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In an alley in the South of Market district of San Francisco, steps away from Bloomingdales and the Old Mint, with a hip Vietnamese restaurant for a neighbor, our own Clarke de Mornay has created a harmonious, fascinating, and – especially – welcoming container garden behind his flat.

ABOVE: Cactus, kalanchoes, euphorbias, and tillandsia air plants look oh-so-pretty in Clarke’s collection of pottery, including one, at center behind the red pot, from Esther Studios’ Death Valley color line.

ABOVE: Tillandsia lovers freak out when they first see Clarke’s garden: it’s full of many different varieties, all thriving in the bright, protected urban setting, surrounded by three-story buildings. They combine beautifully with prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia sp.) at left, and Aeonium ‘Rubrum’ and a succulent cylindrical senecio at right.

ABOVE: A variegated tradescantia scrambles carefree behind Clarke’s Tillandsia seleriana and a collection of agaves.

ABOVE: Despite limited space, Clarke’s collection of trees, including a Cussonia transvaalensis, at left, and a spiny-trunk Ceiba speciosa, at right, play a key role in his garden’s design.

ABOVE: A spritely tillandsia cluster nestles into the lower leaves of an imperial alcantarea bromeliad from Brazil, at left. Tillandsias echo the rosette spirals of Aloe polyphylla and Aloe arborescens at right.

ABOVE: Driftwood is the home for an adorable cluster of thriving tillandsia air plants.

The Palm Broker, Jason Dewees, worked on this roof garden a couple of years back and we found it’s been growing in and looking amazing from below.

The palms the designer selected (based on Jason’s careful advice) were the Mexican blue palm, Brahea armata, and the pygmy date palm, Phoenix roebelenii. The blue palm is a fan palm from Baja California with a silvery-blue cast to the stiff leaves. The pygmy date palm comes from China and Laos. It’s a dainty, soft green miniature palm tree.

It is always exciting to watch trees lifted by a crane.

ABOVE: Pygmy date palm at left and Mexican blue palm at right were placed in planters custom-designed by the builder, Kevin Slagle.

ABOVE: The fronds make a fascinating silhouette against the sky, and pleasing color contrast against the building’s cladding.

It’s been a long and lovely spring and lest you believe we’re foliage freaks, we wanted to share a gallery of the many different blooming plants we’ve been enjoying in this spring season, 2013.

ABOVE: Pinkish thyme and blue rosemary make an aromatic show in the early part of the year.

ABOVE: At top left and right, admire the very early-blooming hellebores, some peeking their heads up in December, others extending into April. Below, diascia makes a delicious peachy splash over a very long time.

ABOVE: Fremontodendron, at upper left, epitomizes California gold in a massive show in middle to late spring. At upper right, arctotis blazes for months in spring. At lower left, a spring gladiolus from South Africa adds its tangerine to the equinoctial palette, while at lower right, a helianthemum from the Mediterranean takes on a deeper vermilion.

ABOVE: A rat-tail cactus attracts nectar feeders with its pink tubes that peak in spring. In the middle photo a cluster of nemesia, another South African favorite, makes a cheery, long-lasting creamy composition all on its own. A strawberry-comarum hybrid produces the most saturated of pinks amidst the classic strawberry foliage (with virtually no fruit, alas).

Watering is one of the most meditative and even restful gardening tasks. You’re giving your plants their lifeblood while you admire, inspect, worry over, harvest from, and revel in your garden. (See our discussion of indoor watering, as well.)

Plants in our gardens need water and light and air. In a climate like ours in the Bay Area, with almost no rain from spring into fall every year, the need for watering is paramount.

ABOVE: Japanese maples, above, come from a place with plentiful summer rains. They’re an exquisitely beautiful tree for California gardens, but only when given plentiful summer water, especially when grown in containers and during their establishment period after they’re planted in the ground. Even established trees need summer irrigation, though in cool coastal regions, in areas with accessible groundwater, older trees can survive without irrigation.

Buy a hose

If you don’t have a hose that delivers water to all of your garden, get one, or replace your gym membership with your own bucket brigade. Consider installing an automated irrigation system. But you’ll still want a hose: for planting, showering off dusty plants, spot-watering, and to spray people with on hot days.

Frequency: No matter how drought-tolerant your plants, you’ll need to water your garden. Maybe not every day or every week, but you’ll want to find a rhythm that changes by the season.

Duration: Time your hand-watering of a plant or small bed to the length of one or more songs you’re listening to on your MP3 player, or create a counting scheme. Automated irrigation systems’ clocks will take a little programming and then seasonal adjustment for watering duration and frequency.

