By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

One of California’s finest native plant repositories, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden saw much of its collection go up in flames May 6 in the devastating Jesusita Fire. About 60 of 78 acres were burned, including the canyon, lath houses, all tools except one shovel, and all vehicles but one. (How do you run a garden without trucks or tools?) Firefighters made their stand in SBBG’s iconic wildflower meadow, and that’s where the fire was stopped.

So what happens now? “We just do the massive job of getting back to normal,” says garden VP Nancy Johnson, “and we want people to come.”

Though many trails are closed, there’s still plenty to see: the meadow survived, the redwood grove is singed, but intact, and a new art installation—a 1200-square-foot labyrinth made from redwood poles by Herb Parker (below)—is being installed on schedule, starting just a few days after the blaze. It had been in planning for 18 months.  The Arroyo, Discovery Garden, Teahouse, and most of the Manzanita Exhibit also remain open.

During the coming months, you'll have the chance to hear fire ecology talks and walk trails routed to let you watch regeneration first hand. Fire is, after all, a necessary event in many California floral regions, including this one.

During this inferno, not everything went wrong. The garden had just completed a million dollar irrigation system, which staff horticulturists were able to keep on until the fire swept over the garden, so plants were well-hydrated up to the last minute. That should help some come back. The library, admin building, herbarium, garden shop and retail nursery were all spared.

The human cost from this fire was high. As Johnson told me, "if you weren't an evacuee yourself, you were housing them." She had several living with her for the duration of the fire.

Sadly, the garden CEO's on-site residence was burned to the ground, even as he directed firefighters to save the garden's seed bank, which they did.

Now it's back to business. You can help with a membership, a contribution, or some volunteer time. But before you do anything, stop by for a visit.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I've been trying to sort out the differences between oregano and marjoram because I want to add one or both to my garden, and it's making my head hurt.  Both plants are in the same genus, Origanum, that much I know, but after that everything gets fuzzy.  

For instance, what we commonly think of as marjoram is O. majorana, but there are many other species that are called marjorams, too.  O. syriacum is known as Syrian marjoram, for instance, and O. onites as Cretan marjoram.  But they're also called Syrian oregano and Cretan oregano just as often.

And what we classify as basic oregano botanically, O. vulgare, is commonly called wild marjoram.  And what we're probably used to tasting if we buy oregano from the supermarket is a cross between O. vulgare and O. majorana and is described as Italian oregano or hardy marjoram. (It's 'Italian oregano' that is shown here.)  See what I mean? What confusion!

That's why I was very happy to come across Richard Frost's summary of the whole problem in a recent article in Talking Plants, the monthly publication of the San Diego Horticulture Society.  Frost sensibly skips the whole botanical issue and cuts to what is most important--how the different varieties taste.  It's such a nice succinct summary I'm going to reprint it in total here with his permission:

"When it comes to oreganos, there are opinions as strong as the herb can be in taste.  The standard kind that you find generically labeled in U.S. supermarkets is 'Italian.'  On the milder, sweeter side is 'Sweet Oregano', which many people know by the name "marjoram."  The white oregano cultivar 'Kaliteri' is even milder but with a traditional oregano taste.

For regular oregano with a peppery taste, try 'Greek' (a small bite will be sufficient for most people).  The Middle-Eastern variety 'Za-atar' is the main ingredient of a sauce of the same name and has pleasant cumin-like overtones.  The most pungent oregano I have ever tried is 'Syrian', which will stand out in almost any dish."

***

That cleared it up for me. Seems like you ought to have a mild one and a spicy one and I love anything that hints at cumin.  So I'm ordering 'Kaliteri' and 'Za-atar'.  What would you order?

***

For more examples of Frost's clear thinking, see the website, www.PlantsThatProduce.

***

If you live in Southern California, here are two great places to taste oregano and lots of other herbs:

Herb weekend at Fullerton Arboretum this weekend, May 30-31, 10 am.-4pm.

Pearson's Garden & Herb Farm in Vista, California -- any time

How to grow oregano

How to grow marjoram

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

For the past two nights, a barred owl has been calling from the big-leaf maple outside my bedroom window. I didn’t see him, I heard him, and I know his species because I checked his call against the audio files posted on the internet. The checking process made me realize how dependent I am on the web for information about what goes on in my garden from day to day.

Here are some of the web sites I use most.

Birds. Go to whatbird.com to see what they look like, how they sound, and more.

