had an exhibit devoted to hallucinogenic plants, including ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi). One of the plants was Salvia divinorum, otherwise known by a number of descriptive common names…..

…. including sage of the diviners, ska maría pastora, seer’s sage, yerba de la pastora.

Silver sage (Salvia argentea) comes from southern Europe and northern Africa. A biennial, it is better known for its spectacular, silvery leaves that form as a rosette the first year…..

…. than for its white flowers the following year.

Over the past few decades, I’ve photographed salvia species, hybrids and cultivars around the world – admittedly just a drop in the bucket of some 900 species worldwide. And I’ve grown lots of them in my own gardens, both in the city where the meadow sage Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ (‘May Night’) with its deep-blue spikes graces my pollinator island, attracting lots of bees…….

…. and in the containers on my sundeck at our cottage overlooking Lake Muskoka. There salvias and agastaches are my principal container plants intended to lure ruby-throated hummingbirds each summer. I don’t have a nectar feeder for these graceful little birds, preferring to give them organic sweeteners. (That’s sacred basil on the far right, Ocimum tenuiflorum – a superb bee plant).

The very best lures are the big sages in my hand…..

….. especially the champion – Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’ (also ‘Black and Blue’ in previous summers).

This lusty big Argentine sage is simply the best for bringing in hummingbirds.

Last year for the first time I tried Salvia ‘Amistad’ bred by Argentina’s Rolando Uría, and it was popular with the hummingbirds too.

Salvia ‘Wendy’s Wish’ was a distant third, but still attracted its share of hummers

Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’ is so colourful and a hummingbird favourite.

I did an experimental planting of Salvia ‘Big Swing’ (Salvia macrophylla x S. sagittata) last season. Although the hummingbirds visited it now and again, its strange flowering habit (at least in a container) worked against it.

Annual ‘Mystic Spires’ salvia attracted hummingbirds, too, but not if ‘Black and Blooms’ was in flower.

In my naturalistic borders at the cottage, Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’ consorts with a number of self-sown wildflowers (which we now call exotic invasives…..) including musk mallow (Malva moschata).

If you visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew outside London in autumn, be sure to find the stunning salvia border there. This was October 25, 2014.

It was at Kew that I first saw Salvia confertiflora from Brazil…..

….. and luscious, deep-red scarlet sage, Salvia splendens ‘Van Houtte’…..

….. and pretty hybrids like ‘Phyllis Fancy’ below, discovered at the University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum and named for Phyllis Norris.

Chanticleer Garden outside Philadelphia in Wayne, PA is my favourite public garden in the United States. I wrote a 2-part blog after my June 2014 visit. Its many gardens change each year in the most creative way, but I think my favourite scene was this confection featuring the deep-indigo spikes of Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ (from Zillmer Nursery in Germany), acting as dark vertical brushstrokes in a riot of cottage garden colour.

The Toronto Botanical Garden features its share of sages. Meadow sage, of course, is a prime player in the various June planting schemes. This is white Salvia nemorosa ‘Snow Hill’ (‘Schneehugel’, an Ernst Pagels introduction) with alliums, catmint, lady’s mantle and peonies.

Catmint, of course, is a beautiful partner for meadow sages, like Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’, here with Salvia x sylvestris ‘Blauhugel’ (‘Blue Hill’), another Ernst Pagels introduction, and a splash of lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis).

In the Piet Oudolf-designed Entry Border at the TBG (I wrote a comprehensive 2-part blog on his design for this border), he incorporated his own introduction, Salvia nemorosa ‘Amethyst’, placing it near a wine-red sanguisorba.

His pretty purple-and-white hybrid sage Salvia ‘Madeline’ is also featured in the border.

And at the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario not far from Toronto, I loved this combination of Piet’s introduction Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’ with creamy-yellow Achillea ‘Anthea’.

When I visited Chicago Botanic Garden in 2018, I was impressed with this mass planting of sky-blue bog sage (Salvia uliginosa)…..

….. enlivened by orange dashes of Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia ‘Fiesta del Sol’). I wrote an extensive blog about my visit later.

Years earlier, I had been wowed by a themed garden at Chicago Botanic that featured bright-blue gentian sage, Salvia patens, with lots of gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta).

Speaking of gentian sage, this was one of the happiest combinations ever – a street planting at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden featuring Salvia patens ‘Cambridge Blue’ with Zinnia angustifolia ‘Profusion Orange’, purple Verbena rigida and fuzzy white bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus). Isn’t it lovely?

