Garden Details

AKA "Blue Pea Shrub" or "Grape Kool-Aid Tree"

Psoralea pinnata got its silly nickname from the scent of its pea-shaped blossoms (springtime).

This is a small tree or large shrub, and mostly that seems to depend on how it is pruned. Most of the year it is handsome but unremarkable, but in the spring it explodes with little blue flowers that have a sweet, fake grape flavour scent. You might think that could be really awful, but somehow it avoids the potential badness of an entire yard smelling like a kindergarten snack hour.

This specimen is growing at the Leaning Pine Arboretum at Cal Poly, photographed Spring 2006.

I collected seed to start this on my own, then I discovered seedlings at Annie's Annuals in June 2006. So I bought one, because it shaved a year off the planting schedule.

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AKA "Western Redbud"

This is a tree I would like but do not yet have. It's actually quite common in nurseries here, so I have been putting off getting one until I find just the right shape.

It's a small, slow-growing tree, to about 12 feet tall. Flowers in the spring like so:

(This is one of two of these trees near the Architecture building at Cal Poly. Photo taken March 2006.)

The blossoms are referred to as pea-like, which they are, folded over like pea flowers. The leaves are round, and come out as the flowers are dropping, right around early May. Seed pods look like pea pods.

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AKA "Harry Lauder's Walking Stick" or "Contorted Filbert"

I first encountered this marvelous tree while tromping around in the countryside in England.

This is a tree that takes patience. They can grow quite tall (I saw one at about fifteen feet in Sonoma County) but only after a long time. They have a lot of heavy roots, so don't plan on moving it after it's been in the ground for a while.

In the summer they are sort of ho-hum, look like a small bushy tree. But in the winter, when the leaves fall and into the spring when long yellow catkins appear on the branches, the curling branches become a major statement in the garden.

We bought ours from Raintree Nursery in Spring 2006. It is grafted to be more treelike, so we will have to watch out for suckers.

Here it is in leaf, June 2006:

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The King's Mountain Manzanita is native to the Bay Area hills (King's Mountain is on the lower Peninsula). This specimen is in the native plants garden in Tilden Park, and I fell in love with it.

Like most manzanitas, it thrives on neglect, prefers not to be fussed with, and is entirely adapted to our dry summers.

I bought my plant at Yerba Buena Nursery in Woodside in May 2006. It was a stunning six inches tall. When it gets over two feet I will plant it in the back of the yard, where it won't get irrigated.

Here it is in the back of the orchard, minding its own business, May 2006:

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