Watering thoroughly at planting time and in the first couple of months afterwards is crucial. More on this below.

ABOVE: The lush garden in the upper photo needs only moderate amounts of water through our summer dry season. A drip-irrigation system delivers customized amounts of water to plants with different requirements. Juicy and geometrical succulents like the euphorbias in the lower photo require summer water to thrive, but only every month or so.

Soil conditions influence watering

Your soil conditions will determine how frequently you need to irrigate. Get your hands into the dirt all over your garden and make mudpies. The ones that fall apart immediately are made of sandy or gravelly soils. The ones that cling nicely together but can crumble like an unbaked cookie are made of loam or silt. The ones that are sticky, that you can really smack into a paddycake and, are well, clay-like, are made of clay soil.

Sandy, rocky, or gravelly well-drained soils require more frequent watering to serve your garden plantings. Sticky, heavy clay soil retains moisture and thus requires less watering, but it poses two problems: It’s harder to re-wet once it’s dried out, and it can stay so soaked that it drowns the roots of your plants. Loam or silt demand less of you: less-frequent watering than sandy soils, and less worry about drowning your plants.

Watering is key at planting time and afterwards

When you plant, thoroughly soak the planting hole and then the planted rootball. (Thorough soakings and follow-up dousings are less important for planting agaves and cactus and many other succulents.) For the next couple of months, you’ll want to make sure those new plantings get a good soaking every week (depending on your soil type), or even more if it’s hot or windy.

Containers

Container plantings will require more-frequent and thorough watering. Root space is limited and potting mixes drain efficiently. Even drought-tolerant plants like olives will demand more of your attention, though the toughest succulents like Agave americana will endure long stretches of dryness.

A large plant in a small pot needs more frequent waterings than a plant with a large pot with lots of room for roots. A saucer under the pot can act as a reservoir for a few days – as long as the water in the saucer stays in contact with the drainage holes.

These plants have lowest summer water needs:

Cactus (besides jungle cactus); agaves & furcraeas; succulent euphorbias; many aloes; fall-planted California natives like ceanothus, manzanita, grasses, annuals, Guadalupe palms, iris, dudleyas, and eriogonum; many Mediterranean-climate natives planted in fall, like leucadendrons, proteas, olive, rosemary, bearded iris, banksias, Mediterranean fan palms; bulbs from Mediterranean climates like daffodils, freesias, and naked ladies

Plants that need moderate water:

Ornamental grasses; cordylines, coprosmas, phormiums, tea trees, and many other New Zealand natives; some penstemons, calylophus, pelargoniums, artemisia, kangaroo paw, crinum, and certain other perennials; echeverias, sedums, kalanchoes, and many soft succulents; pindo, windmill, and queen palms; bromeliads; many conifers; oaks

Plants that need plentiful summer water:

Bamboos; many palms like pygmy date, king, lady, and chamaedorea; Japanese maples, magnolias and many other deciduous trees; ferns; redwoods; many summer annuals; acorus, asarum, ligularia, and lots of other perennials

Good-looking gardens need watering, even it’s careful and parsimonious. Oh, are we repeating ourselves? It’s because one of the key causes of plant failure is watering failure, especially in the planting and establishment phase, but also in the late winter and spring when rains cease. If you’re very planful and lucky – by planting natives in the fall before a classically rainy winter, for instance – you may only need to water the first couple of weeks after planting. But that’s the laudable exception.

Get attentive to your soil and your plants so you can respond to your garden’s need for water. You’ll be richly rewarded.

All plants need water and light and air, including houseplants, of course. The question we hear most often is, “How often do I water my houseplant?” Our answer: Get to know your plant. (Read our post about watering outdoors, too.)

ABOVE: Certain succulents can be fabulous indoor plants. On the left, a Sansevieria cylindrica shoots up from a composition of jungle cactus and gasteria. On the right, a crassula conjures a Coachella moment in a white cylinder. Succulents prefer to dry out between waterings and can survive neglect.

Before you take your new plant home, make sure you find out from your salesperson whether it prefers to

1) dry out between waterings,

2) almost dry out,

3) dry out in the top layer of soil while retaining deep moisture, or

4) stay evenly moist.

Knowing its preference for light is crucial, too.

A weekly watering cycle is a good place to start. Get familiar with your new plant by poking around its soil with your finger to find out how moist it is every two or three days after bringing it home, keeping in mind what its preference is.

Succulents grown in non-draining containers require very careful watering in small quantities. Many of our dish compositions fall into this group. It’s easy to drown a plant in a container with no drainage holes.

