Ocean Beach coffee haven Java Beach Café is spawning a new restaurant, Beachside, on Judah and 48th Avenue, a block away from their La Playa mother ship. They’re throwing a big opening block party on Saturday, August 27. In keeping with plantings we helped with a couple of years back, the owners, Buffy & Pat Maguire, picked colorful Cordylines (New Zealand cabbage trees) for their new street trees. Matti (Flora Grubb Gardens colleague, Far Out Flora blogger, and Java Beach neighbor) took photos back when the site was still under construction:

Beach-tolerant Cordyline 'Dark Star' mingles with Yucca 'Jewel' and Aeonium 'Rubrum' on Judah Street.

Love the movement of the photo. Nothing’s more characteristic of the site than ocean winds, which these plants will have the gumption to tolerate.

Shot a few weeks ago, Beachside's awnings and pink paint will bring a touch of Playland to the Outerlands.

Here’s an article in the Ocean Beach Bulletin with the full report on the Maguires’ new restaurant.

Cordyline australis, one of the parent species of these Cordyline ‘Dark Star’, grows happily by the sea in its home range, New Zealand, a land whose ocean winds may be even more severe than San Francisco’s. Thriving alongside will be succulent Aeonium ‘Rubrum’ from the Canary Islands (where they’re nurtured by misty fogs and occasional winter rains), and jade-like soft-tipped Yucca elephantipes ‘Jewel’, a curiously adaptable tree yucca from Central America. It’s so satisfying to use tough-as-nails plants that provide a lush, colorful accent in a horticulturally stressful climate.

The new plantings on Judah will complement the colorful walls of Beachside.

Beautiful cladding from weathered Wine Country structures has transformed our side room into a cozy “barn” of garden goodies.

Flora and her magicians have transformed out little side room into a cozy space for garden goodies.

You can see the kids’ section in the foreground of the photo below:

The new room allows for more beautiful displays and a new home for the kids' section.

Here's a view looking toward the window and door.

I love this Esther pot with one of our favorites, the snake plant (Sansevieria cylindrica). It’s quite a bold combination against the weathered paneling.

Come visit us and see the new space. Flora and her team have made a big effort to make a warm welcome for you. There’s a bunch of new planters, hats, toys, plants, and other goodies to go along with the new ambiance.

The skies may be threatening snow, but flower buds on our 15-gallon Pittosporum napaulense plants are promising the show below in a couple of weeks:

This gorgeous tree grows at the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park (Bed 4A). The fragrance of these lovely flowers will pervade the garden for weeks at a time through the year. Photo by David Kruse-Pickler / San Francisco Botanical Garden.

Golden fragrance is an evergreen, low-branching tree from the Himalayas (including Nepal as the species name indicates) that tolerates temperatures dropping occasionally into the low 20s Fahrenheit. Have you ever seen this tree in local gardens — or in the Himalayas?

Its glossy, deep green leaves remain pleasing even in phases when the tree is out of flower. Flowering can be quite extended in our cool-summer climate. We have seen it bloom in spring, summer and fall at the San Francisco Botanical Garden (Strybing Arboretum). The mind-boggling array of treats like this that we can enjoy in our climate always delights us.

Regular irrigation and normal drainage will make Pittosporum napaulense happy. Occasional applications of rich mulch or balanced fertilizer will keep it robust.  Plant it near a window, door, deck or patio for maximum enjoyment of its luxuriant charms.

Come visit in the next few weeks to imbibe its fragrance.

The dramatic Roxburgh fig features heart-shaped leaves that emerge reddish-brown. (Poking its head into the frame in this San Diego garden is Howea forsteriana, the kentia palm.) Photo courtesy of Kyle Wicomb / tranquilometro on Flickr

For all our complaints about summer fog and wind, we who garden in San Francisco’s mild-winter climate get the chance to grow delicious things that will tolerate few other locations north of Santa Barbara. One example is Ficus auriculata. In a warm location on the east side of the city — like North Beach, the Mission, or Bernal Heights — this small tree with heart-shaped leaves thrives in a container or even in the ground. Other spots in the Bay Area where this dramatic fig is worth growing include Sausalito, Belvedere, and Tiburon in Marin; Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda in the East Bay, and a few favored frostless hillside locations along the coast and around the bay. Unfortunately its trunk-borne figs are not tasty.