At Lady Bird Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas a few years ago, I was impressed by the meadow plantings of native mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea), a species that has become a popular bedding and container annual in colder regions.

There I was intrigued to see it looking so beautiful with native Texas yellowstar (Lindheimera texana), left, and was reminded of how effective it is with any yellow flowers, like the gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) at right.

It’s such an easy sage to use: here it is with a rollicking sea of orange and yellow celosias at the Ottawa Experimental Farm one summer.

And this trio at the Montreal Botanical Garden was impressive: Salvia farinacea ‘Fairy Queen’ and ‘Evolution’ with a massed planting of chartreuse sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Illusion Emerald Lace’).

This formal knot garden at the New York Botanical Garden was enlivened by a mix of annual sage (Salvia viridis) in pink and purple popping up in the middle of the knots.

In spring, New York’s High Line features early-flowering Salvia ‘Pink Delight’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (both Piet Oudolf hybrid sages) mixed with amsonias. I blogged about that May 2012 visit too.

Last summer, I photographed and blogged about the Denver garden of Rob Proctor and David Macke. In June, their front yard is a sea of blue sage, including Salvia nemorosa and Salvia pratensis.

Even their long hellstrip (that’s Denverese for ‘boulevard’) is an azure avenue of sages, perennial geraniums and onosmas.

On my recent botanical tour of Greece with the North American Rock Garden Society and Liberto Dario (Eleftherios Dariotis), we visited our guide’s “salvia garden” in Paiania outside Athens. Let’s just say there are a few sages growing there, including many whose seeds he offers to customers worldwide.

What else? So many….. When I was in Tucson, Arizona seven years ago, I drove over the mountain pass to the fabulous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. In its wonderful garden, honey bees were busy gathering nectar from native Salvia apiana. Guess what its Latin name means? Yes, “bee sage”.

At Idaho Botanic Garden a few Septembers ago, native rose sage Salvia pachyphylla was in flower. And of course, I blogged about that lovely visit as well.

At Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, the appropriately named California hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) was, naturally, attracting California hummingbirds! This is the sweet little Anna’s hummingbird.

While at Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, I also saw Santa Rosa Island sage (Salvia brandeegii)…..

….. lovely, silvery Salvia leucophylla ‘Amethyst Bluff’, a selection of purple sage by Carol Bornstein.

During my visit to Chile and Argentina last winter on a wine tour, many of the gardens featured Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha). What a great shrub that is for warmer regions!

I can’t remember where I photographed Salvia dorrii.

Salvia mexicana ‘Limelight’ has brilliant chartreuse bracts that are as much a colour feature as the blue flowers.

Biennial clary sage (Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica) is a cottage garden mainstay.

Even my local park’s Victorian ribbon planting took on a festive air when scarlet sage (Salvia splendens) was paired with chartreuse Canna ‘Pretoria’.

All the sages are wonderful pollinator plants and since insects on flowers are a specialty of mine, I always enjoy finding bees on salvias, like this big carpenter bee nectar-robbing from the corolla of Salvia ‘Silke’s Dream’ at Wave Hill in the Bronx (yes, a blog there, too)….

….. or this bumble bee foraging on annual Salvia coccinea ‘Coral Nymph’ on my own cottage deck.

Hmm. I think that’s enough sage wisdom for one blog, don’t you? Except…. what about poor rosemary? It’s having a little identity crisis at the moment because it was known as Rosmarinus officinalis ever since Linnaeus assigned names back in 1753, but then came 2017 and one of those gene-sequencing revelations that turned taxonomy on its head.

Alas, it seems that rosemary is just a needle-leafed sage, now called Salvia rosmarinus. But sssshhh… don’t tell Simon and Garfunkel.

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If you liked this musical blog, the 5^th in #mysongscapes for 2020, be sure to read my blogs on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’, Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography, Vietnam Songs of Protest and my sentimental take on ‘Galway Bay’.

