Gazania--a jewel-like treasure for the garden

As my husband and I were riding around on our Harley one day early this spring, I noticed that a nearby community has these gorgeous flowers planted along the roadways. Knowing that most communities plant low-water and low-maintenance shrubs and flowers in southern California, I was curious about this multi-colored prolifically blooming little flower. After some research, I discovered it's a perennial here, but as it's not frost hardy, would be an annual in other parts of the country.

Gazanias are tidy plants with daisy-like flowers that rise about 8 inches, and come in many colors from yellow to orange to red and even pink and bronze. They love full sun, and will even close up on a cloudy day, or when the plant is in shadow. The plants are common at garden centers, but you can also start them from seed or cuttings. They are best in the front of your garden as a ground cover. Give them fertile, well-draining soil and they benefit from organic fertilizer every few weeks during the long blooming season. If you want a touch of cheery, colorful happiness, plant gazanias!

Mandevilla

If you are looking for a low-maintenance, tropical vine with gorgeous flowers and evergreen leaves, Mandevilla (man-duh-veeya) is for you. The prolific stems will curl around anything, and it can be grown in a container. Though it is not hardy in areas that freeze, it can be brought indoors in the winter and kept in a brightly lit room. Fertlize (20-20-20) twice monthly and give it lots of sun. Mine grows in a somewhat shady part of the garden that gets bright light, but sun for only about 1-2 hours a day and does very well. I planted mine in a container, to give the plant some height from the beginning, so I need to be sure the soil is kept moist. This bloom is a new cultivar called "Candy Cane" and most of the flowers tend to be in the red to pink family. I've seen the vines planted everywhere, where they can sprawl over the edges of a pot, or crawl up a trellis. If you plant it and it dies back, don't worry, they are rather prolific at garden centers in the spring, and not that expensive.

Canna lilies

Cannas were something I'd only heard about in New England; I never encountered one until I moved to the west coast. There were several clumps of them growing in our garden when we moved in, and while I dug up some of them, there were a few stragglers who survived, and I am happy they did! This one is obviously right next to a prolific rosebush, and the colors work well together. I have a deep red one next to my Butterfly Bush, which gives a nice contrast to the purple/apricot flower spikes.Though this red flower is not a canna lily, it is the same color as the one that is growing nearby, so you can see how striking that looks!

Cannas feature leaves that resemble a tropical banana or ti plant, giving your garden a little extra oomph in texture and color. The leaves can be solid green, or bronzy red, and spikes of ruffled summer flowers can be yellow, red, pink, cream, white, or bi-colored. They work best in clumps of single colors in a border, or in a planter. If you live where the soil freezes, lift and store over winter. The clumps spread by rhizomes, similar to iris.

Lantana - Bang for the Buck

When I first moved to the Golden State, we were living about an hour north of where we are now. I wasn't too far from the botanical gardens on the Fullerton campus of CSU, so decided to pay them a visit. As I walked around the different garden zones, I was struck by this one incredibly multi-colored flowered shrub that grew in the xeriscape zone. I had no idea what it was, and took a myriad of photos. Each flower was made up of tinier little flowers, and they all had different colors! I was captivated by this cute, citrusy scented plant.

When we moved to our new neighborhood, I found this stuff growing all over our neighborhood. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that "The Earth laughs in flowers" and maybe he was looking at Lantana camara, as it comes in lots of colors: pink, white, yellow, red, orange, and purple. We have it growing all over the community, as a 6 foot tall shrub, and also as a sprawling ground cover. I have banks of it planted on the landscape area behind our house, and planted a small one in my front yard.
Once established, they are drought tolerant. The shrubs are evergreen in zone 8 and higher, but can be grown as an annual in the cooler zones. They are a favorite food source for butterflies and hummingbirds. Lantana thrive in full sun, and take well to periodic pruning which encourages more flowers. When my purple one gets a bit too overgrown, I give it a good haircut and am rewarded with even more blooms very soon after.
In northern climates, I've seen lantana used in hanging baskets. The purple variety, pictured above, looks more "viney" than the other colors, which tend to be more like shrubs. One important note: they can be invasive, and lantana are also toxic, in that the leaves can cause a rash, and the unripe berries can be fatal if ingested by children or pets. The birds can digest the ripened berries, and the stems have small prickers on them, which are very irritating to bare skin. Other than that, it's a really pretty and colorful shrub that can add some interest to a hedge or screen, or planted on a hillside.