The Kuzma/Halme Garden, 2024 visit (Part Two)

Okay, here we are again, in the back garden at the Kuzma/Halme home as seen last August (Part One of the tour here). Isn't that blooming agave a sight?

Aerial lily pads of blooms, that's what I see.

The bees were working their way around those lily pads and making them vibrate a bit. A spent bloom dropped to the plant below as I stood there watching.

Over to the sad Jubaea chilensis now, which is pushing out new growth (this is a different plant than the one I showed Wednesday). Last week John Kuzma sent me a photo with crown protection in place around the top of this plant, for winter. It's gonna take awhile, but it will be beautiful once again (fingers crossed).

Around it's base. I assume those are babies from the mama plant?

There was a lot of color in the garden during my visit...

Looking back across the back courtyard...

John has left the wind-damaged, cattywampus trachycarpus fronds in place, which is what you're supposed to do (the old fronds help to feed the new growth). I just couldn't take looking at them and pruned mine off early in the summer. John is a good palm daddy...

Notholithocarpus densiflorus, I think?

It's really time to give Melianthus major another go in my garden. That foliage is just fantastic.

So many colocasia!

I think that's a new Aloiampelos striatula / Aloe striatula planting, or maybe John pulled and protected it.

I have one tiny (2" tall) plant that's attempting to regrow from the roots of the plant I lost in my garden.

The anigozanthos / kangaroo paw were lush with blooms...

Same for the Erythrostemon gilliesii, the garden really was looking fantastic!

Positively dreamy...

The size of the datura is pretty amazing isn't it?

I think this abutilon is my favorite in the garden.

I didn't manage to capture anything for scale but the gunnera was enormous.

This orange/red urn is such an iconic visual place-maker in the garden. I looked back to see if it showed up in my first post from 2011 and it did not. It was there in 2012 though, and has been every year since. 

I remember first seeing these palms as little short things dotted around the garden in (what felt like at the time) odd places. Now their trunks are all I could get in the photo and they set the tone for this whole section of the garden. Oh, and they look fabulous with the Trachelospermum asiaticum 'Theta' established on their trunks.

A new plant to me during this visit (which I've since bought and hope mine looks this good next year), Hemiboea subacaulis var. jiangxiensis.

Another good-looking abutilon.

Ferny goodness with a few arisaema mixed in.

And with the fabulous foliage of a variegated daphniphyllum, this year's visit comes to a close. I can't wait to see what the garden looks like this summer...

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What is a trunk but another place to grow a plant?

Plants on plants, it's one of my favorite things. I've been pretty darn happy with the way my Passiflora lutea looks this year, growing up the trunk of my Trachycarpus fortunei.

It dies back to the ground every winter, but then BAM! reappears with a vengeance in the spring. The flowers are tiny though, about the size of the end of my pinky finger. So while they're fun, the foliage is what it's all about.

The same vines help to cloak the bare trunks of my Rhododendron sinograde, and in the mix somewhere is a Bomaria species vine, it seems to have been knocked back pretty bad by our crazy winter, but I'm happy it's making an appearance.

Moving over to another trachy, this one a Trachycarpus fortunei 'Wagnerianus', also with a hairy trunk.

On it I'm growing a Trachelospermum asiaticum 'Theta'.

I bought them (the jasmine, but actually the palm too) as tiny things so it's nice to see them making progress up the trunk.

One more example from my garden. Trachelospermum asiaticum 'Ogon Nishiki' on a Tetrapanax papyrifer trunk...

New growth has an orange tint to it in the cooler months, this time of year I don't see much of that.

It's still growing though, up up up...

I spotted a couple of Garden Fling hosts who were also growing plants on the trunks of their plants. This one was in Nancy Heckler's garden...

The plant is Euonymus fortunei 'Kewensis', but I didn't look up to see what the trunk it's growing on belongs to.

In Dan Hinkley's garden (Windcliff) I was more interested in the plants growing in the containers against the house and under the palm (a butia I think), than the palm itself.

That is until I turned around and saw the trunk...wowsa! Dan, what are you up to!?! (note: that's plastic on the ground in the distance, solarizing the soil and helping to prep for new plantings)

There were at least three pots of nepenthes tucked in there...

With (I think) some Marcia Donahue or Dustin Gimbel ceramic pieces.

A few phlebodium were growing without pots in the pockets at the base of the palm fronds.

In addition to a few ferns I couldn't ID.

I loved the crazy "all in-ness" of it.

There was also a pyrrosia at the base, I keep meaning to try one of those tucked into tree here in my garden. Oh the possibilities!

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