Los Angeles County Arboretum in January

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Janet

Since it is now January, I thought it would be fun to introduce you to a botanical garden I visited twice last January, three weeks apart and each time on a one-day Los Angeles stopover on our trip to and from New Zealand. (When flying in winter, we try to build in a ‘bad weather safety net’ to make sure we arrive on time at a tour launch in a distant location.) In all my visits to Los Angeles, I’d never been to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, which is located in Arcadia, east of Pasadena, near the San Gabriel mountains. Using Uber, it was a $50 ride (about 50 minutes) from our airport hotel, but you can also reach it via the Metro Gold Line train, Arcadia stop, and bus from downtown L.A. (On my second visit, my husband elected to jump out at nearby Santa Anita Racetrack to take in some horse races). Before you go, be sure to download the map, below (click to enlarge or go to their website and download an even larger version) so you don’t miss any of the gardens on this 127-acre property and historic site; even with two visits, I didn’t get to the greenhouse and some of the more remote features.

Prior to its opening as an arboretum in 1948, the garden was part of a tract of land that had originally been the territory of the indigenous Tongva people, the Gabrieliño. In September 1771, the Spanish colonists opened the Misión de San Gabriel Arcángel here, the fourth of an eventual twenty-one California missions. In 1821, Mexico (which had gained independence from Spain) began the process of selling all mission lands to rancheros. In 1838, a 13,319-acre parcel, Rancho Santa Anita, was deeded to naturalized Scottish immigrant John Reid and his Gabrieliño wife Victoria, who had converted and become part of the mission. Over the next century, the property was divided and changed hands many times, but its most colourful owner was definitely Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, the Ohio-born land speculator, gold mining investor and four-times-married womanizer (he survived two shootings from jilted paramours) who bought 8,500 acres of Rancho Santa Anita for $200,000 in 1875. He soon built the Queen Anne style white cottage that sits beside Lake Baldwin to this day, where the photo below of him and family members was taken. After loaning money to a failing bank that later closed its doors, he cashed in the mortgages that had defaulted and bought most of the San Gabriel Valley, including what would become the towns of Arcadia, Monrovia and Baldwin Hills. And it was the horse-lover Baldwin who built the first Santa Anita Racetrack on his land; it opened in 1907 but it closed two years later when gambling was made illegal and later burned down. The racetrack clubhouse my husband visited while I toured the arboretum was built in 1934.

Early January

My principal reason for visiting the arboretum was the winter flowering of the aloes. I’d been to the succulent garden at The Huntington in late February in previous years, and so many aloes had finished flowering that I was determined to return to California to see the early winter bloom. So I quickly found the Aloe Trail in the African Garden. The arboretum features over 180 different aloe species.

As I listened briefly to a botanist who was guiding a group around the collection, I noticed a northern mockingbird in Aloe marlothii, the large mountain aloe of South Africa. This aloe is easy to recognize because of its single stem and candelabra arrangement of several slanted- to horizontally-arranged dense racemes of tubular dark orange flowers.

There were beautiful aloes everywhere. Sadly, many were unlabelled, like the one below. But thanks to my friend Jim Bishop in San Diego, I have learned that this one is Aloe cameronii.

It wasn’t long before I saw one of the arboretum’s famous peacocks, wandering around one of the many South African cape aloes (A. ferox), which were at peak bloom. The peacocks are the descendants of several pairs that Lucky Ellis imported from India in 1879; over the next century or so, they found the arboretum (and the surrounding residential neighbourhood!) much to their liking.

For a photographer, the lovely tilt-head aloe (A. speciosa) is always a joy to capture just as the flowers are opening.

Aloe vryheidensis bore lovely yellow and orange flowers.

If you love aloes, you could spend hours in this collection alone, which features over 180 different species! The plants below were also unlabelled, but Jim Bishop tells me they are Aloe vanbalenii.

With its tall stems bearing the brown remnants of previous years’ foliage, Aloe candelabrum is a distinctive plant. It has now been recognized as a separate species from A. ferox, with which it was previously grouped.

I was lured briefly beyond the aloe garden into the Madagascar collection, and a planting of several stunning, silver Bismarckia nobilis palms, my favourite palm species.

This is bismarckia’s fruit.

But there was still so much to see and my time was limited, since we were on an evening flight to New Zealand. So I carried on along the Aloe Trail past spiky orange sticks-on-fire (Euphorbia tirucalli) and the yellow daisies of grey-leaved euryops (E. pectinatus).

Look at this amazing display!

I stood for a while and watched a male Allen’s hummingbird (Sesalaphorus sasin) in the aloes turn his head, showing off the iridescent color transformation of his gorget feathers. Then I headed on into the arboretum.

As an easterner, I’d never given much thought to “autumn colour” in California, especially in L.A. But I was pleasantly surprised by some species, given that this was January and at home our fall-coloured leaves had fallen long ago. This is the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera).

