Rafflesia is a plant that few have ever heard of. How could you, as it has never been cultivated outside its native habitat in the rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. To see it in the wild involves some serious effort – and luck. From my home in San Diego I had to travel for two days to arrive at…
Almost ten years ago, when I started my garden, my landscape designer talked me into planting five large Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island Date Palm). He said that there was not a better show-piece tree that could be found for a San Diego yard. He said they were easy to care for and low maintenance past cutting off dead…
You just know when something isn’t right with a plant. It is almost a sixth sense. One day while walking the garden I noticed one of my Foxy Lady Palm’s (Wodyetia x Veitchia) was browning on the lower two fronds. I have found this to be the result of one of two things: 1) The…