My front yard would disgust some of you. Jades of several varieties, agave, cacti, birds of paradise, kangaroo paws, bougainvillea, jasmine. Planted because they thrive with minimal water and care, and are prettier than baked hard pan and weeds.

The water and time I save go into my back yard fruit trees, berry bushes, massive amounts of herbs, tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, lettuce, chard, kale, melons and cucumbers. My garden is awash in bees, butterflies and hummingbirds on any given day (I actually think there might be a hummingbird nest in the bougainvillea, silly birds).

Most of my neighbors have similar setups. Natives/low water use tried and true plants up front, plants they have for their own enjoyment in the private areas often not visible from the street. Many, many backyard edible gardens here.

I guess I'm saying, don't judge a book by it's front yard. Just because I have "boring" things in the areas you can see, doesn't mean I'm not interested in gardening or don't know what I'm doing. I just have different gardening priorities than you do - I prefer useful plants, and strictly ornamental plants have to earn their keep by not costing me much in time or water.

Nil13- I understand what you're saying with that too (*sigh) My dad worked his butt off to buy a house in a decent area in Queens, NY (country compared to Manhattan). Worked his butt off to buy another house in Spring Valley, California. At that time, I disliked anything to do with gardening. He had a large vegetable garden, which i had the privilege of weeding for him. He had to buy a corner property in NY so you know what that means, a larger lawn to mow! And, guess who had that privilege too? A peach tree, Apple tree, 2 blueberry bushes, Crabapple tree, a grape vine, etc., all high maintenance. The fruit that fell..he insisted be picked up before they started to rot which was not an easy task.

In Spring Valley our backyard was not something most people or kids anyway should stroll through. Something would prick you, jab you, stab you and even bite you! One of his larger cacti I guess had a rot problem and fell over on me one day. Several of our neighbors had to help getting it off of me. Another time eating lunch at our outside table, a drop of something fell on me. I looked up to see what it was and another drop fell right into my eye. Instant Pain. Sap from one of his larger euphorbias from a branch that had broken. I can't even count all the times I ran into coyotes and rattlesnakes in the garden. So, in NY i kind of felt like a slave to the gardening and in Spring Valley I was scared to death of it. It's so weird to have developed a passion for it. It does make me reflect on my family though, and there was always a lot of love and joy when we were together. I'm sure my dad was trying to teach me something about life and all that but, I still don't know what that is! LOL>

Humsi- I got you beat! I acutally have the most boring..! Inside I have Philoddendron, Pothos, Prayer plant, Rubber tree, Pepperomia and Tradescantia and 2 Dracaena Reflexas and I almost forgot the snake plants! Your garden sounds wonderful by the way and I bet you take care of it.

Parker- a friend of mine just pointed out to me that Landscaping could have nothing to do with plants. He told me that landscaping is basically the shaping of a space and that plants and trees don't necessarily have to be involved with that process. I don't think he's entirely correct with that assessment but, I could be wrong. Thoughts?

-Neil-

Nil13 and Everyone- I've never been to San Marino. Would it be worth a trip?

Hehe, Neil, I have most of your boring plants, too, but outside because my daughter's cat decided that any plants being kept prisoner in the house should be dug from their pots and thrown on the floor to make an escape, after being taste-tested. The philodendron, rubber trees and snake plants that I was able to salvage are now planted in the ground in my sheltered, shady entryway. No houseplants for me until that evil cat is gone ;)

San Marino is absolutely worth the trip to ogle the neighborhoods, and do not miss visiting the Huntington Gardens. Gorgeous place.

Parker, without starting a political discussion... you've mentioned "undocumented" workers a couple of times and it is kind of bothering me. You may be correct in your assessment, but I wouldn't lump workers into any category or assume someone doesn't know what they are doing because of their country of origin or documentation status. Besides, it are the homeowners that are responsible/at fault for hiring unskilled/cheap/uncreative/boring gardeners.

Humsi_ and Nil_ - I just googled "San Marino." I found two. Hopefully the one you're referring to is the town outside of L.A. and not the one in Italy! lol.

I am driving to San Fran this Sun. and hopefully I can pass through and snap some scenic pics there? I would have to make sure not to mention it to anyone in my family or my friends though, if they find out the side-trip is plant-related they'd kill me.

