The North Versus the South in California

Such a lovely little cottage I saw in Santa Monica. If you have an extra seven figures lying about, it could be yours.

I was in Southern California this past weekend, and there, spring is spectacular. With an average March/April high that is about four degrees warmer than the San Francisco peninsula and an average low that is about six degrees warmer, the blooms are something extra in the Southland.

I took a long walk in a warm rain on Saturday and found I was surrounded by pretty gardens everywhere.

My rose bushes are just getting leaves on them, while these are in full make-up and doing the can can ...

Day lilies raise their heads in summer elsewhere. Here they like to get a running start ...

Clivia, like all redheads, can't help but attract attention. Mine won't begin to strut for several more months ...

Lobelia, looking as if it just popped by for a visit, still not sure if it plans to stay ...

Purple blooms invite visitors up this Santa Monica walk ...

My mother always dreamed of a bougainvillea this color. Perhaps the light freeze we get in the North of the state was the foe of her expectations ...

I remember being struck by the lively and colorful gardens of Los Angeles when I went to UCLA to get my Masters Degree. I recall seeing orchids growing in a pot on a front porch in the Palisades and wondering how one could make that happen! Even in a trailer park--if they still have those in LA--flowers bloom in profusion.

I will grant you that on this trip, I was in a prosperous neighborhood, where people spend many hours at movie studios, law offices and production companies and further hours stuck in traffic--all necessary to afford these homes, the taxes that go with them and their gardens. 

Thus, I think I can safely say, many expensive gardeners and landscape architects help make all this possible. 

Arts and Crafts charm I could really love ...

I'm not quite so keen on the blue glass rocks that go with this design. But it surrounded a very modern style home; so, it is definitely ... a look.

I don't envy the congestion of LA: people seem to live right on top of each other and automobile travel is harrowing. If we don't stop paving over our heritage orchards in Northern California (oh, there I go again) we'll be just like them in not too many years. Still, LA is horticulture heaven ...

I want this!

I just got home and took a look around my yard and noticed I need to make a serious stab at the weeding [editor's note: my first edition of this blog had me in the Freudian slip, writing "wedding" instead of "weeding"!]. The gardens I saw have shamed me, and I have not found a gardener yet who will pull a weed! Maybe those folks down south have their personal assistants do it, do you think?

Yes I love the colorful Southland of my state. But I confess to liking it as a visitor best of all.

And my house? Be it ever so humble. No blue glass in the garden but lots of weeds to pull instead.  

It is mine own.

It is planning for a new coat of paint this summer. Then it should really shine. The pansies in pots are my way of trying to think of landscaping that won't add weeding responsibilities!

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