Earthquakes. I like the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network's page. It maps when and where recent earthquakes have occurred in Oregon and Washington, and just how intense they were.

Garden design, at its most fundamental level. Get sense of how mathematics describes plant growth patterns by looking at a site devoted to the Fibonacci sequence.

Insects. From butterflies to spiders, skippers to scarabs, you're likely to find whatever you want to know on What's That Bug?. If you decide to go the next step and get rid of the creature that's bothering you, check out the online version of the Pacific Northwest Insect Management Handbook.

Lightning. Did I hear thunder? Find out at StrikeStarUS.

Plant cultivation. For ornamentals and edibles, check out Sunset Magazine's new Plant Finder, whose content is derived from Sunset's Western Garden Book. It's growing and being updated all the time.

Plant diseases. Start with Oregon State University's Online Guide to Plant Disease Control.

Weather. Among many excellent weather-related sites, I start with Weather Underground for daily conditions, forecasts, and history. To get a satellite picture of current weather for the western United States, I go to NOAA. To look at complete historical weather data, I tap into Western Regional Climate Center summaries. And when somebody says "boy, it's sure been dry," I check for my self on the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Weeds. I used to buy an updated reference copy of the Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook every couple of years. Now I read it free online.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

This is what side yards usually look like:

This is what they could look like:

The transformation of this side yard in Calabasas, California was performed by Shirley Bovshow, garden designer,  television host, and speaker.  She outlines all the steps and and shows a lot more details on this post on her blog, Edenmakers.  Take a look.  It may inspire you to finally tackle your own side yard.

For more inspiration, also see this stylish example my colleague Julie Chai discovered:

And this clever Mediterranean side yard patio I found:

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Looking at a bamboo in a 1-gallon pot, it’s hard to tell what it will be like in 5 or 10 years. How tall will it grow? Will the new culms (canes) be colored, patterned, or scented? Can it stand up to snow, and might it spread much? You learn these things by looking at mature bamboo growing outside, and one of the best places to do that is at Bamboo Garden near Portland.

Located on an old farm in the forested hills above North Plains, Oregon, Bamboo Garden has acres of mature bamboos in the ground, and a nursery lot full of the same varieties in containers of all sizes. By looking at the mature groves here, you can see for yourself how different varieties held up (or not) under snow loads. You can smell the sandalwood fragrance of incense bamboo (Phyllostachys atrovaginata), and be wowed by the towering timber bamboos that arch overhead. I personally love the layered look of moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis), and the green strength of Phyllostachys nigra ‘Henon’, and found the patterned culms of Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis' irresistable (pictured at bottom right).

Most of these are runners—they can get away from you if you don’t contain them or nip them back—but many are well-behaved clumpers. The checkerboard pattern of culm sheaths on Fargesia robusta (bottom left) will win you over even if you don’t care about its well controlled growth habit.

Bamboo Garden is run by Ned Jaquith (left) and his incredibly well-informed staff, who will give you a golf-cart tour of mature plants to help you choose. I learned much there: that runners, for example, tend to run downhill and toward the south; and the parts of the grove that get the most sun usually grow tallest. Little tips like these can save you long-term maintenance when you place bamboo in the garden.

Bamboo Garden is open Tuesday through Saturday 9 to 4, or Sunday by appointment from 10 to 3. Go to their web site for directions (which you'll definitely need).

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Writing a few days ago about the Owen Dell garden that won a Western Garden Design Award but failed to get photographed reminded me of this great book that's been on my desk for months.

In fact, if you happened to read that post, you'll recognize the garden on this cover of Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies.

Owen Dell, the Santa Barbara landscape architect who is the author of this book, has been into sustainable landscaping his whole career -- long before the term came into existence.  He's been preaching as well as practicing a long time, too -- lectures, workshops, even a regional television series, Garden Wise Guys, which you might call a sustainable-landscaping sitcom. 

Bottom line, he knows this subject thoroughly and is used to breaking down its complexities for those of us less versed.  He's put his heart and soul into this book, and it shows.  I highly recommend it.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The drink shown opposite is an apricot-white cherry sangria.  And, true, this has nothing to do with gardening.  Especially in my virtually no-chill climate where white cherries are impossible and even apricots are difficult to grow. So no way can I pretend there's the option of getting the ingredients from my garden.

But this recipe sounds like a splendid thing to be sipping out on a veranda. And I'm headed off to the supermarket to buy the ingredients.

