Plant Highlights
Plant Highlights
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Aloe distans
jewelled aloe
Highlight Month:
July
Nativity:
This aloe is native to the west coast of the Western Cape of South Africa where it grows in shallow soil on limestone rock. It is known from 8-10 locations in a small range from Danger Point to St. Helena Bay.
Growth Habit:
Aloe distans is a sprawling aloe that develops caulescent suckering stems along the ground. It blooms in mid-summer to fall with capitate heads of coral pink tubular flowers. Leaves are borne in tight rosettes with showy yellow triangular teeth.
Growing Requirements:
It prefers full sun to light shade, is drought tolerant, and is hardy to 20-25°F.
Features:
The specific epithet, distans, means “standing apart” or “far removed,” in reference to its geographic separation from similar creeping Aloe species. However, some authorities consider Aloe distans a coastal subspecies of Aloe mitriformis.
Where at Lotusland:
Aloe Garden
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Coffea arabica
Arabica Coffee
Highlight Month:
Nativity:
E. South Sudan, SW. Ethiopia, N. Kenya
Growth Habit:
Small upright shrubby tree, up to 6-15 feet tall and wide.
Growing Requirements:
Coffee plants prefer protection from cold and drying winds in Santa Barbara but can grow in filtered shade to full sun.
Features:
Our plant came from the UCSB Greenhouses in 1998 and has Costa Rican origins.
Where at Lotusland:
Lotusland is home to one coffee plant tucked into the northern end of the Fern Garden.
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Agave vilmoriniana
octopus agave
Highlight Month:
Nativity:
NW Mexico
Growth Habit:
An unusual agave with arching, smooth blue leaves resembling a multi-tentacled octopus.
Growing Requirements:
Full sun, well-drained soils
Features:
This plant is native to northwest Mexico where it grows on cliff faces. After flowering, many plantlets are produced on the 15-20’ inflorescence. This agave will reach 4’ tall and wide in its lifetime.
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Ananas comosus var. bracteatus ‘Tricolor’
variegated pineapple
Highlight Month:
Nativity:
Garden Origin
Growth Habit:
This plant can spread up to 5’ wide and displays more pink coloration with additional sun.
Growing Requirements:
Sun to part sun.
Features:
This ornamental pineapple is sure to catch your eye with its striated pink, green, and yellow leaves. Plants at Lotusland are vegetatively propagated from offsets removed from the crown of the pineapple, which is composed of multiple fruits clustered together.
Where at Lotusland:
Upper and Lower Bromeliad Gardens
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Aloe ‘Tingtinkie’
Highlight Month:
Nativity:
Garden Origin
Growth Habit:
Six to twelve-inch rosettes will form a mounding colony with light green leaves featuring orange tips. Large bicolored inflorescences emerge in winter with reddish buds opening creamy yellow.
Growing Requirements:
Full sun, well-drained soil
Features:
This hybrid aloe was created by renowned South African botanist/horticulturist Cynthia Giddy at her Umlaas Aloe Nursery in 1973. ‘Tingtinkie’ is thought to be a term of endearment for “dinky thing.”
Where at Lotusland:
Aloe Garden
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Encephalartos horridus
Eastern Cape blue cycad
Highlight Month:
Nativity:
South Africa (Eastern Cape)
Growth Habit:
A small, low-growing cycad known for its attractive, heavily armed, blue-green leaves.
Growing Requirements:
Full sun, well-drained soil.
Features:
This species is native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa and has been listed as endangered by the IUCN since 2003. It is only known from 10 locations between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage. Curation staff at Lotusland propagate these plants from our living collection by collecting pollen from a male cone and injecting it into a receptive female cone to produce viable seed.
Where at Lotusland:
Cycad Garden
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Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Lockwood de Forest’
Lockwood de Forest rosemary
Highlight Month:
September
Nativity:
Garden Origin
Growth Habit:
This prostrate cultivar of rosemary was discovered as a seeding in the Santa Barbara garden of Lockwood and Elizabeth de Forest. This rosemary grows only 2 feet tall, but its low-growing branches can reach a length of 6 to 8 feet, making it a great choice as either a groundcover or a cascading accent over a rock wall.
Growing Requirements:
Full sun, well-draining soil.
Features:
Madame Ganna Walska consulted with Lockwood de Forest to design the orchard, succulent garden, and main house cacti plantings at Lotusland. Blue flowers emerge in the spring, fall, and winter and resemble “the color of the old French air force uniform,” according in Elizabeth de Forest.
Where at Lotusland:
In pots on the Parterre.
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Ginkgo biloba
maidenhair tree
Highlight Month:
November
Nativity:
Southeast China. Only two localities in China still hold wild populations of this ancient tree, but it has been a sacred plant for centuries and was probably saved from extinction through cultivation.
Growth Habit:
This deciduous tree can grow 65 to 80 feet in height. Leaves are fan-shaped, resembling the leaflets of maidenhair fern, thus the common name. Most cultivar selections of this species are male since female plants drop seeds with a malodorous fruit-like covering.
Growing Requirements:
Ginkgo require consistent moisture and can grow in full sun to partial shade. They are remarkably unaffected by urban smog and have been widely planted in Asia as street and park trees.
Features:
The fan-shaped leaves and turn a buttery yellow-gold in late fall. Ginkgo biloba is the only surviving species in its division Ginkgophyta. Fossil evidence suggests Ginkgo has remained generally unchanged for the last 270 million years and was once native to North America and throughout the world. Ginkgo biloba is widely grown in China and Japan for its medicinal, food and timber value. Female trees produce an edible seed covered in a nauseatingly smelly fleshy structure. Once cleaned, these seeds are roasted or included in bird’s-nest soup. Standardized extracts from the leaves are used to treat difficulties of concentration and memory, lack of energy, decrease physical performance, anxiety, dizziness, tinnitus and headache.
Where at Lotusland:
There are several mature trees, including one female plant, in the Japanese Garden. Another specimen has been pruned and trained in the niwaki style.
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Piper aduncum
spiked pepper
Highlight Month:
June
Nativity:
Mexico to Tropical America
Growth Habit:
This peppercorn relative forms a large shrub/small tree. In summer the white “rat tail” inflorescences are eyecatching.
Growing Requirements:
While native to the tropics and subtropics, this evergreen shrub is quite drought tolerant. It thrives in full to partial sun.
Features:
There are many indigenous names for this plant, but “matico” is widely used in South America where it is used medicinally as a styptic or anti-hemorrhagic remedy.
Where at Lotusland:
At the edge of the Cycad Garden nearest the Tropical Garden.
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Strelitzia reginae ‘Mandela’s Gold’
Mandela’s Gold yellow bird-of-paradise
Highlight Month:
February
Nativity:
Garden Origin (Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, South Africa)
Growth Habit:
Evergreen, clump-forming, 4-5′ tall
Growing Requirements:
Bird of paradise plants are quite drought tolerant once established. Plant in full sun near the coast or partial shade in hotter regions.
Features:
This yellow-flowering form was created at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden by careful cross-pollination of rare yellow flowers on the typically orange-flowering species.
Where at Lotusland:
At the top of the Parterre in front of the wrought iron wishing well, adjacent to the circular pebble mosaics.