Figs grow on the trunk -- and roots, in this case -- of this species!

This leaf is at least two hand widths across.

Here's Ficus auriculata lending its charisma to the patio garden at Skool. Photo courtesy of Piotr Mazurek / Garden Fantasia

We love how it looks on the patio at Skool, restaurant in the Design District of San Francisco with an inventive fish-centered menu. Piotr Mazurek, of Garden Fantasia, designed Skool’s patio garden. Once again Piotr blows us away with his bold plant choices and combinations, convincingly expanding the palette for San Francisco gardens and creating a very special secret garden.

Photo courtesy of Olia Kedik / Skool

Photo courtesy of Piotr Mazurek / Garden Fantasia

We’re excited about a number of small trees we are bringing into the nursery next week.

Metrosideros collina ‘Springfire’ is a luscious, evergreen flowering tree or shrub for mild coastal climates like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Stinson Beach. You may recognize the genus name, Metrosideros, from the common coastal street tree, Metrosideros excelsa, also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree or pohutukawa. Well, erase that image from your mind: Springfire has much showier orangey-red blossoms and lusher fuzzy green foliage. Metrosideros is also the genus in which the ubiquitous Hawaiian native tree, ohi’a lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) resides.

The brilliant flowers on 'Springfire' out-do most New Zealand Christmas trees in San Francisco. Photo by James Gaither (J.G. in S.F. on Flickr)

(Take a look at the picture above on Flickr.)

Before the flower buds explode into sparkling orange-red they resemble kitten toes

Pure sand, rich loam, and even clay soils are suitable for this species, and fertility is rarely an issue. The more sun it gets, the more it will bloom. Exposure to salty sea wind is no problem. Once established, it won’t demand a lot of water, but will certainly grow more quickly with regular irrigation. It also makes a nice hedge.

The glorious flowers emerge in cycles through the year but peak in spring. Photo by James Gaither (J.G. in S.F. on Flickr)

(Check out the above photo on Flickr.)

Metrosideros collina 'Springfire' grown as a street tree in SF's Pacific Heights

Pittosporum angustifolium: What a delightful small tree -- fragrant and drought-durable, too!

We’re excited to be selling the rare weeping Pittosporum angustifolium, a very drought-, heat-, and frost-tolerant small tree that’s widespread in interior Australia. It’s best for inland locations in Central and Northern California, too.  Its shiny linear leaves hang on a narrow, upright tree with weeping branchlets and silvery bark. Aussies call it “native apricot” because its small bright fruits resemble apricots (but aren’t edible). The open crown allows a lot of light through and casts animated shadows on the ground below. Thanks to its narrow profile, it fits into small gardens and sidewalks. David Feix, one of the Bay Area’s most thoughtful and adventuresome landscape designers, recommends this plant for areas with a touch more heat than the fog belt of SF/Berkeley/Oakland.

Walking the streets of San Francisco, you may have notice a variety of intermingling jasmine-like fragrances. It’s an under-celebrated quality of the city.

Pittosporum trees are the source for many of these sweet scents. Several species are planted as park and garden trees, but Pittosporum undulatum, “Victorian box,” is the commonest street tree. Clothed in lush green leaves marked by an undulating edge, it produces small, heavily scented, creamy-white blooms at least four times a year in San Francisco. Its native home is moist forests of Australia’s southeast Queensland, eastern New South Wales, and eastern Victoria states.

Lots of pittosporums make good garden plants. Fragrance is just one selling point.

We loved Far Out Flora’s post on the Norfolk Island palm (Rhopalostylis baueri) in the San Francisco Botanical Garden during a recent warm spell. Check it out. Matti and Megan caught amazing pictures of the palm’s lavish bloom.

Only quibble: If ONLY Dolores Park were home to more of this species, we’d be ecstatic. Alas, very few are growing in San Francisco, and even fewer are visible to the public. Two others besides the Botanical Garden’s that we know of are on Eureka Street near 22nd and in the 900 block of Teresita Blvd. near Melrose.

