The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

In Search of Lotusland

I ran into an old friend at the beach. She told me her daughter is attending college in Santa Barbara.

First of all, that is where I want my kids to go to college. 

Is it a good school? Who cares? Education, shmeducation. 

It’s all about attending a place that I want to visit, isn’t it? 

I also like Cal Poly, because it sits smack dab in the middle of SLO County, another one of my favorite places. 

Or, Maybe I could ship them off to Hawaii? 

I digress. 

My friend and I got on the subject of, surprise…gardening…and she told me about a garden in Santa Barbara called Lotusland. It’s a public garden that operates in a private residential neighborhood in Montecito. 

Lotusland has a rich and colorful history, but not as colorful as it’s creator, Madame Ganna Walska. As part of her search for creative fulfillment and personal enlightenment, Madame Walska bought the 37-acre Cuesta Linda estate in 1941. She called it Tibetland.

After the dissolution of her sixth marriage, she changed its name to Lotusland.

So, I happen to have another friend whose parents happen to live in Montecito. 

You know who you are.

I plan to kidnap you, drive you to Montecito, pick up your mom, and zip off to Lotusland. 

Someday. 

Soon. 

Please comment if you’ve been to Lotusland. I want to hear all about it.

My Winter Break

This is my idea of a winter break: Like most people I am understandably nervous about the lack of rain in our beautiful mountains but I say, “Make hay while the sun shines.”

I believe this means something like reap the hay while the sun is shining before it rains and gets moldy, sort of like my lawn. 

While I don’t make hay, I am Jonesing for some Springtime, and since I am spending my holiday with twelve or so furry friends, I thought I would treat us all to some winter color.

And, yes, contrary to popular belief, dogs do see color. They just see it a bit different than we do. 

The dogs have torn up my lower lawn so badly now that I have decided to perhaps slowly turn it in to something besides a lawn. I haven’t formulated a whole plan yet, so here is a preview of things to come.

I dug out a ring of lawn from around my giant urn and planted dahlia bulbs. On top of the bulbs I planted some winter flowers: primrose, Johnny jump ups, and snapdragons.

While I was working the dogs stole a bulb, two plastic pots, a glove and two rocks. You may ask, as I did, why would a dog take rocks?

The two rocks were taken by a golden puppy. Need I say more?

Now it’s just a waiting game to see which of the dogs I’m dog sitting will pee on the new flowers first.

My money’s on the golden.

Euphorbia Euphoria

Euphorbia is an ever-so-appropriate word, since the name originated describing a drug-induced state. 

Pulling muscles and working out one’s aging body until it cries “uncle” does have it’s advantages, sometimes landing you in your doctor’s office in which your doctor, shaking his head and looking at you with a pitiful eye scribes a prescription for muscle relaxer and sends you to bed. 

But that is not the only gift I’ve received lately.

One client traded me a yoga retreat at Stillheart, a sanctuary in the hills of Woodside California—about 45 minutes from my house. 

The accommodations are fabulous. The retreat is nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains mid-peninsula, amongst a beautiful redwood forest. My room opened up onto this amazing garden filled with euphorbia, and the occasional Buddha.

I fell in love with the euphorbia. They looked so seraphic. Even though it was overcast, the ambient light lit up the bracts at the end of the spiky stocks. The pictures I took are reminiscent of infrared photos. 

One of the species of euphorbia seemed to be the species called characias. I wasn’t as sure about the other species. What ever they were, they were doing great deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which means they’re perfect for my yard.

Erphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom. Euphorbia is also deer and gopher resistant mainly because the sticky white sap of the plant is toxic and can be quite irritating on contact. So keep this in mind when trimming, deadheading or landscaping with euphorbia.

Four Days of Rain: Does Not a Winter Make

Remember that scene in Water World (I’m speaking to the three people who saw Water World), the scene in which Kevin Costner pees in a bottle, then runs his urine through some sort of filtration system, and drinks it?

Well, if it doesn’t hurry up and rain, we'll all be drinking tinklewater here in California.

The good news is, with all this sunny weather, perhaps my La Brea Tar Pits may soon be taken over by green lawn, though I am not holding my breath.

Not only does my lawn look like a brownie with green mold on it, the smaller area of lawn that the dogs have been allowed on is now in worse shape than the moldy brownie lawn. 

I am thinking of replacing it. I am not sure with what. It has to be something that dogs can run on and catch balls on—and you know what else. 

I am considering taking out part of the lawn and planting natives, while replacing the rest of the lawn with faux grass. 

Or, replacing the rest of the lawn with some sort of wide rock path. 

Or I could replace the whole thing with a fake lawn. 

Or, I could dig a big hole and create a swimin' hole. 

Or I could have a cocktail and go in my house and watch the weather.

Gardeners Anonymous will gladly take any suggestions as to what to replace my abused lawn with.