The best set-up for most houseplants is to place the black plastic grow pot into a decorative container (“cachepot,” if you want to sound fancy), with a waterproof saucer underneath the grow pot but inside the decorative container.

Think of watering your plant the way you’d pour milk into your cold cereal. When your plant reaches the lowest level of dryness that it prefers, give it some water. Start with a small amount, wait for one or two minutes to see if the water drains out into the saucer. If it does not, add more water. If it does drain, you might wait for an hour before checking again to see if the roots have absorbed that saucer water; if they have, you can give more water to those plants that prefer to stay moist, or get dry only on the surface. Just be careful not to overflow the saucer!

Here some plants that like to…

Dry out completely:

sansevieria (snake plant), cactus, agave, succulents with no drainage, cattleya orchids

Almost dry out:

Dracaena fragrans, D. massangeana, D. marginata, Yucca elephantipes, bromeliads, phalaeonopsis, lady’s slipper & cymbidium orchids

Dry out in the top layer:

Most plants – ficus, philodendron, pothos, kentia, rhapis, chamaedorea, alocasia, masdevallia orchids

Stay evenly moist:

Fishtail palm (Caryota mitis), selaginella, ferns

ABOVE: Some of our favorite houseplants include Dracaena marginata (trunky tree in center), bromeliads (lower right), and kentia palms (back center). In the upper right photo is a Chamaedorea oblongata, bamboo palm, which you can also see in the upper-left photo next to a kentia palm and a low alocasia plant. The center-left photo shows a line of lady palms (Rhapis excelsa) in white cubes.

Through the week and through the seasons, carefully observe how your plant responds to your watering. Many plants’ lose their lush sheen as they get too dry, even before they wilt. On the other hand, a plant that stays wet for too long may stop growing and lose roots to rot, while foliage develops yellow edges or spotting.

Several factors influence a plant’s thirstiness:

Plants in brighter light, near a heater or a fan, or in a warm room will tend to be thirstier. Those in lower light with little air movement will drink more slowly. If your home is in the fog belt, humidity and reduced sunshine will make your plants less thirsty; inland areas with hotter temperatures and low humidity will make them thirstier, especially when subject to air conditioning and heating systems.

A large plant in a small pot will be thirstier than a small plant in a large pot. Thus, as plants grow, they can become thirstier, and a plant shifted into a larger grow pot may require less-frequent waterings.

As daylight lengthens in spring, plants will drink more; as autumn darkness descends, less. As seasons change, check back in with your plants at the very least when you stop using the heat in spring, and when you start using heat again in fall.

If you’re new to plant care, you’ll be taking on a new, satisfying ritual of attending to and caring for your plants. It’s like getting a goldfish. Outdoor plants are somewhat less demanding (though the ones in pots need more attention than those in the ground).

Early each spring, we bring in an extraordinary collection of Japanese maples. Our favorite maple grower, Buchholz & Buchholz Wholesale Nursery in Oregon, grows some of the most beautiful varieties we’ve seen, many of them their own introductions. The staff who prune these young specimens are masters of their craft. The result is a perfect treasure of nature and craft. Take a look at their Flora Wonder Blog to get a sense for Buchholz’s contribution to West Coast horticulture and some of the thinking behind what they do.

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It’s March and it’s time to fertilize your palms! They like to be fed three times a year: in March, June, and September. That’s when warm weather allows them to use the nutrients you give them. We recommend using a palm fertilizer with micronutrients like magnesium and calcium. The organic palm fertilizer we sell provides all the nutrients your palms need, and in the right proportions.

Every fertilizer package lists its macronutrient proportions in three numbers. The macronutrient elements are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). These numbers for palms should be in a ratio of around 3-1-3 of N, P, & K. Thus, a listing of 9-3-9 works well, or 6-2-6, or 6-2-5 or even  3-1-2.

Micronutrients don’t get always get listed on fertilizer packages but the proportion of the key micronutrient magnesium should be 1 to the 3-1-3 of N, P, & K. Calcium and iron should also be part of the mix.

We cherish the image of a coconut palm on a sandy seashore, or of a date palm oasis amidst the stony desert. Both places might seem to be lacking in nutrients (not necessarily the case), but most of the palms we grow in gardens in California enjoy a little extra fertility in the soil to look their best – unlike succulents, natives, and protea-family plants, which rarely need added fertilizer. Also, well-drained soils of neutral pH allow most cultivated palms to thrive.

