Life At Villa Boswell

If you are looking for a fuss-free shrub that will provide lots of privacy, then check out pittosporum.  Since our backyard patio is completely exposed to our neighbor’s view, I wanted something that would grow tall enough to provide a sense of privacy.  Fortunately, there are lots of examples around our neighborhood showing the various ways pittosporum can be used in landscaping, so this post will give you lots of photos and some good advice for growing P.Eugenoides.

• How do you plant Pittosporum?
• Pittosporum as a privacy screen
• Spacing
• Trimming and care

What is Pittosporum?

Pittosporum are evergreen trees or shrubs that consist of a number of varieties, from low-growing shrubs to really tall trees.  They are hardy to zones 8-10.  This article discusses Pittosporum Eugenoides, which originates in New Zealand and is also known as Tarata or Lemonwood tree.  The NZ Plant Pics website gives a nice overview of the various types of pittosporum, along with some good pics.  At first, I thought it was called Lemonwood tree because its spring flowers smell like lemons, but after an initial pruning, I learned that the leaves and branches emit a wonderful lemony smell when cut. That’s a nice bonus when you are using them as a hedge.

Continue reading Pittosporum for Privacy Hedge

Part of making Pine Cottage a more appealing place to live involved the garden.  In the spring of 2004, I embarked on an extensive project to create a pond and surrounding garden for the cottage.  Since I was new to landscaping and landscaping design, I decided to break up the garden into "sections" that I would then design with a specific dominant color in mind.  I can say that, almost 4 years later, this was one of the better decisions I made. 

So, the front area to the left of the house entrance became the "blue" garden.  I remember imagining the barren plot as bursting with blues of hydrangeas and other plants, a glorious array of color and texture.  It’s a good thing I can work on delayed gratification, because it took 3 years to achieve just the look I had in mind, and countless plant adjustments and discoveries, some of which I want to capture here.  However, I consider this area of the garden one of my better achievements. You can see in the photo album below a chronology of this section of my garden, with some description of the changes I made and why.  Click the arrow to view the slide show, or click on the photo to go directly to the album to view in larger size. (If viewing the album, be sure to click the "slide show" link for the full effect.)

The rest of this post is about the lessons I’ve learned in the process of working on the "blue" garden.

Continue reading Blue Garden

October in Northern CA means it’s time to prune your hydrangeas.  Right now, my hydrangeas have maxed out on their lovely fall tones.  Here’s a shot from my "blue" garden, one in the spring, the other in the fall.  You can see how they change over the seasons. (Note: all photos are from my web album.  You can click on them to see them in larger size and zoom in on details.)

I also use sulphur granules to keep these hydrangeas blue. I have found that using sulphur granules is safer than the often-recommended application of aluminum sulphate. (I use Whitney Farms granulated sulphur in case you want to find some yourself.) Here, you can see the Nikko Blue in the pot received a slightly erratic application of the sulphur, since some of the blooms tend toward pink.  Continue reading Hydrangea Pruning

Ok, I hate junk mail. And boy, is it tough to get rid of. My friend (the one who makes the cool beads, click on her link!) told me how I could stop my junk mail, and for a while I tried diligently, calling every time a catalog came in the mail and asked them to take me off their sell/mail list. One day, I called EIGHT catalog companies. EIGHT in just one mail drop. But, after a while, and after looking online at do-it-yourself stop junk mail sites, I just realized this was a full time job! At first I felt like it was such an invasion of my space, you know? I mean, I ORDER and PAY for a product and I get the retribution of so much junk that I have to spend hours trying to stop it? Then, after saying out loud to my husband "I wish I could just find someone to do this for me," I got the idea of searching for junk mail stopping services. Presto! They exist, thankfully. After looking around, I went with Green Dimes, which is a for-profit group that not only helps with the junk mail madness, but plants trees in various places with the money you send. That felt good. Plus, they are local to the Bay Area, so I liked that too. Visit their site, even if just to look at the cool "Water saved," "trees planted," "pounds of junk mail stopped" counters. It’s a warm fuzzy in a world of cold pricklies, I say. Also, for like $35 or so, you can send someone a gift subscription. Ok, so what does this have to do with magazine subscriptions? Continue reading The Magazine Subscription Kvetch