Someone on the forum said I should visit Flora Grubb Nursery in the bay area while i'm there and I will; I just have to keep it a hush hush.

I've been dying to go to the Huntington. I missed a recent plant show there. Hopefully this summer. The San Diego Cactus and Succulent summer show and sale is this Saturday, June 6 which I think starts at 8:00am-4pm in Balboa Park. Hopefully you and others in our forum can attend.

On the succulent forum we had a thread going about plants being labeled incorrectly, at the big stores, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowest, etc., so I'll be speaking to some people of authority on the subject as well as spending all of my money : )

Humsi Please don't kill the cat; you could try wrapping his paws in cotton balls first : )

quote by sf_rhino:

"without starting a political discussion... you've mentioned "undocumented" workers a couple of times and it is kind of bothering me. "

I do not particularly mean anything against them, it is just the reality in this region. As for the homeowners, they get what they pay for. You are not going to find a real professional gardener who will give that level of attention to your yard unless you are willing to pay more than what most homeowners are willing to pay. If it were not for the availability of these cheap undocumented workers, most people would simply have to resort to hiring a teenager to do the routine lawn mowing and then do all the rest of the yard work themselves, like they did in the old days.

It's amazing, even in the recession most people on my street are still hiring these gardeners, and I know two of them are struggling financially. I guess it's easy to become reliant on other people's services and become accustomed to not doing things oneself.

If people would only spend a little time in their yards... I'm sure many people around here would not even know where to properly begin. They just go down to the closest big box store and bring back an ugly generic plant, then tell their gardener to plant it right in the middle of their yard.

Parker- I'll mow the lawn for you <g>

"undocumented workers" are offensive, plain and simple. I'm not even sure I'm willing to tolerate people born in another state that moved to CA......... Seriously, anyone that came here after WWII, get out. We will see how that goes and then make a decision about the people that came here during the first half of the 20th century..........Just kidding, well maybe......

I completely agree about people spending some time in their yards. If they have to hire someone to do it, perhaps they shouldn't have it. If they are too lazy to do it themselves, perhaps they should just have the generic or something really low maintenance like plastic grass substitute and a fake palm tree.

I love Parker's example of picking something out and telling the gardener to plant it in the middle of their yard. I almost stopped and took a picture of a yard a few days ago. They enclosed the front yard in chain link fence, planted grass and then put a Queen Palm in the center of each half of the front yard. Bare dirt might have looked better.

Wow, that is certainly an interesting point of view. But, why start or stop with WWII? Compared with a lot of other countries, The United States is still a very young nation. I think you may realize where i'm going with this...Unless you or any of us are 100% native American or Mexican, the land we're standing on is NOT the land of our ancestry. You can't tell a native to "simply go home." this is their home.

I've heard many opinions about this and one of them is "Oh, that was a long time ago, they should let that go." "That was the past, this is now."

So, I guess that would mean it would be okay if a foreign power were to come here take "our" land, enslave and brutalize us, strip us of our language and break apart our families? Somehow..and this is just a wild guess, i suspect not a single one of us would like that very much.

This is exactly what has happened to them. To NOT acknowledge them would be a most disrespectful thing. To wish they weren't here because some of us feel it's an inconvenience and a strain on the economy. I wonder if they thought the same thing about us when we did that to them?

Thank you and the rest of the forum for letting me add my 2cents.

-NJC-

It was a crime when the Europeans invaded North America and violated the inhabitant's laws. It is an awful lot like what illegal aliens are doing now. No invasions should be allowed.

Neil, unless you can time it to do lunch in Pasadena so you have a good excuse, I would probably skip San Marino this trip. Especially if you are planning on a Huntington trip later, which will give you plenty of time to drive around. Let me guess. June 29th?

Nil13- oh no, it's not that lol. (I had to think for a moment hahah) my uncle is 87 years and we're just goin' to check on him. He's the last of the old-timers in my family.

I'm taking a couple weeks off of work and have attempted to use some of the time catching up on various projects in my front yard (like taking out the grass). It's the first time since I moved here that I've been home mid-day mid-week. I was shocked how many of my neighbors had hired gardeners (term used loosely). These guys pull up in a truck with a mower, a edger, a blower, and electric hedge trimmers and basically tornado over a yard in about ten minutes then move a few houses down to the next yard.

