RE: Need ideas for sun-blasted parking strip et al.

Julie, et al:

Odd -- I just received this post, the original
request.  This, after seeing many many answers for a
day and a half.

Here's my two cents anyway -- I like these
tough-as-nails plants:

Agapanthus (many cultivars)
Dietes 'Lemon Drop' and 'Orange Drop'
Hemerocallis (daylilies)
Phlomis (many species and hybrids)
Phormium (my favorite little ones: Bronze Baby, Duet,
Morticia, and Tom Thumb)
Pittosporum tobira 'Wheeler's Dwarf'

I especially like these ornamental grasses:

Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'
Festuca californica 'Serpentine Blue'
Helictotrichon sempervirens

I'd even be tempted to plant a few Juniperus
scopulorum 'Skyrocket' (NOT boring).

As someone else said, plant a mixture.

Joe Seals,
Santa Maria, California
(quickly returning to spring weather)

--- Julie Nelson <jaknelson@shastalink.k12.ca.us>
wrote:
>  My son's school has moved to a new location, which
> needs some immediate
> landscaping (shade trees and foot traffic barriers).
>  The school is in
> Redding, Sunset zone 9; summers are long, very hot
> (90-110 degrees F)
> affairs, winters are relatively wet (45 inches of
> rain) with regular but
> rarely severe freezing.
> I need something (or more than one thing) to
> populate a narrow (2 feet wide,
> 80 feet long) parking strip between the paved
> parking area and a low,
> south-facing concrete wall that forms the drop-off
> for the sidewalk in front
> of the school.  The idea is to keep the children
> from jumping directly off
> the sidewalk into the parking lot, and also soften
> and improve the
> appearance of the new blocky building. I'd prefer
> something evergreen.
> There will also be several vertical trellises for
> vines to break up the
> linear expanse along the front of the building.
> So far I have thought of:
> 1) rosemary (but I'm reluctant to plant such a bee
> magnet where there will
> be children in and out, no doubt some of whom will
> be allergic to bee
> stings).
> 2) Raphiolepis (does it pull in bees too?)
> 3) Grevillea (are there any small enough to fit the
> space without butchering
> them at pruning time?)
> 4) Juniper (boring)
> 5) Xylosma (boring)
> 6) Cistus (this is my current front-runner, but it
> would have to be a
> relatively small or non-spreading type)
> 7) Pyracantha (but draws bees, and has thorns that
> may actually injure
> someone, including me while pruning)
> 8) Berberis 
> 9) Ceanothus--my experience with these is not
> encouraging as far as using
> them in this tough a planting situation
> 10) Arctostaphlos--ditto the ceanothus
> 
> There must be something wonderful that I've missed. 
> If you think of what it
> is, please let me know!
> 
> Julie Nelson
> 
> 
> 


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