THE COASTAL GARDENER:Saying an emotional goodbye to my friends

Moving from one house to another is a chore. But to a serious gardener, like some of you reading this, it is a huge chore and an emotional challenge. Day after tomorrow, the moving truck is coming to our house. Furniture, clothes, dishes, books and a hundred boxes of “stuff” is coming with us to the new house about a mile away. You can move a lot of things, but you can’t move a garden. It’s time to say goodbye to my garden — “my home” for the past 12 years.

The potted plants will come with me. So will the tools, hoses, compost bin, empty containers, the potting bench, the coldframe and the heating pad (not for my back, which might be a better use, but for rooting cuttings and germinating seeds).

I’m afraid my garden is more of a plant collection than it is a striking landscape. I enjoy plants immensely and especially those that are new, unusual or have a good story to tell me. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the rest of the plants; those that everyone else has. It’s just that after 30 years of selling plants and seeing them every day I need something different when I get home. So I love unusual or little-known plants and all that they teach me. A new plant in my garden brings with it knowledge that I did not have before. I have no room for ordinary plants anymore.

So it is with melancholy that I leave behind a garden of very special plants. Special to me, but probably not to their next owners. These plants taught me many lessons, and they now have their own stories.

Pardon me while I say goodbye to a few of my friends. These are collector’s plants, so don’t be ashamed if you don’t recognize them — that’s the point.

Goodbye to Tibouchina grandiflora, for 10 years it bloomed nearly year-round, and goodbye to the favorite tree off my garden, a bronze-leafed Albizzia julibrissin named “Summer Chocolate.” It was one of the first of its kind in Southern California. Robinia pseudoacacia (“Lacy Lady”) was 3 feet when planted and now stands 20 feet tall. Goodbye.

Canna “Stuttgart” was a special plant. I paid $75 for a tiny little division mailed to me from North Carolina. Reineckia carnea “Variegata” came from Oregon and flourished — almost too well. Crocus goulimyi from Greece has naturalized in a dry area, but I won’t see its soft lilac-blue blooms this October. Anisacanthus quadrifudus, both the red form and the orange form, came to my garden by way of Texas. Loving the summer heat, they are in full floral display as I leave.

Senecio cristobalensis was added from Washington to keep company with Senecio petasites. Brugmansia (“Sunray”) arrived from Connecticut and blooms for months just outside my bedroom window with sweet, night-scented flowers. Clematis heracleifolia (“Alan Bloom”) landed one day in a parcel from England and now resides just off the patio.

Many plants remind me of my friends. Helianthus salicifolius (“First Light”) was suggested by Bob Smaus, the award-winning garden writer of The Los Angeles Times. Like Bob himself, it’s one of my favorites. Franklenia thymifolia was a great recommendation by the late Mary Lou Heard of Heard’s County Gardens, and Echium simplex was suggested by Annie Hayes of Annie’s Annuals fame. Tricyrtis hirta “Hatatogisa” was a favorite of Dan Heims, one of America’s great plantsmen.

Oddly, I struggled with the Giant Voodoo Lily, Typhonium giganteum, for years, unable to get it established. Then, a couple of years ago it sprouted behind my trash can — how did it get there? In an apparently stalled getaway attempt, it grows there today, with absolutely no help from me.

Most of my bulbs will come with me to my new garden, including my large collection of Oxalis — no, not the garden weeds, the other ones. But I will say goodbye to my patch of Sprekelia formosissima, which has bloomed every month except June and August. For those who think tulips are a struggle, they haven’t grown Tulipa clusiana, which has multiplied and naturalized in my garden.

Goodbye to all the rest too: odd varieties of Acalypha, Aristolochia, Bletella, Bomarea, Dichorisandra, Hymenocallis, Hypericum, Ixora, Justicia, Physostegia, Pulmonaria, Russellia, Spuria iris, Talinum, and an alphabet soup of other horticultural tongue twisters.

Good luck old friends; my new garden awaits, and many new lessons need to be learned.

ASK RON

Question: Why do I struggle so much growing cilantro in my garden?

Urbano

Answer: Many people don’t realize that cilantro is a “cool-season” annual herb. It will grow fine in local gardens from about October until April. However, if planted during the summer months it will yellow out and bolt very quickly. Better to buy cilantro in the market during the long, warm days of summer.