The house right next to me has some junipers formed into a hedge that is now made up about 50% by a poor live oak thats been tipped to oblivion. I had wondered before how they let that happen. Now seeing how the gardeners work over a yard, I'm not surprised.

I guess some people have no interest in dealing with a yard. That is funny to me since having a yard is one of the main reasons I bought my place.

SF_Rhino - To me, anyone can "garden." But, not everyone is a gardener. I think it involves having a certain passion for plants and trees. I think these people you guys have been mentioning are part of a garden crew; but, they're not gardeners. If anything, they're butchers. And, I never understood the leaf blowing thing. I always had a large, gray trash bin with a big black plastic bag and a big ole rake! Made little piles of the leaves, picked em up, and trashed or composted them. I never blew them all over the neighborhood.

quote by sf_rhino:

" I'm taking a couple weeks off of work and have attempted to use some of the time catching up on various projects in my front yard (like taking out the grass). "

I never said you have to take out all your grass, that might be a little extreme. If you fill your entire yard space up with shrubs, that does not look so good either, it would make the space look less open, or even cluttered. I think yards tend to look best with some open grass space in the middle, or on one side, in some cases. On the topic of taking out all your grass though, I have seen some interesting documentaries about backyard permaculture.

parker, I'm just not too into the grass. I plan to replace it with some combination of other ground cover (native sedge, yarrow or something similar). I am also toying with the idea of putting in a raised vegetable bed in the front yard. A neighbor did a similar thing and I like the look. The front of my house is south facing and my back yard is a little overly shady to keep my vegetables happy.

Neil, I've got more than my fair share of decomposing leaf piles in my yard. I'm slowly dealing with them. Whenever I go to pick them up they are abound with little critters--insects, millipedes, centipedes, salamanders, spiders, worms... It really reminds me of how alive a garden can be.

quote by sf_rhino:

" parker, I'm just not too into the grass. I plan to replace it with some combination of other ground cover (native sedge ... "

Please do not plant sedge. We just had a horrible infestation of sedge in our lawn. It spreads and it is not easy to get rid of. It looks almost like a grass, but it is really a noxious invasive weed. It would not be fair to your other neighbors with yards.

How far do you think it can spread? The nearest lawn to mine is about 80 ft.

There are native grass varieties in California, although these can often be brown much of the year without supplemental irrigation. That might look good in combination with native wild flowers, make your own little meadow. Even a field of dry amber grass can look okay with a coast live oak in the background (I'm not saying you should necessarily plant an oak, of course, those require a lot of space).

Some people really complain that tall grass in a yard looks overgrown, but I am fine with it. Depends on personal preference, I suppose. One downside though is that a field of tall grass can potentially attract snakes, gophers, and mice. But it can also attract native bird species. Not really surprising since grass fields are the native habitat of many of these animals. It takes much less tall grass area to attract little birds than it does the other undesirable animals, so you can use that to your advantage.

Here is a link to an article to give you some ideas:

http://www.mvtimes.com/2013/02/27/six-principles-boost-native-species-your-yard-14591/

http://www.denverpost.com/lakewood/ci_26069913/one-lakewood-womans-native-habitat-is-derelict-yard

Parker, are you talking about nutsedge?

I think it is a type of green Kyllinga, to be more specific.

Be careful with sedge (carex). Some varieties are very invasive, like bermuda grass. UC Verde buffalo grass is a nice alternative if you want turf. It can be mowed and looks like a fine blade hybrid bermuda, but without the underground runners. It can also be left to grow taller and just cut once or twice a year. California invasive plants

Low water use plants

Ok. You can pretty safely assume sf_rhino wasn't talking about that.

Sedge is a plant family consisting of over 5000 species across over 100 genera. It basically just means a grasslike plant with a triangular leaf section.

When someone refers to California native sedges, they are most likely referring to something fairly well behaved like Carex pansa or Carex divulsa even though the latter is actually from Europe.

Come walk central los Angeles for front yard orchards and then walk the beach neighborhoods to see sage. For formal gardens walk Hancock park.

