Carpenteria californica

Hoping Ecrane will jump in here, because I know she has one. Anyone else growing this CA native? I've wanted one for some time, though I've been told they don't do well here. The only place I have that will get some relief from sun in the summer afternoon is about 10-12 feet from a huge Bishop pine. The soil is our classic SD clay and I'm wondering if I should amend it - though this is something I have never done for natives. I just really want this plant to thrive. I googled quite a bit and found a couple of sites that said clay was OK (bet they don't know SD clay) but the others all say good drainage. They also don't want molly-coddling, apparently.

What to do, folks?

Kathleen

Kathleen, I can see why you'd like to grow one. It is gorgeous and it looks like it could use some conservation!
From what I read at this site I think I'd amend my soil a little if I had real heavy clay. Too bad they are out of stock at their Escondido location! Can you find it to purchase near by?
http://www.laspilitas.com/plants/134.htm

Wow! that is so lovely, I checked the wildflower center and it says native to Fresno county California, so you have a very special plant there, I hope you can find it and propagate it Kathleen.
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CACA17

I have mostly clay soil here and I don't believe in amending...if something can't survive in my soil as-is then out it goes! So I have mine growing in my clay soil (although I don't know if my clay is as heavy as in San Diego or not). It's looking a little less than perfect because the place I have it gets more sun than I think it would really like...it gets a little shade from my neighbor's mulberry tree but I think ideally it would like a pinch more protection from PM sun. But it also might be that it didn't really have a good chance to get established last year, so I'm giving it one more year where it is before I try to find a new place for it. I planted it in fall 2006, then in the spring my neighbors went through a phase where they were watering their lawn every single day, and with the way our properties slope, my Carpenteria was right in the path of the runoff and it was starting to look overwatered, so in March or so last year I had to dig it up and move it to another part of the bed. Its leaves looked a little ratty all year, but it bloomed for me anyway, I'm hoping this year since it had a nice winter full of rain that it'll be completely happy. The one at my old house was also growing in clay but in a shadier location and it always looked beautiful for me, so I'd say PM shade is more important than clay.

I know Forest Farm sells them from time to time--the one at my old house came from there. The one I have now came from a local nursery, they're not too hard to find up here if it's a nursery that has a decent section of natives. San Marcos Growers also grows them, so you should be able to have a local nursery order you one from them if you can't find it elsewhere.

Sorry, my first message wasn't clear. I have one, just deciding where to put it. Afternoon shade is difficult to find here, but DH and I think we can position it so the pine tree shades it.

Liz, I feel the same way about amending. A lot of our soil is still recovering from the construction phase and we lose a lot of plants before we find the right one for the right place, but this is one area that was not graded, so I'm hoping. I think I'll just break the clay up enough so the roots will have a chance to get set before the heat sets in and hope for the best.

Angele, we live about five miles from Las Pilitas, as it happens. :-) A huge percentage of our landscape comes from there. I've been going up to Tree of Life Nursery www.treeoflifenursery.com a couple of times a year and bringing loads of plants back, too. They have wonderful workshops and their plants are superb. Last week I visited a little nursery I hadn't been to for a while and they had added a natives section, where I found this and some variegated ceanothus groundcover (lime green!).

Thanks for the encouragement - I'll let you know how it goes.

Kathleen

I'm not opposed to adding a shovel full of compost to my planting holes since I have super sandy soil and I wouldn't be opposed to adding a shovel full of crumbly native granite if I had super heavy clay. I made that up about the granite since I don't even know if that exists!
It is very hard to give plants a good start here in my part of New Mexico. Many years ago I lived in upstate NY & was so used to planting something & have it 'take' so easily. Here I've heard the saying "plant three and hope one survives."

I agree with Angele, sometimes soils so tough or so loose that nothing but the toughest plants will survive, and when you want a demonstration garden you need more than a few plants.
I think compost is good for everything.
Josephine.

That's funny, Angele, I always buy three of everything if they have them!

My attitude about amendments has more to do with laziness than anything else :-) Although for trees and shrubs I wouldn't do it even if I weren't lazy--with clay soil if you amend the planting hole, then the roots try to stay in the nice cozy amended planting hole rather than stretching out into the native soil, and then they basically become rootbound in the planting hole (not to mention the "clay bathtub" effect where you water that hole, but then it doesn't drain away very quickly) So unless you can do extensive amendments throughout the entire bed and going down at least a few feet I think it's better for trees/shrubs to just stick them in the native soil--if they don't like it there you're going to lose them eventually anyway so might as well find out now before you waste years babying them!

To improve the soil, I use John & Bob's soil optimizer--my whole yard is disturbed soil right now because I had all the existing landscaping ripped out a year ago, so I figure J&B will help get it back on the right track. And I use compost tea all the time which hopefully helps too. I don't do "real" compost because I have a bad back so I can't manage the big bags of it (and I'm too lazy to make my own...plus I don't have enough stuff to put into it to really do much anyway)

With nearly an acre to plant or otherwise landscape, I don't do anything extra. I also have a bad back and my doc has told me no shoveling, so I have to plan accordingly. With all the (much wanted) rain, we have knee high weeds and I could not keep up, so today we have a couple of guys from my husband's office weeding and spreading mulch.

Do you make your compost tea, Liz? What I have is worm-composted horse manure and bedding - beautiful stuff. I've read threads about people with bubblers and all kinds of fancy systems for tea making, but I've got too many other things to do to get that involved. I want to enjoy my garden, not spend every waking hour working on it!

I compost just to avoid transporting/trashing clippings and to use up kitchen waste. We have a neighbor who can supply free manure, so I'll soon be adding that. I don't worry about temperature or anything, it just sits there as long as it takes. What I'm spreading now came from a ranch.

I bought one of those systems from Soil Soup where you get a bucket and a pump to aerate it...the bucket doesn't really hold enough tea though so I got myself a big plastic tub and I make it in that instead. I do like aerating it with the pump though, it seems to brew up a lot faster that way and it doesn't get stinky. Their system uses worm castings, but you could probably substitute any other sort of compost you wanted.