Were you one of the smart gardeners who signed up to work with Ken Williams on the Vallejo Garden Tour?  You weren’t – you didn’t?  Boy, did you miss a great time touring through the selected gardens!

Lanie (newbie) and I (oldbe) were assigned a garden on Fern Place.  Since this short street is right off Tennessee St near downtown, I figured that my directions were wrong; surely I didn’t err in following MapQuest!  Nope, I correctly read the map, but what a difference 1 block off a main drag can make!

As I slowly went down the street, “casing the joint” so to speak, I began to forget the traffic noises and began to relax, enjoying the landscaping as I passed?  Is this the place? NO!!  Can this be the one??  NO!!  Finally toward the street end, I saw the banana tree (Ensete ventricsum) with its deep red leafstalk and red-tinged leaves.  I was there!  Getting out of the car, I could barely wait to see what else was growing here!

Oh no, nobody answered the door!  Was it the right day and wrong time or the wrong day and the right time?  I squared my shoulders and walked down the driveway past the roses, past the gladiolas, and closer to the garage.  There were pots of cacti, succulents, and other goodies that confirmed that no car ever went this-away!

There was my host, Mario, and his “helper” watering and weeding in honor of our visit.  Apparently he figured that we would criticize if it weren’t “perfect”!  With all the grassy weeds in my yard, I don’t point fingers at any one!

What a yard!  The most gorgous exotic shade garden I have ever seen!  There were pots (big ones) full of cannas; those wonderful striped leaf ones (the ‘Tiger’ series); ferns galore in even larger pots; Brugmasia, both in pots and in the ground; an enormous Philodendron bipinnatifidum with the deeply cut leaves at least 3 feet long and as wide at the stem! 

All of this was growing in the shade of an Acacia tree, which was very well behaved – no suckering from the roots.  Three water features, one with small koi swimming around in the basin, kept the noise from the side houses and the rear neighbor at bay.

I couldn’t understand why visitors kept mentioning how warm it was; my feet thawed out around 1pm!  Looking from the shelter of the tree, I noticed just how sunny both neighbors’ yards were; I was comfy!

Leaving through the garden gate with its arch of grape vines (in barrels), the visitor was then amongst Mario’s collection of sun plants, including a Bougainvillea ‘Barbara Karst’, and then back down the driveway past the roses and to the street.

Having a river rock ground cover with both many large stepping stones and small intimate seating areas made the garden seem very large; of course, the large mirror pieces reflecting key pieces of garden statues and featured plants helped also!

Except for the large tree, this is a young garden!  Mario and his life-partner, Calvin, told us that there was nothing in that back yard seven years ago when they moved in!  All the work and all the planning was done by the two fellows with help from their large circle of friends!  As I told them: “ya done good!”

PS: Mario asked me for a possible plant list to add to the already exotic look!  I ended up trading him 2 Cymbidiums for 2 small Canna rhizomes!  He thinks he got the better side of the trade.  Boy, he doesn’t know!

On June 1, the entire group of volunteers goes on a “field trip” on all the gardens on the tour!  I can’t wait!

PPS: Thanks to Ken Williams who coordinated this tour!

I have always been impressed with the drama of hot pokers, Kniphofia.  However several things held me back from purchasing them. First I don't like buying plants whose names I can't pronounce and Kniphofia ( knee fof ee a ) has had me stymied for a long time.  When I was Googling  Kniphofia, one of the first categories that came up was pronunciation, so I don't think I am alone.  To me the name sounds like a sneeze; I get this uncontrollable urge to say "Gesundheit " every time I hear someone say it.

Secondly, most of the plants I have admired have been very large, with mounds of foliage reaching three to four feet high and sometimes five to eight feet wide and that's not even counting the blooms.  I have a small front yard and a small border area available so I thought I would have to forgo a hot poker. (Note, in researching this article I found the most charming turn of phrase on the Digging Dog Nurserysite.  Instead of calling a garden small, they called it space-thrifty.)

