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color

cue the
by Marty Wingate photos by Shelley Metcalf
20 fall 2013 | gardeningclub.com

Vivid hues infuse a San Diego garden and home, providing year-round delight.
Christine Morales has a thing for color. Thats typical for many gardeners, but for this San Diego resident, every decision made to transform her landscape from bland to grand was informed by that passion. Even her 1925 Spanish-style home, which is located near the historic district of Balboa Park, is painted in vibrant hues. Like most transformations, this one took time. When Christine and her fianc, Hector Huerta, moved in eight years ago, the garden and the house needed help. Christine tackled the front yard first, adding tropicals, succulents, orchids, veggies and any other plants she could find to provide pops of vivid color. The goal was to have a happy, lively, colorful, eye-catching yard with something flowering all year round, she says. As the garden matured, she and Hector decided that the color of their house should be as energetic as their garden. But finding just the right color wasnt easy. We knew we wanted something bright, Christine says. Every week or so wed buy little cans of paint and try them out on the back of the house. There were little squares of color everywhere. The yellow-orange and periwinkle-blue hues they finally settled on play off the garden perfectly and complement the houses red tile roof, too. Their driveway and front steps are painted a rich, dark orange. The color also plays off the brick walkway they built five years ago, using both new and recycled bricks.

self-propagating orchids
Their flowers are as lively and richly hued as the house. When they moved in, Christine found a lone epidendrum orchid in the garden. Over the years, epidendrums have become her signature plants, partly because of their bright colors, but also because theyve been so easy to propagate. I just stick them in the ground, she says of her propagating method.
Yellow-orange epidendrum orchid blossoms, pink Jupiters beard flowers, purple heliotrope sprays and blue fescue grasses echo the bright house colors in Christine Morales lively San Diego garden.
gardeningclub.com 21

uce s prod Orchid w kno n offsets is as keik

garden at
location

a glance
San Diego, CA
USDA Hardiness Zone

10b 8

years in house

size of front garden

60 feet x 30 feet 40 feet x 30 feet

size of back garden

average annual rainfall

10 to 11 inches
hours spent in the garden per week

4 to 6 hours in spring and summer


watering technique

Hand

original soil

Well-drained loam
sun/shade conditions

Sloping lot faces south with afternoon shade from trees


left: Edibles and flowers mix throughout the landscape, including hot peppers that provide color as well as culinary spice. inset: Christine Morales and her partner, Hector Huerta, enjoy the shade of a rosewood tree in the front yard.

22 fall 2013 | gardeningclub.com

her secret ingredient


Christine enhances her orchidsand keeps their roots shadedwith compost. I started composting years ago, says Christine. It changed everything about gardening. It adds nutrients to the soil and helps to moderate the soil temperature and moisture level. She keeps two compost binsone working and one finishing. Waste from the garden as well as vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and eggshells are composted. Christine applies compost twice a year around the garden. As a result, her yard is never parched. Believe it or not, my yard doesnt require much water, she says. When she does need to water, she prefers to do it by hand. When you hand water, its like walking instead of drivingyoure more aware of whats going on. You get to know your plants so much better.

Richly hu ed bouga invillea b homes w lossoms p himsical lay off the periwinkl e and yello w-orange hues.

Today, bright magenta and golden yellow varieties pop beautifully against the house and hardscaping. Called reed-stemmed orchids for their slender stems topped with flower clusters, epidendrums produce offsets called keikis, a Hawaiian word meaning baby. These offsets appear atop the flower stems. They grow their own roots up there and sometimes even flower. Christine removes the offsets, plants them in pots or in the ground and shares them with neighbors. Reed-stemmed orchids grow best in sunny or lightly shaded locations with shaded roots and well-drained soil. Those requirements describe Christines front garden perfectly: It slopes toward the sidewalk, which helps with drainage. Light shade is cast by two Tipuana tipu trees; native to South America, they sport sprays of yellow, sweet-pea shaped flowers in June. Though the trees, also known as rosewood, would quickly outgrow the garden if left unchecked, Christine prunes them back every year in early spring.

visitors welcome
Christine is always happy to talk with passersby who stop to admire the garden, ask a question or request an orchid start. I like meeting people, she says. A week doesnt go by without someone ringing my doorbell to comment on the yardand usually to hint about wanting a keiki from one of my orchid plants, which I always give. Often times, this leads to me meeting new neighbors and them offering to give me plants. Its a great way to make new gardening-minded friends. Seattle-based writer Marty Wingate is the author of four gardening books, including her forthcoming one, The Garden Plot: A Potting Shed Mystery (Alibi, 2014).

more than flowers


Clumps of blue fescue (Festuca glauca) provide a softtextured ground cover and serve as the perfect backdrop for dramatic foliage plants, such as agave, cordyline, sago palm (Cycas revoluta) and pygmy date palms (Phoenix roebelenii). Edibles mix freely with ornamentals in her yard. Brussels sprouts and artichokes are tucked here and there, contrasting with small flowers and foliage plants. Swiss chard adds both color and texture. I always have chard, says Christine. Its something I grew up with. Succulents, including both purple-black and greenleaved aeonium, add winter color along with orchids that flower nonstop. Christine keeps her Jupiters beard blooming over a long period with frequent deadheading, which also keeps it from spreading too aggressively.
A brick red patio creates a warm, inviting escape, perfect for a gardening breakand a cool drink.

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