And this is a wine connoisseur’s favourite tree, the cork oak (Quercus suber).

I walked past Baldwin Lake, named for the notorious Lucky, who had deepened it and created a retaining wall. As the next photo of a posted garden sign reads, the lake was originally part of the local Raymond Fault, which branches from the major San Andreas Fault. It begins in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains and runs straight west under the town of Arcadia and the Santa Anita racetrack, later forming the hills of south Pasadena, then west to Dodger Stadium, the Hollywood Hills, the Santa Monica Mountains, Beverly Hills, Thousand Oaks, Malibu and out into the Pacific Ocean and the Channel Islands and beyond to where it stops. California’s geological history is dramatic; when I visit the state, I often forget that much of its built-up area lies over the north-south San Andreas Fault, whose last major earthquakes were the Loma Prieta in 1989 (Oakland) and the 1906 San Francisco quake and resulting fire.

The sign below asks for public support in restoring Baldwin Lake, following years of drought, mandatory water conservation measures and well-drilling from neighbouring cities. In 1991, the lake dried up completely and the fish had to be removed; the following season, the water table rose and the lake refilled.

Drought is a fact of life in California, one to which most native plants are well adapted, unlike the many water-dependent species in a botanical garden. So it was gratifying to come upon the Water Conservation Garden. I was interested in the plants chosen for this garden, especially Australian species like Grevillea and Maireana. It seems to me that this would be a great spot to focus on a large display of attractive, residential-scale landscapes using the most drought-tolerant of California plants – as an educational feature for visitors who are increasingly looking to enjoy gardens that require little water.

Given the time of year, the Grace Kallam Perennial Garden was mostly structure, with little in flower.

It would be fun to return to the perennial garden some spring (well, and the Huntington, too, of course!)

Nearby, I was enchanted by the myriad autumn colours of ‘Burgundy’ sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). Presumably, leaf fall (abscission) is much delayed in such a mild climate, which accounts for these pretty leaves hanging on into winter.

Some outstanding specimens in the magnolia collection were already bursting into flower. This is Magnolia x soulangeana ‘Lilliputian’. There are over sixty magnolia species and cultivars in the garden.

Lavender was still in flower in The Herb Garden and it was charming to see…..

…..the formal knot garden here. The herb garden was designed and laid out in 1955 by the Southern California unit of the Herb Society of America. It was renovated in the 1990s.

I cornered this bride and groom doing their wedding photography in the herb garden, and asked if they’d pose for a photo for my blog. Aren’t they fine looking?

Double-flowered apricot was resplendent in the herb garden.

I spied Lucky Baldwin’s Queen Anne’s cottage (once known as Baldwin’s Belvedere) behind a ginkgo tree, its leaves turning bright yellow.

The Citrus Grove was full of fruit. It was planted in 1961.

I breezed quickly through the Victorian Rose Garden, also installed in the late 1950s by the Herb Society, stopping to admire this yellow ‘Symphony’ shrub rose from David Austin Roses, whose renowned founder died in England just weeks ago at the age of 92. This appreciation in The Guardian by my friend Victoria Summerley captures the man and his passion for roses.

As I walked along the road around Lake Baldwin, I passed a planting of prickly-pears (Opuntia ficus-indica). Sadly, there wasn’t enough time to head up to Tallac Knoll to see the plumeria grove there.

On my right was the Bamboo Collection.

Then I was standing across the lake looking directly at the Queen Anne Cottage through the boughs of a ‘Paulensis’ pink trumpet tree (Handroanthus impetiginosus). This tree (formerly in the genus Tabebuia) was introduced to California via seed collected in the wild in ‘50s and ‘60s by hobbyist collectors like Dr. Samuel Ayyres, Jr., the local dermatologist, plant lover and later nursery owner who led the search for a site for the arboretum in the late 1940s. As it states in Dr. Ayres’s 1987 obituary, “The committee chose a 111-acre parcel in Arcadia where developer Elias J. (Lucky) Baldwin had once owned a ranch. The acreage had been purchased by Times publisher Harry Chandler, who intended to subdivide it. But Ayres persuaded Chandler to keep it off the market until he could find some financing. The state and county eventually purchased it for $320,000 and the Arboretum became a reality in 1948.”

Seedlings of the pink trumpet tree were planted in the arboretum in the 1970s; later, the cultivars ‘Pink Cloud’ and ‘Raspberry’ were developed here. The trumpet tree below sits near the entrance from the parking lot.

