My coastal southern California garden

[JCorte]

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share with you the beauty and abundance even a small garden can provide.
I live in a cool microclimate in Southern California.  I’m a couple of blocks from the ocean and at the base of our local hills, so my garden can be foggy many months of the year with summer highs in the low 80s.  This year has been especially cool with highs only in the upper 60s until July and only a handful of days in the 80s.  My total outdoor space is about 4,000 square feet and my native soil is heavy clay.

This is the right side of my front yard.  Tropic Snow and Midpride peaches bloom early February.  Loquat, kumquat, lemon, Surinam cherry, plum, mandarin, grape, and persimmon.


Red Baron peach blooms late February


Garden Prince almond is self fertile and has a soft shell


Marcona almond blossoms are huge and smell like honey.  It grows next to Tuono, an Italian variety, for pollination.


Hood pear is self fertile and blooms late January.  Blossoms do not smell good, kinda fishy

[JCorte]

Glenn mango tree, about 12 years old, in the left corner of front yard with pineapple guava, dragonfruit, clementine, and pomegranate.






Glenn ripens in October, really fragrant.  Mine do not have the peach taste in variety descriptions, it has a slight coconut taste and is super sweet.  Fruit punch fruited on one year grafts, still not ripe.

This papaya was sold as Hawaiian Solo, which it is not.  It struggled for a couple years, but finally setting fruit.


Yellow grumichama


Variegated Namwah, has anyone tasted this banana?


Paggi I got from Bestday, excited to have this one.

[Seanny]

Look great!

[JCorte]

Southmoon blueberry, artichoke, lettuce going to seed under my persimmon tree


Going from front to side of house


16 year old Flavor King pluot, circumference at base of the tree is 36 inches, orchids growing on the branches






Training dragonfruit on the trunk of Santa Rosa plum and Red Baron peach

[JCorte]

16 year old avocado trees, Don Gillogly and Sir Prize



Under Don Gillogly (you can see trunk behind maple tree pot) are tillandsias on top of a thick layer of mulch.

[JCorte]

Frederick passion fruit vine is about 18 years old.  The base of the vine has mostly rotted, but still produced this year. Not sure how much longer it can continue.  This vine has been effortless to grow and has produced thousands of fruit over the years.




Path down the side of the house, nectarines, figs, plum, pluots, lime, apricot, apple


Front yard left side

[johnb51]

Thanks for sharing, Janet.  Bee-you-tee-ful!!

[JCorte]

Arctic Star nectarine


Seeding selection of Romanesco artichoke


Mulberry


Lots of insects, butterflies, and birds in the yard.  I grow milkweed for the Monarchs, other caterpillars eat parsley, fennel, and young citrus leaves.  I was surprised to find a swallowtail caterpillar eating ashitaba.

[SHV]

The Red Baron peach blooms and variegated Namwah leaves are stunning!  What a beautiful space. I got a good chuckle from your ancient passion vine. Who says they only last 5 years. 

[beicadad]

Impressive! Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden

[Eggo]

That is a very beautiful variegated Namwah.  Namwah is one of the most popular varieties in Southeast Asia.  The flesh stays firm when even over ripe and the green unripe banana can be cooked like plantains.  They come in dwarf and regular size. Which is your variegate?  I had grown a few different variegates  bananas in the past. The Namwah should be a bit hardier and vigorous than say an AeAe.  There seems to be more occurence with variegated mutation than say other varieties out there for some reason although still very rare.  I had a yellow variegated variety but it definitely is not as stunning as the specimen you had.  Awesome yard and collection!

[sc4001992]

Janet, you have a beautiful yard full of amazing fruit trees and plants.
I like your photos, you must be a photographer since the photo quality is excellent and can be used in a magazine.

[Satya]

We are in awe here in South Florida, looking at your lush Californian garden, Janet. We thought there will be all agaves and cacti, lol, but you managed to create a truly tropical look in a place where it's the hardest! Kudos! Do you have an irrigation system? All the moist-loving plants look so happy. I wish one day our garden looks like this natural but perfect. Ours grows too many weeds, and plants overgrow in a blink of an eye I will send you some anthuriums that my wife grew from her own seed, they are exciting because she cross-pollinated several bird nest species, so they all look different. they will feel happy next to all your tillandsias and other bromeliads

[Satya]

Also, would love to see a tutorial on amending heavy clay soil to create this abundance. Thank you in advance

[BestDay]

Your yard is stunning!  I really like the diversity.  Good luck with the Paggi.