If you're tempted, too, the recipe, concocted by Maria Hunt, is on The Bubbly Girl's website.

More fun and frosty drinks

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Some photos from a garden designed by Santa Barbara landscape architect Owen Dell resurfaced recently.  We all loved the garden, thought it looked familiar, and wondered why we'd never photographed it for the magazine.  Then it all came back to us.  We'd tried once.  The garden seen here, we remembered, was actually one of the winners in our 2004-2005 Western Garden Design Awards.  And we assigned a photographer to shoot it.  But, unfortunately, just before he arrived a pest control company sprayed some of the bushes with herbicides instead of the organic pesticide that was ordered, and the garden now had brown shrubs instead of green.  The shrubs recovered but not in time for us to photograph the garden for the Design Awards issue.  And then the garden slipped off our radar.

But it's not too late to honor it now.  Especially since the garden seems even more fresh and "green" and timely then it did when it won the award.

What we especially like about this landscape is all the ways it honors the small wetlands preserve in the center of this tract.  The most obvious connection is the meadow made up of a native California sedge (Carex praegracilis) that fills most of the center of the garden.  C. praegracilis looks wetter and wilder than turf and requires a lot less water and maintenance.  You can mow it occasionally if you feel so compelled or leave it shaggily romantic as seen here.  Carex isn't as chemically dependent as turf either, which was an important consideration in this project as Dell didn't want any fertilizer runoff contaminating the wetlands.

We also liked the pockets of wildflowers -- scarlet flax, California poppies, yellow columbine -- tucked in here and there amidst the carex which enhance the romance.

We loved that pair of concrete walls, too.  They add architectural interest to the garden.  With their deliberately rough texture and different strata of colors, they relate to the mountains in the distance, and, best of all, they hide a secret.  On the far side of the larger wall, there's a hidden seating area -- perfect for contemplating nature.

In fact, the more I look at this garden, the more I think we need to go back and take another look.  What do you think?

***

For another example of a meadow, see this meadow garden in Santa Fe

And this meadow garden in Palo Alto

To do it yourself, see Plant A No-Mow Lawn

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

The first time you take a second look at conifers, you’re hooked. It might be the Fibonacci pattern of chartreuse bracts swirling around a purple Korean fir cone (that’s what got me), the new candles on a pine, or the Seussian pose of a weeping sequoia—but whatever it is, it changes the way you think about cone-bearers.

Next month you can feed this passion at the western regional meeting of the American Conifer Society in Olympia, Washington, but you should register now. Conference dates are June 26-28.

Because conifers work so well with Japanese maples and alpine plants, this year’s conference will focus on them too. You’ll hear speakers (including a keynote address by Lucy Hardiman), go on private and public garden tours, and network with some of the best horticulturists around.

For more information, contact Marc McCalmon at conehead2502@yahoo.com. McCalmon, incidentally, is a great conifer grower: I photographed the dwarf Norway spruce pictured above (Picea abies 'Pusch') in his garden.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Remember Jenny Joseph's famous poem "When I am Old I will wear Purple"?   It starts:

"When I am an old woman,
I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go,
and doesn't suit me. . . ."

And it continues with all the outrageous things the poet is waiting to do when she gets a certain age.

Well, Dee Marcellus Cole, an Upland, California paper mache artist, makes the purple-hatted woman in that poem look like a piker.  She does a lot more outrageous things than wear purple.  But judge for yourself.  Following are a few photos of her garden.

"There will be no mistaking my home," said Cole when giving me directions.  "It's the one with the mannequins on the roof."  And, as you can see, she wasn't kidding.

Here is a closer view of my two favorites.

Past that wonderfully distinctive gate--scan back up and take a closer look at it--things get even more interesting.  Paprika red walls, a collection of chia pets lined up along the top of one of them, slightly sinister masks made from palm sheaths hanging from trees. 

And another mannequin hovering over a periwinkle blue cocktail table like a fiery angel.

More of Cole's painted mannequins in the backyard.  Other artists' work, too.  Like this larger-than-life Day of the Dead skeleton.  (That's Dee posing next to it.)  A reminder, it occurred to me, that if you want to live a life more like the purple-hatted woman in Joseph's poem, or even better like Ms. Cole, there's no time to lose.

Dee describes herself as a faux folk artist.  To see more of her work check out her website.  Or go to the Armstrong's Gallery website.  Or even better visit the Armstrong Gallery in the Art Colony in Pomona.