There were magnificent trees in this area, like this floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa ‘Arcadia’), which seems to be a more rare yellow-flowered form of a tree that normally has pink blooms.

This Brazilian shaving brush tree (Pseudobombax grandiflorum) still had a few fluffy blossoms.

I took the path through the Cycad Collection, stopping to admire some impressive specimens.

The one below is Ceratozamia mexicana, aka “El Mirador”.

My last view from the garden was of the lovely San Gabriel Mountains.

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Then it was time to Uber back to LAX to check out of our hotel and catch our evening flight to Auckland launching a 3-week American Horticultural Society garden tour of the north and south islands of New Zealand. I wrote blogs about most of those gardens and natural sights in 2018. Here are a few of my favourites:

Connells Bay Sculpture Park near Auckland, North Island
New Zealand, the Fernery Nation
Liz Morrow’s tranquil Omaio near Auckland, NorthIsland
Bay of Islands & Māori Culture, Paihia, NorthIsland
Bungy-Jumping and Botanizing in Queenstown, South Island
A Night on Doubtful Sound in Fjordland National Park, South Island
Dunedin Botanic Garden, South Island
Hiking Under Aoraki Mount Cook, South Island
The Garden at Akanaui near Ashburton, South Island
Sir Miles Warren’s masterful Ohinetahi near Christchurch, South Island
Fisherman’s Bay Garden on the Banks Peninsula near Christchurch, South Island
Josie Martin’s amazing Giant’s House Garden in Akaroa, South Island

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I didn’t quite finish my blog reveries on the remaining gardens on New Zealand’s North Island, so stay tuned in 2019 for a few more!

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Late January

When we landed in Los Angeles at the end of our New Zealand trip on January 28th, we had almost a full day before departing L.A. for Toronto. So, being a creature of extreme horticultural habit (and having already seen the lovely Getty Centre gardens), I elected to make a return Uber trip to Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden, with my husband getting out at Santa Anita racetrack. This time, I began by visiting the Celebration Garden, which features six different theme gardens. Once again, the peacocks were holding court, this one in the California Native Plant garden atop a fence near the red fruit of toyon (Hetermoles arbutifolia). In the 1920s, this shrub had become so popular as a Christmas decoration in Los Angeles that the State of California passed a law prohibiting its picking without permission.

Honey bees foraged on the pink blossoms of lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia), below.

Further along I watched a big, black California carpenter bee (Xylocopa californica) foraging in the flowers of Caesalpinia cacalaco ‘Smoothie’, from Mexico.

In another garden, the beautiful Himalayan Michelia doltsopa ‘Silver Cloud‘ was in flower and perfuming the area around it.

I wished I had time to keep walking to the Australia Garden, but I was curious to check on the aloes. So I headed back via the Desert Display Garden…..

….. which is full of succulent and cacti treasures. Love all the golden barrel cacti (Echinocactus grusonii)!

This is beautiful whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia). Agaves, by the way, all come from the New World and are native from South America up into desert regions of North America; they are in the family Asparagaceae. Aloes hail from the Old World – Africa, Madagascar, Middle East – and are now in the family Asphodelaceae.

As a photographer, it’s always fun to shoot a plant like resin spurge (Euphorbia resinifera).

Then I was back in the African Garden, where the long season of aloes was still impressive, with new species flowering and the ones I’d seen 3 weeks earlier now winding down. This is the attractive hybrid Aloe x principis, believed to be a natural cross between Aloe ferox and Aloe arborescens.

Dawe’s aloe (Aloe dawei), below, is native to the mountains of central and east Africa, including the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. This is the cultivar ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.

Aloe lineata is from South Africa.

The flowers of Aloe barbertoniae were just beginning to open.

Another big planting of an unidentified aloe.

Aloe rubroviolacea was attracting honey bees…..

…. as were the aging flowers of Aloe ferox.

I had more time now to visit the Madagascar Spiny Forest with its peculiar species. This excellent article recounts the development of the garden, which opened in 2007.

The tall Pachypodium geayi raised its spined branches to the blue California sky, alongside tall Aloe vaombe and the spiny alluaudias. It’s easy to see the effects of evolutionary pressure here, when a diverse plant population on an African island evolves to feature protections – height or spines – against ancient animal herbivores, likely ancestors of native Madagascar lemurs.