We think the ones at the SF Botanical Garden are much more vigorous than most we’ve seen elsewhere. Here’s one in Orange County, at the South Coast Plaza shopping center.

Norfolk Island palm: one of the most elegant species for coastal California gardens

The Palm Broker truck sets up behind a crane.

We helped install a rooftop-terrace garden today in San Francisco. It was hot, sunny weather, the first heat wave since March. The chic, dark-clad, modern house, built by kevin slagle design + build is a beautiful spot for a 36-inch box, five-foot Brahea armata (Mexican blue palm), a five-foot Phoenix roebelenii (pygmy date palm), several Agonis flexuosa ‘Jervis Bay Afterdark’ trees (peppermint willow, from Western Australia), olives, and silvery-green Acacia covenyi (from New South Wales, Australia).

Its box removed, this Mexican blue palm is ready for planting.

The residents chose two stunning and complementary palm specimens. Together the plants demonstrate the varied beauty in the palm family, from stout and radial (Mexican blue palm), to pliable and expressive (the pygmy date palm).

Pygmy date palm (left) and Mexican blue palm in cool custom containers by kevin slagle design + build

Craning a tree into the air is always a source of awe.

Hardhat time

From the street, a peek at the trees over the parapet hints at the lushness felt when you’re ensconced in the terrace garden.

Inside the house is a magical view up into the crowns of the new trees — welcome greenery in this über-urban South of Market neighborhood. What could be more urbane than this confluence of secluded oasis and skyline prominence?

Check out more projects by Kevin Slagle and company at ksdesignbuild.com.

New Zealand and coastal California share many aspects of climate — especially our temperature range and humidity. They tend to get more rainfall over there, especially in the warmer half of the year, than we do.

Many of the plants the Kiwis can grow, we Californians can, too. Palms are no exception. Our friends over at Palmtalk.org have shared a video shot at an established palm garden near Auckland called Landsendt.  It’s “palm porn” in as literal a sense as any G-rated media can be. Remember, virtually anything seen in this video will also thrive in San Francisco and mild coastal areas of the Bay Area and central California. And it’s all safe for work viewing.

Landsendt sub-tropical gardens, Auckland New Zealand

Some of the special plants visible are the colorful-crownshafted Geonoma undata, from high altitudes in the Andes; majestic Ceroxylon quindiuense and C. parvifrons, also from the Andes; groves of New Zealand’s native nikau palms, Rhopalostylis sapida; and cycads like Encephalartos, Macrozamia, and Cycas. Other non-palms spotted include a Pandanus sp. from New Guinea’s highlands, a large-leafed Ficus species (F. dammaropsis? F. auriculata?), and — can it be? — a Cecropia species.

Coconut crowns make an exceptionally graceful silhouette against the tropical skies of Puna, Hawai'i

Polynesian-introduced coconuts thrive in the lava along the Puna Coast of Hawai’i’s Big Island.

We found an interesting article about the ecological change wrought by introduced coconut palms on a previously coconut-free island in the central Pacific Ocean.

It’s sad to think that the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), a lovely icon of the tropics, can also be a human-introduced invasive species on pristine islands like Palmyra. This atoll, directly south of Hawai’i in a belt of heavy rainfall just north of the equator, has a rich indigenous forest on its sparse land area (4.6 square miles) — and an extraordinary coral reef and lagoon habitat underwater.

The newly coconut-dominated portions of the landscape attract far fewer birds than the native forest, and thus lack the guano-enriched soils of the native forest. Even where native forest plants grow near the coconuts, their foliage, flowers and fruits are less-nutritious than they are when growing in coconut-free parts of the island. Such impoverishment puts dependent organisms like birds and insects at a disadvantage and is likely to reduce biological diversity.

Palmyra Atoll is an unincorporated territory of the USA, administered as a National Wildlife Refuge by the Interior Department.

Palmyra Atoll makes a tracery of green in the vast Pacific. Photo by Ethan Roth