Want a stunning groundcover? It’s a Breeze!

Lomandra longifolia, otherwise known as Breeze grass is quickly becoming my new favorite plant!

 Lomandra longifolia ‘Lime Wave’

This plant is tough and looks beautiful all year long due to its fine texture and evergreen habit.  It blooms small flowers in Spring.

This little beauty hails from down under, Australia, and is an extremely versatile plant, growing in both sandy and wet soil conditions!  Once established, it tolerates drought beautifully! 

Growing best in full sun to part shade, Breeze grass offers a great alternative to shrubs and ground covers.  It has a medium growth rate and grows 2 to 3-feet tall x 2-feet wide.   Breeze grass grows in US hardiness zones 7 through  11 and once established, requires very little care!  Sorry yankees – this plant likes it in the warmer plant zones. 

You know a plant is tough when it  can hold up in seriously hot, windy and dry conditions such as a traffic island!

Not only will it look good en masse, but I also envision it as beautiful solitary specimans, in pots, or as excellent border plants.  Deer tolerant, Breeze grass is an extremely low maintenance plant.  Who could ask for anything more? 

 

This is definitely a plant US Southern gardeners will be seeing a lot more of!  Enjoy! 

It’s my new favorite!  What’s yours?

WHOOOO likes Topiary?

Topiaries are FUN!  I came across this one on the Internet over the weekend.  It’s in Thailand and is more like a green wall than a topiary actually.

Happy Mother’s Day!

From Strawberry Pots to Tabletops

Suddenly, succulents are not just for strawberry pots anymore.  Remember when succulent plants looked like this?


Nowadays, in our waterwise world, they are looking more like this…
 
or this …

or this …

 Bend Weekly 

Yes, our beloved Hens and Chicks have found a new use or should I say many new uses.  They have become the plant of choice for living walls, green roofs and even tabletops! 

quinn tessentially me's blog

Sunset Magazine online can teach you how to make a tabletop garden such as this, step by step.

Sunset Magazine

Janice Eaton Kilby wrote the book on beautiful tabletop gardens.

 

And J Peterson at Garden Design gave it a pretty good review.

Yes, succulents have come a long way.  With their good looks, low water requirements and low maintenance appeal, they have become the plant poster child for the green movement.

Besserina

 

Plants as Engineer

Plants have so many uses. We have already seen how plants can have architectural uses. They are also used for medicinal purposes.

And for recreational ones …

Another very important use for plants is in an engineering capacity.

We use plants all the time for their strength and their power to hold the earth down.

Plugs of grasses at the sea have the power to create huge sand dunes out of small ridges in the sand blown from the wind.

We use plants to hold down the side slopes of an ordinary ditch.

Or to keep a steep slope from eroding away.

Plants act as windbreaks.

They can provide shade and shelter from the sun on a hot day.

In more ways than one.

Plants as Architecture

The architecture of plants is beautiful.

The regular rythym of an allee beckons us to move forward at a steady pace.

Plants have so many uses! Some people treat plants as architecture. They can become houses.

Photo by Swami Stream

They can be used to create walls.

Photo by Loren

Plants can provide doorways ...

Photo by Goobertron

and gateways.

We walk on plants as flooring.



Plants can be used to create the effect of a ceiling ...

Photo by wallyg

or canapy overhead.

And they can also be sculptural, like art ...



... and given life-like qualities.



Why do we do this? Because we can.

Plants can even become furniture ...

Plants are a living medium that can become whatever the designer imagines or envisions them to be.