The Malagasy tree aloe (A. vaombe) hosted a perching hummingbird, which I think is a female Anna’s (Calypte anna).

The alluaudias – all six species are endemic to Madagascar – are among the most unusual plants in the garden, with their columns of small leaves and various spines. This is A. humbertii.

It was fun to see lavender scallops (Bryophyllum fedtschenkoi) in bloom, a succulent plant I know from the desert house at Toronto’s Allan Gardens.

One of the world’s most beautiful palms, Madagascar’s Bismarckia nobilis has pride of place in the collection, and I spent several minutes walking through the grove.

And, of course, there was a peacock peeking through the fronds – a fitting image to carry with me as I walked back to the entrance to meet my husband (he didn’t win at the horse races… imagine that!) and call our Uber to take us to LAX and our flight back home – and to winter. What a lovely break we’d had, in the southern hemisphere and here at the delightful Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

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If you enjoyed this blog, you might like to read my blog on Lotusland in Santa Barbara.

Wonderful Wave Hill

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Janet

One of my ‘must-do’ gardens when I have a few days in New York (apart from New York Botanical and the Conservatory Garden at Central Park and the High Line) is fabulous Wave Hill, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. And so it was that in mid-August, I caught the Metro North ‘Hudson Line’ train at Grand Central Station and took my comfy window seat for the scenic ride along the Hudson River. (Excuse the dirty windows, please – not my fault!)

When you get off at Riverdale-Wave Hill, you really should wait for the shuttle, which meets northbound trains at 9:50am, 10:50am, 11:50am, 12:50pm, 1:50pm, 2:50pm and 3:50pm. (Return shuttles for southbound trains leave Wave Hill’s front gate at 20 minutes past the hour, from 12:20pm through 5:20pm). But I was feeling energetic – and had forgotten how steep the hill is and how long the walk from the station up towards the garden, set in a lovely, leafy Bronx neighbourhood. So I walked.

Wave Hill, overlooking the Hudson River and the towering Palisades on the New Jersey shore, was built by lawyer William Morris in 1843 to serve as his country home. It was enlarged by publishing scion William Appleton in the late 1800s, and played host to visiting notables such as Thomas Huxley. Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t yet in his teens when his parents rented the estate in the summers of 1870 and ’71, and likely helped to foster in him the love of nature that propelled him to protect America’s wild lands as national parks. Perhaps its most famous resident was Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), who leased Wave Hill from 1901 to ’03, and entertained guests in a tree house on the back lawn. Later residents included conductor Arturo Toscanini (1942-45). In 1960, Wave Hill’s last private owners, the Perkins-Freeman family, deeded the estate to the city of New York and it was incorporated as a non-profit, one of 33 city-owned cultural institutions and specializing in programs of horticulture, environmental education, woodland management and presentations of the visual and performing arts. while seeking to “foster connections between people and nature”. (Sources: Wikipedia & Wave Hill) Wave Hill House underwent a two-year $9.8 million renovation and was reopened in 2013. When I visited the following June, I was impressed with the gleaming woodwork – not to mention the stunning bouquet of delphiniums in just the right shade of blue to enhance the walls.

As I headed into the garden this August, I was greeted by some lovely new touches to the Perennial Flower Garden, which I had last seen in 2014, including the beautiful, sky-blue tuteurs in each of the central four sections.

The flower garden, overseen by gardener Harneck Singh, consists of eight plots arranged in cruciform quadrants, each loosely colour-themed. And there’s always something big and beautiful from the greenhouses in the centre; this summer it was a luscious, variegated agave.

Those blue tuteurs add to the elegance quotient in the flower garden. Here’s how it looked in June 2014. below. Not nearly as dramatic.

There were a lot of silver-spotted skippers flying about, including this one on Clematis heracleifolia.

I enjoyed seeing Clematis crispa climbing the rose bower in the flower garden.

Speaking of rose bowers, I fondly recalled making former director of horticulture Marco Polo Stufano pose for me in one of the bowers, when I was there in 1994. Though it was terribly sunny and not great light for a portrait (especially with my limited photography skills more than 20 years ago), I do enjoy having this reminder of a very talented man who lent his expertise to the garden. Today, Louis Bauer is horticulture director and is putting his own creative mark on Wave Hill’s gardens.

My 1994 visit was seven years after Marco Polo Stufano was featured on the cover of the November 1987 issue of Horticulture magazine. (Photo by Allen Rokach) And yes, I am a packrat, and I really should clean out the mags in my office!