In central and east Los Angeles many people plant exotic fruits orchards from their native lands. Plenty of guava, papaya, etc. Fruiting banana and planton. Lots of pelagorums. Poor people plant corn instead of hedges. We all have three tall corn plants dangling in our lawns. Fig and peach trees are so numerous they are starting to naturalized. Wild fig and peach tree are popping up on city sidewalks. If you look in back of our auto repair shops the owners cut old barrels in half and plant an orchard

The middle eastern people like to plant pomegranate trees on the sidewalk instead of shade trees. Everyone in Los Angeles county seems to have at least one fruit bearing cactus.

In Korea town some of the best potted lemon trees and orchids can be enjoyed. Downtown restaurant have started planting lettuce gardens, they have potted lemon trees too but Korea town bonsai lemon trees are much better.

In Venice there are all manner of sage and succulent. They like bamboo too.

Pacific palacaides like to plant old roses and bulbs in a country garden manner. They have some of the largest mutabilis roses.

Hancock park has formal English gardens featuring lavender and urns.

You must get out of your car and walk. As much as we are a car town, gardening is done by pedestrians and is hard to see from a car. You will be surprised what you see tucked on the street.

A guy sued the city so he could plant food forest on the sidewalk and won. Now we can plant food on any abandoned land like they do in the south. Lots of people snatched water hogging sidewalk lawns out and planted orchards in response.

People share their plants on Craig's list and you have to be quick to get them. We even give away extra fruit. I always get the bitter orange and grapefruit off Craig's list.

Dole once gave away crates of old bananas. I got one used the wet banana peels to mulch my woodland garden floor. They turned it into a worm bin, free castings. Froze all those ripe banana for summer desserts but I'm halfway though my stash as I've taken to chocolate monkey smoothies

We're a bunch of proud hippies, beach bums and immigrants; Our gardens are the place that shows that off the most.

Chickens and goats are now legal city pets. You'll see rooster pecking near the lazy pit bulls in our inner city front yards. Inner city roosters crows whenever they see the sun drowning out the city noise. The valley gardeners keep goats and alligator lizards tend our gardens.

Orange county to mulhulland drive is the protected deer and mountain lion run. It is overridden with protected skunks and rattlesnake too. Only the skunks attack. Coyote howl at night in Carson, Compton has the most beautiful hawks. Hope that helps you tour our gardens. You must walk and look around like your in the forest.

Homeless people plant pepper plants in the alleys of Venice; little white hippie surfers water them. You must see how they water and leave a plate of food for the planter of the pepper, its so cute.

WHM -- loved your comment, I felt like I was there walking down the street. I have some old bananas right now, gonna compost the peels and pop them into the freezer before it's too late :-)

WHM i wish more people would give an overview of their neighborhood
- yours is wonderful. thank you, min

Here is a photo of my front yard, taken last month. As you can see, the entire street is planted with red gum trees, which are fairly tall, and this gives some cohesion to the street, but otherwise the yard vary greatly from one house to the next in my neighborhood (Westchester), but not as much as they did when I lived in Venice. I found Venice to be extremely eclectic and varied, and so I cannot understand why you would think the entire L.A. County is so uniform. A lot of people on my street have drought tolerant plants (as do I), but there is still a fair amount of variety in those plants.

By the way, I love bougainvillea and had a couple of those in Venice, but now I am happy to enjoy those growing in other people's yards! I noticed a large variety of gingers growing in Venice and had some nice ones myself but have had more trouble growing them in Westchester. I love all types of hibiscus and never get tired of seeing them.

I do not think desert plants really belong here. The part of Southern California within 25 miles of the coast may be very hot and dry most of the year, but it is not quite a desert. More like Mediterranean-type scrubland with a few pockets of oaks along some of the stream valleys.

quote by Lars:

" A lot of people on my street have drought tolerant plants (as do I), but there is still a fair amount of variety in those plants. "

Many of those "drought tolerant" plants tend not to be very attractive. And they often tend to be full of spikes, for some reason.

Oh no not spikes.

Many low water use plants bloom throughout much of the year - hot lips salvia, just to name one. Penstemons and yarrow also have flowers. Check out Be Water Wise for more ideas.

I think Lars's yard looks beautiful. Whether desert plants "belong" in LA near the cost is debatable as it's purely an opinion. I think spikes are lovely done right, those look right to me.