Bill

[dmwong93]

Impressive looking garden. Where did you acquire the Yellow Grumichama? Thanks.

[K-Rimes]

I'm very fond of Laguna Beach and spent countless days skateboarding down the hills there. You've got a lovely spot in a lovely city!

[shaneatwell]

Beautiful thanks!

[Pedroboy]

A really stunning little sanctuary.

As truly impressive as your tropical efforts are - I was also really struck by your success with your stone fruit - the Midpride and Arctic. I was raised just up the road a piece in San Pedro and always assumed that between the lack of winter chill and the lack of real spring/summer heat, those would be an uphill battle.

Just fantastic.

Cheers,
Chris

[JCorte]

Thank you everyone!

Eggo, not sure if it’s dwarf or tall variegated.  I planted AeAe years ago, but it lost its variegation and died.  I have the regular dwarf Namwah and love it.  It produces delicious bananas even though it only gets morning sun.  I’m hoping the variegated Namwah will produce similar fruit.

Dmwong93, I got my yellow grumichama from Flying Fox Fruits.

[JCorte]

Satya,  from what I’ve seen in your videos, your garden is beautiful and inspiring!  I can’t take all the credit for the lushness in mine.  Even with less than 5 inches of rain all year, because of the cooler weather I’ve only had to water the mature plants about once a month, I don’t have an irrigation system.  The mist and fog provide extra moisture.  The plants are efficient at harvesting water from the air.  Here’s a Paggi leaf wet from last night’s fog.

Also, my soil is really good now and holds moisture as long as it’s covered.  I let all the flowers, which are mostly bulbs, the greens, artichokes, etc die back naturally early summer during our dry season.  They come back on their own and seeds sprout when the fall rains start.  I have weeds too, I like to think of them as living mulch.  Maybe if I had summer rains I would think differently.

Janet

[ScottR]

Amazing garden Janet, I use to body surf and surf down that way when I was a teen many many years ago.
Very cool how do you like Don Gillogly we love it up here for us on Central Coast of Ca.

[Satya]

Satya,  from what I’ve seen in your videos, your garden is beautiful and inspiring!  I can’t take all the credit for the lushness in mine.  Even with less than 5 inches of rain all year, because of the cooler weather I’ve only had to water the mature plants about once a month, I don’t have an irrigation system.  The mist and fog provide extra moisture.  The plants are efficient at harvesting water from the air.  Here’s a Paggi leaf wet from last night’s fog.

Also, my soil is really good now and holds moisture as long as it’s covered.  I let all the flowers, which are mostly bulbs, the greens, artichokes, etc die back naturally early summer during our dry season.  They come back on their own and seeds sprout when the fall rains start.  I have weeds too, I like to think of them as living mulch.  Maybe if I had summer rains I would think differently.

Janet

Thank you, Janet!

Our volunteer weeds are taller than the plants we plant:) some of them are edible like callaloo, so we just weed paths for lunch:) but when they're for example in butterfly garden where we don't walk, it's very upsetting because the flowers are totally hidden by them. Some of them overgrow tomato cages, so you get the scale. they help with soil moisture and for the most part look nice and dark green, but sometimes it gets hard to walk in between))) so we try to establish more aggressive, nicer looking low growing ground covers that make weeds miraculously disappear. Has been hard this summer because it was very hot and dry, and our ground covers didn't like that, but weeds did 🤪 [size=78%].[/size] One of the most annoying ones is wild cucumber, it crawls everywhere and covers flowers, trees, bushes and all trellises, drops seed very fast so it's almost a neverending battle, though it also produces edible fruit. It covered a tree completely and a neighbor said, "this tree with yellow flowers has become so beautiful" (the tree it covered doesn't bloom) 😂
Finally were able to eliminate a terroristic torpedo grass, that was a really aggressive grower so it was not possible to incorporate as it would intimidate all plants around it. We heard from farmers that they're ok with torpedo grass, but when you have a meter and a half of real estate it doesn't work this way... every inch is precious. Maybe on the farm we won't care if torpedo grass gets rampant
We use all the weeds and seasonal plant foliage in compost or direct mulch. Millipede activity is such that barely any organic matter is left for the next season, seeds included. We had to bring in an extra pile of soil, and it had fresh wood chips mixed in. Didn't distribute it in time, and after 4-5 months the soil is just "black gold", absolutely no chips left, only millipedes everywhere 😆

