If you walk briskly, you could traverse the winding path that runs through the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden in a very short time. Yet the fact that the garden is small makes each plant that much more precious to behold. Unlike most botanical gardens, where one day is never enough to appreciate everything there is to see, it’s different here. You can take long looks at each specimen on display and not feel you might be missing out on something if you linger more than a few moments over any particular plant.
What follows are descriptions of some of the beauties to be found at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden (MBBG) whose plant collection consists almost entirely of California natives except for a few notable exceptions. The garden is located in Polliwog Park at 1237 North Peck Avenue. It is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. Admission is free. Volunteer workdays are Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and drop-in volunteers over age 16 are always welcome.
Bladderpod (Isomeris arborea) is a wonderful plant if you have kids around because of its punching bag-shaped fruits. After the fruits are ripe, the seeds inside rattle audibly. Bladder pod is a relative of the caper bush and, like that Mediterranean plant, has flower buds which, before they open, may be picked and pickled and then used to spice up salad and meat dishes. Bladderpod has something else in common with the caper bush and that is its fresh appearance despite inhospitable growing conditions. Planted on the coast where surrounding plants are lashed and left limp due to sea winds, the bladderpod shows no signs of stress. That quality reminds me of the resilient caper bush (Capparis spinosa), which is found growing in Israel near the Dead Sea, one of the hottest and driest places on earth. Caper bushes have even seeded themselves on Masada, the legendary mountain fortress where a band of Jewish zealots held out for several months against a siege of the Roman army, ultimately committing suicide so as not to be taken to Rome as slaves.
At the bottom end of MBBG, there is a stunning Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica). This leguminous species is one of our toughest native plants, although its features are delicate. It can grow in poorly drained soil and is cold hardy down to 25 degrees. It will drop its leaves due to extreme winter cold and drought but bounces back. Flowers look like feather dusters and ferny leaflets are only ¼ inch long. Baja fairy duster is a robust grower reaching six feet high and wide. It can serve as a natural barrier due to the spines at the base of its leaves. Given water now and then, it will bloom virtually year round although it can survive in the absence of water once it’s well-established in the garden.
Not far from the fairy duster, Catalina silverlace (Eriophyllum nevinii ‘Canyon Silver’) has the classic dusty miller look of deeply lobed silver-gray foliage. It can grow in sun or light shade and is also tolerant of poorly drained soil. Catalina silverlace shows an abundance of yellow daisy-type flowers in spring and summer. When flowers fade, the effect is dazzling as they turn a dark brown that contrasts impressively with the whitish foliage.
If you are searching for a selection for the margins of your pond or even for sitting in the shallow end of it, I would recommend blue lavender rush (Juncus patens ‘Occidental Blue’). Its astral appearance will mesmerize you. A most adaptable selection, this rush can grow in dry shade, too, and is hardy down to 15 degrees. The genus name Juncus come the Latin verb iungere, meaning “to join” and refers to the use of its shoots for cords and ties.
When it comes to California native edibles, nothing surpasses golden currant (Ribes aurem). Flowers have a scent somewhere between vanilla and cloves and may be used as a garnish. Its half-inch berries are sweet and may be amber, red, or black in color. Fruit also ripen over several months as opposed to other berry crops that ripen all at once. The quality of fruit is consistently good, even that coming from volunteer seedlings. It takes full sun on the coast but prefers some afternoon shade as you move inland and you can even grow it under oak trees.
While driving to the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden, I saw a horticultural wonder along the way that made me stop the car. It was a planter filled with artichoke agave (Agave parryi var. truncata) at a high visibility corner of a business park. There was a time when these corners were religiously planted with annual flowers that were changed several times a year. That was a significant expense that has been eliminated courtesy of agave and other redoubtable desert denizens. As for artichoke agaves, their appeal lies not only in their sculptural symmetry but in the fact that they never need to be watered. Not only is water saved but the expense of installing and maintaining a sprinkler system is avoided, too.
Native to the Southwest, the artichoke agave lives for 15-25 years before sending up a 20-foot tall flower stalk that signals its imminent death. However, pups from the dying plant will have established themselves by that time and the next generation of artichoke agaves will be more than prepared to carry on.
Tip of the Week: Not long ago opposite the 3rd hole tee of the Studio City golf course on Whitsett Avenue, I saw a plant that looked vaguely familiar. I detached a leaf and chewed on it. Sure enough, it was a saltbush, a relative of saltbushes I had encountered in Israel’s Negev Desert. The Studio City saltbush is growing next to the concrete channel that runs where the Los Angeles River used to flow. Upon investigation, I learned that this species of saltbush (Atriplex lentiformis) has a wide-ranging habitat that stretches from seashore to river banks, so the plant in question must be a descendant of saltbushes which grew in that area when the river still flowed — until the 51-mile concrete channel that took its place was completed in 1960. You can taste a saltbush leaf, greenish-gray in color, at the Manhattan Beach Botanical garden where a large specimen is growing. The plant, which can reach a height of ten feet or more, thrives in extremely alkaline soil thanks to the ability of its tenacious roots to extract soil salt and send it to specialized storage bladders in its leaves, keeping it away from healthy cells that would be killed were the salt to enter them. Leaves, young shoots, flowers, and fruits are edible.
Please send questions, comments, and photos to joshua@perfectplants.com