The story inside the magazine was about the flower garden, as redesigned by then curator of gardens John Nally. His name is now memorialized in Wave Hill’s practice of hiring interns – called Nallies – to work in the garden. I had a little chat with one of Wave Hill’s 2016 Nallies, Gabe Santoriello, who was carefully deadheading flowers in the red garden. He made me chuckle when I called out ‘Gabe’, to ask him about a plant. “You know, I had my earphones in,” he said, “but you sounded just like my mom when you called me.” (I’ve had some family experience calling out to young men!)

Being late summer, grasses were good-looking, like this Calamagrostis acutiflora with Helenium autumnale.

I loved the duo below in the red garden, when I visited in June 2014: ‘Heart Attack’ sweet william (Dianthus barbatus) and the airy seedheads of Allum schubertii. Isn’t this cool?

Walking into the entrance to the tropical and desert greenhouses, I saw that Marco Polo Stufano has also been honoured with his name on the conservatory, a gift of Frank and Anne Cabot, who also founded The Garden Conservancy. .

Lovers of tropical plants should be prepared to spend a lot of time exploring the jewels in the tropical house.

What a fascinating plant: Strophanthus preussii. I had a discussion with plant nerd friends on Facebook about the evolutionary significance of the long, red corolla threads. We couldn’t come to an agreement about why nature gave this African liana such decorative accents (but nature rarely creates adaptations for the fun of it).

I loved seeing this little arrangement of air plants (Tilliandsia ionantha).

This is what greeted me in the tropical house in June 2014: can you say Indian clock vine (Thunbergia mysorensis)?

Crossing into the desert house, I paused to take in the stunning variety of small succulents and cacti.

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Walking back into the garden through the blue conservatory doors (matching those tuteurs), I was reminded how effective a little paint is at drawing landscape elements together – and how complex the textural plantings in those containers just outside the doors were!

I never visit Wave Hill without heading down to the long pergola overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades on the New Jersey shore. Apart from the stunning view, there are loads of wonderful plants displayed there!

Another section of the pergola.

And lookng towards Wave Hill House along the pergola.

That cascading, yellow-flowered vine intrigued me, but I had no idea what it was. So I cornered Wave Hill gardener Coralie Thomas who carefully dug out the label to show me: Petraeovitex bambusetorum, or Nong Noch vine, a Vietnam native. Thank you Coralie!

Then it was time to move on to some of the other wonderful gardens, but I stopped to take a quick shot of the happy confection of flowers (gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ & yellow strawflower) in the Paisley Garden across from the Visitor Centre.

Immediately behind the conservatory on a rise of land are two long gardens. The first is the Herb Garden…

…. with its late summer profusion of aromatic herbs.

The second is the Dry Garden.

There are always interesting surprises dotted about here and there, like this Boophane disticha on the steps. .

Behind these is a lovely display of bonsai plants.

Beyond is the Alpine House, which is not open to the public but easily observed through the glass.

Head back out to the path and circle around behind the Alpine House and you’ll come to the Wild Garden.

This is a tough theme to pull off without attracting loads of weeds, but the August display was beautiful – naturalistic, yet reasonably controlled.

I liked the contrast of the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) with the bronze colour of the upright spurge (Euphorbia stricta).

One of my favourite spots to spend a little time sitting is the Aquatic Garden. I loved how it had filled out from June….

….to August, when the big lotuses (Nelumbo nucifera) are at their sumptuous best.

Adjacent is the Monocot Garden, with its luscious grasses, lilies and bromeliads, among many other plants.

With a date on Manhattan’s High Line in late afternoon, it was time for me to pick up a lunch at Wave Hill’s lovely restaurant and make my way to the shuttle for the drive to the Riverdale train station. As I looked around at all the spectacular but residential-scale gardens here (there are others besides those I’ve written about), I thought of a sentence from that Horticulture magazine story 29 years ago, Though it described the redesign of the Perennial Flower Garden, it could be applied to all the gardens at Wave Hill: “…its style would be in keeping with Wave Hill’s history as a private estate.” Indeed, this garden is sheer inspiration for those who create modest gardens around their own homes. It is truly a garden for people. But as I walked down the path beside a scrambling maypop vine (Passiflora incarnata) and watched the carpenter bees and honey bees nectaring madly on the August blossoms, I was reminded that it’s also a garden that nourishes and sustains nature’s myriad other creatures.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

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