[FV Fruit Freak]

Thanks for sharing pics of your wonderful garden. Looks like the perfect place for a morning stroll with a warm cup of hot chocolate or coffee Your mangos look amazing, great job, what rootstock are they on? I’m also curious on the spacing of your larger trees? Cheers Janet!

[MorroBay]

Beautiful garden!  I also found it to be a much cooler summer than usual in coastal CA.  Probably the coolest in ten years.  Despite what what the records say it was way off the actual temps.

[Victoria Ave]

What a homie little garden. I think many of us strive to have orderly little orchards and your food forest is just perfect

[JCorte]

Pedroboy,  I can’t help but want to try everything for myself regardless of what I read.  I’ve had a lot of casualties, but the successes are worth it.

ScottR, we love our Don Gillogly!  I’m really surprised that more people aren’t growing it considering how good it tastes.

Satya,  I can’t imagine dealing with that type of weed pressure.  My garden doesn’t get enough water for them to thrive like that.  I’ve always wished it would rain during the summer here and for more sun, but I guess there are always tradeoffs.  Black gold is priceless!  I think of my soil and plants as investments in appreciating assets.

MorroBay,  upside of this cooler weather is that my passiflora antioquiensis is doing great and I’ll likely be able to share a cutting with you next summer if you haven’t found one yet.

Nate, I just finished my morning coffee walking through the garden before checking out the forum.😁
My trees are densely planted, most are 3 to 5 feet apart.  My mango is on turpentine ordered from pine island in Florida.  I have a seedling of Keitt, as well, that I planted around the same time, but it’s always struggled with powdery mildew.  I think I’m going to finally remove it.

Janet

[JCorte]

Thank you Victoria Ave!

[John B]

Very nice garden. You do indeed have an ideal microclimate there. Spent most weekends in Laguna and San Clemente in the '90s. Lovely place. Glad you're keeping its charm!

[spaugh]

Janet your pla ts look great.  I wish we had some of that moisture out here. 

[simon_grow]

Wow, your garden looks absolutely amazing! Everything is so thoughtfully placed and so well maintained. Your beautiful pictures deserve to be in a gardening magazine to inspire others that an edible landscape that also adds beauty is absolutely possible. Absolutely spectacular!!!

Simon

[joe_OC]

Hi Janet - Looks like you have an amazing micro-climate.  Congrats on creating your own private fruit forest.  Of all your fruits, which one stands out as your favorite?

[JCorte]

That’s such a hard question!  I love all my fruits, but if I had to choose...

Flavor grenade is one of the best, grows effortlessly, fruits every year, texture is different than other plums, it’s firm and has a crispness, it’s super sweet with acid to balance the sweetness, and will hang on the tree after it’s ripe.

Double Delight nectarine is the best yellow nectarine, but Maria’s Gold is so good and is unlike any other nectarine.

Yoinaishi asian pear is the best variety I’ve ever tasted, so good, but I’m trialing a few more at the farm just in case there’s one better.

Plus all the varieties I’m growing that haven’t fruited yet but taste amazing in my imagination.

Yeah, maybe I can’t choose because I want to keep listing more fruits and nuts too, the Tuono almond tastes like the almond paste in almond croissants.

Janet

[joe_OC]

It's really interesting to hear about all your stone fruits.  I hadn't considered growing them because I always thought that I did not have enough chill hours to get good fruit.  My yard until last year was fruitless (except for my Thai Nam Wah bananas).  I had been collecting rare tropical plants for the past 13 years.  As my palms grew up, there was a lot of understory space available.  That's when I found out about Plinias, Myrciarias, and Eugenias.  And why not sprinkle in some mangoes too? 

