What's Growing On?

This plant is not generally given any place in Los Angeles garden designs, but it is sturdy enough and worth thinking about as a candidate for our perennial gardens. It is a heath (Erica hybrid), a kind of heather that blooms in summer or winter. In my garden, it is just beginning to hit its stride. People generally think of heaths and heathers as Scottish or English and they do grow wild throughout the British Isles. However, they are also native to France, Spain, and the entire Mediterranean basin. So if you see a hybrid Erica (note: hybrids are identified with an "x" after the genus name, such as Erica x 'California', which does not yet exist but surely will in the near future), there may well be Mediterranean genes in it. This is significant since the climate in Southern California is Mediterranean and similar conditions for growth are found in these two regions.

Heaths (Erica species) demand perfect drainage and should be planted in raised beds or heavily amended soil. Make soil fluffy by adding compost or any of those plastic bagged products, whether stuff inside is brown or black. These products may be called: planting soil, potting soil, Nitrohumus, Gromulch, topsoil, Topper, planter mix, etcetera, etcetera! Just keep adding stuff until the soil is easily worked with a trowel. Then you can plant not only heaths and heathers but just about anything else and it will probably grow quite well.

What can you say about Salvia?

It's the salvation of the Los Angeles garden. Its colors are red, pink, purple, and blue and the quality of these colors matches that of the red, pink, purple, and blue you see in Penstemon.
Salvia is in the mint family, which includes many common herbal plants such as rosemary and thyme. Penstemon is in the snapdragon family.

You probably will not know the name of this plant, although some of its relatives, with very similar inflorescences (a fancy word for flowers) may be more familiar. You have probably seen bear's breech (Acanthis mollis) or Justicia carnea or perhaps Aphelandra squarrosa.
The name of the plant pictured above is Pachystachys lutea. Others call it yellow shrimp plant. It blooms on and off during the summer. When I acquired it, I was sure it was a delicate creature but soon learned otherwise. Granted, it is growing in a patio planter with protection from extreme heat and cold. Nevertheless, with just a little water it blooms rapturously for long periods.
The plants in this family are extremely durable, especially Justicia brandegeana, the classic shrimp plant.

Cigar plants never stop blooming. Cuphea ignea is the scientific name of a four foot shrub whose inch long flowers resemble miniature orange cigars with smoldering ends. Then there is the plant below, known as bat-faced cuphea (Cuphea llavea).

and a close up of the bat

Mine has been blooming ever since summer began and will continue to do so as long as warm weather persists.

If you travel south from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea in summer's baking heat, only one plant will keep you company the whole ride down. You'll see it growing on the side of the road in earth that has not seen rain for many months. Its tentacled taproots search out every drop of water beneath the parched ground of the Judean Desert.

This plant does not merely resist harsh growing conditions; it thrives on them. It has smooth, round, blue- green leaves and, in July and August, when it should be under the gravest stress, boasts new flowers every day. These flowers have white petals adorned with clusters of long purple anthers. In desert temperatures that regularly exceed 100 degrees, flowering continues without interruption.

This invincible plant is the caper or Capparis spinosa.
In the Talmud, Rabban Gamliel pointed to the caper as an example of what all plants will do when the Messiah comes - namely, produce new flowers and fruits daily. Capparis is the Greek word for caper; spinosa means spiny, and refers to the thorns that grow along the plant's stems.

The caper bush is native to Jerusalem, where it is found growing in crevices of ancient stone walls. At more than 50 feet above ground level, caper bushes can even be found cascading out of the cracks in the Western Wall.

The caper bush is evergreen and defies deracination. In the book Flowers of Jerusalem, Avinoam Danin writes: "Anyone trying to uproot this plant from a wall will readily understand the comparison of the Hebrew nation to it in its tenacity and ability to rise again after being cut back."

There is another significant site where caper bushes grow. It is Masada National Park, near the western edges of the Dead Sea.

During Israel's great revolt against Rome in the first century, a group of zealots, determined to resist conquest, took refuge in Masada, a fortress atop an isolated mountain. For seven months, 15,000 Roman soldiers laid siege to Masada, which was defended by 967 men, women, and children. When they could no longer hold out against Rome, this band of zealots chose to die by their own hands rather than be taken captive, forced to give up their religion, and live as slaves. It is only natural that the caper bush, the world's most defiant plant, flowering luxuriously in the middle of summer, should flourish atop Masada.

By now you must be wondering if this is the same bush that produces the capers of culinary renown. Yes, comestible capers come from this plant. Capers actually are flower buds, picked just before they open and then pickled in salt and vinegar.

Capers grow in any well-drained soil, and may be propagated both from seed and shoot-tip cuttings.

People who think that Israel suffered a devastating defeat in its recent war do not understand the history of that nation. Like the caper, Israel will keep on flowering, from now until forever.