The first rule with palms when it comes to soils is structure: Give them good drainage. It’s not required for all species, but it won’t hurt any of them; good drainage makes for healthy roots. If you have tough adobe clay, amend with organic matter and dolomite or gypsum in a radius of 18 – 36 inches around the base of the plant. Organic matter and dolomite or gypsum will improve the ability of oxygen to penetrate, and water to flow through, the root zone.

Dolomite will help push acid soils (common in wetter areas with conifer and oak trees) toward a neutral state, while gypsum is unlikely to affect soil pH in either the acid or alkaline direction. Dolomite will also help supply magnesium. Bay Area soils range from slightly alkaline to significantly acidic.

New palm roots will emerge from the base of the trunk into the lighter medium you’ve created and they’ll be able to penetrate the dense clay farther out once they’ve branched into finer rootlets.

ABOVE: A stately Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis) presides over this Castro District garden in San Francisco. Applying a palm fertilizer in March, June, and September keeps the crown green and fortifies the plant against pests and diseases.

The boldest, most-exotic, biggest-bang-for-the-buck group of shrubs we can grow in our area come from the protea family (“Proteaceae“), and one of that family’s best subsets is the South African genus Leucadendron.

We just love leucadendrons in the landscape! Colorful, evergreen, beautifully structured, fast-growing, they’re easy to mix into designs in containers or in the ground. Follow a few guidelines and they’re no harder to grow than – and can grow well with – our native manzanitas.

They thrive in poor, well-drained soils, which are common in San Francisco (especially on the sandy west side of the city), they love our pesky summer winds, they prefer our mild, moist winters and dry summers, and some of them even tolerate immediate coastal conditions. So much to love.

In return, they ask that we refrain from applying fertilizer with phosphorus and potassium, avoid planting them in heavy, rich, summer-moist soil, keep them in sun or part-sun exposure, and protect them from sharp frosts.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Marshall

ABOVE: Leucadendrons produce a range of foliage textures and colors, yet the effect across them is always structured and elegant. So often the tips of the stems feature the best color display; the fuzzy rose, olive, and silver leaves of this Leucadendron ‘Jubilee Crown’ bring us a serene pleasure. This variety reaches a maximum of six feet in height.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Marshall

Photo Credit: Rebecca Marshall

ABOVE: The upper photo portrays the hardy and flamboyant horticultural selection ‘Jester’ (AKA ‘Safari Sunshine’); it reaches six-feet-tall. The lower shot captures the finicky and tender and surreal silvertree from Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain, Leucadendron argenteum. It’s a real tree, reaching 20-30 feet, and well-worth gambling on in a cool, minimally frosty garden despite its short life (30 years max) in cultivation.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Marshall

Photo Credit: Rebecca Marshall

ABOVE: Hardy and low-growing Leucadendron salignum ‘Winter Red’ in the upper photo keeps a good red much of the year that perks up in winter. ‘Summer Red’, in the lower photo, delivers its color, you guessed it, in summer! The parent species of these selections is the most widespread and one of the most adaptable in the leucadendron genus, staying at three-to-five-feet tall.

If you have heavy, rich soil, use them in containers (we love them in containers!), or find the steepest, rockiest spots in the sunshine for them. There are far too few leucadendrons in our gardens. Let’s get planting!

Agave americana is a fantastic plant – hardy, big, bold, ferocious, tolerant of drought, heat, cold, sun, shade, containers – but its variegated variations really catch the eye, and Mediopicta Alba’s been among the top three of our rotating 300 favorite plants (thanks, Sean Hogan) for a long time. The mid-leaf white stripe perfectly complements the slate-blue leaves, but, equally important, the striping distorts the leaves into the most winsome shape, slows the plant’s growth, and keeps it at a smaller scale overall than its nonvariegated parent.

ABOVE: Cream-and-slate rosettes with fierce thorns make an unforgettable accent or repeated theme, especially in containers.

ABOVE: We can hardly contain our gasps at this juxtaposition of liquid blue and matte gray and cream.

A soft, tropical rosette that thrives in sun or shade in our least-frosty Bay Area climates, Agave attenuata has jade tones that also come streaked in cream (‘Ray of Light’) or glowing with chartreuse (‘Kara’s Stripes’). Over time, they develop side shoots that you can make into new plants or allow to expand in place. Older plants produce a dense column of green flowers that turn upside-down, earning it the nickname of “foxtail agave.”

ABOVE: Agave attenuata is soft, luxuriant, drought-tolerant, tender, and elegant. Lacking spines, it’s much more likely to get hurt by you than you by it. Protect it from big rambunctious dogs and humans’ games of tag. And enjoy a frost-tender treat that our nearly frost-free winters allow to thrive.