Off post subtropical plant discussions
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Off post subtropical plant discussions
- From: d* f*
- Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 13:03:36 -0800 (PST)
To others in the medit-plants group, I apologize if a
lot of my posts appear off topic, or not reflective of
truly summer dry mediterannean climate plants. The San
Francisco Bay Area climate, and my location in
Berkeley in particular, often have just as much, if
not more in common with subtropical cloud forest
climates. This affinity is reflected in the diverse
collections at some of our local arboretums, such as
Strybing and Berkeley, as well as Quail Botanic Garden
and the hyntington in southern California. Therefore,
alot of the plants that I am writing about may be
marginal in hotter, drier, windier truly mediterannean
climates.
The problem I encounter in my own garden, as do so
many others here in the Bay Area of San Francisco, is
that we don't have the full sun or heat to grow many
of the more traditional medit plants, and find that
shade loving/cool growing subtropical and
xeriphytic/epiphytic plants actually do quite well
here with limited but regular irrigation. As one
example, even though we have no native
representatives of epiphytic bromeliads, orchids, or
rhipsalis here in California, they do quite well here
with limited yet periodic water, as do alot of
succulents, (sedums, crassulas, echeverias,
graptopetalums, aloes, etc). I have found that I can
grow a mix of natives with bromeliads and succulents,
and have them all succeed side by side. It also helps
to see this diversty of plant types exist in nature,
as a recent trip to southern Mexico confirmed for me.
Orchids, bromeliads and agaves growing side by side
below pine or oak forests, and surviving 4 to 6 month
long dry seasons,(if reversed from our winter wet),
are common in many parts of Mexico. Many of these
plants are quite capable of surviving with only weekly
wetting down in dry shade conditions below our native
oaks, and would classify as being low water use plants
in my view...
So I hope that others don't find it too annoying to
discuss these non-mediterannean plants within the
context of mediterannean gardening, as I haven't found
another web group with the same diverstiy of
contributors and knowledge to share this information,
or a specialized group to discuss subtropicals for
mediterannean climates.
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