But then at Annie's Annuals I found Kniphofia 'Wol's Red Seedling'.  This hybrid was carefully bred in England. Kniphofias are originally from South Africa, but were brought to England in the 1800s and are very popular there. This little darling has leaves that top out at a foot and flower spikes to two feet. It has a brilliant red color that is described by several sites as the reddest of all the pokers.  They mentioned it could even be grown in a container. You guessed it, I brought one home.

I tucked it in the front yard in the border by the faux dry stream bed, amongst the 'Stella d'Oro' dwarf day-lilies and the lavender.  The first summer it had three small blooms and I was a little discouraged.  This year I have six blooms already, and the plant looks lovely, especially with the afternoon sun back-lighting it.

Kniphofias are deer resistant.They can handle clay soil, as long as it drains well. They are drought tolerant but do like water when the blooms are forming. If it is too dry at that point they will not bloom.

On May 19^th I had the distinct pleasure of seeing the eight gardens listed in the 2013 Vallejo Garden Tour.  My focus was on intimate gardens, places where one could do some quiet reflection or meditation or to talk quietly with an intimate other. 

Of course, there is an ornamental and utilitarian (such as veggies and cut flowers) side to gardens, and there was plenty to be seen along those lines.  But looking at gardens from the “quiet reflection” point of view gave me purpose and a framework from which to look, not to mention inspiration for creating my own.  And I found plenty of what I was looking for. 

Many of the gardens had special places, some sun-drenched, and some inviting filtered light, and often with the sound backdrop of a wonderful fountain, with a seemingly unlimited array of styles and sounds.  In fact,

I found many interesting water features, including a waterfall in one corner of a small backyard garden, cascading down a 6-foot slope.  At that same location, creeping fig (Ficus pumila) nicely covered what might otherwise be an unsightly wall of concrete block.

What inspired me was the combined plantings of perennials and annuals often as an understory of larger shrubs and trees.  There were countless Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum), one of my favorites for color and form.  And clumps of geraniums (Pelargonium), meticulously placed for their shady or sunny locations, often with lush splashes of ferns.

And interspersed among the foliage and color were interesting statuary and other “garden art objects”, too many to detail here, but very fitting with the intimacy of each location. 

A favorite ground cover was Blue Star Creeper (Isotoma fluviatilis), which can take sun and fill in nicely between pavers, adding to the feel of a softly carpeted area.

All in all, it was a gorgeous day, and I came away inspired to use much of what I saw as ideas to create my own quiet garden space.

This could be another bad year for rattlesnakes.  I saw a baby one slithering by the base of one of my planters the other day.  And my neighbor told me she heard one while walking down her driveway last week. 

I live in an agricultural area of the county.  Through the years an occasional rattlesnake would slither through my garden only every couple of years.  Last year was the exception, which was a notoriously bad year for rattlesnakes.  And I have to admit that rattlesnakes terrify me to the point that last year I wouldn’t go out into my garden for weeks at a time each time I saw a rattlesnake.

Beside the rattle on their tail, you can also identify a rattlesnake from the common garden snake by the shape of its head.  Rattlesnakes have a triangle shaped head.  But if you see a snake slithering by, you may just want to let it move along its path rather than getting closer to try to identify it.

The UC IPM Pest Note for rattlesnakes recommends clearing away any heavy brush, tall weeds, grass, rocks, logs, lumber piles and any other places where snakes can hide.  Since snakes do not burrow, cover up any rodent burrows so the snakes cannot use them.  And of course, getting rid of any rodents will remove one of their food sources from the area making it less hospitable to them.  A snake fence can also be used to exclude snakes from an area.

Rattlesnakes are not considered threatened or endangered, so you are allowed to kill them on your property.  But from foolish experience, I can tell you it is both difficult, and dangerous to try to kill a rattlesnake with a shovel.  If the rattlesnake doesn’t move on to another area, it’s wiser to call a professional to remove the snake rather than trying to deal with it yourself.

If bitten, seek immediate medical attention.  I always keep my cell phone in my pocket when gardening just as a safety precaution.  In case of a garden accident or snake bite, I’ll be able to summon help immediately.  Whenever you’re home alone gardening, consider keeping your cell phone within reach.