DryStoneGarden

California Poppy, Eschscholzia californica

Hurray, hurray, hur-ray! Anita, partner and non-typing contributor to this blog, passed her final licensing exam today, making her a certified landscape architect of the state of California.  I’m not sure what practical effect her certification will have — rumors that she’ll lose all plant knowledge now that she’s an LA have so far proven untrue — but it’s been eight years, including three years of grad school, since she had the vision, and now it’s official. It would be hard to overestimate the satisfaction for her and the respect from me who witnessed the process.

Dichelostemma (I think capitatum, though possibly congestum, we’re not botanists and lose track of that kind of thing sometimes) with a California poppy, Eschscholzia californica.

ninebark with california poppies

As part of the DryStoneGarden/BuenoLuna 2009 quality-of-life initiative, which I think exists, we are trying to do a lot of cut flowers this year. We spend a lot of time in gardens, so it should be easy enough to do if we stay motivated. Cut flowers are a good way to see flower and plant combinations, so we’re planning to post some of them on the blog. The idea is to be interesting and random, rather than Martha Stewart. Bear with us as we figure out how to photograph them.

The foliage in this one is ninebark, Physocarpus capitatus, with california poppies. Some people seem to think cal poppies aren’t a good cut flower (for instance, they aren’t on the Annie’s Annuals list), but we use them a lot. I like the new, tightly furled ones best. We sear them in hot water (which some people say you only do for Papaver poppies and not Eschscholzia, but has never hurt anything when we’ve done it and doesn’t take much effort) and then they slowly open over the course of a few days, and then it’s usually time to discard them and find something new. Ninebarks are great for the foliage; they always have a lot of crossing branches to cut. The only reason to not use them in arrangements is that they are so easy to use as cuttings and get a whole new plant. There’s a photo of just the ninebark alone below.

–Update 4/24–One of the ninebark branches rooted while it was in the vase and already has roots to the bottom of a 4″, so I guess it’s not an either/or between using them for arrangements or as cuttings.

physocarpus capitatus, ninebark