[JCorte]

I would highly recommend adding some stone fruits, fruits are so delicious and easy to grow and can’t compare to anything bought at the store.  Plus they are so beautiful.  When I first started planting my garden, I planted several mangoes, dragonfruits, papayas, bananas as well as stone fruits, blueberries, etc. At that time, there wasn’t much information available on how to grow mangoes or dragonfruit.  I lost a lot of plants due to my heavy clay and lack of heat, but kept planting anyway because I wanted to grow all my favorite fruits.  I’ve lost a lot more plants than have survived. The stone fruits were the easiest depending on the rootstock and variety.  Even high chill apples like Spitzenburg and Ashmead’s Kernel fruit well.  I don’t think the science on winter chill requirements is settled, there must be some other factors. 

I have a large collection of Japoticabas, Garcinias, and Eugenias growing in containers as well, but they have not fruited yet.  The Garcinias have been the most challenging, but I keep selecting for the survivors.  I have more seeds on order.  The jaboticabas have been growing well.  I’ve grafted newer varieties of mangoes onto my Glenn and I’m hopeful now that it’s finally matured and growing well that I’ll get some of the top tier mangoes to fruit as well.  I love my Glenn tree and am amazed how sweet the fruit gets in my cooler weather. 

We bought a farm in Fallbrook last year, so now I’m considering removing a lot of my stone fruits and figs once the varieties are established out there, and planting out my Jaboticabas and other rare plants at home.  Such a difficult decision to remove mature plants, but my space is limited, and I would love to see my other plants have room to grow.  I use to think there was an end goal of getting my garden all set and then I would just maintain the varieties I have.  I was wrong, I keep learning of new fruits I want to try and grow, especially since I discovered this forum a year ago.

Janet

[roblack]

Pics of your garden have set my imagination running.

So beautiful too. You have created something special.

Going to go out and kick some of my trees...

[RollingInTheWeeds]

Janet, do you have to spray your stone fruit?  That's one thing that has discouraged me about growing them.  I loved the plums we got from the old Santa Rosa tree that came with the house, but then I did a bad job of pruning it and it died.  When I replaced it, the young tree had difficulty with peach leaf curl.  The disease is treatable, but calls for spraying every year -- a couple of times per year, if I remember right.  I'm just not willing to go through all that trouble.

I'm fine with fertilizing, mulching, trimming, watering ... but mixing chemicals and spraying, then cleaning up the sprayer afterwards is too loathsome a job.  Because of that, I'd rather buy stone fruit at the farmers' market than grow it myself.  Having said that, I do miss the flowers.

[JCorte]

I do not spray any of my trees and never have.  I have two cats and a dog and kept chickens until a couple years ago and my children were really young when I planted the garden.  We all spend more time in the garden than inside so never wanted to risk spraying.  I have never seen leaf curl issues on the plum, pluot, apricot, or almond trees. Mostly the early peach and nectarine will get some leaf curl but they all outgrow them.  The rootstock really matters and really makes a difference in the health and vigor of the trees.  Nemaguard rootstock does the best for me, the trees grow vigorously enough to outgrow the leaf curl.  When I thin the fruit on the trees, I just remove any affected leaves that don’t fall off.  All the trees I grew on Citation and Lovell were stunted and eventually died of disease issues.  I have not had any issues at all with the plum and pluots they are effortless to grow.  I don’t know what rootstocks they are on because I didn’t pay attention to rootstocks when I first began planting.  The Santa Rosa plum and Goldkist apricot are on rootstock that suckers which I don’t really like, but they are easy to cut down and the trees are really healthy.  The pluots (Flavor King and Flavor Grenade) are the easiest and roots don’t send out suckers.  The only stone fruit I’m still trying to figure out are cherries.  All of the commercial cherry rootstocks do not do well on my clay, alkaline soil.  This year I’m experimenting with grafting them onto Adara plum as a rootstock and interstem.  I think it will work, plus it may make a great rootstock for the all the other stone fruits and almonds as well.  I plan on doing a lot of experiments on the Adara.
https://journals.ashs.org/downloadpdf/journals/hortsci/30/6/article-p1316.pdf

Janet