Stupid gardening question

[ffutures]

What sort of trees would be likely to survive in a Californian garden that hasn't been maintained or watered particularly well?

Don't need a lot of detail, just a name.

Comments

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Where in California? Things that survive just fine around San Francisco would die ASAP in Los Angles or in the Valley.

[cabarethaze.livejournal.com]

Just was going to make a similar comment :) Born in SF, living in LA.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Los Angeles, somewhere near Cal Tech

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

First, a brief idiom wank: if you're writing in an "American" voice, Californian is a person, not a description, and the plot of land surrounding a single-family house is a yard, not a garden.

That said, most of the species of *trees* that people plant in their yards in So Cal will be drought hardy, once established. They might be leggy or shaggy and tangled from lack of care and watering, but they wouldn't likely have *died* of it. What is more likely to suffer from lack of water or care are grasses, perennials, and annuals. A lawn that was allowed to go uncared for would be dead and brown, frex, and roses or even rosemary might snuff it. Pampas grass and jade tree (both popular with So Cal gardeners) would likely have flourished and expanded under a regimen of neglect. Ivy, too. Trees that people are likely to have planted in their yards in the area around Caltech (NB, NOT Cal Tech) include various palms -- king palms are especially ubiquitous --, jacarandas, lemons, oranges, avocados, black walnuts, macadamias, camphor, crepe myrtle, all sorts of gum trees -- which a Californian will universally and indistinguishably refer to as eucalyptus -- poinsettia, Canary Island pine, California live oak, Victorian boxwood. King palms, camphor, jacarandas, crepe myrtles, and eucalyptus are most likely to be planted in the parking strip -- the narrow planted strip of earth between the sidewalk and the curb -- and be tall, established trees that are all the same down a given block or street rather than individuated by house - originally planted by the developer or the city. Fruit and nut trees will be individual to the homeowner and likely to be planted up against the house or, most likely, in the back yard. Front yards are often unfenced and mostly lawn, with shrubberies planted up against the house and/or along the path to the door. Back yards are virtually universally fenced, typically with an 8' tall plank fence.

Why yes, I did use to live within walking distance of Caltech, and spent rather too much time in the UCLA arboretum.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, forgot: figs, olives, and ginkgoes. All three, though olives and ginkgoes especially, make a terrible mess of the sidewalks when they drop their fruit. And though technically a shrub rather than a tree, another really hardy and common woody inhabitant of California yards is oleander. Basically, anything that does well in Greece or the Middle East can probably be found flourishing in people's yards in Pasadena. Which, by the way, is emphatically NOT in Los Angeles to anyone who lives there.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I think I'll go with an orange tree, it's easily visualised.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

A few year ago I read the original Zorro novel, written ca. 1920. I was bemused by a scene where Zorro rides through a stand of eucalyptus trees, sometime around 1810, well before they were introduced.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

oops...