Landscape plants run through popular fashion phases, just like clothes. And things come back into fashion after a while. Phormiums were all the rage in the late 60's and 70's, though the selection of varieties were more limited than what's available now, during it's current hot trend.

Plant's that one's parents put in and loved, often are despised by their kids and they plant something else. The grand kids then find their grandparent's choices awesome and amazing! And so around it goes.

Parker25mv, you've said you're just venting, and that's understandable but you really answered your own question as to why you see a lot of certain plants,

"Part of the problem is this semi-arid climate, there are fewer species that can thrive on their own without consistent watering."

And that's only going to get worse. The older neighborhoods you admire with their higher water needs plants and trees, were put in when the population of California and LA was considerably smaller than it is today. There was lots more water to go around and the cost of it was much less. I don't see us ever going back to that level of population in our lifetimes or even our grandchildren's time.

You've mentioned a lot of plants you don't like. But I haven't read much about what you do like. Given the current and future water situation, what plants would you like to see more of?

"Plant's that one's parents put in and loved, often are despised by their kids and they plant something else."

Which must be why I can't stand oleanders, junipers or agapanthus!

I do not understand the disapproval of Lars' yard given that it's certainly outside the confines of the species listed in "the plants in my neighborhood all look the same." Aside from the creativity and diversity on display, it's also ecologically responsible.

As for what constitutes "belonging," the Southern California we inhabit is primarily coastal sage and chaparral -- and woodlands if one counts the mountains. Though California as a state is incredibly bio-diverse, any hike will demonstrate that the flora native to our specific neck of the woods is rather mundane from a gardening perspective. Though I must point out coastal agave is native; not everything pointy and sharp is from the Grand Canyon state.

Being in Los Angeles (as Wild Hair Mavens and Nil13 so eloquently pointed out), I can't say OP's observations match my own. Are some things *cough* Agapanthus *cough* overdone? Sure. Though Agapanthus is one of the many drought-tolerant plants that don't have needles so I'm willing to forgive ubiquity for practicality.

Anyway, in my neighborhood and throughout much of the city, I'm continually stunned by the assortment and variety of gardens. It's not uncommon to see an English country-style garden next to a xeriscaped home, next to a Mediterranean with palms/ferns/cycads, next to a modern chock-full of sansevieria trifasciata and horsetail reed.

I realize this may not be the norm outside of my/our parts of LA, but it's at least less of a generalization than (paraphrasing here) "east coasters 'garden' whereas west coasters 'landscape.'"

While on a walk in the neighborhood, I was very pleasantly surprised to see one house with a huge vine of Passion fruit growing on the wall in their front yard. It was flowering, unfortunately when I came back 2 days later the flowers were gone. I do not think I would like the taste of Passion fruit, but I would definitely admire it as an ornamental, the flowers look like they came from an alien world.

Passionfruit is a very invasive exotic that can take over large areas and smother plants. It should probably never be planted in SoCal

In dry Southern California, passion vines don't really escape beyond the irrigated garden. On the Ca Invasive Plant Council inventory list, P. caerulea wasn't even reviewed due to them being noted as "Not known to invade wildlands."

Any vine can be invasive. I've dealt with morning glory vine (the worst) and lavender trumpet vine (controllable). Passionflower attracts butterflies and shouldn't be any more or a problem than any other vine. Keep an eye one it and you'll be fine. If you get the fruiting variety, the fruit is delicious. The link is from California Rare Fruit Growers

Growing passion fruit in California

I would love some of those no CA redwoods ( not at all crap to me) but the few that are here are being killed by heat and drought. Last week I was having lunch under a young one next to Saint Joseph's Hospital in Orange and just being so happy it was there. The beautiful ones that used to be at GoldenWest college in Huntington Beach did not survive even though the air is cooler and moist during the night.

Associations often restrict what can be planted and new tracts often come with barely any land to grow anything on. Sometimes it's already planted when the people move in. Palms and plumeria sound like what everyone here was planting a while back and was fashionable when you wanted to remove the old shrubs the house came with before the real estate crash. Paint the new color on and plant some palms and sod and flip it.

excellent article: http://news.nationalpost.com/life/quince-youve-been-gone-a-rare-fruit-and-how-it-became-that-way

"Gone are the days of the big, beautiful canopy trees. Instead, nurserymen are stocking anything columnar. Obelisks of green are replacing anything providing a space-gobbling canopy. Stock tip: hat sales should rise correspondingly as urban shade is going to be harder to find. Screening material is a top seller. Any green thing that makes a fence or a visual screen: that’s what moves. Our neighbours are getting closer, but we crave privacy."

