Plant Profile: Encelia farinosa (Brittlebush)

Latin name: Encelia farinosa("en-SEE-lee-ah far-in-OH-sah")
Common name: Brittlebush, Goldenhills, Incienso, White Brittlebush (Spanish: Rama Blanca, Incienso, Hierba del Bazo, Hierba [rama] del Bazo, Hierba de Las Animas, Palo Blanco, Hierba Ceniza)
Originally from: northern Mexico and the southwestern United States
Blooms: Yellow, fragrant 2" flowers from February to May and again from August to September.
Light: Full sun.
Water: Winter rain is enough.
Height x width: 12"-36" tall and wide
Zones: 7-24
Where to find in P. Garden: Three have recently been planted in the brights bed.

This common desert shrub of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States is a new one for us. The common name "brittlebush" comes from the fact that the branches are brittle and woody, and contain a fragrant resin.. Another name for it in Spanish is incienso because the dried sap was burned by early Spanish missions in the New World as incense.  

It does well on dry, gravelly slopes and sandy washes, needing a very sunny position in very well-drained soil. Used for border, erosion control, and ground cover, Caltrans has begun to use it in hydroseeding  which has quite dramatically increased its spread.

This plant has big yellow flowers, rich in nectar and it's much appreciated by bees and butterflies, and leaves that are more or less silvery depending on rainfall.  

The hotter and drier the growing season, the smaller and whiter are the leaves produced, which helps the plant cope with water loss.  During dry seasons the plant goes drought deciduous, shedding all of its foliage, and relying on the water stored in its thick stems.

Cutting it back by half after flowering or in fall keep this little shrub looking bushy, and with a bit of luck it will find PG a great place to be.

Oh! What a little rain can do!

It's been a minute... um, actually several month since I posted an update. Why? Boring old work and more work and a bit more work. But we have been at the garden. There have been workdays. In fact we have another coming up this weekend - please join us! (Saturday 10am!)

What have we been up to? Weeding like maniacs! You can see from the pictures here that our amazing volnteers have been working hard to get ahead of what's going ot be a big year for weeds after our early storm.

We have also been planting lots of things! In the last months a slew of plants have gone in, among them the following:

3 Euphorbia mauritanica 

3 Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

6 Santolina chamaecyparissus

3 Agave cupreata (at PRG) 

3 Artemisia "Powis Castle" 

1 Ficus benjamina tree that outgrew it's pot at home and will make a great street tree, if it survives...

Several various Agaves in various places, and probably some Yuccas too!

We've also been removing yucca flowers. Why? Well someone has made it a habit to go to the garden and cut the flowers off the yucca plants, presumably to eat. Yes, you can eat the flowers - deep fried or in an omelette or in lots of other ways.

Unfortunately, whoever has been taking the flowers has not been thoughtful - they go through and break down branches or whole trees just to get one flower, which you can see in the image left. 

Yes, eventually we can replant the branch and the tree will resprout from the base, but at least for the next couple of years that plant will look bad.  Not cool, and very selfish, when we are working so hard to make this area of the city look better. So we are removing the flowers before someone steals them and trashes the garden more.

In other news, the tool chest got broken into and a big mess was made - Matt took it apart and reinforced it thoroughly this time, so hopefully these ridiculous acts stop happening. We don't leave anything valuable in there but there's a limit to the capacity of our truck so bringing EVERYTHING back and forth from our house every work day isn't doable.

Someone also decided to dump the contents of their weed growing operation at the garden, making a mess we had to clean up. Not the first time this has happened - we always have piles of trash to remove each workday, when we'd rather be gardening. Well, if you ever wonder why there are weeds now you know - we have to clean trash or pull weeds: there's not always time for both!