Ice, ice, baby!

Lampranthus spectabilis

Check out the ice plants growing in the garden this week: they are flowering like crazy and the colors are hotter than a very hot thing. How to identify them? Well, look for low mounds of eye-popping color - small succulent plants absolutely covered in many-petalled flowers about 1-2" across...

Starting along the cactus wall you'll see orange Malephora crassa, bright candy red Lampranthus spectabilis and pinky-purple Drosanthemum floribundum.

Malephora crassa

If you walk up the garden to the middle back bed there's also a purple Drosanthemum striatum and the absolutely bonkers Drosanthemum bicolor covered in red, orange and yellow flowers.

You'd have to be blind to miss these flowers. Actually, the colors are so bright your vision may become impaired. Don't stare into the flowers too long!

Plant profile: Malephora

First described in 1789, the genus Malephora has just 17 species in the genus, and not many books or papers published about it. This genus seems to have suffered a lack of attention, despite one member, M. crocea having been in cultivation for over two centuries.

Latin name: Malephora crassa ("mal-eh-FOR-ah CRASS-ah")
Common name: Bush Orange Ice Plant
Originally from: South Africa
Blooms: The entire plant is covered in masses of bright orange multi-petalled flowers in spring.
Light: Full sun, part shade
Water: Rain is plenty. No summer water!
Where to find in P. Garden: Several clumps grow between the Aloes in the Aloe hedge, alongside the storm drain

We have several types of "ice plant" at Pennsylvania garden, the common name of several different genera. Some are trailing, ground cover types, but Malephora crassa is a more upright, bushy kind, reaching about 18" high and 24" wide. The flowers open around noon for bees, wasps, flies and butterflies to pollinate them.

Subtle it ain't, but if you like saturated colors this tough little plant is available everywhere very cheaply and will bring a dose of xeric planty sunshine to your garden.

O bulbous day, calloo, callay!

My parents are here, so it is a week of garden stuff. Looking at gardens. Looking at THE garden. Buying stuff to put IN the garden. In other words, I have spent money, again...

Tuesday we went to Sloat Garden Center. Managed to get away with only the following - the bulbs were 25% off:

- 1 Helichrysum italicum (Curry Plant, Immortelle)
- 6 small Malephora crassa (Bush Orange Ice Plants)
- 1 Hymenocallis festalis bulbs (Peruvian Daffodil, Spider Lily)
- 2 Hymenocallis "Sulphur Queen"
- 10 Oxalis triangularis bulbs (Burgundy Shamrock)
- 9 Crocosmia "George Davidson" bulbs (yellow)

Then we had a very windy tour of the Golden Gate Park Arboretum, and on the way home dropped by Costco. Surprisingly there I got:

- 24 Hemerocallis bulbs (Daylily) "Stella D'Oro"
- 3 Eucomis comosa "Sparkling Burgundy"

So everything on the cheap, maybe they won't make it, or bloom this year, but you never know! Hope springs eternal at P. Garden.