That article was written just 4 years after the Great Recession and was talking about trends that occured in it's aftermath. The wholesale nurseries had gotten enormous and had insane amounts of stock in production in order to meet the needs of a booming contruction market. Then that all evaporated. It was crazy to watch. The nurseries that were able to hang on did so by shrinking their production seemingly overnight. They still haven't completely recovered from that drawdown, although they are starting to bring some of the more unusual species back into production.

I would say that the decline of large canopy shade trees is due to the average timeframe that people hold their houses which is about 13 years. You'll never see the tree you planted produce a decent amount of shade in the average amount of time you're likely to hold the house. So most people won't bother. Also, as people move back into the cities after decades of suburban flight the sizes of the parcels don't support large shade trees that are more appropriate in a park than a small front yard.

Yes that was awful to see. We lost at least 6 or 7 independent retail nurseries in that period and at least that many or more wholesale nurseries, in my area.

What hurt the most were the ones that specialized in interesting plants or unusual CA native/Mediterranean plants. Which is ironic seeing as we needed those more when the drought hit. Most were several generational family businesses.

And also I saw at least two wholesale nurseries that specialized in large mature shade trees. All gone, poof.

So sad.

On the wholesale level there was some consolidation. I know Village acquired a yard or two down south.

Home Depot sells a line of plants called "Smart Planet." They rotate some less common plants. I tried to get info on the actual nursery but they seem to have an exclusive with HD. Anyone know about the nursery?

Now if only they'd get more CA natives and labelled clearly as such..

For the original poster- Theodore Payne in Sun Valley (west of Burbank) and Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (Claremont) both have nice native plant nurseries.

Oh no not spikes. =)

Blog

Its a well known fact that areas with heavy ethnic populations in California tend to be the ones who are the first to grow exotic plants from homelands.

I think the lack of plant diversity in cookie cutter suburbs is because people don't have lots of disposable incomes or roomy yards,so they plant what does best and looks good. Common doesn't bother them. They want something that looks good all the time. Oleanders.Junipers... on and on. Easy care.

You move up the income scale..and suddenly you see exotic plants like in the ethnic areas in tone areas. One grew up with them,the other are people who traveled and admired the same.

So many good answers already. I'll just second one of the earliest replies that pointed out the diversity in yards is much much greater than what we have in our native habitat. I spend a fair amount of time in some mountain locations here. 4 species of trees for miles around: two oaks, a fir and a cedar. My little HOA, which I walk extensively with my dog, has that beat with its coral, carrotwood, ficus benjamina, rubber tree, brush cherry, juniper, podocarpus (several species), silk floss, queen palm, pepper tree (two species), canary island palm, fan palms, hong kong orchid, trumpet tree (brugmansia?), jacaranda, eucalyptus (2 or 3 species), bottle brush, bradford pear, sycamore, liquid amber, 3 or 4 different pines, bronze loquat, catalina cherry and a couple I haven't ID'd. And that's just the front yards in a fairly boring area. I love driving around older neighborhoods where there's been time for the owners to replace things and you see twice or three times the tree species and a lot more fruit trees.

Its also worth pointing out that some of the common landscape plants have some decent grafting potential: hawthorn, pear, bronze loquat.

Stanoph, I agree with that.

Immigrant Asians and Latinos also don't really care for the cookie-cutter look with box wood hedges cornered with a sago palm. They mostly want to make most use of the space for edible plants, thus, they are more likely to plant tropical fruit trees in their front yard or even temperate ones like peaches. Anglo-Americans will rarely ever plant fruiting trees in their front yard, most often I think it is because of the dreadful mess. Is this why we have non-fruiting olives and non-fruiting plum cultivars? To an Asian immigrant, that is blasphemous!

I've seen Chinese-owned mechanic shop planted with "tropical houseplants" along the foundation like raphis and also non-traditional landscape plants such as sugar cane and banana trees. Any other mechanic shop would probably have a hedge of Indian hawthorn uniformly bordering the parking lot.